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

Contents:
  Homebrew Competition, Conference, GABF (utah-cs!att!drutx!homer)
  A New Brew...ginger beer (Michael Bergman)
  Dry Hopping and Infection (lbr)
  Re:  Homebrew Digest #68 (February 05, 1989) (Peter LaPine)
  Mexican Beers (fwd) (a.e.mossberg)
  What is your extract efficiency? (Dwight Melcher)
  Ginger Beer (rogerl)
  Lager fermentation (Jim McCrae)

Send submissions to homebrew%hpfcmr at hplabs.hp.com
Send requests to homebrew-request%hpfcmr at hplabs.hp.com


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Date: Sun, 5 Feb 89 22:59:49 -0700
From: hplabs!utah-cs!att!drutx!homer
Subject: Homebrew Competition, Conference, GABF

I checked with Charlie Papazian to get the details on the upcoming
AHA National Homebrew Competition.

As Mike Fertsch indicated, the first round judging will be done in Boulder.
The second and Best of Show rounds will be in Ft Mitchel KY, during the
week of the conference.

For each entry, one bottle must be received at the AHA office by 5:00 PM
on April 25.  Those who go on to the second round will be notifyed by
first class mail the week of May 15.  For second and final round judging
two bottles must be sent to Ft Mitchel by June 2.

All entries must be accompanied by the official registration form, or a
photocopy of it.  The registration forms, rules, and list of categories
will be in the Spring 1989 issue of Zymurgy, due to be in your mail box
March 10 - 17.  You can request a copy of the rules and forms by sending
a SASE to the AHA.  Multiple copies of the registration form can be requested
by calling the AHA.

The entry fee is $6.50 for AHA members, $8.50 for non-members.

This year the Homebrewer of the year will supervise the brewing of his or her
best of show recipe brew at the Boulder Brewing Company.  The winners of the
four AHA club competitions (winter pale ale, spring bock, summer wheat, fall
fest) will receive the same honor.  This will be done for the first time when
the fall fest winner brews his festbeer on February 4.

The AHA can be contacted at:
American Homebrewers Association
P.O. Box 287
Boulder Colorado, 80306
(303) 447-0816

A couple of other things to clear up:

The Conference will be in Ft Mitchel KY to allow more homebrewers to
participate.  There are a lot of homebrewers in the east and midwest,
within a 10 hour drive.

The Great American Beer Festival is scheduled for Denver on October 20 and
21.

Jim Homer
att!drutx!homer

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Date: Mon, 6 Feb 89 10:53:23 est
From: Michael Bergman <bergman%odin.m2c.org at RELAY.CS.NET>
Subject: A New Brew...ginger beer

I think I would like to try one of these.  Could you (Dr. T) post a
recipe, or better yet several, for gingering from scratch?  

A note on yeasts:  I have been warned (I think it was in the book:
_Mead_, but am not sure) against using beer yeasts for Mead, as it
will do "wrong" things (flavorwise).  I haven't tested this, so I
don't know if its true or not.  I (and most of the people I know) use
champaigne or similar yeasts.

Honey is certainly completely fermentable.  I have noticed that
friends who are used to brewing beers think mead takes a long time to
ferment.  

Bottling: I recomend Grolsch or similar bottles, as there is a good
chance that the rubber gasket will blow out instead of the bottle
breaking... if you are substituting honey for sugar I think you should
test the specific gravity rather than rely on estimates.  Mead recipes
that come out with about the consistency of "pop" (or soda, as normal
folk refer to it) are usually in the range of 8-10 parts water to 1
part honey, or roughly a pound of honey to a gallon of water.  I don't
have a recipe handy (and haven't made one in a while) but if memory
serves 3 days to a week of fermentation are called for before
bottling, and it is recommended not to store the bottles for more than
a few days to a week, refrigerated.  Also open them carefully, over
the sink...

--mike bergman at m2c.org

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Date: Mon, 6 Feb 89 10:30:50 EST
From: lbr at gatech.edu
Subject: Dry Hopping and Infection

The finest hop aroma I ever got came from dry hopping: adding whole hops
to the carboy while fermentation was proceeding.  Adding hops to the
brew kettle while the wort is still hot and letting the wort sit a while
before chilling doesn't work as well.  Adding hop tea made by steeping
hops in boiled, 180 degF or so, water and then straining off the tea
to be added to the carboy is okay, but still doesn't compare to dry hopping.
I have not tried adding the hops along with the tea: I strained them out.

I quit dry hopping when I lost a batch of beer to infection.
Withing 48 hours of adding the hops, the beer had a raging bacterial 
or wild yeast infection.  (I don't have a microbiology lab, so don't
ask me what it was.)  I discarded it a couple of days later.  It seems
logical that the hops did it.

After running the wort chiller, I boil every ingredient and sterilize
every instrument that touches my beer/wort.  But I can't boil the hops
for fear of degrading the aroma, and I sure can't use chlorine, etc.,
to sterilize them.  Sulfites are used for winemaking, but I thought
they were a no-no in brewing.

It seems logical that hops, an argicultural product, could have all kinds
of bacteria on them.  Is there any reason to suppose that pelletized hops
might present a lower risk?  (I can't see why.)  I prefer whole hops but
would be willing to experiment with dry-hopping pellets if I could be
convinced that it could be worthwhile.

How do you get that flowery aroma found in some lagers and most pale
ales without infecting the wort?

- Len Reed
gatech!holos0!lbr

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Date: Mon, 6 Feb 89 08:55:09 est
From: Peter LaPine <lapine%odin.m2c.org at RELAY.CS.NET>
Subject: Re:  Homebrew Digest #68 (February 05, 1989)

For what it's worth, remember that in racking your brew back and forth, you
are also giving it a chance to be exposed to more bacteria and other undesir-
able micoorganisms, which are always present in the atmosphere.  The more you 
'play' with your brew, the greater the chances for contamination.

hey kids rack and roll... rack on!	;^)

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Date: Mon, 6 Feb 89 16:40:17 EDT
From: aem at miavax.ir.miami.edu (a.e.mossberg)
Subject: Mexican Beers (fwd)
Full-Name: 

I received the following from the MEXICO-L mailing list on bitnet.

Forwarded message:

->Date:         Mon, 6 Feb 89 12:02:00 EDT
->Reply-To: "Knowing Mexico: people, places, culture." <MEXICO-L%TECMTYVM.BITNET at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
->Sender: "Knowing Mexico: people, places, culture." <MEXICO-L%TECMTYVM.BITNET at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
->From: "Marco A. Pinones I." <BL190827%TECMTYVM.BITNET at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
->Subject:      Mexican Beers
->To: andrew mossberg <aem at MIAVAX.IR.MIAMI.EDU>
->
->
->                Mexico - Inheritor Of The Brewer Industry.
->
->In Latin America as well as in the world there are great breweries, and one
->of them is Mexico, whom is well known, as a factory of the best quality in
->exportation.
->Mexico inheritor of the brewery, with the biggest tradition in the world.
->Beer delicious refreshing frothy drink with a difficult history.
->Some year ago, according to National Geographic Magazine, each one of the
->nations of Latin America, are sure, about their own country has the best beer
->in the market, but there is only one brewery wich varierity and quality, is
->famous.
->True of false, our country is the only one who competes internationally.
->We must notice, we have one of the oldest and traditional beers, 'Bohemia',
->made at Cerveceria Cuahutemoc, wich has a good taste, strong hop and also a
->good density, as well as alcohol content.
->On the other hand, national Brewery pioneers were forced to overcoming
->difficulties, competition of the imported breweries, wich were in the market
->since centuries before, with tradition and a good quality, that reason was
->the responsible for not so good opinions in the years of 1890, when in this
->City of Monterrey, N. L., was born the first brewery wich today is a firm of
->international standing.
->Cerveceria Cuahutemoc, in its first year produced 10,000 draught beers,
->(barrels) and 5,000 bottles per day.
->More than 100 years ago Monterrey's brewery generation is one of the biggest
->and innovative industry in the last years, its goal has been to give a high
->quality product, so, now Mexico, is the inheritor of this international and
->traditional beer.
->There are great number of prizes won in recently years. Speak about Cerveceria
->Cuahutemoc is to speak about promoting and leader industries.
->>From 1929 to 1969, were born several breweries with a total of 8 plants located
->in Nogales, Veracruz, Guadalajara, Culiacan, Tecate, Toluca, Ciudad Juarez and
->Monterrey.
->It is tought that in 1910, the quality of our beer was noticed internationally.
->In 1945, 249,440 hectoliters of beer were exported, and 'Carta Blanca' was
->known in United States and Canada, besides other beers began to be distributed;
->Brisa, Bohemia, Tecate, are faithfull testimony of Mexico's beer quality.
->Lately Cerveceria Cuahutemoc, place some of its brands in Europe, South America
->African countries and Japan.
->'Bohemia' is a very acceptable to good drinkers and is found in exclusively
->places, people who know everything about beer, reconized Bohemia as one of the
->best, is light and frothy.
->The most popular of this brewery is 'Carta Blanca', itself is a century of
->history and tradition, others well known brands are, Tecate, wich is in
->preference of young people, and this popularity began when marketing suggested
->to drink it with lemon and salt.
->
->(Taken from the 'Telex' magazine).
->

aem
--
a.e.mossberg aem at mthvax.miami.edu MIAVAX::AEM (Span) aem at umiami.BITNET (soon)
If I loved a woman, the more I loved her, the more I wanted to hurt her.
								- Diego Rivera

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Date: Mon, 6 Feb 89 15:08:52 MST
From: hpfcla!hpcea!hplabs!rutgers!boulder.colorado.edu!akelei!crispy!dwight (Dwight Melcher)
Subject: What is your extract efficiency?
Full-Name: 

Hi everybody,

I have a question for those who do all-grain brewing:

What is your typical extract efficiency?

"Why do I ask?" you say to yourself.  Well, I've been all-grain brewing
for some time now with great success.  I find the extra effort worth
the improvements in the brew (not to mention the extra control over the
final product.)  There is only one area that I'm still not sure
about.  It seems that my extract efficiency is always lower than most
books say it should be.  Before I go any further, here is my
understanding of "extract efficiency".

	Extract efficiency is the weight of sugar you actually extract
	from a known weight of grain divided by the theoretical maximum
	weight of sugar possible to extract from the grain.

To clarify, say you have some Klages pale malt.  One can look in a
brewing book to find the laboratory maximum extract yield per pound of
grain of various types.  Pale malt, for example, can yield 65-70% (that
is, 1# of grain can give you .65-.7# of sugar).  Now, this is the
amount of sugar you would expect to get if your mashing/sparging etc. is 100%
efficient.  So, one way to calculate extract efficiency is:

S = pounds of sugar you end up with in your primary fermenter

G = sum(pounds_of_grain[i] * lab_max_yield_const[i])

efficiency = S / G

Getting S is as simple as knowing the SG and volume of your wort before
you pitch.  I know Noonan's book has a table listing the #/gal sugar
for a variety specific gravities.  The CRC handbook of Chem. and Phys.
does too.  There are a number of other ways to calculate extract
efficiency, involving division of SG's (make sure all the volumes are
the same!) but for brevity, I won't go into them.

So, the crux of the question is this:  most books seem to imply that
ones extract efficiency should be in the 80-90% range, while my extract
efficiency is always around 70%.

Here are some general areas that probably affect ones extract efficiency
and my humble observations about my techniques:

	* Grain Grinding - I use a Corona mill.  Perhaps I'm not grinding the
		grains finely enough?  From what I've seen of other grists, my grind
		appears OK.

	* Mashing: I always get a negative iodine test within 15-30 minutes of
		reaching saccharification temperatures, so I'm confident conversion 
		is complete before I sparge.

	* Sparging: I suspect this may have the greatest influence on the final
		extract efficiency.  My sparging technique follows Noonan's
		book reasonably closely, and my lauter-tun is a "zapap" style
		(that is, two 5 gallon buckets, one inside the other).
		Any hints or tips in this area would be appreciated.

	* Boiling, etc. : the usual. The stuff one does after sparging
		doesn't have much impact on extract efficiency anyway.

So, if everybody else is getting extract efficiencies in the 70% range,
I'll just relax and assume these other sources are a little off.
Otherwise, I'd be interested in hearing your techniques that lead to
a higher extract efficiency.

Dwight Melcher
ncar!boulder!akelei!dwight

ps.  Now, don't get the idea I'm a white-knuckle homebrewer or anything.
I'm quite relaxed about brewing, so suggestions to the effect "add more
grain to compensate", or "boil down to bring the gravity up", or "relax",
are less interesting than a discussion of the topic :-).

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Date: Mon, 6 Feb 89 19:45:00 EST
From: rogerl at Think.COM
Subject: Ginger Beer

   From: Dr. T. Andrews <tanner at ki4pv>
   Subject: Re: A New Brew...
>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.

This sounds most interesting!!  What is your recipe.  I've been looking
for one for some time now.  Do you have others?  Do you know of a
source for additional recipes?

You say you use bread yeast.  This might be the cause of the exploding
bottle problem.  It might be that this strain of yeast gives off more
CO2 than champagne yeast causing the 12oz. time bomb problem.  About 4
weeks ago I bottles a batch of Root Beer, alas also a kit, but I used
champagne yeast and have not had a problem yet.(knock on wood) I also
store all of the conditioning "beverages" down cellah.  Where the
tempurature this time of year doesn't get above 55'F.

RDWHAH!
Roger Locniskar

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Date: Mon, 6 Feb 89 18:50:56 PST
From: unet!mccrae!jimmc at Sun.COM (Jim McCrae)
Subject: Lager fermentation

I'm venturing into the world of lagering after a string
of successes in the top-fermenting world. "Joy Of ..." is
my only book, and Mr. P. really doesn't get into the details
of lagering, so I'm seeking some guidance..

At the moment I have what promises to be an excellent Pilsener
in the 2nd day of primary fermentation. Yesterday I started the
yeast at about 70F. It took off in a few hours. I pitched it when
the wort had dropped to below 60F and left it at room temperature
overnight. It got VERY cold last night; the dog water dish outside
the door had a healthy 1/4" of ice on it this morning, and that
was about 5 feet away from the fermenter. I would guess the wort
dropped to the 40F's; there was some residual heat in the basement
where it was kept. This morning I put the primary in the basement
fridge, set to ~45F. So far I have seen no activity in the primary,
but I'm assuming it's too early given the cold temps I've kept it at.

Is the primary supposed to be kept at lagering temperatures right
from the start like I've done? Or does the yeast need a few days
at room temp to get started in the wort? Note that the starter batch,
about a cup, was doing great when I put it in the wort. How long should
the brew sit in secondary? All in the fridge or some at room temp?

Can anyone give me some pointers on timing and temperature? I don't
think I would enjoy a malt daiquiri all that much.

				Jim McCrae -> jimmc at unet.PacBell.COM

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