HOMEBREW Digest #5357 Sun 29 June 2008


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Contents:
  Sourness/Bitterness Test ("Michele Maatta")
  Re: Water Chemistry - I'm too hard... (UNCLASSIFIED) ("Dave Larsen")
  Hard water ("A.J deLange")
  Re: Water Chemistry - I'm too hard... (UNCLASSIFIED) (stencil)
  BYO Magazine ("Dave Larsen")
  Grain Mills ("Bob Sheck")
  More stuff (-s)
  Re: Sour Bitter Perception ("Dave Larsen")

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---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 28 Jun 2008 11:02:53 -0400 From: "Michele Maatta" <mrmaatta at gmail.com> Subject: Sourness/Bitterness Test Thanks to Mike Kilian for reminding me of the genetics of the intensity of taste of sour (and maybe bitter things as well). This had completely slipped my mind, and I wondered why I didn't care for sour candies, plain old vinegar things (I use balsamic for everything) and why even in summer, I tend to gravitate toward more smoky, malty brews rather than the summery hoppy brews. The porch light came on when I read your post. I am not a genetic professional , but I can recall the preferences of my folks-- Dad mild mellow smooth-(ales, sweet wines). Mom sour, sharp (dry wines) highly tart foods were her taste palette. I definitely followed Pops in that area-- I wonder what the correlation in heritage Dad Finnish. Mom German/French. I haven't brewed in a while as my residence is not set up to allow indoor or outdoor brewing, but I still avidly read and enjoy. Now I understand why I order what I do from my local Microbreweries and can embrace my preferred flavors with a touch more understanding. I think you're onto something there, Mike, and thanks for bringing it back to my attention. Stands to reason, why I wasn't as fond of my dry-hopped and over hopped beers while I brewed but fell in love with my smokey porters silkiness. I do not dislike hops at all. On a hot day, I love a Hefe with those banana undertones, or an Amber that has a grapefruity flavor. I just don't qualify as a total Hop Head as I shun the bitterness. Nice to participate, and still learn while in dormant brewing stage! Cheers, Folks!! Michele, a Michigander that can't brew at this time, but has wonderful brew available locally :) Return to table of contents
Date: Sat, 28 Jun 2008 09:54:43 -0700 From: "Dave Larsen" <hunahpu at gmail.com> Subject: Re: Water Chemistry - I'm too hard... (UNCLASSIFIED) > Here're the results of my un-softened water, taken from the outside hose > bib: > > pH 7.43 > > Ca 160 mg/L > Mg 25 mg/L > Na 19 mg/L > Cl 46 mg/L > K Not tested > SO4 190 mg/L (prefer <150) > HCO3 445 mg/L (OUCH! An order of magnitude higher than I'd like) > > Total Hardness 5.0 mmol/L > [Snip] > Does anyone have any suggestions [besides giving up and buy my > German/Belgium lagers from the local getrankemarkt]??? I am not water expert. However, just for fun, I plugged you water into ProMash's water profiler. What I found is with dilution, you can bring your water in line with Munich. Rather than using RO water and starting from scratch, you could simply dilute your water by 60% with ion free water. Doing that, you get the following, comparing it to Munich: Heidelberg Munich Ca 64.0 76.0 Mg 10.0 18.0 Na 7.6 1.0 Cl 18.4 2.0 SO4 76.0 10.0 HCO3 178.0 152.0 Okay, your SO4 is a bit higher, but still in the range 50-150 for normal bitterness in beers. I think that dilution is the answer to your problems. I think that you could do that without the big expense of an RO system. Just buying a few gallons of distilled water won't break the budget for a batch of beer. Dave Tucson, AZ (whose water is a lot like London's water) http://hunahpu.blogspot.com/ Return to table of contents
Date: Sat, 28 Jun 2008 17:54:40 -0400 From: "A.J deLange" <ajdel at cox.net> Subject: Hard water RE: I hereby claim that Burton-on-Trent has nothin' on me!! I just got the lab results back on my household water here in Heidelberg, Germany, and I'm floored! Here're the results of my un-softened water, taken from the outside hose bib: pH 7.43 Ca 160 mg/L Mg 25 mg/L Na 19 mg/L Cl 46 mg/L K Not tested SO4 190 mg/L (prefer <150) HCO3 445 mg/L (OUCH! An order of magnitude higher than I'd like) Total Hardness 5.0 mmol/L Here are my additional calculations (using the lab results, but I'm no chemist, so some caution is in order) Total Dissolved Solids 885 mg/L Carbonate Hardness 364.97 mg/L as CaCO3 Non-Carbonate Hardness 137.54 mg/L as CaCO3 TOTAL HARDNESS 502.51 mg/L as CaCO3 You may beat Burton slightly on alkalinity (you have 7.3 mmol/L while most reports for burton run 6 - 6.5) but they top you on sulfates (450 - 820 mg/L) easily. Unfortunately they also top you on calcium hardness with 13-17.5 mmol/L compared to your 8. So while Burton has residual alkalinities around 0 to -1.5 mmol/L so they can brew Burton ales yours is more like + 4.7 and you can't unless you get the calcium up to Burton like levels and, as your sulfate is much lower than Burton's, you can do that with gypsum all of which is fine if your goal is Burton style ales. IOW it's not that your water is too hard. It isn't hard enough! For other beers (e.g. lagers) you'll need to get the bicarb down by dropping it out (boiling or lime treatment) or converting it to CO2 with acid (from dark malt or a bottle). With 8 Ca + 2 Mg mmol/L hardness you should be able to drop the carbonate down to about 1 mmol/L either by heat or lime treatment and still have a couple mmol of hardness left i.e. you should have water suitable of lager brewing. From your post it sounds as if you are familiar with lime "split" treatment. If not check Hubert Hanghofer's post at www.hbd.org/hbd/archive/2540.html. He lays it out step by step. Cheers, A. J. Return to table of contents
Date: Sat, 28 Jun 2008 20:15:38 -0400 From: stencil <etcs.ret at verizon.net> Subject: Re: Water Chemistry - I'm too hard... (UNCLASSIFIED) On Sat, 28 Jun 2008 00:27:01 -0400, in HOMEBREW Digest #5356 Michael Noah wrote: > [ ... ] >MY QUESTION: I'm trying to figure out whether I should try to "repair" >my water, maybe by using slaked lime to remove the HCO3 (and strip away >some of my Mg in the process), > [ ... ] I >don't know the German word for "slaked lime," so I'm sure I'll also have >to go through more than just a few international hand motions in order >to get my desires understood. [SMILE] > > > Use slaked lime; it's really not that big a thing. The fundamental documents are A.J. DeLange's and Hubert Hanghofer's posts in HBDs 2537 and 2540, respectively, aumented by Chapter 15 of Palmer's on-line How to Brew You should be able to get Mrs Wage's Pickling Lime at the commissary; otherwise the clerk at the local Apothek should be able to steer you toward sources for food-grade Ca(OH)2, and for CaCl2.2H2O, if you show them the formulas written out. You'll want two water casks, so you can decant off the precipitate in one to the other. The Gamma line of petfood containers known in the States as Vittles Vaults hold ten gallons in the 40-pound size and are airtight - make that CO2-tight. If you use Hanghofer's titration method, you'll want a good cheap pH meter - Hanna and American Marine products work fine and are available at any pet/aquarium supply place. You probably will want to get test kits to run your own measurements of alkalinity, total hardness, and calcium hardness. My guess would be that your water comes from the Neckar, and its chemistry probably changes every time it rains. Aquarium kits are ok for this work. Some while back I put A.J's equations into a little spreadsheet to tell me how many teaspoons of lime and calcium chloride to chuck in; a miniature submersible pump provides a couple of hours' agitation, and after an overnight rest the bottom of the container is coated with white goo - and my water's not really terribly alkaline. If you want a copy e-mail me at "hDOTstencilATverizonDOTnet" gds, stencil Return to table of contents
Date: Sat, 28 Jun 2008 18:57:50 -0700 From: "Dave Larsen" <hunahpu at gmail.com> Subject: BYO Magazine I've been heartened by the recent traffic on the ol' HBD. I guess people still do read this thing. Keeping the machine rolling, I ask the following: Has anybody noticed that BYO Magazine has really redeemed itself lately? I used to subscribe to it years ago, when I first started homebrewing. However, when I got into all-grain, and more advanced techniques, I let my subscription lapse, because I always thought it was sort of a beginner's magazine. Recently, I resubscribed, and, boy, was I surprised. It's gotten pretty good. They really had some relevant articles on the hop crisis, and they have had articles on cutting edge techniques, like using olive oil to aerate (which I mentioned in a post yesterday). They even have Jamil Zainasheff writing articles for them, who I think is one of the most important homebrewers since the late Dr. George Fix. I actually think that it has gotten more poignant than even Zymurgy Magazine (and I like Zymurgy; I really do). What does anybody else think? Dave Tucson, AZ http://hunahpu.blogspot.com/ Return to table of contents
Date: Sat, 28 Jun 2008 23:32:11 -0400 From: "Bob Sheck" <bobsheck at gmail.com> Subject: Grain Mills I've had a JSP Mill since around 1995 when I made the jump to all-grain. Never looked back. While I still chuck my electric drill up to mine, I've built a couple motorized stands for my homebrewing friends. While I forget what size sheaves I used, a quick google search for this will give you the approximate ratios. I still envision building my own motorized stand with an appropriate size bin to hold a full sack of grain~ I still recommend the JSP mill as it's easy to adjust, easy to motorize, and is solid as a chunk of metal can be. One modification I did make to mine was to take it apart and apply a couple of coats of polyurethane finish to all the wood or fiber parts so I could blow off the dust easier. You'd think that Jack could have done that in the first place~? Bob Sheck // DEA - Down East Alers - Greenville, NC bsheck at gmail.com // [6805.1, 12.9] Apparent Rennerian Home Brewing since 1993 // Return to table of contents
Date: Sun, 29 Jun 2008 14:57:03 -0400 From: -s at adelphia.net Subject: More stuff Subject: cloudy beer Darrell G. Leavitt says, > I wonder if it is that the malt is too old?, ie it may have lost a good > deal of its diastatic power? > Possible, but easily determined by an iodine test and I'd first suspect other problems. Fungal infection if the grain was stored in a humid environment. Oxidation of the native phenolics is possible too. I'd definitely try an iodine test at the next mash, but also see if the beer is helped with a PVPP addition or (yes I know it sounds odd) a fresh phenolic infusion. Put a little dried tea in a pint bottle for 2 weeks and see if it clears. If so it indicates a lack of effective phenolics. Phenolics are a triple edged sword; too little of the sort than can complex with proteins and you'll have a protein haze. More and you'll have a clear beer. More yet and you could end up with bitter taste from oxidized phenolics. If you need more phenolics you may find that dry hopping is a possible solution. Otherwise small and measured doses of some phenolic source (oak beech chips for example). == Subject: Sour Bitter Perception Mike Kilian > There have been several comments recently about soured ales. > As for my taste, sour beers or overly bittered beers are not > my preference. I know that there are a number of brewers who > really like their hops and I appreciate that. It causes me > to wonder if there is anything else going on for the group > that feels a beer can't be too sour or too hoppy (bitter)? > I know that I am very sensitive to sour/bitter and that > may be why I find balanced beers more to my liking. > I enjoy highly hopped and highly bitter beers. HOWEVER the bitterness must be balanced (and often isn't). Somehow we often assume that bitter flavor is a bad thing, but preferences for coffee, tea, dark chocolate, hops and and even angostura bitters indicates that we actually do enjoy certain sorts of bitterness in balance. Note however that children, pre-adolescents, have been shown to selectively reject bitter food. It has been suggested that this is a survival trait that causes growing humans to avoid bitter plant phenolics which can decrease protein ingestion (can cause failure to grow in cattle grazed on "bad" plants for example). Sadly much of the processed and prepared food on the N.American diet are aimed at pre-adolescent taste leading to a bland-sweet-salty "children's menu". I strongly suspect that the late Michael Jackson's comments about "the campaign against flavor" where he saw the preferences in beverages moving from big complex and interesting beers and whisk[e]y to blander and less interesting beverages is related to this shift in foods. Mostly cultural I think. > Do you all remember a test that you may have done in > biology class in grade or high school, generally around > the topic of genetics, where you were given a slip of > paper and you were asked how it tasted? A number of > people said there was no flavor and another group said > that it was bitter. The point was that you picked up > a gene that allowed you to perceive the chemical to > be bitter. I did! I also find sour candy to be > totally horrid. > These two things, perception of bitterness of phenylthiourea or phenylthiocarbamide ((PTC, PROP)) and general dislike of sourness, are unrelated. The first is a consequence of several very specific genetic factors and ~70% of the population taste PTC as bitter. It's not uncommon. The ability to taste PTC or PROP are statistically more common in ppl who avoid coffee and tea and cigarettes and it does confer the ability to taste bitterness in some common vegetables. > So if I picked up the bitterness, am I predisposed > to pick up bitterness in other products (beer?)? > Other products, such as mustard greens, radishes, cabbage - yes. But extremely unlikely that beer/hops bitterness is related to PTC or PROP sensitivity. The genetic variability is related to the ability to taste organic thiol compounds as bitter. Humulones & lululones have no thiol groups. FWIW (and that's not much) I can taste PTC yet really enjoy bitter beers, coffee (a lot), and eat sour foods such as vinegar dressing, sauerkraut and tart fruits & beverages. > Is a sour perception also built in, or is that > completely different/unrelated? Well yes it's "built in", but there doesn't seem to be much genetic variability in this sense. But be aware that some(far from all) "supertasters" (perhaps 25% of the population) may rejected strong flavors. Your subjective experience isn't really evidence. There is an excellent probability these are merely your personal preferences. Taste preferences are strongly shaped by experience and personal prejudice ... but also by other factors that are less clear. If you want to expand your flavor/aroma horizons you really need to taste foods outside your normal experience. That certainly doesn't mean you enjoy them all, but you should learn to at least appreciate what the "flavor/aroma" intent is about. If you find sourness (acidity or tartness) and bitterness so unpalatable, that you cannot enjoy a good coffee, dark chocolate, a hoppy beer or cannot tolerate a granny smith apple or lemonade - then I pity you. You dislike not merely some specific aroma among many thousands sensible, but 2/5th of the sensations your tongue is capable of perceiving and you are doomed to live in the underworld of Bland. -S Return to table of contents
Date: Sun, 29 Jun 2008 17:13:27 -0700 From: "Dave Larsen" <hunahpu at gmail.com> Subject: Re: Sour Bitter Perception > > There have been several comments recently about soured ales. > As for my taste, sour beers or overly bittered beers are not > my preference. I know that there are a number of brewers who > really like their hops and I appreciate that. It causes me > to wonder if there is anything else going on for the group > that feels a beer can't be too sour or too hoppy (bitter)? > I know that I am very sensitive to sour/bitter and that > may be why I find balanced beers more to my liking. > For me, it is the type of bitterness. There are beers that are harshly bitter, and smoothly bitter. For example, harshly bitter hops include the three C's: Cascade, Centennial and Columbus. Smoothly bitter hops include most noble hops: Hallertau, Saaz, Fuggle, and the like. I can't stand American IPAs, but I love Bohemian Pilsners. I found out recently that all Alpha Acids are not the same. The harsher hops mentioned above are all high in Cohumulone. That is the flavor I do not like. As a result, I stay away from hops high in Cohumulone. Water, to some degree, can make a difference as well. Water high in sulfates tends to make hop bitterness unpleasant. I guess, in a nutshell, I don't mind a bitter beer; I just mind harshly bitter beer. Dave Tucson, AZ http://hunahpu.blogspot.com/ Return to table of contents
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