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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
		Rob Gardner, Digest Coordinator


Contents:
  Re: FYI (a.e.mossberg)
  My mashing technique (root)
  Re: Brewpub Practices - tangent on aging (Rick Noah Zucker)
  Re: yeast slurry (Dr. Tanner Andrews)
  Re: Patriotic Duty (Dr. Tanner Andrews)
  Textbook of Brewing (Peter Karp)
  Re: Novice -or- Let's write some FYIs! (bob)
  Gravity grief (mcnally)
  Grain brewing references (Mahan_Stephen)
  Chicago, Illinois Water Analysis ("R. J. Pals")
  Lager and FYIs  (dbreiden)
  question... (dbreiden)


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[Please do not send me requests for back issues]
Archives are available from netlib at mthvax.cs.miami.edu


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Date: Fri, 21 Dec 90 16:06:17 GMT
From: aem at mthvax.cs.miami.edu (a.e.mossberg)
Subject: Re: FYI

Note that it is redundant to post the beginners guide to the newsgroup,
as well as an incredible waste of network resources. The guide exists,
and has existed for a long time in the archives.

aem

- -- 
aem at mthvax.cs.miami.edu .......................................................
I have nothing to declare except my genius 		- Oscar Wilde


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Date: Fri, 21 Dec 90 09:01:42 PST
From: root at wsl.dec.com
Subject: My mashing technique


Many thanks to Mike Charlton, who confirms my feelings of inadequacy :-)
My worries about my mashing technique are:

    *)  My thermometer may be off.  I don't think this is true, but
        since I want to replace it anyway, It's worth a try.
    
    *)  I may not let conversion go long enough.  Two hours seems like
        a long time, but I should try for 2.5 sometime, with an extra
        heat boost to stay above 142 dF.
    
    *)  My lauter tun may be doing me in.  This I doubt; it's a double-
        bucket affair, made from some heavy-duty stiff plastic 18 qt.
        food "buckets".  There's about 8-10 oz. space below the spigot
        that of course gets wasted, but I really doubt that that's 
        where all the good stuff is going (it would have to be the 
        consistency of honey!)
    
    *)  The 2-row is not diastatic enough to convert the wheat and
        dextrin malts.  I am too ignorant of biochemistry to assess
        this potential problem.

When mashing, I go out of protein rest up to about 152 dF (I've been
shooting for a fermentable wort).  I always stir carefully to avoid
overheated zones in the kettle.  After I reach the correct initial
temperature, I cover the kettle with my insulated box (my wife knew I
wast a lost cause when I built that).  Temperature drops to the mid
140's in an hour or so, so I stir and boost the heat at that point.
Note that if my thermometer's off, this process would be severely
affected.

My lauter tun is insulated (a recent addition; I used this nifty stuff
that's basically two layers of small bubble wrap covered with
reflective foil), so there is only moderate heat loss during the
sparge.  I recycle wort with an intermediate re-heating stage.  I have
wondered whether I'm waiting too long before ending the recycle and
going to the boiler.  The final runnings come out pretty damn pale,
though.

Thanks for the hints!

- --------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mike McNally                                           mcnally at wsl.dec.com
Digital Equipment Corporation
Western Software Lab

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Date: Fri, 21 Dec 90 15:58:47 -0800
From: noah at cs.washington.edu (Rick Noah Zucker)
Subject: Re: Brewpub Practices - tangent on aging

	I was recently in Toronto for a few days.  While there I tried
to hit as many brewpubs and try as many micro-brews as I could.  At the
Rotterdam I went on a tour and spoke with the brewmaster.  While talking
with him I was surprised to discover that they do not age their beers
very long by our standards.  He serves the lagers after four weeks, the
light ales after one, and something like a porter after two.  I commented
on how my recent porter, although very good after a month, was phenomenal
after three months.  He said that as professionals they had far greater
experience (easily believed) and that since they could control temperature
and pressure, they did not need to age things as long as we would (this
was not said condescendingly).

	Do people out there believe this totally?  I'll agree that they
may not need to age quite as long as we do at home.  However, two weeks
from start to finish for a porter?  Four weeks for lagers?  Doesn't Bud
age their lagers for 6-8 weeks?  I should note that I was not overly 
impressed by their beers or that of their sister brewpub in Toronto 
(the Amsterdam) although it was much better than your mass-market swill.
The other brewpub I went to there, Dennisons, was better.  It is partially
owned by Prince Luitpold of Bavaria.  Was he the one on the Beer Hunter?

	One point to raise about the aging of beer in brewpubs is that
they may not have the space.  If they were to double the aging time of
their beer, they would need twice as many storage tanks, and they may not
be able to afford that, or have the space for it.

							Rick Zucker

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Date: Wed, 19 Dec 90 21:24:22 EST
From: Dr. Tanner Andrews <tanner at ki4pv.compu.com>
Subject: Re: yeast slurry

Use the slurry from the secondary; the slurry from the primary may
have trub, precipitated hop resins, or other undesirable products
in it.
- -- 
...!{bikini.cis.ufl.edu allegra uunet!cdin-1}!ki4pv!tanner


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Date: Wed, 19 Dec 90 22:29:28 EST
From: Dr. Tanner Andrews <tanner at ki4pv.compu.com>
Subject: Re: Patriotic Duty

Well, this time we don't have anyone in the family ``over there'',
and perhaps it's just as well, but I noted a shipping suggestion
theory; note that no one is actually going to try to send anything
across the pond without being sure that it's legal over in Saudi
Arabia.  Stinking hole.  Insert anti-arab prejudice here.

Not only might a dark beer look remarkably like a brand-named
carbonated beverage if placed in a plastic 1-litre bottle, but
the stuff might have a little bit of sediment in the bottom.
Of course, no one would pour that sediment into a batch of diluted
malt-water, and leave it to sit for a few days, if that were against
local regs, and therefore no one would notice that they got a better
product than the other guys who were using bread yeast.
- -- 
...!{bikini.cis.ufl.edu allegra uunet!cdin-1}!ki4pv!tanner


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Date: Sat, 22 Dec 90 12:03:28 EST
From: Peter Karp <karp at cs.columbia.edu>
Subject: Textbook of Brewing

I have been looking for this out-of-print book on brewing. If you have
any info about tracking a copy of this two volume set please reply to
me by e-mail.

Textbook of Brewing vol 1 & 2
Jean de Clerck
Chapman & Hall LTD London 1957

Thanks for any tips.

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Date: Thu Dec 27 13:31:28 1990
From: bob%semantic%uunet.UU.NET at hplb.hpl.hp.com
Subject: Re: Novice -or- Let's write some FYIs!

Ok folks, Here we go.  This is exactly what I was talking about:

> 
> Date: Thu, 20 Dec 90 21:16:24 -0500 (EST)
> From: Jared Timothy Leinbach <jl2k+ at andrew.cmu.edu>
> Subject: Novice
> 
> We are three friends in the New York City area who would like to try brewing
> our own beer at home.  We have no previous experience and are looking for
> simple recipes, publications, suppliers, and general information on this
> subject.  Thank you in advance for any pointers/info.  We are specifically
> looking for NYC-area suppliers, etc.
> 

This is the perfect opportunity to write a couple of FYIs.

"Publications for the beginner" is a good one. 
"NYC-area suppliers" is also good.
"General beginner information" has already been written by Rob Gardner.

Anybody want to take a stab at listing some of the basic beginner 
publications and a small narrative on each?  I will if no one else
out there feels qualified.

How about someone from NYC to start a listing of suppliers?

Let's do it!

- -- Robert A. Gorman (Bob)        bob at rsi.com           Watertown MA US --
- -- Relational Semantics, Inc.    uunet!semantic!bob    +1 617 926 0979 --


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Date: Wed, 02 Jan 91 09:36:48 PST
From: mcnally at wsl.dec.com
Subject: Gravity grief


I'm starting to believe that my problems with low starting gravity (see
some previous messages from me) may have something to do with my sparge
technique or hardware (or both).  From my general feelings about how
the world works, it seems that one problem might be that my grain bed
is *too* deep when I have a lot of grain.  I realize that there's risk
of compromising the cleanness of the sparge (i.e., I might get more
draff), but perhaps the problem is that the sparge water's capacity to
dissolve the sugars is exhausted before it gets through the 18 inches
of grain.  Perhaps I could try a double lauter tun approach, and split
the mash between them.  Hmmm...  I also found that the settling space
below the tap level in my tun is bigger than I had thought; tilting the
tun might get me a couple points.

What are commercial lauter tun geometries?  Dave Miller mentions that 
commercial breweries apply the sparge water to the grain bed very 
carefully to avoid disturbing it.  That only really makes sense if the
bed is shallow.  Maybe I'll look around for fatter buckets from which 
to make a lauter tun, and use the fat one for heavy recipes.

- --------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mike McNally                                           mcnally at wsl.dec.com
Digital Equipment Corporation
Western Software Lab

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Date: Wed, 2 Jan 91 24:04:00 CST
From: Mahan_Stephen at lanmail.ncsc.navy.mil
Subject: Grain brewing references


I am preparing to enter the world of All-Grain-Brewing.
I already have Papazian's "TCJOHB" and would appreciate it
if any of you experienced brewers could suggest informative references
for the "WHY, WHAT, HOW and WHEN" of this science. Thank you in
advance.
           J.B. Montgomery

(John is sharing my subscription as he does not yet have a LAN 
connection here.  I will forward all individual replies to him.)

steve
mahan_stephen at lanmail.ncsc.navy.mil

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Date: Wed,  2 Jan 91 09:46:27 CST
From: "R. J. Pals" <uunet!inland.com!pals at uunet.UU.NET>
Subject: Chicago, Illinois Water Analysis

I saw the post on the water quality for Burlington, Ontario a while
back and that prompted me to get the Chicago analysis.  The two are
really quite similar, especially numbers that may be imporatant to
home brewers (hardness, pH, etc.).  I assume that Burlington gets its
water from Lake Ontario (Chicago is of course Lake Michigan water), so
maybe this analysis is typical for all Great Lakes water(?).  

Chicago, Illinois Drinking Water Quality
Composite Samples for November 2, 1990
All results are in mG/L (parts per million) unless otherwise noted

Organic Nitrogen          0.19  Calcium                           36.1
Nitrate + Nitrite         0.16  Sodium                             6.1
Ammonia-Nitrogen        < 0.01  Aluminum (uG/L)                  341
Potassium                 1.5   Iron (uG/L)                     < 10
Turbidity                 0.30  pH                                 8.2
Sulfate                  26.3   Total Phosphate                    0.011
Fluoride                  0.91  Magnesium                         10.8
Chloride                 10.4   Lead (uG/L)                        4.0
Alkalinity (total)       93.0   Total Dissolved Solids (Residue) 173.0
Hardness                134.0   Copper (uG/L)                      3.0
Potassium                 1.5   Radioactivity (Beta, pCi/L)        2.9


Randy Pals

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Date: Wed, 02 Jan 91 15:14:34 -0500
From: dbreiden at mentor.cc.purdue.edu
Subject: Lager and FYIs 

Mike Schremp asked about starting lagers.  The one lager that my brew partner
and I made went very well.  We just started it like any old beer--which for
us means room temp (~65-68 deg F.) and putting it in a fridge after it got 
going.  It went pretty well.  Ended up being one of our best batches.

The comments on FYIs sounds really great.  I don't understand the details on
creation or use or the ramifications on adminstering & such.  But the basic
idea sounds super for the novice--and for the advanced!!  This raises a 
question I'd forgotten about.  I've tried to get stuff from the archives
but have failed.  Could someone post or e-mail me a little primer on how to
retrieve old stuff??  Many Thanks.

- --Danny

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Date: Wed, 02 Jan 91 15:19:56 -0500
From: dbreiden at mentor.cc.purdue.edu
Subject: question...

How come brewers don't have to include the ingredients on their products?
If Oscar Meyer is required to proclaim the ther world all the nasties included
in making there bologna, why don't the makers of Olympia beer have to tell
us what kind of adjucnts are included--Bud is kind enough to admit that rice
or corn or something is added.

Just a question.

- --Danny

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End of HOMEBREW Digest #560, 01/03/91
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