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


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Contents:
  RE:  Potassium Pansy Water ("David Houseman")
  A Light Fizzing ("Josh Knarr")
  RO Installation ("A.J deLange")
  Re: Custom Glassware ("Dennis Lewis")
  re: color paper ("Chad Stevens")
  Re: AJ's color work, MCAB 4 (Paul Shick)


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Date: Tue, 02 Sep 2008 07:42:19 -0400
From: "David Houseman" <david.houseman at verizon.net>
Subject: RE:  Potassium Pansy Water

John,

I too have a well and LOTS of iron, that turns laundry red, and very acidic. 
So a water softener was necessary, as well as balancing pH by injecting 
light soda ash solution.   Softened well water has very little mineral 
content, some potassium ions (or sodium, depending on what salt you use) and 
chloride ions.   So you are starting with very soft water and you just need 
to add back the minerals needed.   First thing is I got a before and after 
water conditioning report from Ward Labs.  Well worth the money.   Then 
entered the report into ProMash as my water source and use that to compute 
the minerals to add back in order to match the water region for the style 
I'm brewing.   I keep on hand various minerals (gypsum-calcium sulfate, 
chalk-calcium carbonate, Epson Salt-magnesium sulfate, calcium chloride, and 
sodium chloride) that can be added to create the water needed.

Dave Houseman



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Date: Tue, 2 Sep 2008 09:00:48 -0400
From: "Josh Knarr" <josh.knarr at gmail.com>
Subject: A Light Fizzing

Dear Homebrew Digest,

I have my Pumpkin Ale fermenting, and I'm using WLP565 (Saison 1)
yeast. Also in there is a yeast I've cultured from a bottle of Saison
Dupont. Normal fermentation kicked off about right, then subsided.
What I'm left with is a very slowly bubbling carboy of beer with
normal trub on the bottom, but it's been over a week and it's kept up
with it's slow pace. It almost looks like a glass of beer after the
head has subsided, there's small bubbles rising to the surface and the
airlock chugs every once in awhile but it's awfully slow compared to
the pace of the original fermentation. Should I be concerned? Is the
saison dupont yeast possibly even slower than WLP565?

- --

Princess Margaret  - "I have as much privacy as a goldfish in a bowl."


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Date: Tue, 02 Sep 2008 10:13:54 -0400
From: "A.J deLange" <ajdel at cox.net>
Subject: RO Installation

The ususal place to install an RO unit is last in line but I don't 
really see why this necessarily needs to be the case (but see next 
paragraph). The usual home softener does not remove anything - just 
replaces calcium and magnesium with sodium. Now RO units abilities to 
remove various ions depend to some extent on the ion (for example, they 
are not very good at removing bicarbonate) so depending on relative 
performance against sodium vs. calcium/magnesium you might get purer 
water in one location or the other.

Another factor is deposition of lime in the membrane. If the water is 
near or above CaCO3 saturation (i.e. higher pH and high hardness) then 
it is true that membrane life can be extended if the unit is installed 
after the softener. The installation manual should have a chart (the 
manual for the GE units sold by Home Depot lists 170 ppm as CaCO3 as the 
limit above which a softener should be installed at pH 7 and  4 times 
that at pH 6 - note that most well water has a pH closer to 6 than 7). 
So provided that the incoming water is under saturated the decision can 
be made on the basis of relative effectiveness against sodium and 
calcium. Thinking about my previous post a bit I conclude it doesn't 
need the  'before the softener' bit. Probably my subconscious whispering 
"softener- bad" caused me to do it.


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Date: Tue, 2 Sep 2008 11:33:03 -0400
From: "Dennis Lewis" <dblewis at dblewis.com>
Subject: Re: Custom Glassware

>From Doug Moyer, who ponders into the ether:

"For those of you that have ordered custom glassware, can you share
your experiences? I'd like to order a dozen or two "tasting" glasses -
something in the 4 oz. range, printed with a personal logo. Ideas?
Comments?"

I ran our family's former bar & grill for a year and ordered glassware
and mugs from customglassware.com. They did a pretty nice job for the
price. I ordered a large quantity, like 300+ of the pint glasses and
300+ mugs with the same screening so that my setup charges were
minimal. Also, when our customers stole the glasses, at least we could
chalk it up to advertising.

What I found out is that the shipping charges are a huge add-on to the
cost. Of course, when you're looking at shipping for glasses that
weigh a pound each, you can understand the costs involved.
CustomGlassware.com is basically the retailer who works with different
imprinters all over the country and they found one that was close to
me so that I could pick up my order. While driving for a two-hour
round trip was not free either, I did get the glasses sooner and a
little cheaper than they would have been otherwise.

Also what you're going to find is that you can get 100+ of the glasses
for the nearly same price as a couple dozen. The quantity discounts
are huge. And getting more colors make it even more expensive. Just
for an apples-apples comparison, I'm talking about logo imprints that
are baked on, not some applique or sticker. They last the life of the
glass.

Get your wallet out,

Dennis Lewis
Warren, OH


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Date: Tue, 2 Sep 2008 13:17:12 -0700
From: "Chad Stevens" <zuvaruvi at cox.net>
Subject: re: color paper

>What I am doing here is completing (with, relative to 60 years ago, 
>incredibly powerful computing and measuring resources) that little extra 
>bit that they left undone i.e. quantifying and coding the deviation of 
>beers they would have rejected.

And all this from a guy who's color blind.  A.J., you're too much!

Chad Stevens
QUAFF
San Diego 



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Date: Tue,  2 Sep 2008 22:35:19 -0400 (EDT)
From: Paul Shick <shick at jcu.edu>
Subject: Re: AJ's color work, MCAB 4


Hi everyone,

  It's been fun reading the discussion of A.J. deLange's
work on beer color, some of which was first presented in
Cleveland at the MCAB 4 Conference 6 years ago.  I have
fond memories from that gathering, despite the nightmares
from organizing that along with a visit from Michael
Jackson and Charlie Papazian.  It was a hectic week for
Cleveland homebrewers.

  The MCAB Conference really convinced me that homebrewers
can be the driving force behind some important ideas in
brewing.  At that meeting, Steve Alexander presented his
work on using sulfites to prevent oxidation, which seemed
awfully novel at the time but looks to be gaining
acceptance in the larger community.  (It certainly seems
to work in my system -- since I've started adding some  
potassium metabisulfite to my mash water, my pilsners
have been much lighter in color.  It's hard to assess
oxidation at the homebrew level, but they sure "look"
less oxidized.)  A.J. showed his color work (originally
titled something like "A 4 parameter model for beer color,"
wasn't it?).  After these two hyper-technical talks, we
were treated to an unnamed professional brewer who spent
most of his time telling us that the most important
device a homebrewer needed was a mason jar (for scrounging
brewpub yeast).  I think he was shocked at the level of
sophistication of the presentations and the audience.

  These are just two examples of regular HBD contributors
who make this forum such a great resource for the whole 
brewing community.  Thanks again, Pat, for keeping it going.

              Paul Shick
              Still basement brewing in
                 Cleveland Heights OH



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