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


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Contents:
  First Berliner Weisse (Fred L Johnson)
  Let's Talk Beer! (Jon Loeliger)
  Re: I miss my Homebrew Digest ("Dave Larsen")
  Berliner Weisse ("Spencer W. Thomas")
  HBD, html, and plain text ("Spencer W. Thomas")
  Re: I Miss My Homebrew Digest (stencil)


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JANITORs on duty: Pat Babcock (pbabcock at hbd dot org), Jason Henning,
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Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2008 09:30:57 -0400
From: Fred L Johnson <FLJohnson52 at nc.rr.com>
Subject: First Berliner Weisse

I direct this post also to Boris, since he has spent some time in  
Berlin. I think we are all thankful for the very interesting post he  
just provided on Kunze and brewing in communist Germany.

Background: I brewed my first Berliner Weisse four weeks ago and I'm  
about to bottle it now. For this beer, I was not able to get a pure  
culture of lactobacillus in time for brew day, so I made a 1 liter  
starter using two handfuls of crushed pilsner malt about one week  
before brew day. The starter got quite sour and I was happy that at  
least I had a source of something to sour up this beer (hopefully  
mostly lactobacillus). I decanted and filtered off the supernatant in  
this sour starter on brew day. I pitched this supernatant from the  
sour starter and the yeast from another 1 liter starter of Wyeast  
1338. These were pitched at the same time.

The beer fermented out well in two weeks, down to 1.004 g/mL from  
1.032 g/mL,  and it is now quite clear, but it just wasn't as sour as  
I was expecting/hoping a week ago when I pulled a taste. I suspect  
that it will not get much sour because I doubt that there are enough  
fermentables left in it to allow the lactobacillus to do much. I'm  
going to add some more lactic acid to this to my taste and bottle it.  
Next time I brew this, I'll use a pure culture of lactobacillus and  
I'll add it a couple days before I pitch the yeast.

Now to my questions: I've had Noddinghead's Berliner Weisse with  
woodruff (Waldmeister) syrup and remember that it was quite green and  
still pretty sour--very nice and refreshing. I have purchased some  
Waldmeister syrup (German, hard to find) for the beer I'm bottling  
today. I added some to a slightly sour Belgian Wit just to get an  
idea of how much I'd probably need in the Berliner Weisse. After  
about 7 mL the beer became quite sweet, but it wasn't very green.  
Perhaps I need a very sour beer to hide the sweetness of the syrup. I  
would like to know more about how this is usually served in Germany  
with Waldmeister syrup, which may not be what I experienced at  
Noddinghead.  Considering how green I have seen it in pictures, is it  
very sweet like a lemonade or an alcopop? How much syrup is typically  
added? How green does it get when the Germans order it?

UPDATE: I just looked at the Berliner Weisse carboy and it now has a  
half-inch of coarse foam on it above a clear beer. It sure looks like  
a secondary fermentation has begun. Perhaps it will get more sour on  
its own. I guess I'll not bottle today after all.


Fred L Johnson
Apex, North Carolina, USA



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Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2008 09:48:26 -0500
From: Jon Loeliger <jdl at jdl.com>
Subject: Let's Talk Beer!

> 
> Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2008 23:36:18 -0600
> From: pacman at edwardwadsworth.com
> Subject: RE: I Miss My Homebrew Digest
> 
> I feel the same way.  I put brewing on hold for about three years, due  
> to a lack of space and time.  I am now a homeowner with a nice garage  
> and workshop, plenty of room.  The first thing I did when I decided to  
> exhume and resurect my brewery was sign up for the digest.  I read the  
> first few that were sent to me and was dissapointed to say the least.   
> It's nothing like I remember!  One, two, maybe four posts.  I remember  
> when it took two sessions to read all of them, and some were small  
> novels.  I learned everything thing I know about zymurgy and  
> fermentation from the Homebrewers Bible and HBD (and of course trial  
> and error).

I too moved several times.  Dot bomb fallout a lot, you know.
It's hard to keep a consistent brew and haul around full carboys.

And when I settled here a few years ago, I also started making wine.
I know, heresy!  But also quite enjoyable.  I wrote an article about
starting to make wine that was published in the June-July 2008 issue
of Wine Maker Magazine.

>  What's different now to cause such a lack of interest?

In the words of the Poets Simon and Garfunkel:

    Now the years are rolling by me, they are rockin' even me
    I am older than I once was,
        and younger than I'll ever be, that's not unusual, 
    No it isn't strange, after changes upon changes,
        we are more or less the same
    After changes upon changes,
        we are more or less the same

> What can we do to regenerate what we once had?

One word:  Participate.

Nothing builds enthusiasm like enthusiastic participation!

OK, I'll start.

I stepped into Austin Homebrew last weekend and confessed
that, after about a 5 year hiatus from Beer Brewing, I
wanted to make a beer batch again!  Not that I haven't been
brewing, I have.  (Right now, about 50 gallons of wine, port,
and mead on the shelf.)

So.  What to make?  Here are the parameters:

    - DME or extract.  No full mash.
    - 5 or 6 gal batch, bottle carbonated.
    - Wife doesn't want something too hoppy.  IPA is out.
    - Wife doesn't want something too stout.  Stout/Porter is out.
    - I want something yummy still!

I was thinking something down the classic Ale line.
Though, a serious barley wine occured to me to... :-)

Suggestions or recipes welcome!

jdl


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Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2008 15:20:34 -0700
From: "Dave Larsen" <hunahpu at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: I miss my Homebrew Digest

> NOTE: Based on my experience trying to send this message, a good part
> of the problem is the ancient technology used for the list server.
> Modern list software knows how to strip off multi-part messages and
> remove formatting. The HBD server is making me jump through all sorts
> of hoops trying to convince it that my plain text message is really
> plain text. Last time I tried to send a message to the list I finally
> gave up in frustration.

Is that what it is, a technological issue?   I posted from gmail and
used plain text and have not had a problem.  Maybe it just needs a
technological makeover.  However, didn't that happen in the 90s and it
almost killed it?

I've noticed that other forums seem active, like AHA TechTalk.  I have
to admit, though, that they do not have the same expertise that the
old HBD had.  The number of real experts on the old HBD was just
amazing.

What I'm afraid is that if interest completely dwindles, it will
eventually go away, and it has been around a long time.   That will be
a sad day.

I'm not sure what it will take to revive it, or is its time just past?

Dave
Tucson, AZ
http://hunahpu.blogspot.com/


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Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2008 18:21:29 -0400
From: "Spencer W. Thomas" <spencer at spencerwthomas.com>
Subject: Berliner Weisse

Traditional Berliner Weisse fermentation includes a warm period (80-90F 
if I remember correctly) of a couple weeks to encourage the 
lactobacillus to do their stuff.  Schultheiss was held for several 
months for additional souring and Brett flavor period.  Give your beer a 
chance.

=Spencer in Ann Arbor


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Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2008 18:29:20 -0400
From: "Spencer W. Thomas" <spencer at spencerwthomas.com>
Subject: HBD, html, and plain text

One benefit of excluding all HTML from the HBD is that it automatically 
kicks out a lot of SPAM.  Our further filtering catches a bunch of it, 
but each message must be manually reviewed to keep the HBD as 
spam-(almost)-free as it currently is.  That load would be increased if 
we allowed HTML formatted messages.

Maybe better technology would help.  If you can supply such, please 
volunteer to help out with it.

=Spencer in Ann Arbor
Volunteer HBD janitor


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Date: Sun, 22 Jun 2008 19:16:25 -0400
From: stencil <etcs.ret at verizon.net>
Subject: Re: I Miss My Homebrew Digest


On Sat, 21 Jun 2008 00:08:27 -0400, 
in  Homebrew Digest #5350 (June 20, 2008)
Michael P. Thompson wrote:

>[ ... ]
>
>
>Now I do realize that HBD has not been very active of late. It seems  
>like there should be more messages. I wonder what's going on with that?
>
Part of the problem is that, like proverbial parent, HBD has
bred itself away from a seat at the table.  Nowadays there
are so many home-brewing media, many of which are aimed at
the semi- and sub-literate (HTML-rich forums, and podcasts)
that plain ol' text gets lost in the glitz.  
I subscribe to several of these in their digest and RSS
forms, and none of them compares to HBD in terms of quality
or S/N ratio.  The podcasts in particular are wastes of
bandwith - ten minutes or more of yakking that, had it been
fed into a speech recognition engine, could have been
scanned in twenty seconds.
So long as posts like the recent ones by Steve Alexander and
by Sr. de Mesones continue to appear, there is little fear
that HBD will lose its real audience.



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