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

Contents:
  Re: Filtering my Brew (Dr. T. Andrews)
  Re: A New Brew... (Dr. T. Andrews)
  Re: Filtering my Brew (Dr. T. Andrews)
  Re: naturally conditioned commericial beers (a.e.mossberg)

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Date: Sat, 4 Feb 89 8:11:13 EST
From: Dr. T. Andrews <tanner at ki4pv>
Subject: Re: Filtering my Brew

) 	When you siphon the beer back and forth, do you use any sort
) of filter on your siphon?
Nope.  I just use a racking tube (stiff plastic tube with the
business end blocked, and holes drilled about a half-inch up
from the business end).  Just the one extra racking, at bottle
time, has caused a dramatic drop in the amount of sediment in
the bottles.

And, yes, you \fBcan\fP try this at home!

					Dr. T. Andrews, Systems
					CompuData, Inc.  DeLand
-- 
...!bikini.cis.ufl.edu!ki4pv!tanner  ...!bpa!cdin-1!cdis-1!ki4pv!tanner
or...  {allegra killer gatech!uflorida decvax!ucf-cs}!ki4pv!tanner

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Date: Sat, 4 Feb 89 8:35:01 EST
From: Dr. T. Andrews <tanner at ki4pv>
Subject: Re: A New Brew...

) I've decided to try a batch of pop ...
Don't feel bad.  Lots of people up north talk funny.

) Yesterday I bought some Ginger Ale extract.
How regrettable.  Fresh ginger root may be had without that much
trouble.  I make ginger beer exclusively from fresh ingredients.
Ginger root cost me $2/pound at market this week.  Fresh limes may
cost you something unless you grow them.

) The standard recipe calls for cane sugar, ...  champagne yeast.
Right.  I have been using bread yeast, but am going to try some beer
yeast on my next batch.  The cane sugar ferments very well indeed.
The bread yeast will have the stuff carbonated (and most of the cane
sugar consumed) after three days in the bottles.  I don't know if
champagne yeast is a slower worker.

In fact, I would offer warning in case you missed it in rec.food.drink:
we're not kidding about the three days in the bottles.  After the
third night, put the bottles in the refrigerator or be prepared to
deal with wet, sticky glass shards.  Trust me.

) One of the recipe variations that came with the extract is to
) substitute honey in place of cane sugar.
I haven't tried this yet, mainly because my bulk honey isn't getting
here until tomorrow.  (I mainly arranged for 30 pounds with mead in
mind, but a little bit of it for ginger beer won't be missed.)

) They say that honey is sweeter than regular sugar; so use less.  ...
) honey is EXTREMELY fermentable.
Yes, so they say.  However, the fermentation is very slow.  Thus,
even though you use less, less of it is fermented, leaving you with
plenty of sweetness.  (Speculation.  Write again in a couple of
weeks, and I may have experience.)

Again, let me stress the importance of good bottles, and of putting
them in the refrigerator after three days.  This is probably the most
important part of making the ginger beer, because you can't drink it
if it is spattered around the closet with glass shards.  Three days.
It's a magic number.  (I have a second fridge here, in the utility
room, which is called the "beer fridge".  It is generally full of
bottles of beer, and with the entire latest batch of ginger beer less
what has been consumed.)

					Dr. T. Andrews, Systems
					CompuData, Inc.  DeLand
-- 
...!bikini.cis.ufl.edu!ki4pv!tanner  ...!bpa!cdin-1!cdis-1!ki4pv!tanner
or...  {allegra killer gatech!uflorida decvax!ucf-cs}!ki4pv!tanner

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Date: Sat, 4 Feb 89 8:11:13 EST
From: Dr. T. Andrews <tanner at ki4pv>
Subject: Re: Filtering my Brew

) 	When you siphon the beer back and forth, do you use any sort
) of filter on your siphon?
Nope.  I just use a racking tube (stiff plastic tube with the
business end blocked, and holes drilled about a half-inch up
from the business end).  Just the one extra racking, at bottle
time, has caused a dramatic drop in the amount of sediment in
the bottles.

And, yes, you \fBcan\fP try this at home!

					Dr. T. Andrews, Systems
					CompuData, Inc.  DeLand
-- 
...!bikini.cis.ufl.edu!ki4pv!tanner  ...!bpa!cdin-1!cdis-1!ki4pv!tanner
or...  {allegra killer gatech!uflorida decvax!ucf-cs}!ki4pv!tanner

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Date: Sun, 5 Feb 89 15:21:47 EDT
From: a.e.mossberg <aem at mthvax.miami.edu>
Subject: Re: naturally conditioned commericial beers

|From: jhersh at rdrc.rpi.edu (Jay Hersh)

|Someone said something about not being able to naturally condition your beer
|if you filter. Nonsense. For commercial brewers who filter they naturally 
|condition their beer first, then filter on the way into the bottle or keg.
|This allows them to "cold filter" the cold conditioned beer. After all the
|filter won't remove the CO2 which is dissolved into the beer. I don't
|know how common it is to do this but it is done.

"They naturally condition their beer first.." Nonsense. They do let it ferment
out, and water it down as appropriate. It is injected with C02 *after* it
is filtered and placed in bottles.

aem

--
a.e.mossberg aem at mthvax.miami.edu MIAVAX::AEM (Span) aem at umiami.BITNET (soon)
I need several mistresses. If I had only one, she'd be dead inside eight days.
						- Alexandre Dumas

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