---

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


Contents:
  Tropical breweries (TSAMSEL)
  33 quart brewpots in Mass (card)
  Natural conditions for enzymes (flowers)
  Abuse (flowers)
  iodine test (Don McDaniel)
  Rotten-egg aroma (Thomas Conner)
  Re: Homebrew Digest #713 (August 30, 1991) (TPH)
  Baltic Beer? (Tim Anderson)
  Re: HBD #713, Straight dope on mashing pot (larryba)
  Simple yeast recycling (Chad Epifanio)
  Yeast reuse secrets (larryba)
  Caps for pop bottles. ("DRCV06::GRAHAM")
  re: 2nd generation yeast & heresies (Greg Wageman)
  sterilization (Bryan Gros)
  Summary of replies re: Stout Bombs (Dances with Workstations)
  What our club does (fwd) (Ken Buswell)
  Screwy Tops, Fruity Beers. (FATHER BARLEYWINE)
  Yeast Sprinkling (Martin A. Lodahl)
  brewsheet? (Nick Zentena)
  Re: Yeast Caking, Aluminum, and "Oh no not AGAIN!" (Peter Glen Berger)
  Mashing Wheat (Martin A. Lodahl)
  Mashing Pot (any way you want to take it) (Martin A. Lodahl)
  The latest rumor: new micro in Kingston, NY (Stephen Russell)
  Re: Homebrew Digest #711 (August 28, 1991) (MS3Y)


Send submissions to homebrew at hpfcmi.fc.hp.com
Send requests to homebrew-request@ hpfcmi.fc.hp.com
[Please do not send me requests for back issues!]
Archives are available from netlib at mthvax.cs.miami.edu


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

Date:    Fri, 30 Aug 1991 6:52:59 -0400 (EDT)
From: TSAMSEL at ISDRES.ER.USGS.GOV
Subject: Tropical breweries

  OK, I know that temperature is important during fermentation. Part of my
question was HOW DO THEY BREW GOOD BEER IN THE TROPICS? I know they don't
AC the whole plant, for I've been to several breweries in Mexico, Belize and
Honduras. I also like "fresh" SINGHA. Is it water? (;-{)
    Ted

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Date: Fri, 30 Aug 91 08:57:47 EDT 
From: card at apollo.hp.com
Subject: 33 quart brewpots in Mass


  After looking "everywhere" for a 33 quart ceramic on steel brewpot, I finally 
  decided yesterday to go mail-order and ordered it Great Fermentations for 32.95 
  plus ~ 7.00 postage/handling.

  Well, while out shopping with my wife last evening at KITCHENS ETCETERA, 
  they had the very same pot (with a canning insert) for $34.95!

  *%^*# at &^

  Oh well, that's $5 for the economy. 
 
  /Mal Card 

   


   p.s.

   BTW, I wasn't that impressed with the handles. As I picked it up and 
   exerted a little pressure the handles seemed to move a bit, and you 
   could hear the ceramic crunching. 

   Moving 5 1/2 gallons of boiling wort from my stovetop to the sink for 
   cooling might spell D-I-S-A-S-T-E-R.

   Any experiences out there? 
  
  

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Date: Fri, 30 Aug 1991 09:21:16 -0600
From: flowers at csrd.uiuc.edu
Subject: Natural conditions for enzymes

>In fact, we should be grateful that some deviation is necessary. For if the 
>conditions required for making beer were too "natural", then all the grains 
>would be turning themselves into beer in the fields, and then where would we 
>be??? :-)

Heaven?

 -cf


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Date: Fri, 30 Aug 1991 09:31:25 -0600
From: flowers at csrd.uiuc.edu
Subject: Abuse

>	Ah, another diatribe smoking out of the keyboard!  Please, flame me!
>I thrive on abuse.
>
>					Father Barleywine

Your mother was a stout. :-):-)

 -Craig Flowers (flowers at csrd.uiuc.edu)


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Date: Fri, 30 Aug 91 09:16:07 -0600
From: dinsdale at chtm.eece.unm.edu (Don McDaniel)
Subject: iodine test

I've been mashing for a while now and have got the process
down from eight to six hours.  Naturally, I'm looking for
ways to further streamline the process.  Right now, the
largest chunk of time involved is in the actual starch
conversion.  I use Miller as my primary homebrewing refer-
ence.  As you may know, he doesn't believe in iodine tests
for starch conversion.  Also, he often calls for two hour
starch conversion rests.

I think Miller's two hours is often out of line.  I've had
one brew which fermented down to an OG of 1.005 and another
that reached 1.002!  There's a dry beer for you (but this one
has flavor!).  This suggests to me that I've overconverted the
starch and may be able to get by with a shorter starch conversion
rest.  But I don't know how to conduct such a test.

Would someone please instruct me on the mechanics of performing
such a test and how to interpret the results?  Also any discussion
of the limitations of the test wuold be appreciated.  

Don McDaniel


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Date: Fri, 30 Aug 91 09:20:23 EDT
From: Thomas Conner <SYSTCT%GSU.EDU at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Subject: Rotten-egg aroma


 I'm using liquid yeast for the first time (Wyeast Bohemian 2124) to make
 Rocky Raccoon Lager. Thirty-six hours after pitching, an almost frantic
 glug rate was achieved, but unfortunately, it was accompanied by a sweet,
 rotten-egg smell. Papazian says this is not unusual and that it can be
 avoided by changing yeast, but he says nothing about the impact on the
 current batch. Is this merely a passing phase? Will the brew be drinkable,
 or should it be reserved for slug bait?

 Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 Tom Conner


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Date:    Fri, 30 Aug 91 11:59 EDT
From: TPH at PSUVM.PSU.EDU
Subject: Re: Homebrew Digest #713 (August 30, 1991)

Harry,
Thanks a million for the birthday greeting.  What a wonderful surprise.
What is happening with the chair????  How are you?  I am off to see
my father in Florida and will be back next week.  Hi to Marianna.
Cheers,
       Tom

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Date: Fri, 30 Aug 91 09:20:25 PDT
From: tima at apd.MENTORG.COM (Tim Anderson)
Subject: Baltic Beer?

Al writes:

> P.S. I'd like to propose that the Homebrew Digest recognize the Baltic
> states as independent republics.

Now hold on just a minute here.  Freedom, independence, security and dignity
are fine, but what about the things that really matter?  Before we go jumping on
any political bandwagons, we need answers to a few questions.  
To wit:

1.  I have never tasted Lithuanian, Latvian or Estonian beer.  How good is it?
    What styles do they produce?
2.  Was their beer better before Soviet annexation, or has it improved?
3.  Do their legislatures recognize the sanctity of Home Brewing?
4.  Are any of their leaders actual Home Brewers (or Brewers of any sort)?
5.  Have they endorsed the proposal that Brewing become an Olympic event (as
    a replacement for synchronized turtle roping)?

The pro-wine American press has deliberately withheld this information.  Until
we get answers, I say we withhold our endorsement.


tim

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Date: Fri Aug 30 09:45:25 1991
From: microsoft!larryba at cs.washington.edu
Subject: Re: HBD #713, Straight dope on mashing pot

|>From: Darren Evans-Young <DARREN at UA1VM.UA.EDU>
|
|Has anyone tried mashing pot?  ...just kidding...
|Seriously, what size pot is needed to mash, say, 10 lbs of grain?
|I already have a 10 gal SS pot to boil in.  Is a 5 gal SS pot large enough
|for mashing a maximum of 10 lbs of grain?

I got a 20qt SS pot for holding sparge water, but started mashing in it.
It seems to hold 8lb of grain doing a papazian style step mash.  It might get
a little tight with 10-12lb of grain.  However, it turns out to be pretty
easy to step mash Miller style (stir crazy, while applying heat in 2 minute
increments, etc) - and it should easily hold 10-12 lb of grain.


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Date: Fri, 30 Aug 91 10:10:20 PDT
From: chad at mpl.UCSD.EDU (Chad Epifanio)
Subject: Simple yeast recycling

Just to throw my humble opinion onto the growing pile:

Due to the expense of liquid yeast and the difficiency of my salary,
I am forced to reuse the previous yeast several times.  My first step
is to prepare several steril wort solutions for use in making starters
for pitching.  I take about 1.5 cups of dried malt extract, boil in
about 2.5 pints of plain filtered tap water for about 45 min to an
hour, with 0.25oz bitter hops(I used Bullions).  Pour the boiling hot
mixture through a strainer into sanitized 12oz beer bottles.  It makes
about 5 full bottles.  If you fill it all the way to the top and cap
immediatly, it will leave a 1.5in vacuum gap when it cools down.  Make
sure those bottles are preheated and are not on a cold countertop, or
the sudden thermal gradient will crack them.  Store the cooled bottles
in the fridge until you need them.  They shouldn't go bad if you fill
them while the wort is still boiling hot.

To use, I crack open a steril wort bottle and pour it into a sanitized
wine bottle, fitted with a fermentation lock.  Add whatever yeast you
like.  I use this for Wyeast packets to increase the pitching volume.
Within a day or two, it should be revin' up and ready to go.  The last
batch of beer I made began bubbling within hour, and was *violently*
active within four.  Fermentation was completed in two days.

I've also used a Yeast Bank in conjuction with the starter.  I put a 
bit of the steril wort into a test tube, and added a bit of the yeast
to it.  It will ferment for a couple of days, and flocculate to the 
bottom.  Pour off the top beer, add a bit of the included solution
(glycerine?), shake to coat the yeast, and freeze.  Bingo!  You have
yeast for your next starter without having to worry about slurries
or trub.  Notice that the yeast bank provides yeast for the starter, 
which provides more yeast for the yeast bank...

When I brew within a few days of the last batch, I just grab a cup of
slurry from the previous batch and store it in the fridge.  When this
much yeast is added to the wort, I usually get violent ferments
starting in an hour or two.

The whole point of this confession is that I am far too lazy to
prepare a fresh starter for each batch.  The prepared steril wort
really makes thing easier.

Chad
chad at mpl.ucsd.edu

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Date: Fri Aug 30 11:03:03 1991
From: larryba at ingate.microsoft.COM
Subject: Yeast reuse secrets

This is really annoying: Just how do I address a letter directly to
Father Barleywine?  The following and several permutations were all
bounced back.
|
| To: uunet!rransom at bchm1.aclcb.prudue.edu
| Subject: Yeast reuse secrets
|
| Mr BarleyWine:
|
| You alluded to phases of yeast growth.  Can you fill me in with some
| more details?  Is there a good reference?
|
| I collect the yeast portion of my primary cake.  Ususally I can keep
| the trub to a reasonable minimum by letting things settle naturally,
| leave in a pint of wort after racking and swirling to stir up the top
| layer of yeast.  This doesn't always work since sometimes I rack too
| soon and things haven't settled in nice layers.  When this works,
| however, I get a fat looking tan gloop that stores in the refer (35f)
| under a little wort (1:1) for a couple of weeks and almost explodes
| when dumped into the fresh batch o beer.  It is most satisfying to be
| at high krausen in 4 hours and be fermented out in 2-5 days (ale vs
| lager).
|
| Does this sound reasonable? Sometimes it takes 6-8 weeks till the
| next batch - yeast stored under these circumstances don't seem to
| survive as well. Would storing under a couple o quarts of wort be
| better?  Would it be better to store under fresh unfermented wort -
| or is it better to replace the old wort with fresh stuff a couple of
| days prior to the brew to re-activate?
|
| I want to do a series of lagers.  I have a good secondary yeast cake
| in a 5 gal carboy, I am thinking of transfering it to my 7.5 gal one
| for the rest of the lagers and pitch ala your suggestion.  One
| question: do you chill, let settle and rack off the trub before
| dumping the new wort onto your  yeast cake to avoid trub accumulation?
|
| Using your scheme, one would pretty  much let the beer sit &
| condition/lager until ready to brew the next batch, regardless of how
| long the ferment took.
|
| Right?
|
| Thanks


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Date: 30 Aug 91 14:36:00 EDT
From: "DRCV06::GRAHAM" <graham%drcv06.decnet at drcvax.af.mil>
Subject: Caps for pop bottles.

Alright already.  I'm going to try to bottle some homebrew and some 
homemade soda in plastic pop bottles.  I have a small collection of one and 
two liter bottles.  What I need is caps.  Most of those bottles came with 
the aluminum caps and they don't hold pressure so well as the plastic ones. 
 I have patiently clipped the rings left after unscrewing the cap for the 
first time from all the bottles.  Now, where can I get some replacement 
caps.  Does it take a special machine to install new twist off and leave a 
little ring caps, or do they just screw on and then break when screwed off.

Even the plastic caps won't last very long, and I have a raft of 16 ounce 
plastic bottles I'm intending on using for transportation of homebrew.  
Caps!  I need caps!  I don't want my "MTV," I wnt my CAPS.

Thanks to any or all who  respond.

Dan Graham, WA6CNN
Beer made with the Derry air.



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Date: Fri, 30 Aug 91 11:46:52 PDT
From: greg at cemax.com (Greg Wageman)
Subject: re: 2nd generation yeast & heresies

dbreiden at mentor.cc.purdue.edu writes:

>2.   Our local heretic posed the question of why the often benevolent (and
>equally often malevolent) Mother Nature would design a natural system that
>only occurs at unnatural temperatures.  I suspect that our extracting sugars
>from the barley is UNnatural.  That is, our Mother Earth intended for
>little baby plants to get the goodies inside the barley -- not a bunch
>of beer swilling humans.  Thankfully, She is looking the other way while
>we work our own version of alchemy.

Ah, but the enzymatic conversion of starches to sugars DOES occur at
"natural" temperatures-- just a heck of a lot more slowly.  As you say,
Mother Nature's reason for the reactions in the first place is to
nurture that little baby barley plant.  The plant only needs the sugars
a little at a time, over a period of days or weeks.

We homebrewers, on the other hand, are an impatient lot.  We want it
all converted right now, not over the time period it takes the barley
sprout to grow leaves large enough for photosynthesis to support
it.  What we're doing with those "unnatural" temperatures is simply
speeding up the natural process.

	-Greg (cemax!greg at sj.ate.slb.com)

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Date: Fri, 30 Aug 91 11:49:22 PDT
From: bgros at sensitivity.berkeley.edu (Bryan Gros)
Subject: sterilization

My homebrew supplier gave me a bottle of Chlorinated Trisodium Phosphate.
It is labelled a bacteriacide.  Is this stuff the best thing, or should
i used something else (Camden tablets).  
Also, how do you use it?  so far i've just been rinsing everything
off with it and then rinsing good in cold tap water.  Should I be soaking
things for a long time?  do i need to rinse?
I have two brews and no problems so far.

                                          - Bryan

p.s.  thanks for the replys on the wheat mash.

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Date: Fri, 30 Aug 91 17:18:05 -0400
From: buchman at marva2.ENET.DEC.COM (Dances with Workstations)
Subject: Summary of replies re: Stout Bombs

Hi,
	Thanks to the many responses on my overcarbonating stout.
If you remember, I had a version of Toad Spit Stout (called Empirical
Stout) whose ending gravity seemed high (1.020). Three days after bottling,
a bottle that I opened was a mild gusher, so I yelled for help, lest I end
up brewing a small arsenal of stout bombs.
	I got about five or six responses--thanks! Here's a summary:

	a) Several folks said not to worry about it; that a final gravity of
1.020 is not too high for a stout; and that ales frequently finish carbon-
ating in just a few days, particularly when the weather has been warm.
	b) Most added that there is no problem in taking a specific
gravity from the bottled beer as long as bubbles are not forming on the
large, moving part of the hydrometer; doesn't matter if there are bubbles
around the scale. Chip Hitchcock recommended first pouring the beer straight
into a glass to kick up a big head, then letting the head subside to get
rid of some of the carbonation.
	Also, there should be no need to compensate for the priming
sugar in taking the gravity because it should be consumed by the yeast
within three days. I did take a gravity reading of the stout on day 10
from a bottle which gushed when opened; it was still 1.020, so there were
probably no excess fermentables being eaten by reawakened yeast, as I feared.
	c) Also, most advocated cooling the beer if I was worried about
bottle bombs, since cool liquid can hold more dissolved CO2 than warm,
and so be under less pressure.
	d) A good way to check for an impending detonation is to check for
everted bottlecaps. Many cappers put a circular dimple in the bottlecap;
an overpressurized bottle will tend to push that out. My capper puts the
dimple in for most bottles but not all of them, e.g., NOT for Bud Dry
longneck bottles; those which had it were not everted.

	e) Chuck Coronella recommended opening a bottle every few days
to check for overcarbonation; if that is a problem, he has used this
remedy with success:

> . . . do this-  get a bottle
> opener and your bottle capper.  One at a time, open each bottle slightly,
> until the level of the foam reaches the cap.  At this point, quickly clamp
> that cap down, preventing any beer from leaving the bottle. 

He suggested that the trouble and wait will pay off:
 
> . . . I made
> a batch of Cushlomachree (?) stout from CJoHB about 18 months ago, and
> ooooooh, it is so smooootthh now.  As I recall, (don't have my notes here),
> this beer had a small overcarbonation problem about two months after
> bottling. 

Florian had one dismaying, but very good, piece of advice:
 
> You should get rid of all your Fischer bottles.  In all my years of
> brewing, I have only had two bottles break.  Both were Fischer and
> in that batch, none of the others broke.  The Fischer bottles are
> simply too thin and are not meant to be re-used.  Use Grolsch bottles
> if you are lucky enough to get them, or order the Grolsch type
> bottles out of Canada.

Another source of resealable bottles are the more expensive Belgian ales,
which often come in extra-thick ceramic bottles with Grolsch-style caps.
A German beer which is simply called "Pils" also comes in such a bottle;
but all of these are too expensive to buy more than very occassionally.
I've accumulated about a case of the 22-oz Fischer bottles, and it would
be a wrench to give them up. Perhaps they can be safely used for beers
destined for the refrigerator, with monitoring.

Then again, Florian is a cautious fellow:

> ... If it were my beer, I would put the bottles inside
> of heavy plastic garbage bags, put the bags into boxes, and leave
> them alone for about three months.  After that, take the whole box,
> put it into the fridge, and when it's cold, remove the bottles
> carefully, using goggles, and open them.  If the beer is good,
> drink it with careless abandon.  If it gushes, pitch it out and
> start over.
> 
> And don't forget to relax.

I monitored by opening a bottle every two days; most of them foamed up at
least to the top of the bottle upon opening, and some overflowed.
Here's what I finally did on day 10:
	- Put the batch (except for one "control" six-pack) into the
refrigerator overnight.
	- Carefully popped and resealed the tops of all the Fischer bottles.
	- Opened all the other bottles and resealed with new caps. I didn't
want to trust that the original caps would still seal well after being
removed (even carefully) with a bottle opener. None of the cold bottles
showed any tendancy to gush.
	- Warmed gradually back to cellar temperature.
	- Put into cardboard boxes in the back of the basement closet;
to be opened in November.

By cooling first, I hoped to prevent gushers/explosions, and also
to force some carbonation back into solution; with luck this
batch will therefore be neither over- or under-carbonated.

Thanks again for everyone's suggestions.
			Jim Buchman
			buchman at marva1.enet.dec.com

p.s. -- I'm still avidly seeking the Pumpkin Ale recipe from this
summer's Zymurgy, or an equivalent recipe.

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Date: Fri, 30 Aug 91 15:53:09 PDT
From: Ken Buswell <kenb at hpsmeng1.rose.hp.com>
Subject: What our club does (fwd)
Full-Name: Ken Buswell

  
 Bill,
   As president of the Sacramento CA. area homebrew club, The Gold Country
 Brewers ASSN. I can tell you what our club has done over the past year.
 
 Feb.   Guest speaker; Marry Merinda from UC Davis yeast lab
 Mar.   Guest speaker; Jean Xavier Guinard, author of Lambic
 Apr.   Celebrewtion;  Annual social event/club party
 May.   Guest speaker; Dr. Larry Lapsley and a member of the CHP
        talked about alcohol effect on the body and drinking and driving.
        (Some of you may remember Martin Lodahl's commented about this meeting)
 Jun.   Organized tasting of commercial IPA's.
 Jul.   Speaker; Vern Wolf, club member who has been very successful in
        National comp.
 Aug.   Guest speaker was to be Karl Eaden, brew master at the Sudwerks
        in Davis. However Karl canceled at the last min. So we did a meeting
        on judging. Speaker was Brook Ostrom, West Coast AHA competition
        organizer.
 Sept.  Scheduled topic; "Cooking with Beer"
 Oct.   Scheduled topic; "Fest Beer" (Okterber fest ect.)
 Nov.   To be determined
 Dec.   Annual club Christmas party
 
    I can offer some advice on how to prevent your meetings from turning into a
    "home  brew free for all" :
      1. Have a speaker or topic planed in advance of each meeting.
      2. Publish a club news letter.
      3. Do not allow drinking before or during the speaker's presentation.
         Its real tuff to keep control of the meeting when everyone is "relaxed
         and having a homebrew".
      4. Have a mix of meetings through out the year; ie. some technical, some
         purely social.
      5. Have a fixed schedule for the meeting dates. For the G.C.B.A.
         its the second Tuesday of every month.
      6. Elect responsible club officers.
      7. Ask that everyone who attends the meeting bring some homebrew or
         a commercial beer to share.
      8. Try to boost membership to a "critical mass" by advertising at the
         local homebrew store, articles about the club in newspaper, announce
         club in Zymurgy.
 
      Hope this is of some help.
                               Best regards
                               Ken Buswell
 
    


 


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Date: Fri, 30 Aug 1991 18:57:56 EDT
From: FATHER BARLEYWINE <rransom at bchm1.aclcb.purdue.edu>
Subject: Screwy Tops, Fruity Beers.


Relax!  This posting has nothing to do with yeast cakes or magic...

	As a reply to the screw-top issue, I've been recapping screw-top 
bottles for quite some time.  I like rebottling in beer bottles with pretty
labels (like Boulder Beer, even though the beer that comes out of the bottles
[at least in Indiana] is pretty average), and several of these pretty bottles
have those nasty threaded tops.  I've generally been of the snobbish 'if it's
in a screw-top bottle, it's rubbish' philosophy (similar to the wine bottle
without a cork in the top), but Sierra Nevada does it, so it can't be all bad.
I find that capping the bottles is more difficult, but I have no trouble with
the seal and if you don't care about your hands (or use a towel) you can 
actually twist them off.  Admittedly, I have an old, cast iron monster of a 
capper, which can crush glass bottles if you torque it enough, but I just
blithely capped them, and never had any problems.
	Adding fruit to beer yielded some mixed results in my brewery, since
beautiful, juicy, fragrant fruits and berries when pastuerized and fermented
in the presence of malt extract and hops can change character to the point
of disaster.  Peaches, one of my favorites, are particularly different after
yeast gets through mucking with them.  I
(damn, inadvertant carriage return) ended up with 5 gallons of bitter, nasty
brew.  I have had triumphant success using fruit, fruit extracts (blended and
strained fruit), and fruit juices added as described in the last HBD...added
in the secondary (or in my case the primary) just before or with bottling.
Less fermentation occurs in the presence of the fruit, and more aroma is 
retained.  I finally managed a tasty and beautifully aromatic peach pale ale
using mushed peaches on an extremely starting gravity ale (> 1.090) and letting
them sit in mutual harmony for about 6 hours before racking and bottling.  I
prudently primed with just a touch of honey (1/2 cup) and the resulting mead-
like brew was very pungent and actually tasted like peaches.  I would also 
recommend trying a Belgian peach (Peche) beer by (I believe) Lindemann's.  They
use a similar process (but a decidedly different beer) and the taste of the
final product is what I continually seek in my own fruit beers.  Good luck
with it, and keep trying.  I think of myself as a fairly competent brewer, but
it took me many brews to get what I could drink, much less a really superior
beer (and I'm still working on a honey ale).

				This is probably an old old joke, but a 
				German friend of mine drank a Bud light and
				remarked that 'this beer is so light that
				the head should be on the bottom'.

					Father B.



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Date: Fri, 30 Aug 91 13:13:46 PDT
From: Martin A. Lodahl <pbmoss!malodah at PacBell.COM>
Subject: Yeast Sprinkling

In HOMEBREW Digest #713, such worthies as C. R. Saikley and Jay
Hersh seem baffled by Conn Copas' terminology:


Conn Copas writes :

>It's bemusing to
>read posts in which people describe how they have conscientiously chilled
>the wort, then pitched the yeast straight in on top !

And CR retorts:

>OK, I'll bite. 
>What's unusual about chilling wort and putting yeast on top??

So, to move the discussion from obscure to impenetrable, I'll
attempt a clarification.  What I think Conn was saying is that we'll
often take great care in producing our wort, only to entrust it to
dry yeast which we haven't so much as rehydrated.  We've often read
(here and elsewhere) about the problems associated with using dry
yeast (chiefly contamination, and strain selection emphasizing yeast
survival rather than brewing characteristics) at all, but since the
massive swing to liquid cultures a couple of years ago, we've almost
forgotten about gently reviving dry yeast in warm water.  Pitching
the dry granules upon the wort shocks the yeast, subjecting the 
cells to osmotic stress, and usually producing off-flavors, negating
altogether all that care ...

= Martin A. Lodahl   			Pacific*Bell Systems Analyst =
= malodah at pbmoss.Pacbell.COM       Sacramento, CA       916.972.4821 =
= If it's good for ancient Druids, runnin' nekkid through the wuids, =
= Drinkin' strange fermented fluids, it's good enough for me!  8-)   =


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Date: 30 Aug 91 (18:37)
From: Nick Zentena <canrem!nick.zentena at uunet.UU.NET>
Subject: brewsheet?



    Hi,
       I just picked up the Lotus 1-2-3 copy of Darryl
       Richman's Brewer's Worksheet from the archives. I had
       hoped to converted it to PC/Excel. Well after
       spending a little time under Excel with the 1-2-3
       version of the spreadsheet I've decided it would be
       easier to start with the orginal Excel version.

       So if anybody has a copy of the orginal spreadsheet
       either in PC/Excel or Mac/Excel I would greatly
       appreciate a copy.

                  Thanks
                  Nick

Zentena,Nick
- ---
 ~ DeLuxe}/386 1.12 #254sa ~ It ain't beer if you can't taste it
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Date: Sat, 31 Aug 1991 06:23:43 -0400 (EDT)
From: Peter Glen Berger <pb1p+ at andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: Yeast Caking, Aluminum, and "Oh no not AGAIN!"


FATHER BARLEYWINE <rransom at bchm1.aclcb.purdue.edu> writes:
> This one is for all of you who groan every time you see a Father B. posting...
> 
>         4)  Please don't sanitize everything (anything!).  Keep your equipment
>                 clean, free of deposits, and above all dry in storage.  I know
>                 you don't want to hear it from me again, but you really don't
>                 need to bleach/boil/Campden/irradiate items used in typical
>                 brewing.  Culturing yeast is an entirely different ball game.

This is absolutely wrong.  For proof, try my last brew, "Sour beer
shuffle".  Maybe bacteria just don't like your home.

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pete Berger		       ||  ARPA:     peterb at cs.cmu.edu
Professional Student	       ||            Pete.Berger at andrew.cmu.edu
Univ. Pittsburgh School of Law ||  BITNET:   R746PB1P at CMCCVB
Attend this school, not CMU    ||  UUCP: ...!harvard!andrew.cmu.edu!pb1p
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Goldilocks is about property rights.  Little Red Riding Hood is a tale
 of seduction, rape, murder, and cannibalism."  -Bernard J. Hibbits
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------



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Date: Sat, 31 Aug 91 14:46:22 PDT
From: Martin A. Lodahl <pbmoss!malodah at PacBell.COM>
Subject: Mashing Wheat

In HOMEBREW Digest #712, Bryan Gros was preparing to try wheat beer 
and all-grain brewing, simultaneously (points for courage!):

>After two successful extract brews, i'd like to make a wheat beer.
>due to cost considerations, i would like this to be my first all-
>grain brew, but from reading, it seems that an 8-gal pot is needed
>to hold everything.  also a wort chiller which i don't have.  

Well, you could survive without the wort chiller, but you will need
a kettle large enough to hold all the first runnings, sparge, and
froth formed during the boil.  For a 5-gallon batch, 8 gallons seems
about the minimum.  And the wort chiller really is a very good idea,
as a rapid chill reduces the likelihood of infection, produces the
"cold break" that will remove compounds from the wort that you
really don't want to keep, and will greatly reduce the production of
dimethyl sulfide (DMS), a large-scale producer of off flavors.

>so maybe i'll just mash the wheat malt use add pale extract to
>the wort.  i haven't sat down and worked out the details yet, but 
>this may give me an introduction to mashing and save money.  

This is known as a "partial mash", and is a very good idea.  Bryan,
I would suggest postponing your first all-grain batch until you have
done several partial mashes and are comfortable with the procedure.

>Are there any special considerations i have missed?  any suggestions?

Yes.  Mashing the wheat malt by itself is a waste of time and grain.

>i just realized that the enzymes supplied by the barley would be
>needed during the wheat mash, right?

Right.

>	...  so i would have to add the
>extract at the beginning of the mash.  how would this affect the
>amount of water needed during the mash?

Wait!  Most malt extracts are completely devoid of diastatic
enzymes, so you can add all you want and it won't help the mash
convert one bit.  What you need is grain.  Here, in general, is what
you'll want to do:

1.  Heat up 4 quarts of water to 135F.  When it's there, add 1 pound
of pale malted barley (or pale lager malt) and 2 pounds of wheat
malt.  Stir, stir, stir (with the heat off) until all the grain is
thoroughly wet.  A couple minutes at least.

2.  Check the pH.  It should be somewhere in the ballpark of 5.3 or
so.  Adjust downward by adding gypsum or upward by adding calcium
carbonate.  On no account add more than 2 tsp of either;  if the pH
is out of bounds, you're better off living with it than adding too
much of the minerals.

3.  Bring the temperature up to the range of 124-121F, stirring all
the time, and keep it there 20 minutes (protein rest).  It's okay of
it fluctuates, as long as it stays in the range.  You probably won't
need to boost it back up more than once.

4.  Raise the temperature to the 150-141F range, stirring as before.
Keep it in that range at least 60 minutes; with this much wheat, 90
may be better.  Unless you have an insulated box to keep your kettle
in, recheck the temperature at least every 15 minutes.

5.  While you're at a rest, start 2.5 gallons of water heating to
168F.  Adjust the pH to 5.7.  You'll need to improvise some sort of
lauter tun here -- I used to use a large colander lined with
cheesecloth, others have used spaghetti cookers.  If your boiling
kettle isn't in use either as a mash kettle or heating the sparge
water, you can sparge directly into it.  Otherwise, you'll need a
clean receptacle large enough to hold all the liquid you've heated
so far.

6.  Your starch conversion (step 4) complete and your sparge water
(step 5) ready, heat the mash to 168F.  Let it sit for 5 minutes.

7.  With your strainer mounted over its receptacle, pour the mash
into it.  I used to strain into a bucket, then move the strainer to
the mash kettle (which I also used as a boiler), pour some of the
wort from the bucket back through the strainer and use it to rinse
all the grains out of the kettle and back into the bucket, then pour
gently all the wort from the bucket through the strainer & grains
again.  The wort in the kettle would then be crystal clear.

8.  Use the water you heated (168-165F) in step 5 to gently rinse
the residual sugars from the grains (sparging).  When this is done,
put the resulting wort on to boil, and add the extract & hops when
the boil begins.  proceed as usual from there.

This is by no means the only way to make a partial-mash wheat beer,
but it will work.  Some different times and temperatures would also
work; the process is surprisingly resilient (and I'm accused of
being uptight about it! ;-)  Let us know how it turns out!

= Martin A. Lodahl   			Pacific*Bell Systems Analyst =
= malodah at pbmoss.Pacbell.COM       Sacramento, CA       916.972.4821 =
= If it's good for ancient Druids, runnin' nekkid through the wuids, =
= Drinkin' strange fermented fluids, it's good enough for me!  8-)   =


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Date: Sat, 31 Aug 91 15:12:09 PDT
From: Martin A. Lodahl <pbmoss!malodah at PacBell.COM>
Subject: Mashing Pot (any way you want to take it)

In HOMEBREW Digest #713, Darren Evans-Young asked the musical question:

>Has anyone tried mashing pot?  ...just kidding...

Something over two decades ago (surely beyond the statute of
limitations) a friend made an extract batch using a considerable
quantity of said herb in place of hops.  Don't know if it "worked"; 
the taste was too horrid for anyone to drink enough to find out.

By the way, this topic touched off one of the few ugly flame wars
this Digest has seen, several years ago.  I hope we're all calmer
this time.

>Seriously, what size pot is needed to mash, say, 10 lbs of grain?
>I already have a 10 gal SS pot to boil in.  Is a 5 gal SS pot large enough
>for mashing a maximum of 10 lbs of grain?

It might be tight.  I feel you'd be better off using a larger kettle 
(like your boiler), so you can stir vigorously without fear of sloshing
over the edges.  My mash kettle is smaller than 5 gallons, so I end
up mashing in my boiler more then half the time.  The mash kettle
(and the spaghetti kettle, and sometimes the autoclave as well) are
then pressed into service heating sparge water ...

= Martin A. Lodahl   			Pacific*Bell Systems Analyst =
= malodah at pbmoss.Pacbell.COM       Sacramento, CA       916.972.4821 =
= If it's good for ancient Druids, runnin' nekkid through the wuids, =
= Drinkin' strange fermented fluids, it's good enough for me!  8-)   =


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Date: Sun, 1 Sep 91 21:54:41 EDT
From: srussell at snoopy.msc.cornell.edu (Stephen Russell)
Subject: The latest rumor: new micro in Kingston, NY

Far be it from ME to spread the evil winds of gossip, but..... :-)

I heard from a reliable source who shall remain nameless (although he 
actually BREWED "Olde Cock Ale"!) that Nat Collins of the Hudson Valley 
Homebrewers is opening a microbrewery in Kingston, NY, in November.  It will
be called the Woodstock Brewing Company.  Kegging will begin at that time, 
with bottling to follow in the spring.  I have no further information at this
time, but this is enough to whet MY whistle.  

Anyone else with more information along these lines??

Yours in the Rumor Mill,

STEVE 

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Date:         Sun, 01 Sep 91 23:32:47 EDT
From: MS3Y at CORNELLA.cit.cornell.edu
Subject:      Re: Homebrew Digest #711 (August 28, 1991)

Conn Copas asks (my paraphrase) if rolling or flaking has any effect on the
cellulose content of adjuncts, as he believes cellulose to be a precursor to
methanol in the final brew.
  Rolling, flaking or heat treatment should have next to zero effect on the
cellulose content of adjuncts.  Moreover, the cellulose content shouldn't
matter since neither the mashing enzymes nor the yeast is capable of breaking
down cellulose into its monomer form, glucose (same as corn sugar).  Further,
there is no direct chemical pathway between cellulose (or glucose) and
methanol via any organism normally found in beer.
  Perhaps Conn is thinking of hemicellulose or lignins as a source of methanol.
Hemicelluloses contain a few methyl esters and lignins are full of methyl
ethers - but they should both be quite stable during the brewing process since
specialized enzymes are needed to liberate the methanol.  RDW - there is prob-
ably far more methanol in your child's glass of apple or orange juice than in
your home brew.  Cheers - Jean

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End of HOMEBREW Digest #714, 09/02/91
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