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


Contents:
  Re: Homebrew Digest #715 (September 03, 1991) (Madelon Halula)
  Malt extract (Conn Copas)
  33 qt brewpots (Don McDaniel)
  Lovibond (Brian Bliss)
  Labor Day (non-sanctioned) beer tasting (TSAMSEL)
  Tropical Brewing (Martin A. Lodahl)
  Kettle Handles (Martin A. Lodahl)
  Re: Homebrew Digest #714 (September 02, 1991) (Brian Capouch)
  Re: Explosives and Ginger Ale (bob)
  Beer and Marxism (wbt)
  Re: F. BarleyWine response (larryba)
  First All-Grain Batch (Kevin N. Carpenter)
  Pith Off (Paul Bigelow)
  Reusing Yeast Cake & Soda Kegs (Charles Anderson)


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Date: Tue, 3 Sep 91 09:05 EDT
From: Madelon Halula <HALULA at Ruby.VCU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Homebrew Digest #715 (September 03, 1991)

Please remove my name from the mailing list!
Thanks

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Date: Tue, 3 Sep 91 15:22:51 bst
From: Conn Copas <C.V.Copas at loughborough.ac.uk>
Subject: Malt extract

Someone (ie, me) posted this recently :

>Lastly, another part-mythical creature : the malt extract 'tang'. Fact or
>fiction ?  

My reply is try putting your brain in gear before you post in future. If
you look at the labels on tins of malt extract, you will notice that some
contain caramel. This is used as a colouring, but the worse examples can
impart an 'acidy' flavour as well. IMHO, the addition of caramel to
extracts (or for that matter to beer) suggests that the manufacturer has
something to hide. Apologies to Newcastle Brown Ale fans :-)

One of my standard tricks when using extracts is to boost the final gravity
with partially fermentable malto-dextrin powder. I have tried either adding
this to the boiler or adding a solution at bottling time. The boiled
dextrin often seems to attenuate too far whereas the bottled dextrin seems
to remain unfermented for months. So I am now entertaining two theories : 

a) Boiling the malto-dextrin causes some chemical change into more
fermentable sugars, or

b) Adding malto-dextrin to a voracious primary ferment causes more of it to
be consumed.

Any ideas ? 

Conn V Copas                                   tel : (0509)263171  ext 4164
Loughborough University of Technology          fax : (0509)610815
Computer-Human Interaction Research Centre            
Leicestershire  LE11 3TU                    e-mail -    
G Britain                         (Janet):C.V.Copas at uk.ac.lut  
                     (Internet):C.V.Copas%lut.ac.uk at nsfnet-relay.ac.uk







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Date: Tue, 3 Sep 91 09:39:09 -0600
From: dinsdale at chtm.eece.unm.edu (Don McDaniel)
Subject: 33 qt brewpots

Regarding the handles on 33 qt ceramic on steel pots:

I don't trust these things either.  When I'm moving a full pot, I
lift it by the lip rather than the handles.  I can just see five
gallons of boiling wort spilliing all over the front of my body.
OUCH!

Don McDaniel


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Date: Tue, 3 Sep 91 10:44:45 CDT
From: bliss at csrd.uiuc.edu (Brian Bliss)
Subject: Lovibond


Some no-so-recent HBD letters mentioned 80 degree Lovibond crystal malt.
What does this imply?

bb

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Date:    Tue, 3 Sep 1991 12:13:57 -0400 (EDT)
From: TSAMSEL at ISDRES.ER.USGS.GOV
Subject: Labor Day (non-sanctioned) beer tasting

  Yesterday, members of the James River Homebrewers served local microbrewery
products to interested persons at the Valentine Museum's Labor Day bash.
   Two Virginia breweries were represented; Old Dominion (w. filtered and 
unfiltered lager) and the Virginia Brewing Co. (Dark Horse Amber, Gold Cup
Pilsner and Gold Cup Light).
   Reps from the breweries were present as were local historical archeologists
and historian who discussed the history of brewing in Virginia.
  (IMHO, the unfiltered Old Dominion was the best...)
   Ted

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Date: Tue, 3 Sep 91 10:34:24 PDT
From: Martin A. Lodahl <hpfcmr.fc.hp.com!hplabs!pbmoss!malodah>
Subject: Tropical Brewing

In HOMEBREW Digest #714, Ted Amsel repeated:

>  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? (;-{)

I doubt it.  I've noticed that most tropical beers are lagers, which
require artificial refrigeration of the fermenting vessels virtually
everywhere.  That being the case, the only difference between the
physical plant required to produce Belikan and that required to
produce Molsen's, is the size of the refrigeration system, as the
temperature differential between the air and the beer is greater
in Belize than in Canada.  The temperature outside the vessels 
is otherwise irrelevant, I would imagine.

= 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: Tue, 3 Sep 91 10:43:54 PDT
From: Martin A. Lodahl <hpfcmr.fc.hp.com!hplabs!pbmoss!malodah>
Subject: Kettle Handles

In HOMEBREW Digest #714, Mel Card has taken the plunge and bought a
33-qt. ceramic-on-steel kettle, but notes:

>   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? 

I think of this with every batch I brew.  I use one of these
kettles, and have recently begun thinking in terms of using it as a
mash kettle full-time, and saving my pennies for a SS kettle as a
boiler.  Every time I lift that kettle from the stove to the sink it
"talks" to me, but I don't yet see the little telltale cracks in the
ceramic indicating flex damage.  Those handles are the weak point,
beyond a doubt.  Rather than use the handles in the manner they were
(apparently) intended, I now pick up the full kettle (using oven
mitts) by the sides, looping my thumbs through the handles for
slippage control.  Not a perfect method, but it seems to strain them
less.  I also clear the kitchen of kids, dogs, cats, spouses, and
other living things and obstacles.  It still scares Hell out of me.
In my opinion, that's the only problem with using one of these
kettles.

= 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: Tue,  3 Sep 91 13:48:00 -0500 (CDT)
From: Brian Capouch <brianc at zeta.saintjoe.EDU>
Subject: Re: Homebrew Digest #714 (September 02, 1991)

In Homebrew Digest #714, Pete Berger writes:

> 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.

Well, you're both wrong and you're both right, in my opinion.  I'm sure
Fr. B. would agree that it's possible for a homebrewer to make a beer
with a bacterial infection.  It can be achieved by simply cooling the
boiled wort slowly, or even easier, by adding a teensy little bit of
yeast at the beginning of the ferment so it will have to compete with
lots of other beasts for the "sugar pie."  

My experience has been similar to his. I think I worried far too much,
and for too long, about cleanliness, when in reality the major problems
I had with *my* process control were lack of sufficient yeast quantity
for pitching (potentially solved by the fresh-wort-in-over-the-top
technique he espouses) and inadequate oxygen in the cooled wort.  The
beers I've done since discovering those faults have been remarkable, and
I'm brewing in an environment that is clean but in no way "sanitary."

Just another data point, as it were.

Brian Capouch
brianc at saintjoe.edu

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Date: Tue Sep  3 15:15:18 1991
From: semantic!bob at uunet.UU.NET
Subject: Re: Explosives and Ginger Ale

Hi Steve Kirkish & All,

I was just reading up on some back issues and saw your post.

> Speaking of sodas, the Ginger Ale recipe was the one posted by Bob Gorman,
> HBD #685.  I brewed up a batch about 3 weeks ago, using Champagne Yeast.  I
> cooled it to 78 F and pitched the yeast, then let it sit for about 9 hours,
> in the SS pot, covered, to let it settle out a bit.  Bottled it and put it
> aside.  After one week, the carbonation was already phenomenal...pour it in
> a glass, and you saw 90% bubbles and 10% liquid.  The aroma was that of a
> cheap champagne, and it had very undeveloped flavors of honey and slight
> lemon.  After two weeks, not much different.  After 2.5 weeks, I came down
> one morning to find bits of glass all over the dining room (fortunately, I
> had the bottles in a box.  Glass shards were driven right through the
> cardboard, tho.)  I bled the pressure out of the rest of the bottles and
> stored them in a box in my ice chest (sans ice.)  The taste was better,
> getting somewhat closer to Ginger Ale.  
> 

Oh, *sorry* Steve!  I hate to think that I could have been the cause of
anothers injuries.  I'm glad you didn't get hurt.  As I said in my 
posting I hadn't actually tried the recepies, but posted them because
of their all_natural contents.

> Now for the questions:
> 
> 1.  How long should I expect the Ginger Ale to sit in the bottle until it
>     tastes like Ginger ale (a time estimate rather than "until it's done"
>     would be helpful :-)
> 
> 2.  Is honey the best thing for this recipe?  What about sugar?  What kind? 
>     Corn?  Cane?  Nutrasweet??
> 
> 3.  What can I do to prevent future batches from blowing up? (This is
>     assuming I'm still interesting in using up precious bottles that would
>     rather be harboring beer.)  Any hints/tips would be appreciated.
> 

I can't comment specificaly on the recipy I posted (haven't tried it yet).
I would suggest that anyone try makeing a normal soda with an extract 
before you try one of those recipies.  This would give you a little insight 
into the procedures used in making sodas.  You could then apply these 
procedures to the all_natural recipies.  For example; the appropriate time 
to bottle so things don't explode.

I think cane sugar in place of the honey would be fine for soda.
This might also help with the exploding bottle problems, the
champagne yeast could continue to slowly ferment the honey for a few
weeks, resulting in the increase of pressure.  You could also try an 
ale yeast in place of the champagne.  This would ferment less of the
sugars and you would also loose the champagne flavors.

> btw, Bob, how did your batch turn out (assuming it's still intact?)

I got side tracked into makeing a batch of sugar-free iced-tea.  Pretty 
tasty, and oh what a caffine jolt!  It's funny you mention Nutrasweet.
I was trying to find some bulk but couldn't, so I ended up using 
good old saccarin (sp?).

I think my next soda will be a sugar-free cola.  (Once I find some
bulk Nutrasweet).

Cheers,

- -- Bob Gorman                         Jake had a vision.  It was his,  --
- -- bob at rsi.com                        the only real one he'd ever had, --
- -- uunet!semantic!bob                 and he clung to it.  ...         --


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Date: Tue, 3 Sep 91 14:04:50 EDT
From: cbema!wbt at att.att.com
Subject: Beer and Marxism

Darryl Richman writes:
> Michael Jackson wrote a three part essay on his sojourn into Latvia searching
> for the lost Porter.  Alas, the brewery still exists, but those damn commies
> have long ago cut out the porter.  

Leading, we should note, to their ultimate downfall!  I'll bet the Party
made them use Red Star yeast, too.  It's a real pity... I'd love to have
the Red Square concession for "Lenin Lager, served in a commemorative
pewter tombstein."  Sure, "Stalin Stout" would never sell, but I'd make a
killing with my dopplebock, "Dictator,"  and what about "Glorious Workers'
Proletariat Socialist Soviet Revolutionary Red Ale" ?  (Sold in 22-ounce
bottles, of course, to provide enough room for the label.)

In a related issue, it struck me yesterday that "Oprah" is "Harpo" spelled
backwards.  Well, actually "harpO," but you get my drift.  She's probably
put a few sixpacks away, too, so it's even more relevant.

Hmm... it's no wonder the Russians stick to vodka.  How do you make
12-year-old Scotch on a 5-year plan?

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


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Date: Tue Sep 03 11:35:31 1991
From: larryba at ingate.microsoft.COM
Subject: Re: F. BarleyWine response

Neither of the following worked:

|550 <uunet!rransom at aclcb.prudue.edu>... Host unknown
|550 <uunet!rransom at bchm1.aclcb.prudue.edu>... Host unknown

Sigh...  Perhaps there is some sort of path via UUNET that might be more
reliable? What does HBD use as an address?

|To: rransom at aclcb.prudue.edu
|>From: larryba at microsoft.COM
|
|Great response.  I too love the whitbread dry yeast and I too drop it
|directly into the wort.  I used to proof it, but found that I had much
|shorter lag time (and less dicking around the kitchen) if I simply chucked
|the stuff into the chilled wort.  I too have fermented ales  at  50f with
|the whitbread.  It seems like pretty vigorous stuff.
|
|One question you didn't answer: Do you chill directly into the yeast cake or
|do you chill, let settle and then rack into the fermenter (leave trub behind)?
|
|Also if you are dumping fresh wort onto the yeast cake, aerating the wort for
|yeast growth must not be a concern.  Right?
|
|I like the idea of letting the beer sit in the primary/secondar until it
|is time to start the next batch.  Then I would never have a dry spell!  My
|only problem now is to find some time to make two more batches of beer and
|get a head of my self!
|
|Cheers!
|


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Date: Tue, 3 Sep 91 17:04:21 -0500
From: kncarp at nicsn1.monsanto.com (Kevin N. Carpenter)
Subject: First All-Grain Batch


Hello, being a glutton for punishment, and a veteran of a whole whopping
4 extract brews, I would like to try an all-grain brew.  What I would
like is opinions on techniques for making a first all-grain wort.
I guess simplicity is the key, I would rather buy extra grain than sweat
getting optimal extraction efficiency.  I've scanned Papasian and Burch and
realize there are a varity of mash techniques available, I'm looking for
suggestion on which I should use as a first timer.

I have a 33qt ceramic on steel pot, a 22qt al. pot, and the normal variety
of kitchen pots and pans and utensils.  I realize I'm missing something to
hold the grain while I sparge, need suggestions here too.  Over the past
few months, I've heard of people use stacked 5 gal plastic buckets, "Igloo"
type coolers, etc.

I will be re-using the cake from some Williams ale-yeast, which will conveniently
become available while cooking the mash...

Receipts, techniques, and hardware suggestions are all welcome.

Kevin Carpenter
kncarp at nicsn1.monsanto.com

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Date: Tue, 3 Sep 91 23:06:07 EDT
From: Paul Bigelow <bigelow at waterloo.hp.com>
Subject: Pith Off

It's time to get started on my Christmas brew, so I have been collecting
the peels from my oranges. However I'm having a tough time scraping
the white pith off of the orange peel.

Does anyone have a tool or technique for making this job less tedious?

Paul Bigelow	bigelow at waterloo.hp.com

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Date: 	Tue, 3 Sep 1991 11:48:15 -0500
From: caa at com2serv.c2s.mn.org (Charles Anderson)
Subject: Reusing Yeast Cake & Soda Kegs

Well I decided to reuse my yeast cake from my previous batch of Xmas
Ale for my current 'Get Rid of Old Extracts Ale'.  Unlike Father Barleywine
I am using Chico Ale Yeast, and have decided to dry hop this mess.
After an hour or two on the yeast cake there was an occasional glub,
this morning that sucker was bubbling almost continuously.

On another note I recently picked up a kegging system using soda kegs and
bought some used kegs which still had product in them so I dumped them out
and rinsed them thoroughly, and I was going to keg my beer into one of them
but after I put some boiling water into it to rinse out the sterilizing
solution (I imagine even Father Barleywine washes out used bottles well)
it started smelling like Pepsi.  Right now I have it soaking with a baking
soda solution in it.  I'm wondering it the smell is coming from the
rubber seal, they're still good but should I replace them anyways???
Also I bought my setup from Foxx, but they just sent me a box with no
instructions at all, I'm a reasonably intelligent guy and got everything
hooked and running in no time at all but is there something I should
know about putting beer in kegs.  A friend of mine here at work says
you only need 1/4 of priming sugar for priming in a keg and to keep
the pressure at 5psi, I read on the HBD here that the seals don't seal
unless subjected to 10-15 psi, so I initially pressurized it to 12psi to
make sure that it sealed well then released some co2 to get it down to 5psi. 

Also my friend at work here says that pepsi no longer uses kegs, and that
they ship their syrup in boxes with a plastic bag inside, and that they
have a large amount of empty kegs lying around. (his brother worked for
the local bottling company, and now works at VFW (or something like that)
that has all of these boxes of syrup laying around connected to their
system so I trust he knows what he's talking about.)  The point is, does
anyone know if this is just our local bottling co, or is this nationwide?

Sorry to ramble so much...
 -Charlie
- -- 
/-Charles-Anderson-\   |       caa at c2s.mn.org || caa at midgard.mn.org 
\------------------/   | Com Squared Systems,          voice (612) 452-9522
The rose goes in front | 1285 Corporate Center Drive    fax  (612) 452-3607
big guy -Crash Davis   | Suite 170 | Eagan,  MN 55121  (I speak for myself)

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End of HOMEBREW Digest #716, 09/04/91
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