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


Contents:
  Auto Reply from Watch_Mail for 24-DEC-1991 05:33 to 29-DEC-1991 12:00 (GARY MASON - I/V/V PCU - 603-884[DTN264]1503  25-Dec-1991 0333)
  Wyeast? ("N. Zentena")
  Beer Hunter / pitching starters. ("DRCV06::GRAHAM")
  Keep this crap to yourself (Donald Oconnor)
  source for yeast culturing equipment (Tony Babinec)
  Homebrew subscription (Bart Lipkens)
  Hi! Krausen (Jeff Frane)
  pitching starters (Jay Hersh)
  Bottle fillers, grain mills (Bill Crick)
  Precise Bottling/Automated Bottle Fillers ("Tom Childers")


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Date: Wed, 25 Dec 91 00:33:24 PST
From: GARY MASON - I/V/V PCU - 603-884[DTN264]1503 25-Dec-1991 0333 <mason at habs11.ENET.dec.com>
Subject: Auto Reply from Watch_Mail for 24-DEC-1991 05:33 to 29-DEC-1991 12:00

Hi -

I will be on Christmas holidays through December 28, 1991.

If your mail is related to the Image Partners Program, please send it to 

			VISUAL::PARTNERS_IMG

[Note: ALL mail for the Image Partners Program should ALWAYS be sent there.]

If your mail is work related in some other way, and requires action before 
I return, please send it to Bob Milling at 

			VISUAL::MILLING

If you are a listserver or mailing list, and I have not added you to my
exclusion file, please continue sending me things as usual I'll get you 
next time.

Thanks...Gary

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Date: 	Wed, 25 Dec 1991 20:11:57 -0500
From: "N. Zentena" <zen at utcs.utoronto.ca>
Subject: Wyeast?

	Hi,
		Well with the local supplier finally getting Wyeast in to
replace MeV I bought some yeast. Bavarian lager to be exact. Got it home and 
broke the inner bag. So far so good.

	Well tonight when I cut open the pouch to pitch the starter I notice
that the inner bag is actually divide into two parts. One of which failed to 
burst. Is it normal to have the bag divided? I'm not worried because the
whole package puffed up nice and quickly. But I'd still like to know.

	Nick

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Date: 26 Dec 91 09:30:00 EDT
From: "DRCV06::GRAHAM" <graham%drcv06.decnet at drcvax.af.mil>
Subject: Beer Hunter / pitching starters.

Second thing first:  I, also, have tried several different methods of 
pitching as to when and what to pitch.  I've seen, rather, tasted, no 
detectable difference.  I suppose this issue will be religious with some, 
but I think it really doesn't make much difference.  I usually can't brew 
exactly when I wanted to, so the starter more often than not ferments out.  
Always seems to work just fine.  Actually, I now usually do the yeast 
caking thing a la Fr. Barleywine.

Beer Hunter:

Wow!  I am so underwhelmed I cannot believe it!  I didn't see this series 
the first time it was on Discovery, so I tuned in Monday evening with great 
anticipation.  What a pile of spent grain!  Talk about bad signal to noise 
ratios, I think it was 100:1.  Now, realize that I'm blind, so I'm 
reviewing this from a "talking" perspective, only.  There was so little 
actual information that I thought I was watching [listening to] Wings.

Tuesday's episode on British brewing was a total disaster to me.  Sure, the 
real ale information was interesting, but so much about British brewing was 
not even mentioned.  I thought that most of the half hour was completely 
wasted.  Oh well, I'll stick to Jackson's books, they are far, far better.

Dan Graham


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Date: Thu, 26 Dec 91 06:58:10 PST
From: Donald Oconnor <oconnor at chemistry.UCSC.EDU>
Subject: Keep this crap to yourself

Earlier this week I posted the info about a new brewers supply in Austin.
I mentioned the owners name is Lynne O'Connor and at the end stated "She's
a very nice lady and promised to sleep with me if I posted this."  On 
Christmas Eve I received an email from Dr. John in New York who took
"extreme umbrage" at this comment, suggested that I "keep this crap to
myself" and that he/she would "prefer 50 Jack Schmidling Video ads to
this kind of crap."  I'm sorry if I offended anyone else in a similar
manner but let me just offer in my defense that out here in the wild west,
men generally do sleep with their wives on a regular basis.  Perhaps this
seems radical or anachronistic to high falutin' city slickers from the
land of THE Donald, but it goes on without much comment out here in the wilds.
Happy New Year, don o'connor

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Date: Thu, 26 Dec 91 11:24:16 CST
From: tony at spss.com (Tony Babinec)
Subject: source for yeast culturing equipment

Custom Lab Supply, Inc., is mentioned in the Zymurgy Special Yeast
issue as a source of supplies.  I inquired, and received the following
price list from them.  I do not work for them, and this is not an
endorsement, but instead is merely information for you, the reader.

Custom Lab Supply, Inc.
2127 Research Drive
Livermore, CA 94550
415-449-4371
415-449-3459 fax

culture tube 16 x 150 mm w/cap          $1.30
petri dish plastic 15 x 100 mm each       .55
petri dish plastic 15 x 100 mm pkg/20   13.50
petri dish glass 12 x 100 mm             4.15
ph test strips 0 - 14 pkg of 100        13.50
ph test strips 4 -  7 pkg of 100        13.50
ph test strips 0 -  6 pkg of 100        13.50
inoculating loop, plastic                 .20
bottle, gal amber glass w/cap            4.35
flask, erlenmeyer 250 ml                 3.40
flask, erlenmeyer 1000 ml                6.85
flask, erl w/screw cap 250 ml           10.60
stopper, #6 to fit 250 ml flask           .55
stopper, #9 to fit 1000 ml flask         1.90
test tubes, glass 10 x 75 mm              .12
test tubes, glass 13 x 100 mm             .15
test tubes, glass 16 x 100 mm             .18
test tubes, glass 20 x 150 mm             .30
isopropyl alcohol, pt                    5.10
phosphoric acid, pt                     20.95
lactic acid, pt                         34.00

Not listed in their price sheet, but useful to know, is:

agar, 1 oz                               6.85
agar, 8 oz                              19.00

I've had a hard time finding agar, and as I understand, you shouldn't
just use any agar, so it's useful to know a source.

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Date: Thu, 26 Dec 91 11:38:56 -0600
From: lipkens at ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Bart Lipkens)
Subject: Homebrew subscription

Hi, I would like to be on the subscription list of homebrew.
My address is lipkens at ccwf.cc.utexas.edu
Thanks
Bart

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Date: 26 Dec 91 13:59:04 EST
From: Jeff Frane <70670.2067 at compuserve.com>
Subject: Hi! Krausen

Frank Tutzauer asks about pitching yeast:

Herewith the "Official" Wyeast stance on when to pitch! Fresh from the
as-yet-not-quite-written pages of The Yeast Book. This also happens to coincide
with my anecdotal evidence. You will get much more vigorous and rapid
fermentation if you pitch at "high krausen", which is as Paul Farnsworth
apparently described it in Zymurgy: "opaque". Sometime around 18 hours (give or
take a few) after the last pitching, the yeast will be in their most useful
phase. Think of it as your own biorhythm. Personally, I'm at my peak at about 9
a.m., and am the most willing then to begin projects, think, write, etc. At
about 3 p.m., on the other hand, all I want to do is take a nap. Yeast cells are
just like me, vigorous at some times and lazy as hell at others. The idea is to
catch them at their figurative 9 a.m.

I used to use the Dave Miller approach, assuming I was increasing my pitching
volume, until Dave Logsdon cautioned me about pitching at high krausen. I listen
to people once in a while, and tried it several days later. The difference in
lag time was astonishing, and I strongly recommend it.

In reference to Frank's second question: actually, even when the yeast is at
high krausen there is a slurry. At least, that's been my personal experience. I
bung in the entire thing, starter wort and all. I'm with Frank: there's no way
that wort is going to affect the flavor the beer negatively, and there's no way
I'm going to waste those little yeasties!


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Date: Thu, 26 Dec 91 14:19:14 EST
From: Jay Hersh <hersh at expo.lcs.mit.edu>
Subject: pitching starters



My approach is to try to pitch the yeast while still actively fermenting, either
at high krausen, or just past. Of course this means I pitch the whole
starter, not just the slurry. My thinking behind this is as follows.
Since the starter was aerated, when the yeast in it is at high krausen, or
just past, then it has finished consuming the dissolved oxygen and
therefore is no longer reproducing. This means that the yeast population
is at it's maximum (in the starter) and that the yeast are actively fermenting.
Tossing this into the wort means that it will hit the wort in a ferment phase,
so it will initially start to ferment the wort, thus laying down a blanket of
CO2 over the wort. Upon discovering dissolved oxygen in the wort it will
go back into a reproduction phase and reproduce until the supply of dissolved 
oxygen is used up, then they will switch back over to fermentation again.

I think (and seem to observe) that this has a few benefits. I seem to get CO2
acticity from the airlock right away in the fermenter, indicating that the yeast
are indeed laying down a CO2 blanket over the beer. I have very short times to
high krausen (and associated blowoff) in the fermenter, usually less than 24
hours, often as little as 2-6 dependent upon yeast strain and pitching rate.

I have sometimes pitched the starter before high krausen. The only difference I
note here is that the time to krausen in the fermenter is usually longer.
I assume this is because there was fewer yeast cells in the starter since
it hadn't reached it's reproduction peak yet.

So in summary I always pitch when active unless something happens to prevent
my brewing at the planned time (pitching the slurry if it's not too long since
vigorous fermentation ceased still works well), and I have always had good
results. I don't think the timing of when to pitch is that incredibly critical,
I think the critical factor is adding a large supply of healthy active yeast.


JaH (learning to think like yeast :-)


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Date: 	Fri, 20 Dec 1991 14:56:59 -0500
From: hpfcmr.fc.hp.com!hplabs!uunet!bnr-vpa!bnr-rsc!crick (Bill Crick)
Subject: Bottle fillers, grain mills

Bottle fillers: I found them way too slow. They doubled bottling time.
               We just use a siphon, and a pinch clamp. After a few thousand
              bottles, you get real good a clamping suddenly just when the 
             beer starts to race up the bottle neck. At least my wife has
            She has run the siphon on the bottling line for the last 
           few thousand. She has also learned to transfer the tube from one 
          bottle to the next without breaking the liquid in the tube, so 
         she moves a full tube from one bottle to the next. Less air in the 
       beer.


Grain mills: I think the commercial mills use three sets of rollers to mimimize
            production of fine grist. The first rollers are spaced rather 
           far apart, and anyhthing small enough after the first set, is 
          screened out, and hence isn't recrushed. Only the stuff above spec 
         goes to the second rollers which are closer together. Ditto for the 
        third rollers.
       I also think they screen the real fine stuff out and don't use it for 
      mashing?


Bill Crick  Brewius, Ergo Sum!



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Date: Thu, 26 Dec 91 16:29:53 PST
From: "Tom Childers" <TCHILDER at us.oracle.com>
Subject: Precise Bottling/Automated Bottle Fillers


(Let's see if I can get this post out THIS time])
In HBD 787, Dan Graham asks about an automatic bottle-filling device.
What a great opportunity for some creative design/engineering work]  Here are
some thoughts.
 
One approach would be to add some kind of sensor near the top of a bottling
wand, right at the height that you want the beer level to reach in the bottle.
The sensor would need to fit inside the mouth of the bottle, and have an
adjustable height to work in a variety of bottle types.  The sensor would
either shut a valve in the wand, or turn off a pump that transfers the beer
from the priming container to the wand.
 
You might be able to construct a wand with an automatic cut-off valve.
A small cylindrical float around the wand, connected to a valve in the upper
part of the wand, should do the trick.  Of course, the float height would
have to be adjustable, to accomodate different sized bottles.  Unfortunately,
the float could stick while transferring some of the "meatier" brews, like
the 1.148 leviathan mentioned a few issues ago...
 
The second solution requires a friend with some electrical engineering
background.  Build a bottling wand driven by a small electric pump, then add
two copper contacts to the wand at the desired fluid level.  Connect these
two contacts to a transistor/IC circuit that will switch off the pump when
fluid comes in contact with the two pieces of copper.  Circuits to sense a
fluid contact are not hard to design, and are based on the principle that
water-based solutions (like beer) are slightly conductive to electricity.  The
circuit would need to switch off the pump when the beer rises to the right
level and causes a small electric current flow between the copper contacts.
 
I'm pretty sure that there are circuit diagrams for this kind of thing in at
least one of the electrical hobbyist books available from Howard W. Sams
Publications.  Radio Shack may have even had a kit for building one about
20 years ago.  And someone with more electrical engineering background than
I have should be able to design one without too much trouble.  You ought to
be able to build an "automatic electric bottling wand" for under $100.
 -tdc


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End of HOMEBREW Digest #790, 12/27/91
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