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


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Contents:
  Marzen (and soft water) (leavitdg)
  CARBOY Shamrock Open 2008 - Call for entries and judges (Mike Dixon)
  My pilsner pooped out ("Rich Lynch")
  A^2 water (Aaron Martin Linder)
  re: A NEW PART TIME ... SPAM (John Schnupp)
  Re: Know Knead? (Jeff Renner)


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JANITORs on duty: Pat Babcock (pbabcock at hbd dot org), Jason Henning,
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Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2008 06:59:30 -0500
From: leavitdg at plattsburgh.edu
Subject: Marzen (and soft water)

Greg Noonan, in Brewing Lager Beer, suggests hard water when brewing a Vienna
Lager.  What do you think the consequences would be, in terms of the final
flavor, if you used softer/ Pilsen, rather than harder water?

Darrell



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Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2008 08:22:12 -0500
From: Mike Dixon <mpdixon at ipass.net>
Subject: CARBOY Shamrock Open 2008 - Call for entries and judges

The 13th Annual CARBOY Shamrock Open registration is now open for 
entries and judges.
http://hbd.org/carboy/shamrock.htm

Entries are $6 and will be accepted through March 1, 2008. Judging will 
take place in Raleigh, NC on March 15, 2008. If you can judge, please 
sign-up via the online registration form.

Cheers,
Mike Dixon
Wake Forest, NC
http://www.ipass.net/mpdixon/


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Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2008 10:02:24 -0500
From: "Rich Lynch" <rlny7575 at gmail.com>
Subject: My pilsner pooped out

I wondering how I can rescue my first attempt at making a pilsner.  I
used WY2007 and after a 3 week or so fermentation, I bottled the 5
gallon batch with 3/4 cup of corn sugar.  After 2 weeks  at  40F the beer
has achieved literally *no* carbonation, and has a sweet corn
(diacetyl or just the bottling sugar?) taste, which isn't horrible.
To fix this I was thinking of:
1) Sterilizing a little water in which I could rehydrate a neutral dry
yeast like US-56, or maybe Saflager-23; add a drop or so to each
bottle; hold at ~ 45F
2) Letting the flat bottled pilsner rise in temp to about 65F, and
holding it there for 3 weeks to see what happens.
Anyone have a similar experience once?
Thanks, Rich
P.S. Sorry,Pat, for calling you "janitor", I meant "custodian" d'oh!


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Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2008 10:22:53 -0500 (EST)
From: Aaron Martin Linder <lindera at umich.edu>
Subject: A^2 water


A.J. wrote:
>
> RE: Ann Arbor water. Lime treatment can be looked at as neutralization
> of a strong base, Ca(OH2) with the "acid" HCO3- in  the source water.
> The "titration" can be stopped at a chosen end point (within limits) and
> the finished water pH tweaked by adding liquid carbonic (CO2) or another
> acid (sufuric, hydrochloric). I'm guessing that the water board has good
> reasons for setting the pH where they do. Supposing they have
> softened/decarbonated the water to a calcium hardness of about 25 and
> alkalinity of about the same amoun the saturation pH would be about 8.6
> and they would want the pH somewhat above this to get some deposition of
> CaCO3 in their mains for protection. Does anyone know the hardness and
> alkalinity of this water?
>
Total Hardness: 118-202 avg. 154 mg/L as CaCO3
Total Alkalinity: 54-132 avg. 76 mg/L as CaCO3
Calcium: 26-63 avg. 42 mg/L
this is for "chemical analysis fiscal year 2006-2007"

aaron
A^2, MI


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Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2008 08:32:05 -0800 (PST)
From: John Schnupp <john.schnupp at yahoo.com>
Subject: re: A NEW PART TIME ... SPAM

For the most part the janitors do an A++ job of catching the spam in the
filters.  I've seen other lists just totally taken over by this sort of stuff. 
I remember someone, Pat, I think, mentioned something about the new Yahoo
signature format causing some problems.

I'm not a frequent poster but I've always used Yahoo and had NO problems.  If
you set your Yahoo mail to create in plain text everything will get thru,
including the signature.  The only time I had an issue was when I changed my
address from johnschnupp to john.schnupp and I forgot to adjust the line width.
 I fixed that setting when my first message bounced back.



John Schnupp, N3CNL
Georgia, VT
'95 XLH 1200 70,100




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Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2008 22:50:49 -0500
From: Jeff Renner <jsrenner at umich.edu>
Subject: Re: Know Knead?

John Schnupp <john.schnupp at yahoo.com> wrote from Georgia, Vermont:

> Jeff, if you recommend the conventional method for baking bread,  
> why not put
> one of the racks all the way to the bottom (or just use the oven  
> floor) and put
> in a layer of fire bricks for added thermal mass.  Wouldn't this  
> help even out
> some of the temperature oscillation cause by the oven cycling,  
> especially a gas
> oven?  You should be able to toss water on the bricks without too  
> much of a
> problem.  If you used a sheet pan (or 1/2 pan) to hold the bricks,  
> it wouldn't
> much matter if one cracked, plus it would be ez-in/ez

When I baked in a home oven, I did use a layer of fire bricks, and  
they did crack after time, although not from thermal shock as much as  
from banging them together, I think.  But they stayed in place fine.   
They don't have enough thermal mass, though, to make all that much  
steam, and the water runs out between them, too.  So the old cast  
iron skillet worked better for steam generation.

But the bricks are great for baking free-form (non-panned) loaves  
on.  I let them rise in a floured basket, with or without a cloth  
liner, then invert them on a peel, slash the tops, and slide them  
directly onto the bricks and toss in the water for steam.  It also  
works well to use a piece of baker's parchment for the transfer and  
bake the loaves on the parchment.

Of course, when I went into commercial bread production 28 years ago,  
I got an old pizza deck oven with a 1-1/2 inch/4 cm thick stone  
hearth, which works even better.  That old oven is over 40 years old  
and is still working, although it has its quirks.

Jeff

- ---
Jeff Renner in Ann Arbor, Michigan USA, jsrennerATumichDOTedu
"One never knows, do one?"  Fats Waller, American Musician, 1904-1943




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