---

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


Contents:
  A recipe for Bitter - Draught Bass (Pete Young)
  Kosherness and Champagne Bottles ("Justin A. Aborn")
  Plastic bottles (dbreiden)
  Re: Carbonation and Priming (Chris Shenton)
  Re: Kosher Beer (Eric Pepke)
  Re: Calculating Bittering Units (Chris Shenton)
  Wet-towel Cooling (Don McDaniel)
  evaporative cooling (krweiss)
  Fermenting in Kegs (bob)
  Plastic Homebrew Bottles (Ron Rader)
  Calculating IBU's, Fining agents ("Eric Roe")
  Stainless wort cooler (Jeff Benson)
  homebrew-request (Nancy Darcovich)
  re: Calculating Hop Bitterness (Darryl Richman)
  carbonation and priming (garner)
  Trip to Cincinnati (Stefan Idziak -Heiney)
  Re: Alcohol-free beer (Rob Malouf)
  Wort composition vs. Mashing schedule (Mike Charlton)
  Vegetarians and beer (was Kosher beer) (William Mayne)
  beer in Perrier bottles (Chip Hitchcock)
  priming with wort (Chip Hitchcock)
  priming with wort (Stephen Saroff--TMC Applications Scientist at NCSA )
  Irish moss  (was:Kosher beer) (James Hensley)
  SG vs Pressure (Bill Crick)
  RE: Homebrew Digest #595 (March 13, 1991)  ("b_turnbaugh")
  New Owner at Beermakers of America (David Gibbs)
  RE: Homebrew Digest #595 (March 13, 1991)  ("Dave Resch DTN:523-2780")
  More on sassafras, using spruce ("Eric Roe")


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


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Wed, 13 Mar 91 12:36:16 GMT
From: Pete Young <pyoung%axion.bt.co.uk at hplb.hpl.hp.com>
Subject: A recipe for Bitter - Draught Bass

Hello chaps,

I've been reading the digests for a few weeks now and I thought it
was about time I contributed. Bill Hunter, who told me about the list,
asked if I had a recipe for bitter I'd like to share. Can a duck swim?

This is one of my faves. It appears in the book by Dave Line called
"Brewing beers like those you buy", Amateur Winemaker, ISBN 0-900841-51-6 .
I don't know if it's available in the US and I haven't seen anyone mention
it in the digest. Reproduced without permission (I won't tell if you don't).

'Gallons' is UK gallons - please make the appropriate conversion for the
amount of water you add if you wish to use US gallons as a measure.

Stage		5 Gallons	Original Gravity 1045		25 Litres

1		7lb		Crushed pale malt		3500g
1		8oz		Crushed crystal malt		250g
1		3 gallons (UK)	Water for bitter brewing	15 litres
3		2oz		Fuggles hops			60g
3,4,5		(1+0.5+0.25) oz	Goldings hops			(30+15+10)g
3		1tsp.		Irish moss			5ml
3		1lb		Invert sugar			500g
5		2 oz		Brewers yeast			60g
5		0.5 oz		Gelatine			15g
6		2 oz		Soft dark brown sugar		60g

Brewing stages:

1	Raise the temperature of the water to 60C and stir in the crushed
	malts. Stirring continuously, raise the mash temperature up to 66C.
	Leave for 1 1/2 hours, occasionally returning the temperature back 
	to this value.
2	Contain the mashed wort in a large grain bag to retrieve the sweet
	wort. Using slightly hotter water than the mash, rinse the grains
	to collect 4 gallons (UK) (20 litres) of extract.
3	Boil the extract with the fuggles hops and the first batch of
	goldings for 1 1/2 hours. Dissolve the main batch of sugar in a
	little hot water and add this during the boil. Also pitch in the
	Irish moss as directed on the instructions.
4	Switch off the heat, stir in the second batch of goldings and 
	allow them to soak for 20 mins. Strain off the clear wort into a
	fermenting bin and top up to the final quantity with cold water.
5	When cool to room temperature add the yeast. Ferment 4-5 days
	until the specific gravity falls to 1012 and rack into gallon
	jars or a 25 litre polythene cube. Apportion gelatine finings
	and the rest of the dry hops before fitting airlocks.
6	Leave for 7 days before racking the beer from the sediment into
	a primed pressure barrel or polythene cube. Allow 7 days before
	sampling.


Some explanations and tips(please don't take offence if you're already
familiar with the terms):

Water for bitter brewing means hard water. If you're on soft water (your
kettle doesn't fur up) then add some water treatment salts or even a
couple of spoonfulls of plaster of paris.

Invert sugar is sugar that has been cooked for a couple of minutes over
a low flame. Some of the chemists can probably explain what effect that
has. i don't usually bother, I just use the sugar (normally a soft brown
suger, not that 'orrible white granulated.

I use isinglass finings instead of Gelatine, it's lees messy and does
the same job (slightly more expensive though). Isinglass apparently
comes from the sexual organs of certain fish. Makes you wonder what
else the ancient brewers tried!

A tsp is a tea-spoon. The quantity is not critical, all the irish moss does
is help to precipitate out the hot break.

In the book ,Dave Line refers to several ways of getting brewers yeast. These
include going down to your local and asking the landlord for a half of cloudy
bitter with lots of lumps in it. Not recommended if you don't get on with
the landlord. I don't know what is available in the US but the important
thing is to use a top-fermenting yeast (not a lager yeast). 
Another source is the sediment in certain bottled beers (Worthington's
White Shield was a popular choice of home brewers at one time.)

In an emergency the dried homebrew yeasts can be used but I think they
leave a nasty taste.

One consequence of using a top fermenter is that it will produce a thick
creamy froth with brown bits in it. My personal technique is to remove
the brown stuff every day and discard it, since it is dead yeast and can
make the beer taste funny if it is allowed to get back into the brew.

Don't mix quantities: pick either the 25 litres list or the 5 gallons
list and stick with it.

I tend to use slightly longer times in stage 6. I tend to use anything
up to 10 days before barrelling (or bottling) and I usually leave it
3 weeks in the barrel/bottle  before sampling it. I find this leads to
a more pleasant taste and better carbonation. One advantage of using glass
jars is that you can see when the beer is clear before you barrel it.

Hope you enjoy it. 

Regards

Pete



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Date:     Wed, 13 Mar 91 8:56:38 EST
From: "Justin A. Aborn" <jaborn at BBN.COM>
Subject:  Kosherness and Champagne Bottles

Is kosher beer possible?  I thought idea of observing un-leveness
(sp?) was to remind people of the suffering the Jews endured
during their exodus from Egypt across the desert.  They had no
yeast, nor the time luxury to let bread dough rise during the
trip.  They had to make food from just flour and water to stay
alive.  Even if you filter the yeast out, you still created the
beer with the yeast.  Perhaps a lawyer would argue.

My local home brew store sells plastic champagne bottle corks for
the European size champagne bottles.  They also sell the wire
clamper downer do-dads that hold the cork in.  These work great,
and the champagne bottle of beer is quite a festive thing to
bring to your next dinner party.

Justin

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Date: Wed, 13 Mar 91 09:39:29 -0500
From: dbreiden at mentor.cc.purdue.edu
Subject: Plastic bottles


> Date:    Tue, 12 Mar 91 15:32:13 EST
> From: JWHITE at maine.maine.edu (Jim White)
> Subject: Types of bottles used.
> 
> I'm going to try using the plastic soda bottles next time I bottle some brew.
> I see a few advantages/disadvantages;

Advantages very true.

> Disadvantages;
> 
> 1) They're plastic. Somehow seems criminal to bottle beer in plastic bottles.

I agree, but it's easy to get over.

> 2) They're bigger, thus could have problems if I don't drink it all and
>    disturb the bottom. Also, might lose some carbonation

Also true.  That's a good reason to bottles both ways.  Having a pitcher
handy to pour the big bottles into is nice--but having single serve bottles
AND big bottles is definitely wise.

> Any thoughts, or experiences? Has anyone used other then recapable beer
> bottles?

Yes.  I got my hands on some really nifty bottles.  Evidently, Labatts thought
real hard about selling beer in 2 litre plastic bottles, but changed their
mind or put things on hold--the result is that they had tons of BROWN 2 litre
bottles that were made to hold alcohol, and differed and supposedly resist
O2 infiltration very well--better than the regular bottles I think.  I
have a connection who got me a bunch of these bottles.

I've bottled and tried one brew out of one of these, and everything was super.
Carbonated as well as anything, no weird flavors, really no disadvantage--
well, the 5 of us did have to put away a lot of brew before moving on to the
next sample. 

I presume that using garden variety soda bottles would work just as well.  I
would take care to keep them in the dark as they are clear, but other than
that--go to it.  I would also keep an eye out for replacement caps.  I wonder
how many times you can use one of those caps before any loss of seal.  I 
wonder how many times you can use a bottle.

- --Danny


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Date: Wed, 13 Mar 91 10:03:24 EST
From: Chris Shenton <chris at endgame.gsfc.nasa.gov>
Subject: Re: Carbonation and Priming

On Tue, 12 Mar 91 11:12:37 CST, saroff at ncsa.uiuc.edu said:

Stephen> Then when it came time to prime, I tried to use some Geordies
Stephen> canned malt instead of sugar.  I boiled up the Geordies so that I
Stephen> had ~ a cup of 'new' wort and mixed that in to prime.

Stephen> ... but little carbonation.  It seems to me that I should have
Stephen> used more Geordies.  Any suggestions as to how to estimate amounts
Stephen> for this sort of half-assed kruesenning I did?  

Naw -- this should work fine. Normally, people use dry malt extract to
prime, and I've used molasses. You have to get the amount right so that you
have the same suger content as your usual 3/4C corn-sugar. I think Papazian
says that 1C dry extract is about right, but check the book to be sure.

Something I've been doing for the past 10 batches or so is to boil up some
extra wort with your batch, save the excess in the fridge, then prime with
that. It usually seems to take about quart to get proper carbonation, and
Noonan gives the figures and equations (of course). I'm doing grain, so
adding a bit extra is easy -- with fixed-sized cans, I'm not sure the best
way to handle this; you could just reserve 1 quart in a bottle and just
ferment the rest.

(Never by sugar again!)


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Date:    Wed, 13 Mar 1991 10:11:01 EST
From: PEPKE at SCRI1.SCRI.FSU.EDU (Eric Pepke)
Subject: Re: Kosher Beer

Bill Thacker writes:

> It's worth pointing out that some fining agents (um, isinglass and
> Irish moss, I think) are derived from various bits of animal guts,
> so that beers using these would not be strictly vegan (or is that
> (vegetarian?). (Don't you get sick of people who use too many commas ?)

Isinglass is made from the stomachs of fish, so it's pareve though not
vegan.  Irish moss is seaweed, so it's not only OK for vegetarians, but
absolutely de rigeur!  Gelatine is usually made from bones and hooves, so
it's not vegetarian.  Some of the bones are from nonkosher animals, but there
is a minority opinion among some rabbis that it is so far removed from the
original unclean animal that it is acceptable, which is why Jello is labeled
kosher.

One thing I don't know about the kosher status of beer is the process of
malting.  Foods that touch the ground after some stage in their preparation 
become nonkosher.  On the one hand, wheat that has been threshed on the 
ground is perfectly acceptable.  On the other, any can that falls off the
conveyor belt in the Crisco factory is thrown away so that Crisco can keep
kosher status.  Malt is germinated along a floor, where it is turned by 
shovels or automated machinery over a period of several days.  I don't know
whether this counts or not.

Eric Pepke                                     INTERNET: pepke at gw.scri.fsu.edu
Supercomputer Computations Research Institute  MFENET:   pepke at fsu
Florida State University                       SPAN:     scri::pepke
Tallahassee, FL 32306-4052                     BITNET:   pepke at fsu

Disclaimer: My employers seldom even LISTEN to my opinions.
Meta-disclaimer: Any society that needs disclaimers has too many lawyers.

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Date: Wed, 13 Mar 91 10:17:30 EST
From: Chris Shenton <chris at endgame.gsfc.nasa.gov>
Subject: Re: Calculating Bittering Units

On Tue, cmorford at umbio.med.miami.edu (Speaker-To-Bankers) said:

cmorford> I have been trying to figure out what the bittering unit figure
cmorford> would be for my latest brew, a respectable classic pale ale, but
cmorford> I keep coming up with a number much larger (An order of magnitude
cmorford> larger) than I have been expecting. 

There are some numbers in Noonan which I translated into a formula which
gives reasonable values. Your mileage may vary.

	AAU = IBU * Gallons / 22.472

Example:
	Eckert says Ayinger Maibock is 26.5 IBU
	I want a 5 gallon batch

	=> AAU = 26.5 * 5 / 22.472
	=> AAU = 5.89

This is from memory, so check the constant in Noonan to be sure; it's the
right ballpark, tho.

You'll have to derate the hops based on boil time, of course. I use a
simple linear degradation, eg:
	
	AAU = IBU * Gallons   60 minutes
	      ------------- * ----------
		22.472        Boiltime

I  think Pete Soper's got much more detailed information on the effects of
boil time and other factors on hop utilization.

Hope this helps.

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Date: Wed, 13 Mar 91 09:21:43 -0700
From: dinsdale at chtm.unm.edu (Don McDaniel)
Subject: Wet-towel Cooling


Danny asked about the efficacy of a wet toewel for cooling
the fermenter.  I used this technique last summer in my 70
degree basement.  I'm in a dry climate (Albuquerque, NM) in
which evaporation was very effective.  I had to wet the towel
twice a day because I didn't have it in a bucket of water.

I experienced a 5 degree temperature drop in the wort with
respect to the cellar temperature.  One problem:  things grew
on the towel so that it smelled pretty musty after a while.

Don McDaniel


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Date: Wed, 13 Mar 91 08:48:35 -0800
From: krweiss at ucdavis.edu
Subject: evaporative cooling

Danny Breiden writes:

==============================
In the past couple of digests, the question of fermenting in a warm apartment
came up, and the suggestion of a wet towel around the fermenter was given.
I've heard of this suggestion before, and I am left wondering how good it
really works.  

Let's say we've got a 75 degree room--low humidity--and a wet
towel around the fermenter.  What sort of temperature should this result in?
Would the fermenting wort actually drop below 70 degrees??
=============================

Somebody (Pete Soper, I believe) did an extensive test of the wet T-shirt 
cooling system. With the addition of a small fan blowing on the wet T-shirt I 
recall the temperature drop from ambient was in the range of 10 degrees 
Farenheit, or more. It's a very effective cooling system. Pete, if you're out 
there, was it you and do you still have the data? Or, perhaps a UNIX guru can 
get into the archives in Miami and grep for the original article. It involved 
using three digital temperature probes, one for ambient, one under the 
T-shirt, and one inside the fermentor.

Ken
krweiss at ucdavis.edu


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Date: Wed Mar 13 10:38:53 1991
From: semantic!bob at uunet.UU.NET
Subject: Fermenting in Kegs


In HBD595 Bruce Hill writes:

> 1)  Has anyone used the soda-type (cornelius?) stainless steel kegs for
>     primary fermentation?  It seems that using these would have numerous
>     advantages over the glass carboys that I am now using.

Yes, I do!

>     Advantages:
>       They don't break.
	[Lots of good reasons removed]
>       You can easily draw off small amounts for checking specific gravity.

Yup, All the best of reasons!

I've been using soda kegs to ferment in for the last few months.  They're
realy great.  The best few things about them that I've found are: 
  They're very easy to clean, racking is a sinch, and they don't break!
    
>     Disadvantages:
>       Have to rig up some type of fermentation lock or blow tube.
>       Can't see through stainless steel.
>       Sanitation of various inlets and outlets.

For the blow off tube:
	Remove the CO2 inlet as to leave the threaded nub.  Then a
	piece of 1/2" tubing can be slipped over and held tight with
	a clamp.  Works great.

For the fermentation lock:
	Same as connecting the blow off tube, except cut your tubing of
	at about 2 or 3 inches.  Then insert you air lock into the tube
	and afix with a clamp.

Can't see through the stainless steel:
	Yeh, I miss being able to watch the wort ferment...

Sanitation of the connectors:
	Take them off and soak 'em in B-Brite.

One other disadvantage:
	When racking you either suck up some yeast or leave some beer
	behind.  There is no perfect length for the out tube.  However,
	I've found removing 1 inch to be a good medium.


- -- 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, 13 Mar 91 11:44:12 EST
From: rlr at bbt.com (Ron Rader)
Subject: Plastic Homebrew Bottles

  Jim White sez: 
> I'm going to try using the plastic soda bottles next time I bottle some brew.
     [...]
> Any thoughts, or experiences? Has anyone used other then recapable beer
> bottles?

  I haven't tried these bottles (yet), but plan on using a few for bottling
my next batch.  I have a good friend who makes a phenomenal amount of homebrew,
who uses them frequently.

  The advantages are clear:  they make bottling MUCH easier.  They lose carbo-
nation if you open them and leave alone too long, but you can minimize this
by screwing the caps down tight, or getting those soda keepers you sometimes
see in the KMarts.  The key is to use a lot of 1 liter bottles, and plan on
drinking the beer soon after opening.  The 2 liter bottles could be useful
for parties, or if you're really thirsty ;) .

  I have tasted no off-flavors from the plastic.  Since some sodas are fairly
acidic, I'd think the bottles would be fairly resistant to leaching.  Does
anyone think the problems mentioned with the plastic water bottles as carboys
would apply to plastic soda bottles (alcohol leaching nasty crud from the
plastic)?

- -- 
ron rader, jr  rlr at bbt.com OR ...!mcnc!bbt!rlr = Opinions are my own and do
| |  i gotta six-pack & nothing to do...       = not necessarily reflect those
 | | i gotta six-pack & i don't need you       = of BroadBand Tech. (SO THERE!)
  *** Punk ain't no religious cult, punk means thinking for yourself - DKs ***

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Date:    Wed, 13 Mar 91 13:26 EST
From: "Eric Roe" <KXR11 at PSUVM.PSU.EDU>
Subject: Calculating IBU's, Fining agents

Re: Calculating Bittering Units, two ounces of 4.5%aa hops in six
gallons of wort would give you about 33.6 IBU.  This is assuming
that you boiled the hops for 60 minutes which would give you 30%
utilization.  The formula to do this is as follows:

     Weight (oz) * %U * %AA * 7462
     ----------------------------- = IBU
             Volume (gal)

%U = percent utilization (boiled 60+ minutes this number is 30%)
%AA = alpha acid percentage
Note: express all percents as their decimal equivilant.
See the 1990 special issue of Zumurgy for more information.


In HBD #595 Bill Thacker writes:
>It's worth pointing out that some fining agents (um, isinglass and
>Irish moss, I think) are derived from various bits of animal guts,
>so that beers using these would not be strictly vegan (or is that
>(vegetarian?). (Don't you get sick of people who use too many
>commas ?)

You're right on the money with the isinglass.  It is made from the
swim bladders of fish.  Irish moss, however, is made of seaweed.
There is also a product called japanese isinglass which is also
made of seaweed.  I don't know of anyone using it as a fining agent
in beermaking though.


                                       Eric
                              <kxr11 at psuvm.psu.edu>

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Date: Wed, 13 Mar 91 12:28:49 CST
From: Jeff Benson <benson at chemsun.chem.umn.edu>
Subject: Stainless wort cooler


In HD 595, Bruce Hill asks:

>4)  Our wort chiller is made out of 1/4 inch copper tubing.  My brew partner
>    is a microbiologist and he is concerned about possible affects from
>    passing hot wort through 10 feet of copper tubing.  Is this going to affect
>    the flavor of the beer or our health in any way or is he just being 
>    paranoid?  Does anyone know where I can get 1/4 to 3/8 inch stainless steel
>    tubing to use instead of copper?  How much does it cost per foot?
Yow!  A stainless wort chiller!  What a concept!  I don't know what
stainless tubing costs but I'd guess it was very expensive compared to
copper.  Also, I've tried bending stainless tubing and it's TOUGH.  I
wouldn't want to create a coil of the stuff, even 1/4 or 3/8 inGH.  I
wouldn't want to try to make a coil of the stuff, even 1/4 or 3/8 inch O.D.,
without professional machine shop-type equipment.  Not to mention that
copper has far superior thermal conductivity than stainless.

WIf you're concerned about contamination of your wort, why not use your
existing chiller but invert its operation?  That is, instead of running
the hot wort through the chiller, put the chiller into the hot wort and
run cold water through the chiller.  I've seen it suggested here in the
digest a couple times that one could simply place the empty chiller into
your wort pot a few minutes before the end of the boil and let the
boiling wort sanitize the outside.  Other folks have described setting
up a pump to push ice water through their chiller, thereby getting more
efficient cooling as well as conserving water.  I've never heard of
anyone had any noticeable affect on the taste of
their brew.

Jeff Benson
benson at chemsun.chem.umn.edu

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Date:         Wed, 13 Mar 91 13:31:14 EST
From: Nancy Darcovich <DARNAN at VM.NRC.CA>
Subject:      homebrew-request


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Date: Wed, 13 Mar 91 11:16:37 -0800
From: darryl at mashtun.ivy.isc.com (Darryl Richman)
Subject: re: Calculating Hop Bitterness

re: Calculating Bittering Units

The formula here is close.  But you've missed one important point:  notice that
the definition of IBUs is .000133 oz. _iso_alpha acids per gallon.  You get
isoalpha acids by isomerizing the alpha acids in the hops during the boil.
However, this isn't a one way reaction.  An equilibrium is achieved after
about an hour of boiling where between 25 and 30% of the alpha acids have
been isomerized.  Higher gravity worts reduce this figure.  Pellets produce
higher utilization rates than whole hops (probably because more of the lupulin
is exposed in pellets when they are crushed).  With this addition, your
estimated IBUs are between about 28 to 34 IBUs.

		--Darryl Richman


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Date: Wed, 13 Mar 91 14:25:44 -0500
From: garner at ATHENA.MIT.EDU
Subject: carbonation and priming

   From: saroff at ncsa.uiuc.edu (Stephen Saroff)
   Subject: Carbonation and Priming
   [...]
   Then when it came time to prime, I tried to use some Geordies canned malt
   instead of sugar.  I boiled up the Geordies so that I had ~ a cup of 'new'
   wort and mixed that in to prime.

   Now almost a month later, I have a clear beer, with yeast at the bottom,
   but little carbonation.  It seems to me that I should have used more
   Geordies.  Any suggestions as to how to estimate amounts for this sort of
   half-assed kruesenning I did?  Or was I insane to prime without sugar?

hmmm...i've tried priming with malt too. i can offer the following
with the warning that i've only tried it once. i've never primed with
sugar, i have good luck with honey, and bad luck (weapons-grade) with
molasses (but i love the taste).

i recently did an experimental 2.5 gal brew. when time came to bottle,
i made a stupid arithmetic mistake while trying to figure out how much
dry malt extract (mutton and fisson unhopped amber) to use and tossed
1 cup of powder into 2.5 gal of wort. i decided i'd made a heinous
error after the bottling was done and braced myself for a batch of
gushers. however, after 1 week of aging the beer was fine! the taste
was good and the carbonation was perfect.

the quantity still seems unusual to me, though, and in spite of the
excellent results, i'll be a bit sceptical until i've seen it happen
two or three times (with four carboys going now, i shouldn't have to
wait long!). 

caveat brewer.
 -rob


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Date: Wed, 13 Mar 91 14:52:48 EST
From: idziak at sol1.lrsm.upenn.edu (Stefan Idziak -Heiney)
Subject: Trip to Cincinnati

I'm heading to Cincinnati and am wondering if anyone has any suggestions
or recommendations about local brews and pubs.
Stefan Idziak
idziak at sol1.lrsm.upenn.edu

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Date: Wed, 13 Mar 91 14:58:17 EST
From: malouf at acsu.buffalo.edu (Rob Malouf)
Subject: Re: Alcohol-free beer

There is a short article in the 25 August 1988 issue of _New Scientist_
describing a new process for making low-alcohol beer.  The British water
purification company Elga is marketing reverse osmosis equipment for removing
the alcohol from beer.  The article says, "In Elga's technique the beer is
brewed in the normal way, and placed in a tank with pure water on the other
side of a thin separation membrane.  This membrane allows both water and
alcohol molecules to pass.  When enough pressure is applied to the beer,
alcohol and water molecules will pass from it into the pure water, and can be
pumped away.  Between 40 and 60 per cent of the alcohol is removed in one cycle
but the procedure can be repeated to remove as much alcohol as the brewer
wants."  It sounds like this procedure would not suffer from the same drawbacks
as the traditional "distillation" technique.  It also sounds like someone with
enough technical experience and an old RO water purifier could rig up a similar
system at home.  Anyone want to take a shot at it and let us know how it works?
By the way, the article also mention that Elga's equipment was being used by
the brewers Elgood's, Young and Harvey.

Rob Malouf
malouf at acsu.buffalo.edu

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Date: Wed, 13 Mar 91 14:21:11 CST
From: Mike Charlton <umcharl3 at ccu.UManitoba.CA>
Subject: Wort composition vs. Mashing schedule

Hi all.  I have a fairly technical question here.  First, I'll say why I need
the info, though.  I'm taking a course on expert systems and as part of it
we are supposed to do a feasibility study on building an expert system of
our choice.  I decided to do something with brewing.  My idea is to build
a system that will take a recipe and determine what kinds of effects that
are likely to be produced by it (ie.  The colour, body, taste, etc.).
I've decided to limit myself to the aspects of the malt that will affect
these attributes.  Anyway, I would like to be able to give a statement
about the dextrin content of the wort given a specific recipe and mashing
schedule.  Does anyone know where I could find information that would
help me?  For instance, given a recipe that consisted of all pale malt,
perhaps a graph of the rate that alpha amalase chops up the dextrins vs
the temperature.  I could then make some crude statements on the dextrin
content of the resultant wort.

         Thanks for any help you can give me,
               Mike Charlton
               umcharl3 at ccu.umanitoba.ca

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Date: Wed, 13 Mar 91 15:57:40 -0500
From: William Mayne <mayne at delta.cs.fsu.edu>
Subject: Vegetarians and beer (was Kosher beer)


Bill Thacker <hplabs!hp-lsd.cos.hp.com!cbema!wbt> wrote:

>It's worth pointing out that some fining agents (um, isinglass and
>Irish moss, I think) are derived from various bits of animal guts,
>so that beers using these would not be strictly vegan...

Isinglass is derived from the air bladders of sturgeon.
Irish moss is, I think, a kind of sea weed.
Certainly a beer brewed made using isinglass is not strictly or
even unstrictly vegetarian. This is just one of many ways we may
get hidden meat products. For those concerned about it this is
a good reason to drink home brew. Commercial beers not subject
to the German purity law not only may not be vegetarian, they
may contain lots of chemicals.  (Three "nots" in one sentence!
Sorry, Miss D (high school English teacher).) IMO alcoholic drinks
should be subject to the same labeling requirements as other foods
in the U.S.

BTW, I am vegetarian, not vegan, and I am not so strict that I
necessarily abstain from commercial beers for the reasons explained
above, though I prefer home brew and don't use isinglass or
other gelatin in mine. I avoid knowingly consuming meat, but figure
if I unknowingly consume a tiny amount of some animal product it won't
hurt me.

Bill Mayne (mayne at nu.cs.fsu.edu)

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Date: Wed, 13 Mar 91 15:53:24 EST
From: cjh at vallance.HQ.Ileaf.COM (Chip Hitchcock)
Subject: beer in Perrier bottles

   I wouldn't recommend this unless you're sure you can keep the beer in the
dark >99% of the time, or have a detailed transmission spectrum for these
bottles. At the last Dr. Beer session, they brought in some Molson's which
had been sat in sunlight for ~6 hours, and it smelled so bad I wouldn't
taste it. (And I'm not very sensitive---I just barely could tell that something
was different about most of the doctored beers.) Green glass is apt to be
no better than clear for preserving the beer, although a dark enough beer
may not need much help from the glass. (Yes, Sam Smith ships in clear bottles
- ---but I've had some incredibly bad bottles of their beers.)

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Date: Wed, 13 Mar 91 16:00:01 EST
From: cjh at vallance.HQ.Ileaf.COM (Chip Hitchcock)
Subject: priming with wort

   Papazian and Miller both talk about this (Miller rather slightingly).
Applying their formulas and estimates of the weight of fermentable sugars
in wort, I tried 12 oz of wort  at  1.056 in ~2.3 gallons of bitter; this was
supposed to match 1/4 cup of corn sugar (instead of 3/8---bitter is not
supposed to be highly carbonated). The result was almost flat, which may
reflect on the formulae or on the yeast---my landlady, who makes bread from
what doesn't fill a bottle (sometimes combined with the dregs from the
secondary) said it took much longer than usual to rise.
   Papazian's formula calls for something like 2 quarts of unfermented
wort as priming for 5 gallons, which suggests that if you put in only a
cup of normal-strength wort you were massively low.

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Date: Wed, 13 Mar 91 15:41:19 CST
From: saroff at ncsa.uiuc.edu (Stephen Saroff--TMC Applications Scientist at NCSA )
Subject: priming with wort

Thanks for the information.  *sigh* a less than stellar batch.

      SzS

- ---------------
 Stephen Saroff                              Application Scientist for NCSA 
 Thinking Machines Corporation               5215 Beckman Institute         
 <tmc at ncsa.uiuc.edu> <saroff at think.com>      405 N  Matthews Ave            
 (217) 244 5556                              Urbana, IL 61801               

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Date: Wed, 13 Mar 91 13:53:35 -0800
From: jpaul at lccsd.sd.locus.com (James Hensley)
Subject: Irish moss  (was:Kosher beer)


Irish moss is made from seaweed.  You may have been thinking of gelatin,
another fining agent that is obtained from animal products (hooves/bones)

James

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Date: 	Wed, 13 Mar 1991 10:08:41 -0500
From: hplabs!bnr-vpa!bnr-rsc!crick (Bill Crick)
Subject: SG vs Pressure

Does anyone have, or know of a table that given the SG of beer, or 
champagne, will give the final pressure in the bottle? 
I assume that temperature would have to be included, otherwise, 
I'm also looking for a temperature vs pressure table.

The reason I want this, is to tame a ginger beer recipe. I'd like to 
be able to ferment it dry, without blowing up the Champagne bottles.
It would also be useful in trying to predict how much additional sugar
beyond the dry,non exploding version to add to get a sweeter, drink before
it explodes version.

The Champagne bottles I believe are made for a working pressure of 90PSI?

Thanks Bill Crick

Brewius, Ergo BOOM!



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Date: Wed, 13 Mar 91 16:01:53 PST
From: "b_turnbaugh" at csc32.enet.dec.com
Subject: RE: Homebrew Digest #595 (March 13, 1991) 


          Hi all,

             Bruce Hill askes a question that I have been wanting to ask for
awhile now. I recently bought a copper wort chiller through mail order. It
came kinda dark so I washed it in the sink with hot water and soap. It came
a little cleaner but I was still wondering about it. I boiled it in the wort
the last 15min of the boil to sterilize it, then ran cold water through it to
cool the wort. When I pulled it out it was really shiny and the wort had a
little bit of a film on the top that I had never seen before. When I racked
it to the secondary I left an inch of wort behind to hopefully leave it there.
I also left and inch behind when I racked again to the priming bucket. My
question is should I drink this??? This is my first all grain batch and I
hate to through it out, but hate to kill anyone!! Do they sell stainless-
steel tubing??                Thanks: Bob T.

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Date: Wed, 13 Mar 91 17:11:05 PST
From: pay at EBay.Sun.COM (David Gibbs)
Subject: New Owner at Beermakers of America


Please pass this info on to other aliases.  I heard this from a friend,
but I'm not doing any brewing myself!


For those of you who brew beer, a short note.

Beermakers of America, a supply store at 1040 N. 4th St. in San Jose
is under new management. Don is gone and the new owner is Rich Mansfield.
He seems knowledgeable and has won state fair ribbons for his beers. His
phone is 408 288-6647 and he's open Thurday, Friday, Saturday, and 
Wednesday and Sunday by appointment.  Prices are good, especially
on bulk malt and he's got around 75 different malt extracts. 

He did me a favor so I'm doing him one by posting this note.  If you
decide to stop in, tell him Mike Haspert sent you, just so he gets
the point.

"Life is too short to drink fake beer."--mh

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Date: Wed, 13 Mar 91 20:28:49 PST
From: "Dave Resch DTN:523-2780" <resch at cookie.enet.dec.com>
Subject: RE: Homebrew Digest #595 (March 13, 1991) 

 
>Date: Tue, 12 Mar 91 14:51:12 EST
>From: cmorford at umbio.med.miami.edu (Speaker-To-Bankers)
>Subject: Calculating Bittering Units
>
>Here is my formula:
> 
>Total Bittering Units = (Amount of Hops used * % Alpha Acid content)/.000133
>Bittering Units/ Gallon = Total bittering units / Total gallons
> 
>My numbers are as follows: 2 oz. of 4.5% AAU hops, 6 Gallons.
> 
>(2 * .045)/.000133 = 676.69172 Total Bittering Units
>676.69172 / 6 = 112.78195 International Bittering Units

The main thing that you missed in your formula was the percent utilization of
the alpha acid.  If you do a full wort boil for at least 60 minutes then
you will get approximately 30% utilization from the hops.  A shorter boil or
a more concentrated wort (less than full wort boil) will decrease the
utilization number.

Assuming that your utilization was 25% then the IBUs (using your calculation)
is 28.

I use the IBU calculation from Fred Eckhardt's "The Essentials of Beer Style"
The calculation for your beer (with some assumptions) is:

6 gallons * 3.8 litres/gallon = 22.8 litres
2 ounces hops * 28 grams/ounce = 56 grams hops
56 grams/22.8 litres = 2.46 grams hops per litre
2.46 gr/litre * .045 (%Alpha Acid) * .25 (utilization) = .028 gms/litre
.028 * 1000 = 28 IBUs

So with a 25% utilization assumed, our numbers agree!

Dave

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Date:    Wed, 13 Mar 91 23:38 EST
From: "Eric Roe" <KXR11 at PSUVM.PSU.EDU>
Subject: More on sassafras, using spruce


In HBD #594 Joe Uknalis writes:

>Sassafrass root has a compound in it (I forget it's name) which causes
>cancer (Doesn't everything nowadays...)  BUT I've seen sassafrass extract
>(for making tea) which has the nasty ingredient removed ($2/10oz).

Well, after seeing this I decided to check things out a bit.  Here's the
info.  I looked in _The Complete Book of Herbs & Spices_ and there is was,
lumped in with a bunch of other hazardous plants.  Sassafras root and bark
contain the chemical safrole which gives the plant its distinctive flavor.
Unfortunately, it's also a pre-carcinogen.  When consumed, it's converted
to a carcinogen which effects the liver of animals.  There is no proof of
it's detrimental effect in humans, but to be on the safe side the FDA
banned its use as a food additive.  It was the original flavoring in root
beer and a certain brand of chewing gum called chicle.  Currently you can
get sassafras extract (with the safrole removed) and a powder called file
(pronounced fee lay) which is often used in cajun/creole cooking.  File is
made from the leaves of the sassafras plant which contain no safrole.

Well, now that I've eliminated the idea of using sassafras in my stout I
want to try some other exotic flavoring.  Since spring is almost here and
I've got a Norway spruce in my backyard, I figured I'd harvest a couple of
ounces of sprigs.  Anyone got any advice.  Should I steep it or add it to
the boil.  How much should I use -- in TCJoHB there's a recipe for a beer
called Kumdis Island Spruce Beer.  Papazian says to use 4 oz and boil for
45 minutes.  Anyone tried this or something similar?  Thanks much for any
words o' wisdom.

                                              Eric
                                      <kxr11 at psuvm.psu.edu>

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End of HOMEBREW Digest #596, 03/14/91
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