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


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Contents:
  Re: Leftovers beer (Alan Semok)
  Thermometer calibration ("A. J. deLange")
  RE: Vittles Vault Size ("Michael Beck")
   (slaycock)
  Diatomacious Earth for spider mite control (slaycock)
  RE: Leftovers beer (Stephen Jorgensen)


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Date: Fri, 06 Feb 2009 23:46:41 -0500
From: Alan Semok <asemok at mac.com>
Subject: Re: Leftovers beer

Fri, 6 Feb 2009 07:13:05, <beaverplt at yahoo.com> wrote:

>  Has anyone ever cleaned out their beer cupboard by just using all  
> your
> leftovers to make a brew? I...This seems like a fun thing to try.

Go for it.
I've done just that many times and the result is always interesting.  
And usually pretty damned good.

This year, I took the concept a step further by saving the bottoms of  
every finished brew I made this past year (the dregs or botttom  
couple of quarts of each corny, if you will) into a clean corny.  I  
manage to brew quite a bit, so I had a pretty good quantity, maybe  
ending up with 2 or 2 1/2 gallons.  It had to settle out for a while,  
and was a blend of probably 4 different types of ale...but man...the  
end result of this mish-mash is pretty remarkable.
This will  without a doubt become a yearly tradition now, for  as  
long as I'm alive and able to brew.

For more than 20 years my holiday/winter brew has contained at least  
10% volume of the previous year's batch (a kind of solera, if you  
will) but this new amalgam of every brew of the precious year (except  
for the saved winter brew, reserved for the coming year's batch) is  
pretty interesting, especially since it is comprised completely of  
well aged beer (anywhere from 3 to 12 months old).

If you brew a good volume of beer in a year, I can heartily recommend  
trying this!

cheers,
AL



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Date: Sat, 07 Feb 2009 08:29:06 +0000
From: "A. J. deLange" <ajdel at mac.com>
Subject: Thermometer calibration

Jason has found his "reference"  thermometer to be 8 degrees low at  
boiling. The first question to Jason is, of course, "Where do you  
live?". If the answer is "Denver" or some other place at similar  
altitude then nothing is wrong, Water does boil at about 202 F at a  
mile high. If, OTOH, you live near sea level first check that the  
mercury or alcohol column in the thermometer hasn't some how become  
separated and if it hasn't then pitch that thermometer and get a new  
one. Having a new thermometer won't solve all calibration problems but  
your calibration can never be better than the standard you are  
calibrating against. Best would be an RTD based instrument traceable  
to NIST shipped with a calibration certificate. Naturally, this will  
be somewhat expensive. Second best would be laboratory thermometers  
traceable to NIST. These are, relative to the electronic thermometers,  
difficult to read because you must immerse them exactly to the marked  
immersion point if they are partial immersion or completely if they  
are full immersion for best accuracy. In my own setup there is no way  
I can read a properly immersed partial immersion thermometer down in  
my mash tun so I must remove the temperature probes (RTD's) to a  
separate container before comparing to the thermometer.

Conceivably, I could put RTD probe, and lab thermometer into a beaker  
with a stir bar on a heater/stir plate and raise the temperature  
recording thermometer and RTD readings from near freezing (by adding  
ice) up to boiling, then fit a curve to the error and apply  
corrections calculated from the fit to the RTD readings when the RTD  
is back in the mash tun as the temperature display is done by the  
computer but this hardly seems necessary as I simply note the recorded  
boiling temperature and if it is within a degree of 212 (I'm near sea  
level and the molar strength of wort constituents isn't enough to  
shift the boiling point appreciably) I call it good enough. Even if I  
am off a bit it is the same bit each time I brew (a shift in  
"calibration" would be detectable as a shift in boiling point). If I  
think I am saccharrifying at 145 but it's really 144.5 and I find the  
beer too dry I'll just go to 147 in the next brew and see what  
happens. Even though  it may be 146.5 in fact I have effected a 2  
degree increase in temperature. IOW, as long as the calibration  
doesn't shift (detectable by the BP check) I'm OK with relative moves.

A.J.


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Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2009 09:04:00 -0600
From: "Michael Beck" <michaelr.beck at cox.net>
Subject: RE: Vittles Vault Size

Hello A.J., here's my 2 cents.  I use Vittles Vaults to store my grain.
They are
very convenient for storage both because they are air tight and because
certain
models are stackable.  I have a 40 pounder stackable that was the largest I
could buy locally at the time.  It holds a bit over 45 lbs of grain, so if
you
end up getting stackable bins choose the 60 pound containers.  I would guess
the 50 pound regular vault would have a proportional amount of overhead.



Return to table of contents


Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2009 09:43:16 -0600 (CST)
From: slaycock at discoverynet.com
Subject: 

"Greg Brewer <gbrewer1 at gmail.com>
Subject: Diatomaceous Earth

Any thoughts about using diatomaceous earth for controlling spider
mites on hops?"

DE is what my mother has used exclusively on her garden for the past 40
years or so.
She sprinkles it on early in the morning while things are still wet with
dew & reapplies after a hard enough rain to wash it off the plants.
She has excellent insect control with this method and a healthy feed out
of the garden as a result of this non-poison approach.  Her broccoli,
brusselsprouts, caulflower, potato's are all virtually bug free.

She tells me that the egg laying moths will just hover above the plants
checking them out, but never landing.

I'd expect spider mites would suffer the same fate.  I've used preditory
aphids in the past to attempt to control the spider mites with no success.
The DE will also kill beneficial insects on your hop bines...just so ya know.

Make sure your using "food grade" DE and like said here earlier, make sure
you dont breathe the dust while your applying the DE to your plants as it
will damage your lungs.

DE also has many trace minerals and loads of silica to enrich your garden
soil and produce a healthier plant/fruit.

Steve in KC
Highwater Brewhaus

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Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2009 10:36:29 -0600 (CST)
From: slaycock at discoverynet.com
Subject: Diatomacious Earth for spider mite control

"Greg Brewer <gbrewer1 at gmail.com>
Subject: Diatomaceous Earth

Any thoughts about using diatomaceous earth for controlling spider
mites on hops?"


Greg,
DE is what my mother has used exclusively on her garden for the past 40
years or so.
She has excellent insect control with this method and a healthy feed out
of the garden as a result of this non-poison approach (i think the modern
day p.c. term is organic gardening`).  Her broccoli, brussel sprouts,
cauliflower, potato's are all virtually bug free.

She tells me that the egg laying moths will just hover above the plants
checking them out, but never landing.

I read that it controls "mites" and "spiders",I'd expect spider mites
would suffer the same fate.  I've used predatory aphids in the past to
attempt to control spider mites with no success.
The DE will also kill beneficial insects on your hop bines...just so ya
know. It wont harm earth worms, it will kill honey bees & lady bugs...so
keep it off flowers!

Make sure your using "food grade" DE and like said here earlier, make sure
you dont breathe the dust while your applying the DE to your plants as it
will damage your lungs.

DE also has many trace minerals and loads of silica to enrich your garden
soil and produce a healthier plant/fruit for you to consume.

Simply do an internet search on DE and plan on spending a week reading on
all the uses,and mind blowing results folks get from it...enjoy!

Steve in KC
Highwater Brewhaus

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believed to be clean.



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Date: Sat, 07 Feb 2009 17:42:02 -0600
From: Stephen Jorgensen <stephen at ultraemail.net>
Subject: RE: Leftovers beer

I make an Anything Lying Around brew once or twice a year, incorporating 
several sources of fermentables.  In addition to spare small quantities 
of specialty malts I also have used many other leftovers such as: cooked 
breakfast cereals, rice from Chinese take-out, cooked Quinoa, that 
lonely potato in the back of the crisper drawer, stale dried fruits, the 
last inch of crystallized honey in the Bear, failed attempts at rustic 
home-baked bread (yeast + flour + water + salt recipes only.  No oils or 
fats), the acorn squash I intended to roast for Thanksgiving dinner but 
forgot, essentially everything in the kitchen which is likely to contain 
lots of starch or sugar and very little else. 

I have not yet had one I would consider undrinkable and often things 
turn out quite good.  I follow a few general rules:  No added fats of 
any kind are allowed (oatmeal left in the pan, GO. oatmeal left in a 
bowl with cream or butter, NO GO.) And starchy adjuncts are kept to a 
maximum of around 15% of the mash by dry weight.  In the case of cooked 
starches or raw fruits/vegetables I guesstimate that there is a rough 
equivalency to malt by volume. 

In the end I always get beer.  The use of several kinds of hops and 
specialty grains makes for good fun trying to pick out distinct flavors 
from each ingredient. Occasionally I discover a subtle note from the 
adjuncts I really enjoy.  Dried figs complimented a porter-esque effort 
nicely.  Basmati rice added a pleasant aroma to a pale-aley brew.  

Anyway, go for it! There's not much to lose.  Take notes and let us know 
how it turns out.


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