HOMEBREW Digest #908 Tue 23 June 1992

Digest #907 Digest #909


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


Contents:
  Sterilizing counter-flow chillers (Kinney Baughman)
  RE: Homebrew Digest #896 (June 05, 1992) (milbrandt_j)
  bugs are eating my hop plants (John L. Isenhour)
  Brewpubs in Santa Fe, etc... (sami)
  Comments
  Papazian at ZipCity, NYC (Charlie Papazian/Boulder)
  Re: Aeration with aquarium pumps (Steve Dempsey)
  Pitch in Brewkettle (Ruth Mazo Karras)
  The Best Homebrewing Books (MR. WEATHER)
  Priming Cherry Beer (Richard Goldstein)
  Re: Jacksons 4 star beers (Scott J. Leno)
  R.R. Ale ("C. Lyons / ASIC Device Development / x9641")
  Fast Sparge Truth & Consequence (Larry Barello)
  GENERIC ALE (Jack Schmidling)
  NA beer, NOT from Micah Millspaw (BOB JONES)
  pearled barley ("Brett Lindenbach")
  G. Fix/Cambridge/CAMRA Good Beer Guide (Phillip Seitz)

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---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1992 10:45 EDT From: Kinney Baughman <BAUGHMANKR at CONRAD.APPSTATE.EDU> Subject: Sterilizing counter-flow chillers >:Wort Chillers. OK, I am ready to take the step. The immersion >variety seems more practical from a sanitation standpoint. I like the idea >of keeping it clean, but sterilizing it just before use by inserting it into >the boil for a few minutes before turning the water on. Oh, well. Thought I'd do my part to dispel the ever-present notion that counter-flow chillers are impractical or difficult to keep sterile. When I finish using my counter flow chiller, I drain the chiller body of water and siphon boiling hot water through the coils to cut the malt sugars. I then follow with some of my clorox sterilant solution and let it sit for about 30 minutes. Drain and store. Before using the chiller for the next brewing session, I fill it with sterilant again and let it sit for 30 minutes. As if this isn't enough, before I actually start chilling the wort, I siphon the boiling hot wort through the copper coils until the wort runs boiling hot out the bottom. (If boiling hot wort is good enough to sterilize immersion chillers, it's good enough to sterilize the counter-flow chillers or else I'm missing something.) I then fill the chiller body with water, return the collected wort back to the boiler and proceed with the chilling procedure. I've used counter flow chillers for eight years and have never had problems with contamination. Add to this the fact that copper is used to sterilize swimming pools because it has anti-bacterial properties (or so I'm told) and I've never worried an iota about contamination with my chiller. The following points are somewhat technical but I might add that counter-flow chillers have several things in favor of them over immersion chillers. (1) Shocking the wort cool produces better cold break. (2) Since you can start siphoning immediately after finishing the boil, it's a time saver. And finally (3) I'd argue that there is less chance of bacterial infection with the counter-flow chiller because any one drop of wort is going to go from boiling to pitching temperature in about 6 seconds. The down-side, of course, is that counter-flow chillers are both more difficult to make and, if you buy one, are more expensive. >From a purely technical point of view, I think counter-flow chillers win out. But from an economic perspective, immersion chillers are the winner. But whatever the case, use one or the other. Wort-chillers are essential to any homebrewery. The AHA conference was indeed a blast. As mentioned by others, it was great putting faces to email addresses. There must have been ten times the number of online brewers at this conference compared to last year so there's no way I can make disparaging comments about those I met like I did last year. So count your blessings. :-) Still I'd be remiss if I didn't say thanks to Martin Lodahl and Mike Sharpe for their outstanding lambic beer tasting and the information they provided to us regarding this most unusual of all beer styles. I thought Mike's framboise was remarkably close to style. Thank you, thank you, thank you for sharing that with us. It was nectar of the gods as far as I was concerned and feel privileged to have gotten a chance to taste some of it. Cheers, ya'll. Kinney Baughman | Beer is my business and baughmankr at conrad.appstate.edu | I'm late for work. Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1992 10:08:22 EDT From: milbrandt_j at wums.wustl.edu Subject: RE: Homebrew Digest #896 (June 05, 1992) Who can tells when it is okay to dig up hop rhizomes for transplant (we live in St. Louis)? Also, what size container is adequate for growing hops on the patio? Signed, Tim and Scott. Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1992 10:26:48 -0500 (CDT) From: ISENHOUR at LAMBIC.FNAL.GOV (John L. Isenhour) Subject: bugs are eating my hop plants Some pests are eating the leaves off of my hop plants! I am looking for some friendly pesticides or remedy, as one of the plants is almost gone. I'll check the WAIS HBD archive for stuff, but I am looking for something like a cigar nicotine extraction method to put on the plants, or something equally innocuous. I have done this before for other plants, but want to collect net wisdom before I do anything. tnx - John John - the HopDevil hopduvel!john at linac.fnal.gov john at hopduvel.UUCP Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1992 09:17:54 -0800 From: sami at scic.intel.com Subject: Brewpubs in Santa Fe, etc... John Costelloe asked if there are any brewpubs in Santa Fe. We just had house guests from there and we discussed that subject. It seems that there is a local microbrewery, but no brewpubs. They think the idea of opening one there is great. Any takers? Sam Israelit Engineer, Businessman, . . . Brewer Portland, OR Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 22 Jun 92 10:56:34 CDT From: gjfix at utamat.uta.edu (George J Fix) Subject: Comments I am going to be off the network until next fall, so I wanted to take this opportunity to make some brief comments. (1) Jeff- Your comments in HBD #906 were generally on the mark, except for the following to which I take great exception. > Jack's beer wasn't contaminated (which is good, but I would expect that of any brewer who had made more than a couple of batches.... Be prepared for a real flame from me on that one via a postcard from England! For now a simple question will do. Why is it that two brewers can use the same type and amounts of malt and hops, and have very similar brewing procedures, yet one brews beers that generally score in the low 30's and the other typically gets marks in the 40's? Clearly massive infections or totally disfunctional yeast is not relevant in either case. But what about minor imperfections? Some times high hops levels and/or other things will mask these effects in beers with higher flavor profiles. However, thanks to the judge certification program, there are people out there (including yourself) who seem to be able to taste their way through such things. One should not be overly hyper about these matters, but neither should one take them too lightly. (2) Thanks for the great info from the UK. I have not been able to respond to those whose e-mail address ends with uk. Our local mailer goes berserk when it sees this. (3) Larry- I see you have changed your e-mail address. Our local mailer also does like "!". It is to software systems what Red Star is to yeast! Feel free to use the material I have posted for your local beer club. Are you still at Microsoft? I have really enjoyed the lively discussion on HBD, and look forward the joining the fray in the fall. George Fix Return to table of contents
Date: 22 Jun 92 12:06:48 EDT From: Charlie Papazian/Boulder <72210.2754 at compuserve.com> Subject: Papazian at ZipCity, NYC Howdy All, I'll be in NYC for the day, this Thursday, June 25. I'll be at Zip City Brewery that evening for sure from 5 to 7 p.m. and it is likely that I may be there earlier and hang out there later. Anyone out there interested in rendesvousing and sharing a few beers, I'll be glad to see you there. Charlie Papazian Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 22 Jun 92 10:56:17 MST From: Steve Dempsey <steved at longs.lance.colostate.edu> Subject: Re: Aeration with aquarium pumps In HBD #907, bwc at icd.ab.com (Barry Cunningham) writes > In Homebrew Digest #906 (June 19, 1992) Bryan Olson (bryan at tekgen.bv.tek.com) > asks: > > > Anyone have any phone numbers or addresses for somewhere that sells > > the .1 or .2 micron air filters mentioned in the last couple of digests? > > I.e. ones that can be attached to aquarium pumps. > > The 0.2 micron filters can be obtained from Alberta Rager, of course, at > > Bacchus & Barleycorn, Ltd. > 8725Z Johnson Drive > Merriam, KS 66202 > (913) 262-4243 > > I got the impression from Alberta at her talk that one would have a lot of > trouble finding these otherwise. Maybe hard to get in single unit quantities. If you want 10 or 12 (box quantity), they can be found at Carolina Biological and Cole-Parmer, both of whom sell retail; addresses can be found in HBD back issues. I missed Alberta's talk at the conference (had to make choices) but from recent posts, it sounds like folks are waiting until the primary is full or nearly full before aerating. This will surely cause problems with foam blowing out. I start mine as soon as there is enough wort in the carboy to cover the air stone and leave it in until the carboy is about half full of wort and half full of foam. Then the air is turned off and the foam subsides while the remainder of the wort is siphoned in. Another useful tip when working with a .2 micron filter: don't get it wet. Once liquid gets in there, it's not coming out. The membrane area is quite small and it's only good for filtering gases. It will merely absorb liquids and expand, causing it to lock up. Steve Dempsey, Engineering Network Services Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523 +1 303 491 0630 INET: steved at longs.LANCE.ColoState.Edu, dempsey at handel.CS.ColoState.Edu UUCP: boulder!ccncsu!longs.LANCE.ColoState.Edu!steved, ...!ncar!handel!dempsey Return to table of contents
Date: 22 Jun 92 13:17:41 EST From: Ruth Mazo Karras <RKARRAS at PENNSAS.UPENN.EDU> Subject: Pitch in Brewkettle In HB 904 Chris Lyons (lyons at adc1.adc.ray.com) asks: >> 1) Does pitching the yeast into the brew pot ( at 80F) and siphoning >> 2 hours later disrupt the fermentation process? >> >> 2) Is a significant amount of yeast left behind in the brew pot >> along with the trub? As noted in HB 907, a couple of months ago Josh Grosse (jdg at grex.ann-arbor.mi.us) summarized the reasoning behind Miller's recommendation that led me to this procedure: Leave your wort sitting on top of the hot and cold break material during the respiration phase (8-12 hours), then rack off the sediment. Josh goes on to say that he'd have to go back to the old HBD to look up the specifics, but the generality is: During respiration, cell production uses lots of trub components and your lag time will be reduced. Afterwords, the trub is harmful by contributing to overproduction of fusel alcohols and esters (which are combinations of fusel alcohols and fatty acids). For this reason, I have been pitching my yeast into the brewkettle and then racking off into the primary. I have been waiting about two hours after pitching to rack, but perhaps should wait longer. . . . From what I can tell from the speed that fermentation progresses, there is no interruption in the fermentation process. I am also under the impression that the active yeast cells are in suspension (and therefore get moved with the racked wort) and only the inactive cells drop to the bottom with the trub. Of course I am only doing ales with top fermenting yeast this summer--bottom working lager yeast may be a different story. Chris Karras (RKarras at PennSAS.UPenn.edu) Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1992 13:51:07 -0500 (CDT) From: RKB6116 at RIGEL.TAMU.EDU (MR. WEATHER) Subject: The Best Homebrewing Books I need your opinions about which homebrewing book(s) are the best ones to read. Also, I'd like information on whatever mail-order catalogs anyone has had experience with, and if you liked or disliked their service. Please e-mail replies to my address. If anyone's interested, I'll post the results here after everything comes in. Thanks in advance, Mr. Weather <> aka Ken Blair <> rkb6116 at zeus.tamu.edu <> Aggieland USA Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 22 Jun 92 12:18:35 PDT From: Richard.Goldstein at Corp.Sun.COM (Richard Goldstein) Subject: Priming Cherry Beer I am calling on the collective wisdom of HBD. I made a cherry wheat beer several weeks ago, and it will be time to prime soon. Someone on the net gave me the very interesting idea of priming with cherry juice or cherry jam to add a little more fruit essence/flavor. So now the obvious question: How much? Clearly that depends on the sugar content. I have been having a hard time finding pure cherry juice, or perhaps cherry cider, in the bay area. I can get Dole's Mountain Cherry juice, but that is a blend of fruit juices. It lists the caloric content per fluid oz. Can someone tell me how many calories are in an oz of corn sugar? Can I then use an "equivalent" (calorie for calorie for say 3/4 cup of corn sugar) amount of fruit juice? What's faulty with this reasoning? If I use cherry preserves/jam/etc, how much do I use? In this case I want to use a product that won't introduce fruit chunks into the final brew. However, using these products would introduce pectin, and I of course made every effort earlier in the process to not introduce pectin into the beer. So what do I do to mitigate/remove/reduce this pectin addition? Anecdotal observations, experiences, and advice will be appreciated. Thanks in advance. Rich Goldstein Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 22 Jun 92 15:47:50 EDT From: leno at grumpy.cray.com (Scott J. Leno) Subject: Re: Jacksons 4 star beers >Scotland > Traquair House Ale I had the fortune of trying this last Saturday while visiting the Brickskeller (sp?) in DC. This is truly a great beer. If any one knows more about this beer, please fill me in. I will check my copy of Jacksons book tonight. I almost didn't shell out the $9 for it, but decided hey what the hell, Imight never see this beer again. The menu listed something about them getting most of the 250 cases sent east of the Mississippi. On another note, has anyone ever seen Younger's Tartan Special in the states? I saw it in Toronto in early May. I had never seen it outside of Scotland. The 'skeller had a can of it, but nothing for sale. The can got my hopes up (not the metal, just the label). All in all the 'skeller was overwhelming. I will go again next time I visit DC. Just Impressed, Scott Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 22 Jun 92 14:14 EDT From: "C. Lyons / ASIC Device Development / x9641" <LYONS at adc1.adc.ray.com> Subject: R.R. Ale >I've decided to make a batch a Charlie P.'s Rocky >Raccoon Lager. However, I not setup for lagers so >I'll be brewing R.R. Ale. Does anyone have any >comments on what I should expect? Expect a great ale. R.R. Ale is the basis for many of my brews (including my hot-pepper ale). The only change I've made with Charlie's receipe is to use 4lbs of dry malt (rather than 3.5lbs) and 2lbs of honey (rather than 2.5lbs). I've found the use of less honey and more malt avoids any cider like taste and gives a nice full flavor. Following the remainder of the receipe will result in a fantastic beer, which seems to improve with age (some how I can't seem to let it age for more than one month). Using this receipe as a starting point can lead to many interesting brews. Happy brewing! Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 22 Jun 92 13:52:58 PDT From: polstra!larryba at uunet.UU.NET (Larry Barello) Subject: Fast Sparge Truth & Consequence I brewed a vienna lager this weekend. Since I was rushed for time I just trimmed here and there. In particular I sparged 6.25 gal in 20 minutes. In spite of the fast sparge time I achieved near 100% extract efficiency, as compared to Dave Miller's numbers. (8.5lb of grain, about 50:50 pale malt and lt munich/crystal, OG = 1.050/5.75 gal = 34 pt/lb/gal final) My sparge technique is to open the drain cock wide and recirculate until the flow rate slows down (compact the grain bed). This typically takes 10- 20 minutes. Then the sparge settles down to about 6-8 min/gal. With the lager the sparge never seemed to slow down that much. Anyway, I have always maintained that my extract efficiency seems to be more related to the quality of my crush (the sparge rate as well!) than anything else. Many questions: a: are there any negatives associated with fast sparging, other than loss of efficiency? b: Anyone have any opinions/data regarding the treatment of sparge water vs mashing water? I always have measured out the proper amount of water for my entire brew and treated it prior to mashing. Hence the sparge water is treated with salts as well. c: Do others on the net use Calcium Chloride? THe vienna lager was the first beer of mine to use CaCl2 along with Gypsum. Even the small amount I used (2 gm/7gal) seemed to make the resulting wort sweeter. Perhaps it was the reduction of sulphate dryness? I used only 3gm of Gypsum in the water. Cheers! - Larry Barello Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 22 Jun 92 13:04 CDT From: arf at ddsw1.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling) Subject: GENERIC ALE To: Homebrew Digest Fm: Jack Schmidling From: gummitch at techbook.com (Jeff Frane) >Having not only tasted WGB, but..... Now that my beer has not only been publicly proclaimed to be NOT the World's Worst, in addition to being "clean", I will leave the "World's Greatest" fun behind and return to what I originally was trying to produce and indeed called it, i.e. Generic Ale. I will use Jeff's comments to illustrate my discussion...... >Jack's beer wasn't contaminated (which is good, but I would expect that of any brewer who had made more than a couple of batches) In actual fact, I made many batches over many years and most of them were or became contaminated. Without access to a forum such as this, I would never have known that Red Star had problems nor would I have had a clue that most of the experiments with different yeast were simply with re-packaged Red Star. So your comment is misleading to say the least. > but it also wasn't tasty. Now we get to Generic Ale. >More to the point, I think you are wrong in general: I think bitterness is great but... I discussed the reason for the excess bitterness yesterday.... > when it exists in a (sorry, Jack) thin and otherwise flavorless beer, you don't get good beer. >I think it could have been improved considerably--not necessarily by adding a lot of malt--but simply by bringing in some other flavor elements. As a born-again brewer, with a scientific bent and perhaps a wooden tongue, I decided that the best way to learn brewing was to start with the most basic recipe and process and find out just what basic beer, i.e. Generic Ale should taste like. Once I had that firmly established, I could then venture into other "flavor elements" using Generic Ale as a standard. Generic Ale was defined as: American Pale Malt Yeast Hops Water More specifically, it is now for a 5 gal batch: 9 lbs 2 row Harrington Edme yeast (pure cultured) 1 oz Chinook Hops Chicago/Lake Michigan water, pre-boiled OG 1.040 If that recipe produces a "not tasty, thin, flavorless" beer on the tongue of an expert, I certainly will not argue nor try to defend it other than to say that, that is what one gets when one uses those ingredients. That IS Generic Ale and it is my starting point for new adventures. Everytime I try something new, I have some GA as a standard to compare it with. I might also add that I am glad that I am not expert enough to find it boring and tasteless. > With all that bitterness, a profundity of hop _flavor_ would have made for a better beer. Just as a point of interest, I always add 1/4 of the hops after the boil so a nominal attempt at aroma is SOP. js Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1992 15:42 PDT From: BOB JONES <BJONES at NOVAX.llnl.gov> Subject: NA beer, NOT from Micah Millspaw I am going to apologize to all of you out there in HBD land. About a month ago I said that I would post my notes on brewing low and non alcohol beers, well, I can't find but only a few bits and pieces. As soon as I locate the missing disks I will put what I have together and post it. Unfortunatly it may be a while before I have an opportunity it get at it, I've very busy since returning from Milwaukee. Also I had a great time at the conference, it was nice meeting everyone and seeing what they looked like ( but everyone seemed older and taller than they should have been!). Oh, and just for the record I thought that Jacks beer was okay. Micah Millspaw 6/22/92 Return to table of contents
Date: 22 Jun 1992 20:03:57 -0600 From: "Brett Lindenbach" <Brett_Lindenbach at qms1.life.uiuc.edu> Subject: pearled barley Subject: Time:7:58 PM OFFICE MEMO pearled barley Date:6/22/92 Hey brewheads. I was recently in my local bulk-food store and noticed a bin of pearled barley. I thought this might come in handy, so I bought a pound. Well, I checked all my mash recipes and could not find any mention of this stuff. Does anybody have any suggestions? Brett Lindenbach Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 23 Jun 92 01:46 GMT From: Phillip Seitz <0004531571 at mcimail.com> Subject: G. Fix/Cambridge/CAMRA Good Beer Guide Our story so far: In issue 904 George Fix, a hearty traveler, inquired where to find a good beer in Cambridge, England. In issue 905 Chuck Mryglot suggested the Mill and also the Anchor. While I haven't been beer drinking in that part of the world (yet), I did look up the area in the 1991 CAMRA _Good Beer Guide_. The following Cambridge pubs, all serving real ale from hand-pumped kegs, are recommended: Ancient Druids (Napier Street)--a brew pub with a wide selection Bird in Hand (73 Newmarket Road) Cambridge Blue (85 Gwydir Street) Cow & Calf (St Peters Street) -- "Smashing little pub" Free Press (Prospect Row) Panton Arms (Panton Street) -- "Excellent pub" Tap & Spile/The Mill (13-14 Mill Lane) -- "Ever changing range of ales from independent brewers" "six guest beers" Tram Depot (5 Dover Street) White Hart (2 Sturton Street) -- "The landlord has won several cellarmanship awards, as reflected in the quality of the beer" White Swan (109 Mill Road) In addition, Cambridgeshire does have a local brewery making real ale: Elgood & Sons Ltd, in Wisbech. The make a bitter (OG 1.036, 4.1% by lume) and Greyhound Strong Bitter (GSB) (1.045, 5.2%). This might be a good time to mention the _Good Beer Guide_ which is published annually by CAMRA. The pub section of the guide contains detailed listings with descriptions of all the pubs that local CAMRA chapters have deemed to be zymologically correct, including information on parking, food, lodging, decor, etc. Also included is an apparently comprehensive listing of all breweries and beers in the UK, with tasting notes, original gravity, and alchohol by volume. This stuff is great reading--I mean, why can't WE have beers named Maiden's Ruin, Old Fart, or Santa's Revenge. Finally, there's a series of essays detailing current status of the battle for real ale, and a listing of prize beers over the years. All this is packaged in a 500+ page guide that is absolutely required reading for anybody interested in British beer--and believe me, it's great fun to read. In fact, I'm using it as a tourguide to plan an upcoming trip to Suffolk (home of seven breweries making real ale, including the Greene King brewery of Abbott Ale fame). The problem is how to get a copy. I did see one at the British Travel Bookshop ((800-448-3039), and when I called today they said they still had it. They also say they are the only source for copies in the U.S. and that they may or may not be able to get more. The cost was $17.95. If your interested, send them a note at 40 W. 57th St., New York, NY 10019. I think they need to realize that this publication isn't just a sop for people visiting merrie olde England for a week during the summer. So how come we don't have a guide like this for the U.S.? Thanks George, wherever you are, for this opportunity to mount the soapbox. Return to table of contents
End of HOMEBREW Digest #908, 06/23/92