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


Contents:
  Fermentation rates for small batches. ("DRCV06::GRAHAM")
  Mashing time and efficiency (Don McDaniel)
  Cooking with beer/health issues (Diane M. Moss)
  Repitching yeast after long secondary (Bill Thacker)
  Beer Hyper Card Stacks (IOCONNOR)
  looking for place to get beer mugs (mbharrington)
  yeast at priming, time to mash (Bill Crick)


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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: 29 Apr 91 08:39:00 EDT
From: "DRCV06::GRAHAM" <graham%drcv06.decnet at drcvax.af.mil>
Subject: Fermentation rates for small batches.

Last Wednesday, I put in a two gallon batch of Irish Stout.  Using a 
Whitbread ale yeast, fermentation was off to a good start in just a few 
hours.  By Saturday, the glug rate in the airlock had dropped to about two 
a minute.  By this morning, (Monday), it had dropped to about one every 
three minutes.  I would expect a five gallon batch to take a couple of 
weeks or more to drop to this level of carbon dioxide production.  This is 
the first time I have made a small batch.  Is this normal for a small 
batch.  Obviously, there is less material to ferment and less yeast doing 
the work.  Have others with small batch experience had this same result, or 
is this yeast just not particularly attenuative.

Dan


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Date: Mon, 29 Apr 91 10:02:56 CDT
From: bradley at dehn.math.nwu.edu (R. Bradley)

Numerologists take note: 625 is 5 cubed.  In any case, it's a great
milestone for the HBD.

In #625, Chris shenton, talking about a 15 gal. Busch keg, says:
> ... The third, we've figured how
> to remove the valve so we can clean it, and are thinking of doing a 10
> gallon strong batch, diluting to 15 gallons, and serving at a party.

Augh!!!!  The dreaded practice of high-original-gravity brewing, bane
of the Canadian brewing industry (and American I suppose?  Anybody know?)
since the mid-seventies.  Another example of the triumph of accounting
over sound brewing practice.  It increases the throughput of a brewery,
but adding water (carbonated, in the case ot the Canadian biggies)
means raw, watery beer and oxidation.

Chris: do evrything you can to remove the oxygen from the water
you'll be using to dilute the beer.  Heck, just drink the true beer,
strong and free :-)


Yet another entry into the `long-term effects' fray: I find all the
preaching about alcoholism chafing as well.  However, consider the 
following: if you drink 24 beer a day, you will undoubtedly suffer 
long-term PHYSIOLOGICAL effects (as in `body').  If you drink 1 per
week, you undoubtedly won't.  Who's to say that the cut-off isn't
three per week?  No, I don't believe in 3 either.  If you eat right 
and exercise, it's undoubetedly much higher.  But let's not kid 
ourselves, at some point the body has trouble processing the poison
if it's going to be coming in >300 day per year.  Maybe the livers of 
our Czech cousins look pretty bad by age 60.

Cheers,
Rob
(bradley at math.nwu.edu)

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Date: Mon, 29 Apr 91 09:14:25 -0600
From: dinsdale at chtm.unm.edu (Don McDaniel)
Subject: Mashing time and efficiency


I'm with Marc.  I've recently gone over to all-grain brewing
(except when I'm desperately low on brew and don't have time for
mashing) but I find it takes me the better part of EIGHT HOURS
to brew a batch.  It's not a total write-off since I can use some of
the dead time to get chores done around the house, but it does
control my whole day.  I'd really like to know how it can be done
in four hours!

Marc goes on to say:

>While I'm talking, I'd like some advice on a problem I'm having with
>extraction.  I've calibrated my thermometer against a fever thermometer.
.... stuff deleted ...

>Using these methods, which are very close to Miller's (although he's
>rather vague about measuring SG), I'm getting 26 points of SG per pound
>of Klages (or English pale ale) instead of the 35 that Miller claims.
>
>Any ideas?  Do I have to get Noonan's book and start decocting? :-)
>
>    -- Marc Rouleau

I have experienced the very same trend in my first few mashes so this
past weekend when I mashed my first original recipe I boosted the grain
content to account for poor extraction efficiency.  My recipe was:

5 lb. pale ale malt
3/4 lb. cryatal
1/4 lb. black patent
1 lb. corn sugar
1 cu. molases.

Per Miller's book this should have yielded an OG of around 45.  I
added a sixth pound of pale ale malt to compensate for poor efficiency.
The result:  an OG of 52!  This time I replicted Miller's extraction
almost exactly.  The only deliberate change in my procedure this time
was to avoid temperature overshoot when adjusting the mash temp.  In
the past, I had set the mash temp and when I returned to stir I'd
found the temp to actually be higher than before.  I think this time by
avoiding overshoot and stirring regurlarly to maintain uniform
temperature (as Marc does) I avoided de-activating my enzymes
prematurely.

Just one brewer's experience.

Don McDaniel
dinsdale at chtm.unm.edu


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Date: Mon, 29 Apr 91 9:33:20 EDT
From: moss at anagld.analytics.com (Diane M. Moss)
Subject: Cooking with beer/health issues

First, let me say I just *love* this subscription!!

Next, on to cooking.  I love to use a good pale ale as a
marinade for most any kind of beef.  Take a roast, pour
an ale (or two) over it, season it will a little seasoned
salt or the like, some fresh pepper and let it sit for a
couple of hours.  Put is all (liquid too!!) in a roaster,
cover it and put it in the oven on about 350 for a couple
of hours.  Remove the meat when it is done and make a
gravy with the remaining liquid by cooking it on the stove
and adding a tablespoon or two of corn starch.  Add a little
little water if you want more liquid.  You probably won't
need to add anything else to the gravy -- I don't because
I like it just like that.

Another favorite from back home (Wisconsin) was beer batter trout.
I will need to get the recipe from my brother if anyone is
interested.

Finally, health.  Just for your statistics and since I didn't
read anything coming from the female portion of our reader
populace, I drink 1.5 to 2 pints per night and slightly more
on weekends.  It doesn't seem to have had any affect on my
ability to hold a job (I've changed jobs twice in the last
ten years) and I am a wife and mother too. I like beer and I
especially like our homebrew although we have only been brewing
for about two months.

Keep up the great correspondence, I love it.


Later,  Diane



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Date: Mon, 29 Apr 91 10:33:22 EDT
From: Bill Thacker <hplabs!hp-lsd.cos.hp.com!cbema!wbt>
Subject: Repitching yeast after long secondary

John E. Lenz <JELJ at CORNELLA.cit.cornell.edu> writes:

> On a more serious note, Ken Weiss asks about adding a fresh dose of yeast
> prior to bottling a batch that has been in the secondary for 8 weeks.
> 
> Well Ken, I guess the definitive answer is "It depends."  If this has been
> an 8-week cold lagering I'd definitely add some active yeast.  

I've never brewed a lager, so maybe this question is silly.  Instead of
adding new yeast, why not stir up some of the sedimented yeast in the
secondary fermenter ?  Seems to me this would avoid the risk of infections
being brought on by adding new yeast.

Sort of like the old brewer's trick of using the yeast from one batch to
pitch the next.

 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Bill Thacker	AT&T Network Systems - Columbus      wbt at cbnews.att.com



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Date:    Mon, 29 Apr 1991 16:44:09 EDT
From: IOCONNOR at SUNRISE.ACS.SYR.EDU
Subject: Beer Hyper Card Stacks

I got quite a few requests for the beer hyper card stacks for the 
Macintosh.  I e-mailed a copy to anyone who asked--if you still 
want to get a copy, email me, or if you can FTP ftp this:

FTP sumex-aim.stanford.edu

login anonymous--

cd/info-mac/card

get beer.hqx

I can stil send you a copy if you can't ftp.  Someone told me 
that the place that hold the HBD archives has this stack aslo--I 
looked, but it was in six or seven parts, and I didnt want to put 
it together to find out.  The "sumex" version is in one piece.  

Anyone who has any other Macintosh beer related programs, I'd 
appreciate a message, especially programs with recipes.

Last item--I mailed to someone in Canada--and it wouldnt go 
through--too large.  I lost his address, but this is part of it--
SMTP%"iex!supernet!harlie!digi.lonestar.org!MAILER-DAEMON at uunet.UU.NET"

Please email me--so I can get you a copy.

Thanks!

Keep on Brew'in!

Kieran          ICONNOR at SUNRISE.ACS.SYR.EDU

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Date:         Mon, 29 Apr 91 16:36:24 CDT
From: "Mark A. Andrews" <MANDREW1 at UA1VM.ua.edu>

There's been a lot of discussion of late about wort chilling. Well, this past
weekend I tried something. I started with 5 gallons of bottled water. I
refrigerated 3 gallons while allowing the other two to stay at room temp.
I used one of the room temp. gallons for my boil. When I was ready to mix
everything, I remove the 3 chilled gallons from the fridge, poured them into
my primary, added the remaining gallon of room temp water and then poured
in the boil. A couple of stirs of the resulting wort gave a temperature of 85
degrees F. All I had left was to test the gravity, pitch the yeast, put on the
lid, and install the fermentation lock. The total time to do all this was 5
minutes from the time I poured in the first gallon of water. In about 10 hours
it was bubbling away...no unusual odor and hopefull no infection.
I'll keep the list posted as to the outcome.

- -------------------------------------------------------------------
:    //  _   _  _  .   ___    _      :                            :
:   //  /_\  :\/:  :  / ___  /_\     :  MANDREW1 at UA1VM.UA.UANET   :
: \X/  /   \ :  :  :  \___/ /   \    :   MANDREW1 at UA1VM.BITNET    :
:                                                                 :
: "THE COMPUTER FOR THOSE OF US WHO USE BOTH SIDES OF OUR BRAINS" :
- -------------------------------------------------------------------

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Date: Mon, 29 Apr 91 16:12:21 PDT
From: mbharrington at UCSD.EDU
Subject: looking for place to get beer mugs


Can anyone suggest a mail order place to buy beer steins
and other glassware for beer drinking?  I've looked at
many stores here in San Diego, but haven't had any luck.
Actually, stoneware would be great also.
Williams Sonoma sells a set of 6 Oktoberfest mugs for $18
but they only hold 12 oz., and I was looking for something
a bit larger.  I'd love to get a large, authentic stein,
or someting else impressive.

Thanks in advance.....

Matt


Matthew B. Harrington                        Internet: matt at ucsd.edu
University of California at San Diego        Recycle or Die.
Biophysics                                   Think! It's not illegal yet.

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Date: 	Mon, 29 Apr 1991 11:27:11 -0400
From: hplabs!bnr-vpa!bnr-rsc!crick (Bill Crick)
Subject: yeast at priming, time to mash


To the person who had beer in carboy for 8 weeks, and is wondering about 
adding yeast. I regularly have beers in secondary, or tertiary carboys for
several months, and often at  low temperatures. I've never had a problem 
with priming. I don't think you need to add yeast. It may take a bit longer
to carbonate, but it should carbonate just fine.

Re: 1.5hr mash??? How do you do it? It takes us at least three hours,
                 not including heating the water for the protein rest
                which is in parallel with breakfast. This also doesn't 
               include roasting or grinding which we ussually do the 
              night before.
            It takes almost 1.5 hours to sparge? say 45 minutes of 
           recycling to set the bed, and 45 minutes to sparge, and
          run it off.
         Mash 45 minutes or so, and protein rest of 30 minutes??


Bill Crick    Brewius, ergo sum!



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End of HOMEBREW Digest #626, 04/30/91
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