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


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Contents:
  Re: Hop Questions [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED] ("Williams, Rowan")
  Re: Will I ever find Mr. Right? (Dick Adams)
  Re: Hop Questions/Advice ("Keith Anderson")
  Re: Matching the beer to the festival (Tim Bray)
  RE: The Works on the History Channel ("Josh Knarr")
  starter size vs. esters (Jim D)
  Re: Aeration on the hot and cold side (Kai Troester)
  Fermenting in used plastic LME drum ("Keith Anderson")


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Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2008 13:52:49 +1000
From: "Williams, Rowan" <Rowan.Williams at ag.gov.au>
Subject: Re: Hop Questions [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]

>>>
Overall, my homegrown cascades lacked the oomph of "professionally" grown cascades and suspected I wasn't getting a very high %AA due to some missing nutrient from my soil but that was just a guess.
Keith
<<<

Good point Keith!  Down here in Canberra, the winter frosts are currently in full swing (minus 3C this morning!) and I'm eagerly awaiting the dawn of spring after planting five varieties of hop rhizomes in the front yard (with SWMBO's full permission!!) in late Autumn.  Some plantings are straight out of large pots where the root balls became too large for the confines of the tub and I simply trimmed the root ball and buried it in the dirt along with some cow manure - others are rhizome cuttings which I expect will take a season or two to establish properly (although the PoR flowered in year one!).

Local wisdom suggests that well drained soil, enriched with cow manure is enough.  I've also bought a bag of sulfate of potash when I read that it helps encourage flowering.  Can any of you experienced hop growers suggest a good general purpose fertiliser or feeding regime that my newly established hop field will get extra oomph from?

For those who are curious, the varieties planted / relocated are: Pride of Ringwood, Chinook, Cascade, Mt Hood and Goldings.

Cheers,
Rowan Williams
Canberra Brewers Club, Australia

[9588.6, 261.5] AR (statute miles)
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Date: Mon,  4 Aug 2008 00:34:36 -0400 (EDT)
From: rdadams at panix.com (Dick Adams)
Subject: Re: Will I ever find Mr. Right?

> <Poem deleted)

My childbride and I were just discussing how we need
two more wives. One to do cooking and cleaning and 
the other to help me brew and garden.  When I asked
her "Do you think this is possible?"  She replied
"No, you're too damn picky."  LoL

> phone number 234-7081-548-655

What kind of phone number is this?
Will it cost $5.00/minute? ;)

Dick


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Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2008 10:34:42 -0400
From: "Keith Anderson" <keithxanderson at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Hop Questions/Advice

Amos Brooks writes:

>Keith,
>  I think what is happening with the freezing non-dried hops becoming
>mush is ice crystal formation. If you don't want that to happen you
>need to flash freeze the hops so that the freezing happens so fast the
>crystals don't have a chance to form. I'm not sure the ice crystals
>are really a bad thing though. They will rupture the cell walls of the
>plant and make it easier to get the contents out. This is good for
>berries as it breaks up pectins that form and releases the sugars more
>realily. I'm not sure about the hops though.

Good point, I did my best to get the hops into a freezer back and suck
out the air but probably didn't do as good a job as a kitchen vacuum
sealer.  Guess if you seal it up well and freeze w/out crystals you
can keep the hops in better shape. I have a feeling rupturing the cell
walls wouldn't be desirable since you want lupilin/oils but not
necessarily all that plant material in your beer.

Keith


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Date: Mon, 04 Aug 2008 08:55:26 -0700
From: Tim Bray <tbray at wildblue.net>
Subject: Re: Matching the beer to the festival

Chad, I'm curious - can you name a beer you would say is NOT a "craft 
beer"?  If A-B falls within your definition, I'd say it's more than a 
little loose.  What exactly is your definition, and are there any 
brewers that don't meet it?

Tim in Albion
> We had the 
> 2nd annual "Craft Brewer's Competition & Festival" at the San Diego County 
> Fair in June.  I define "Craft Beer" a little loosely.



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Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2008 14:01:00 -0400
From: "Josh Knarr" <josh.knarr at gmail.com>
Subject: RE: The Works on the History Channel

> What does anyone's physique or seck-shoo-al preferences (I had to
> spell it that way to get through the language filter!) have to do
> with their ability to understand, appreciate, or brew beer?  Geez.
> Does one have to be a hetero bodybuilder to be able to talk about or
> brew beer?  If a guy or gal can brew a fine pint, I don't give a cr*p
> how big their muscles are or who they choose to sleep with.

Ding ding ding, the winner.

Try watching the first five minutes again, and you'll be asking
yourself why he would volunteer this stuff in the first place... ;)


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Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2008 13:22:42 -0500
From: Jim D <goswell at hotmail.com>
Subject: starter size vs. esters



I love brewing English Pale Ales and Bitters but I can't seem to get enough 
of those wonderful fruity esters to come through in the finished product.  
I've brewed with yeasts that are supposed to be quite fruity such as Wyeast 
1968 London ESB and 1318 London Ale III.  I usually create a nice big 
starter in the range of 2 liters.  The starter goes for 24 - 36 hours and I 
pitch the whole thing into about 5.5 gallons of wort.  It then ferments in the 
65 - 68 (ambient temp) degree range.  I've read some that pitching a 
smaller starter will stress the yeast a bit and therefore create more of the 
esters I'm trying to get.  Has anybody experimented with this?  

//Jim


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Date: Mon, 04 Aug 2008 16:07:50 -0400
From: Kai Troester <kai at braukaiser.com>
Subject: Re: Aeration on the hot and cold side

Jim, the affects of hot side aeration and their relevance for home
brewing have been widely discussed among home brewers. Even a frew
experiments have been done, many of which showed inconclusive results.

Hot side aeration (HSA) has been studied by the commercial brewing
industry b/c it was found that it leads to staling compounds that
reduce the shelf life of the final product which affects their revenue.
As a result of that, modern brewhouses generally exclude O2 as much as
possible. Some even go as far as milling the grain in an O2 free
environment by either using an inert atmosphere or milling it while
submerged in water.

In contrast to that I had beers brewed in a small German museum brewery
that still uses very old equipment which leaves plenty of O2 exposure
to the wort by using an open lauter grant and the run-off simply drops
9 ft into the boil kettle. The beers were excellent and showed me that
hot side aeration is not as detrimental to the beer quality as many of
the studies make us believe. I did however not test how shelf stable
these beers were.

While observing good brewing practices (no excessive splashing, don't
let the wort cascade into the kettle) you don't have to worry about the
unavoidable O2 intake that comes from doughing in the grain and
stirring the mash. High dough-in temps, as they are common these days,
already help by quickly deactivating an enzyme called lipoxygenase.
This enzyme aids in HSA where oxygen forms a weak bond, is carried into
the finished beer and later released to oxidize and form staling
compounds.

In home brewing, the majority of the oxygen responsible for staling is
picked up during the handling of the beer after fermentation. Here you
should pay attention to splashing, air-leaks in the racking cane to
hose connection and bubbling during bottling. Though yeast is known to
scavenge O2 during bottle condition, I have read a study that showed
that there is still a shelf life difference between a bottle that was
purged of O2 before filling and one that was not purged. The conclusion
was that the yeast isn't as good in O2 scavenging as initially believed.
O2 scavenger caps could help here as well.

But from my own experience purging of bottles or scavenger caps are not
necessary to avoid oxidation in bottled home brew. For one, our beers
are not expected to be shelf stable for a year (except for some stronger
beers, most of which actually benefit from some slight oxidation) and
we have full control over the storage conditions (i.e. keeping them
cool) as well.

If you don't have oxidation problems, don't worry to much about this
but get in the habit of using (reasonable) low O2 beer handling
practices.

Kai






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Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2008 16:34:33 -0400
From: "Keith Anderson" <keithxanderson at gmail.com>
Subject: Fermenting in used plastic LME drum

Picked up a 15 gallon LME drum last year and use it to ferment in my
chest freezer.  It fits with a few inches to spare from the top of the
lid allowing me to ferment 10 gallon batches in the freezer with an
external thermostat override.  Every once in a while I look at the
little message on the top of the drum "Notice - do not reuse for food
or beverages" and wonder "gee, should I really be using this for
fermenting?"

Would a plastic drum suitable for shipping LME to a homebrew shop not
be safe for fermenting beer?

Keith


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