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


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Contents:
  Re: Should I drink contaminated beer? (Jesse Stricker)
  Old Supplies [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED] ("Williams, Rowan")
  Yeast ("A.J deLange")
  Brewing Hop Tea (Rick) Theiner" <rickdude@tds.net>
  RE: Pumps ("Kevin Weaver")
  re: Should I drink contaminated beer? ("jeff_ri")


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Date: Thu, 06 Nov 2008 21:05:03 -0800
From: Jesse Stricker <jessestricker at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Should I drink contaminated beer?

Tom Puskar writes:

 > After this long winded story, my question is this.  Should I try it 
and if
 > it tastes reasonable just chill it and drink it?  Or, will some dreaded
 > gastrointestinal plague befall me and anyone who drinks it?

Take a shot of it.  If it's infected, you'll know pretty quickly (like, 
when you get it near your mouth).  If it smells and tastes OK, it 
probably won't make you sick.  There aren't a whole lot of bugs that can 
grow in 5% alcohol and then grow in you -- hence the popularity of beer 
in places and times with bad sanitation.  If it smells and tastes bad, 
you might make yourself sick drinking it, but you wouldn't drink a bunch 
of it if it was bad.

If it tastes OK (and it might), then have a glass and see how you feel 
in the morning.  A bad hangover is possible, but probably the worst that 
could happen.  If it is OK, I wouldn't age it for long -- chill it and 
drink it, it might get worse.

If it's rank and nasty, well, then you've got to do what you've got to 
do.  It happens.  But in general, it's hard to grow dangerous organisms 
in beer-strength alcohol solutions.

Jesse Stricker
San Diego, CA


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Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2008 16:28:27 +1100
From: "Williams, Rowan" <Rowan.Williams at ag.gov.au>
Subject: Old Supplies [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]

I've never bought and brewed the entire bag of malt in the same year - my 25kg sacks of crystal, amber and munich malts are more than 3 years old and thanks to a cool dry cellar and sealed buckets, the grain is in good shape and makes fine beer.

I wouldn't toss any of the grains out unless they smell bad or have visible defects.  Agree with other comments re hops and lets face it, if you're bittering with them, who cares if they're low on aroma properties?

Cheers,
Rowan Williams
Canberra Brewers Club, Australia

[9588.6, 261.5] AR (statute miles)

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Date: Fri, 07 Nov 2008 07:30:00 -0500
From: "A.J deLange" <ajdel at cox.net>
Subject: Yeast

Two posts yesterday described essentially the same problem which was 
unwanted behavior in beers pitched from yeast supplied in tubes. I too 
have had some strange experiences with yeast in that form - a beer that 
wouldn't start requiring a second pitching and the other a Kolsch that 
never dropped clear (not that Kolschs really like to do that very much 
anyway) and just didn't taste very good. Both batches went down the 
drain as they both had a horrid phenolic taste. I assumed that it was my 
error in both cases (i.e. infection though I could find no bugs under 
the microscope) but in talking to people in my homebrew club, one 
professional brewer and my new local hombrew supplier I found that it is 
not that uncommon with this brand. The latter gentleman will not stock 
the product in question because he got so many complaints from customers.

The other side of the coin is that I have made some nice beers with 
those yeasts, including WLP 300. Thus, while I do not plan to avoid that 
brand forever, I will not use it again until I stop seeing posts like 
those of yesterday.

A.J.


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Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2008 8:29:44 -0600
From: "Eric (Rick) Theiner" <rickdude at tds.net>
Subject: Brewing Hop Tea

I was wondering if anyone has experience brewing hop tea 
for simple consumption.  I've been having problems with 
middle of the night sleeplessness, but have been able to 
counteract it with the administration of IPA's.  I prefer not 
to drink during the week for the time being-- at least until 
the end of the semester.  So the next step is just the hop 
part.

Anyone have any thoughts?

Rick Theiner



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Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2008 11:25:00 -0500
From: "Kevin Weaver" <kweaver at brewmation.com>
Subject: RE: Pumps

Just some additional thoughts on pumps.  Peristaltic pumps work great
for sparging.  We have been using them on our systems all along.  We use
two of them which enables us to maintain the mash liquid level
throughout the sparge.  AJ is quite right that they are expensive even
at sparging rates for home brewers running in the range from 5 GPH to 13
GPH.  We have searched high and low for a lower cost pump to offer but
have come up empty.  There are the types that have two heads with one
motor, but surprisingly this arrangement was more expensive then the two
pumps we use.  We even tried to develop one, but scrapped that idea
since we could not get the repeatability that is required using "lower
cost parts".

If anyone does know of a decent low cost supplier of these peristaltic
pumps, let us know.  We'll run it through the tests!

Regards,

Kevin

Kevin Weaver
Brewmation Incorporated
www.brewmation.com



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Date: Fri, 7 Nov 2008 21:53:43 -0500
From: "jeff_ri" <jeff_ri at cox.net>
Subject: re: Should I drink contaminated beer?

Hi All,

  In HBD #5445 Tom Puskar asked about drinking a batch of beer that didn't 
start fermenting for 3 days and is probably infected.

  I really don't think that there would be any ill effects (pun intended) 
caused by drinking this batch even if it's severely infected.  At worst, it 
may be somewhat sour and funky tasting.  Then again, it may not be too bad 
at all.  Give it a try and if it's drinkable don't wait for it to get worse 
(which it may very well do).

  If the batch is severely infected, whatever equipment you used on it 
(fermenters, hoses, racking cane, bottling bucket, etc) got exposed to 
whatever unwanted bugs are in there.  Toss the hoses and do an extra careful 
job of cleaning and sanitizing every thing else.

  Even when using those unnamed tubes, you should still make a starter. 
You'll be pitching a larger number of healthier yeast, and you will always 
know it the yeast from the tube is dead or not before pitching into your 
main batch.

Jeff McNally
Tiverton, RI
(652.2 miles, 90.0 deg) A.R.
www.southshorebrewclub.org




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