HOMEBREW Digest #5443 Tue 04 November 2008


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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
  Excel Solver ("Mike Sharp")
  re: pump ideas ("Mike Sharp")
  Neutralising Chlorine (le Man)
  Re; Pump Ideas (Fred L Johnson)
  Re: Excel Solver ("A.J deLange")
  Pump Ideas ("Lawrence H. Smith")
  Solver II ("A.J deLange")
  MCAB Information ("Stock, Curtis")

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---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 3 Nov 2008 21:59:08 -0800 From: "Mike Sharp" <rdcpro at hotmail.com> Subject: Excel Solver A.J. Laments: "Many people don't seem to know about the Excel Solver but it is (or was) such an incredibly useful and powerful tool that Microsoft decided to take it out of recent releases." Actually, it's still there, but the add-ins menu is a bit hard to locate in Excel 2007. Click the "office button" (that round thing at the top left corner) and then click Excel Options, which is a button at the extreme lower right edge of the menu. Then select Add-ins from the left nav. Solver is at the bottom of the list. Regards, Mike Sharp Kent, WA (about 25 miles from the center of the Excel Universe) [1891.3, 294deg] AR Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 3 Nov 2008 22:25:27 -0800 From: "Mike Sharp" <rdcpro at hotmail.com> Subject: re: pump ideas Matt discusses Pump ideas: "I'm looking for just the right pump to move wort/beer to/from a few 60G oak barrels, and have found the following options:" A lot of the wineries I used to work with use a sanitary Jabsco flexible impeller pump powered by a dc motor and a variable speed drive. They're low shear (important for wine), self priming, and disassemble completely for cleaning and sanitizing. They're kinda pricey new, but you see them every so often used. They always come on a little cart so you can roll it around the cellar. They'll lift a fair height, too. I'm not sure of the exact spec, but I think shutoff head is about 1 bar. Most common in a winery for filling barrels and whatnot are the one inch and larger (one inch inlet). You can get small ones from the hardware store, but I don't think they'll be very sanitary. But it's worth searching for. Unless you're pumping a huge amount (like, to a blending tank), a Jabsco is the bomb. Diaphragm pumps are used too, though less commonly, in my experience. They're nice because you can use a valve at the barrel, and just shut off the flow. I wouldn't worry too much about clogging with debris. Bigger ones will pump marbles. They'll have a rating based on spherical solids of up to a certain size. Some years back I installed a set at a wastewater plant that pumped lime slurry. Sludge from fermentation is nothing to these pumps. If you can find a nice 1" Warren Rupp in polypropylene or something, you'll have a good pump that can run forever in a wet environment (no electricity), and it will run from zero to probably 25 gpm. You do need compressed air, of course. Sanitary centrifugal pumps often have low-shear impellers, and I've seen them for sale cheap at times. But they're not self priming, if that's really an issue. Regards, Mike Sharp Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 04 Nov 2008 07:10:01 +0000 From: le Man <hbd at thebarnsleys.co.uk> Subject: Neutralising Chlorine Hi All, Sometime ago AJ posted about treating water with metabisulphite (campden Tablets). I've since been unable to find the post. What I'm looking for is the actual reaction(s) that take place, and if anyone can give the amount by which the sodium/potassium levels are increased that would be really useful. Regards Aleman Mashing in Blackpool. Lancashire, UK Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2008 06:43:16 -0500 From: Fred L Johnson <FLJohnson52 at nc.rr.com> Subject: Re; Pump Ideas Matt is looking for ideas for a pump for moving wort or beer between 60 gallon oak barrels. He's considered March centrifugal, diaphragm pumps, and a self priming centrifugal. Being self-priming is important to him. Matt: You should look into Masterflex peristaltic tubing pumps. They are self priming and the only thing the beer comes in contact with is the tubing, which you can replace every time. You can peruse the huge selection of these from Cole-Parmer. (coleparmer.com) I've used these pumps for almost 30 years for many different applications. Fred L Johnson Apex, North Carolina, USA Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 04 Nov 2008 07:43:37 -0500 From: "A.J deLange" <ajdel at cox.net> Subject: Re: Excel Solver For Mike: While Solver may still be there in the 2007 version of Excel you will, alas, find it gone in 2008. This is beacause it was VBA based and VBA is no longer supported as it represents a considerable security risk. You can get some details on this by clicking on the Help Menu and letting it lead you to the user forums on the Microsoft server. You will find a number of posts which deal with this. Solver is the product of a company called Frontline Systems. They have a free download for Excel 2008 for Mac on their website and apparantly sell plugins for PC. As most will be using systems with versions of Excel earlier than 2008 they will still be OK and even with 2008 if you are on a Mac you can solve away to your heart's content. A.J. Mike Sharp wrote: >A.J. Laments: > >"Many people don't seem to know about the Excel Solver but >it is (or was) such an incredibly useful and powerful tool that >Microsoft decided to take it out of recent releases." > >Actually, it's still there, but the add-ins menu is a bit hard to locate in >Excel 2007. Click the "office button" (that round thing at the top left >corner) and then click Excel Options, which is a button at the extreme lower >right edge of the menu. Then select Add-ins from the left nav. Solver is >at the bottom of the list. > >Regards, >Mike Sharp > >Kent, WA (about 25 miles from the center of the Excel Universe) >[1891.3, 294deg] AR > > > > > > > Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2008 08:29:26 -0500 From: "Lawrence H. Smith" <lsmith at sover.net> Subject: Pump Ideas Peristaltic. Self-priming, the fluid only contacts the tube. Pumps gas, fluid and slurries. Food-grade tubes which can be pressure-cooked to sterilize them are available (norprene food-grade or silicone). The tubing lacks the hard-to-clean spots that other types of pumps have. Size 18 tube happens to fit standard racking canes very nicely. Finding one that is a good fit for brewing is a bit challenging, particularly with a budget - but patience and eb*y (and frequent reference to manufacturer's data so you know what you are getting into at eb*y) will get you there - as will creative bodging with roller-skate wheels and plywood (or plastic, or aluminum), if that's more your scene. After years of moderate to severe annoyance with the imperfections of siphoning once there was dissolved gas involved (ie, anytime past wort) I finally applied my wallet crowbar and got a nice peristaltic - variable speed, works with "size 18" (5/16 x 7/16) tubing, can pump as fast as 2300ml/min (over half a gallon). For 5 gallon batches this is fine. Bigger (tubing-size) pumps with faster rates are available, but they get expensive fast, and are less useful for general brewing tasks (a ganged, two-tube peristaltic makes for a perfect fly-sparge, for instance.) Of course, if you get a multi-tube head, you can then run both tubes in parallel when you want to pump faster. Since you regard 3 GPM as irritatingly slow, I guess you'd have to look at the big ones. New you can get anything you want, if you have the money - used it's a bit harder to find the big ones. Working with 5 gallon batches I rarely exceed 1 quart a minute pumping rate, so I don't regard 3 GPM for 60 gallons as painfully slow. You'll likely need something slower to make handling the beer manageable once it has fermented, unless you are just serving from the cask/barrel - I suspect you might have a bit of a foaming problem stuffing 3 GPM or more into a 5 gallon corny...less of an issue if you're putting it in a 300 gallon tank, of course. Got mine for a bit over $100 with some careful shopping and patience. There's a 2hp 35 GPM pump on there now, but it's $2500 plus freight. Another at 9 GPM is listed for $1250 - seems not to have a motor. -Lawrence Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 04 Nov 2008 09:38:34 -0500 From: "A.J deLange" <ajdel at cox.net> Subject: Solver II I should make clear that what I am describing with respect to Solver is based on my knowledge of Mac. In the PC world, with which I am, happily, largely unfamiliar, the situation may be different, in particular, the Solver may be alive and well in PC versions of Excel 2008. To see if you have it, in either case, look under the Tools menu. If it isn't there check the Addins. A.J. Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2008 15:36:02 -0600 From: "Stock, Curtis" <Curtis.Stock at state.mn.us> Subject: MCAB Information New MCAB XI Information: First, I would like to introduce the new MCAB Director, John Peed. John is a long time brewer and has been a great contributor during my term as MCAB Director. John has many great ideas for the MCAB circuit and will do a great job making sure MCAB survives. It's a lot of work but I'm sure John can count on the support from the Qualifying Events and Brewers. You may contact John at the following address: mailto:jpeed at elotouch.com The MCAB XI Competition will be held in St. Paul, MN once again. An exact date will be posted as soon as I can find a date with the fewest conflicts with other competitions. It will take place sometime between mid February and early March. That should narrow down the date enough for qualifying brewers to plan their brewing calendar. The list of Qualifying Brewers will be posted on the MCAB site soon. We are still gathering information from the Qualifying Events that have been completed. We are still looking for Qualifying Brewer information from the following events: KCBM Spirit of Free Beer Aurora Brewing Challenge Boston Homebrew Competition If you are an organizer of one of these events please contact John or myself. If you have already submitted the information I've missed it and apologize for the inconvenience. We would appreciate it if we could get the information as soon as possible. Please check the website for periodic updates and competition info. http://www.masterhomebrewer.org/home Thank you for supporting MCAB. Curt Stock Former MCAB Director Return to table of contents
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