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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
		Digest Janitor: pbabcock at hbd.org


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Contents:
  alternate hops ("Ian Watson")
  Lagering in Carboy vs. Bottle ("Rogers, Mike")
  Scorched beer (stencil)
  Slow Digest and Transition ("Alexandre Enkerli")
  Now accepting entries for Best Florida Beer Competition 2008 ("Nelson at DBG")


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JANITORs on duty: Pat Babcock (pbabcock at hbd dot org), Jason Henning,
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Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 01:52:51 -0500
From: "Ian Watson" <hophead at sympatico.ca>
Subject: alternate hops

Hi all

I asked the membership during the slow Christmas holiday about using Cluster 
hops instead of Northern Brewer, but there was no response, evidently 
because of the busy-ness of the season.  So now that we are back to 
work/school/etc, I thought I'd re-post it.  I am out of Northern Brewer hops 
and the recipe I want to use specifically calls for it.  I do however have 
Cluster.  I think I know the answer, but I want to confirm it so my question 
is this:  If I account for the difference in alpha acids, should there be 
any difference in the beer if I use Cluster for bittering instead of 
Northern Brewer, all other things being equal?

Thanks,

Ian Watson
St. Catharines, Ontario
[240.9, 74.1] Apparent Rennerian 



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Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 08:18:41 -0500
From: "Rogers, Mike" <mike.rogers at eds.com>
Subject: Lagering in Carboy vs. Bottle

My neighbor has brewed an all-grain Pils about 4-5 times.  He is tight
on carboy space right now due to brewing numerous batches and would like
to bottle the Pils prior to lagering for 30 days, hence, lagering in the
bottle.  He asked me to post the following:

Is there a difference between; bottling and conditioning for 2 weeks,
and then lagering for 30 days OR lagering for 30 days, and then bottling
and conditioning?  Does it matter?  Why?  Which way is correct, if it
does matter...

He is questioning impact on Flavor, Aroma, Body, etc...

Mike Rogers
Cass River Homebrewers Frankenmuth, Mi.




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Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 09:25:55 -0500
From: stencil <etcs.ret at verizon.net>
Subject: Scorched beer

The Polarware 10-gallon stockpot has a 1-gallon slack space
under its false bottom.  Wanting to use the pot as a mash
tun, I decided to pack the space with marbles to reduce that
volume.  This was a bad decision.  The intense heat of the
portable electric hotplate (another error) caused
considerable caramelization and scorching between the
marbles and the bottom.  The boil took place in another
vessel and was normal.  The 1065 Festbier lager wort, now
entering its first full day of ferment, has a faint but
distinct hint of 'acridness' behind the sweetness and
bitterness.
Will fermentation somehow magically reduce this burnt
flavor?
If it does not, is there any appropriate fruit, herb, or
spice that can be added post-ferment, and will blend with or
mask this problem?  "Smokey Horehound Menthol" has already
been suggested, and rejected.

gds, stencil 
Dejected in the Berkshires



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Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2008 16:27:06 -0600
From: "Alexandre Enkerli" <enkerli at gmail.com>
Subject: Slow Digest and Transition

Fellow brewers,

Attended my first meeting with the Austin Zealots on Saturday and
finally realized that the reason I wasn't receiving *any* HBD was
because I was subscribed with an old address. Because traffic had been
slow for months, I had basically assumed that the digest had shut
down. I was told by an HBD subscriber and fellow Austinite that the
digest gets a few messages a month. Nothing like the 20 messages a day
of the old days, but still active.
So I wanted to re-subscribe to the digest. But the site was down. And
it seems like the recent downtime has triggered some reflections on
Pat's part. Not only did he post a message on the digest but he also
put a public announcement in the news section of the site:
http://hbd.org/hbdann_table.shtml

To be perfectly honest, I agree with several of his points and I get
the impression that, as sad as it may sound, it may be time to "move
on" to other venues. Many of us have done so, apparently. And though
we probably all keep some fond memories of HBD, we're finding
excellent information about beer and brewing elsewhere.
Where, do you ask? Well, different places, actually. In my case, it's
mostly been local brewclub mailing-lists (MontreAlers and Austin
Zealots) along with some beer podcasts (Basic Brewing Radio and Craft
Beer Radio, especially). Others are probably more active in forums, on
beer blogs, or on social networking sites (Ning, Facebook...). It
might be interesting to discuss which sources we're using now. Maybe
fellow HBDers could gain from such discussions.

And it might be time to transition HBD *content* to other venues.
Sure, we could just put the old digests on Archive.org as they are
now. But there could also be projects to repurpose some of the HBD
content for the benefits of newcomers to the hobby. Maybe a kind of
clean-up. Sorting out messages which remain relevant through time from
time-sensitive messages (like competition announcements and such).
Tagging some of the content for easy retrieval. Grouping thread
messages together. Updating some messages to reflect recent
discoveries in the world of brewing. And hosting all of this on
different sites.
Sure, it could take a lot of effort. But the success of so many
"crowd-sourced" projects makes such an undertaking sound more
reasonable. And given the current state of our hobby, the results
could be very beneficial.

In fact, I tend to think that we've achieved almost a "plateau" in
terms of brewing knowledge. Not that there aren't improvements in
brewing techniques. But it seems to me that some of the most important
issues brewers were having in the late 1980s and early 1990s have been
pretty much solved. In other words, we now see a kind of a
"crystallization" in brewing knowledge.
For instance, one thing I observe in most brewclubs is that the
overall "beer knowledge" is quite high and rather uniformly
distributed. In other words, it sounds as if we all know much of the
same things and that those things are pretty "high level" when
compared to what people knew just less than 20 years ago.
This "crystallization" often seems to mean that the basic brewing
notions on which we rely could be compiled "once and for all" so that
we can focus on other things. The state of controversial issues could
be assessed. In my mind, HBD contains a lot of the type of basic
information people are likely to look for.
None of this means that there's nothing to discover in brewing. But my
conception of homebrewing at this point is close to Kuhn's model of
scientific revolutions: in my mind, we're in a time of "normal"
brewing science. The next revolution might happen after we collate
brewing knowledge and something major happens.

So, a possible model would be to go through some old HBD messages and
do something with them. Build a kind of "brewing knowledge database,"
possibly wiki-like (or wikisource-like) for some basic notions about
brewing techniques and issues. For instance, messages about the
effects of HSA, decoction mashing, or water-to-grist ratios could be
tagged appropriately and possibly summarized. Some key contributors
(like Jeff Renner or Steve Alexander) could have a kind of profile.
Pictures and even non-ASCII characters (!!) could be added to some
messages which seem to need them. And everything could be archived for
posterity.

Does any of this make sense?

- -- 
Ale-X in Austin [1133.6, 227.4deg] AR
http://enkerli.wordpress.com/


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Date: Tue, 15 Jan 2008 20:47:32 -0500
From: "Nelson at DBG" <Nelson at DunedinBrewersGuild.com>
Subject: Now accepting entries for Best Florida Beer Competition 2008

Now accepting entries - enter from 15 January through 15 February at 
www.DunedinBrewersGuild.com.

Open to Florida residents and Florida homebrew club members

Dunedin Brewers Guild of Florida
Presents the 6th annual (15th annual including State Fair)
Best Florida Beer Homebrew Competition 2008
29  February - 1 March 2008

One of the largest Florida homebrew competitions
Get a big lead as Florida Circuit Homebrewer of the Year
Help win the Big Ass Cup for your homebrew club
Get cool medals, prizes, and beaucoup Bragging Rights!
See www.BestFloridaBeer.org for other scheduled events like Stogies and 
Stouts, Try This! Beer/Food Pairing, Brewers Ball
Additional judging opportunities 16-17 Feb, 22-24 Feb 2008
Limit of two entries per BJCP substyle for styles 1-19; no limit on entries 
for styles 20-28. You can enter 12 stouts, but only two Dry Stouts, two 
Imperial Stouts, etc.
Send three 10-14oz bottles (6-14oz accepted for mead)
Entry fee is $6 per entry
Register online at www.DunedinBrewersGuild.com

Registration deadline 15 February 2008 at Noon
Questions? - contact Nelson Crowle
727-534-6944 (cell) or Nelson at DunedinBrewersGuild.com

Nelson Crowle
Nelson at BuildABeer.org
Nelson at DunedinBrewersGuild.com
Nelson at HamFon.com 



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