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


Contents:
  Mashing adjuncts from Micah Millspaw (BOB JONES)
  Competition announcement from Micah Millsapw (BOB JONES)
  Info on East Anglia / Bottling with Yeast (Phillip Seitz)
  Highgate Dark Mild (CCASTELL)
  Wheat/Barley Malt Extract (fjdobner)
  Re: Sour brown ale/starters (korz)
  cider with raw meat????!? (Lynn Gold)
  Re: Question on racking after chilling (korz)
  Re: software review:  THREAD (Tom Kaltenbach)
  Unwarranted flame (chris campanelli)
  Re: Dry hopping with pellets (Mark N. Davis)
  Re: Advanced Brewing (NON-EXTRACT) worth it? (whg)
  washing hops (DBIRCH)
  Connecting copper filter pipe to cooler-mashtun (Dennis J. Templeton)
  overnight brewing (Tony Babinec)
  Lauter tuns & hop drying (Ed Westemeier)
  blue stuff, pets, space (Glenn Anderson)
  CONSOLATION PRIZE (Jack Schmidling)
  Packaging Hops (Alan Edwards)
  priming sugar & rice solids (Stephen Brent Peters)
  Blueberry melomel recipe? (Arun Welch)
  o-rings (donald oconnor)
  Boston anyone? (David A. Haberman)
  Boston Anyone? ("MR. DAVID HABERMAN")
  Sun drying hops (correction) (Ed Westemeier)
  Sanitizing Beer Bottles in Dishwasher (JEFF)
  RE: THREADing for the Mac (Tom Kaltenbach)
  Packing Hops: Addendum (Alan Edwards)


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

Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1992 14:41 PDT
From: BOB JONES <BJONES at NOVAX.llnl.gov>
Subject: Mashing adjuncts from Micah Millspaw




	On to the topic of using adjuncts. A lot of bandwidth has been
devoted to mashing oats. While at the AHA conference in Milwaukee I had
the opurtunity to talk to one of Millers brewmasters. We were discussing
the use of adjuncts in Millers brewing process. Miller uses corn as their
main brewing adjunct. I mentioned that I had had some trouble when trying
to gelatinize corn and I was told that what Miller does is to cook the
grain with 10% malted barley until it gells and then add it into the mash.
Their mash is conducted with one step. This should work equally well with
oats. I plan try it soon myself. 

                                         have fun  Micah Millspaw 7/23/92


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Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1992 14:42 PDT
From: BOB JONES <BJONES at NOVAX.llnl.gov>
Subject: Competition announcement from Micah Millsapw



                        Attention everyone
 I would like to inform you all of a homebrewing competition that is 
coming up soon. The SAAZ homebrew club and St. Stans brewery are
jointly hosting the first annual fest beer competition. The judging
will be at St. Stans on Sept. 27 and is open to the public. It takes
3 bottles and 5 dollar per entry. The prizes are good ; best of show
gets a 50 lb sack of pale malt and St. Stans will brew the winning 
beer and serve it at their brewpub, all first place winners will get
a one pound bag of hops plus a ribbon, seconds and thirds will receive
hats , t-shirts and pins with the St. Stans logo plus ribbons.
 
the catagories are:
LIGHT LAGER
WHEAT
OKTOBERFEST\MARZEN
GERMAN ALT
FEST BEER OPEN


ENTRY DEADLINE IS SEPT 18 BEFORE 5:00 PM
fees are 5 dollars per entry make checks to STANISLAUS AREA ASSOCIATED
ZYMURGISTS.

SHIP MAIL OR DELIVER TO : ST. STANS BREWING CO.
                          ATTN: BILL COFFEE
                          821 "L" STREET
                          MODESTO, CA. 95354 


For more info contact Ray Call at 209 478 6170

I hop you all enter .                      Micah Millspaw 7/22/92


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Date: Mon, 27 Jul 92 21:52 GMT
From: Phillip Seitz <0004531571 at mcimail.com>
Subject: Info on East Anglia / Bottling with Yeast

Item 1:
In early October my wife and I will be traveling in East Anglia (England)
while she does research for an upcoming book.  My only assignment is to
provide company and have fun, and one sure way to to this is to scout the
local beers and breweries.
	My question: are there any HBD readers in East Anglia that would
be willing to consult with me on pubs and breweries?  I do have a copy of
the Good Beer Guide, but would appreciate local advice.  I'd particularly
like to visit any breweries that accept visitors, and would be willing to
consider an international homebrew exchange if anybody over there wants 
to meet.  We'll primarily be in Bury St. Edmunds, Ipswich, Norwich, and
Cambridge, from approximately October 2 to October 11.

Item 2:
With great anticipation I am planning to make the extract-based triple
recipe in Pierre Rajotte's new book, _Belgian Ale_.  Due to the gravity 
of the beer (1.081) Rajotte recommends adding fresh yeast to the brew at
time of bottling, along with the usual corn sugar.  Does anyone out there
have experience with this?  I'm planning to use the Wyeast Belgian yeast,
and would normally make a starter.  For bottling, however, I wonder 
whether I should simply mix the yeast with the boiled sugar solution and
bottle.  

If anybody has comments on either of the above you're welcome to send them
to me directly; I'll post a summary if enough info comes through.

P.S. Rob Gardner, I don't know who you are, or even if you really exist.
However, I'm think it's time we nominate you for homebrew sainthood for the
service you provide to the community.  Thanks!

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Date: Mon, 27 Jul 92 16:11
From: sherpa2!CCASTELL.ELDEC%mailsrv2 at sunup.West.Sun.COM (CCASTELL)
Subject: Highgate Dark Mild

My wife's all-time favorite brew is Highgate Dark Mild [Bass Highgate],
which is described as "(1036) - dark and fruity" in the 1989 Good Beer
Guide.
I've tried several recipes from the CJHB and from Dave Line's books.  She's
liked most of them, but doesn't think they're exactly what she's looking
for.

Does anybody have an accurate recipe for Highgate Dark Mild?  Has anyone
tasted it?  If so, can you describe it a little better?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Charles Castellow





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Date: Sun, 26 Jul 92 20:57 CDT
From: fjdobner at ihlpb.att.com
Subject: Wheat/Barley Malt Extract

Bavarian Weiss/Wheat Beer Brewers,

I began grain brewing 1 1/2 years ago simple to attempt to perfect
the Bavarian Weiss Beer style as far as my palate can tell. I learned
quite a few things along the way (with about 12 batches behind me for
this style). I must say though, all grain brewing is a lengthy labor of 
love. Therefore, earlier this year I decided to make the brewing session
a bit shorter by buying a couple of cans of Munton and Fison Wheat
malt extract (which is 45% barlet malt and 55% wheat malt) and proceed with the
following recipe:

2-3.3# Cans of M&F Wheat Malt Extract
1 1/2 oz Hallertauer Hops (boiling)
1/2 oz Hallertauer Hops (Finishing)
1/4 Tsp Irish Moss
3/4 Cup DME for Bottling (Turned out to be too little)
WYEAST Bavarian Wheat Liquid Yeast

I brewed according to the standard procedures one finds in TCJoHB for
an extract brew adding the Irish Moss in the last 10 minutes of boil.
What I found was a much fuller bodied beer than would be called for in
this style beer. Also the color and the way light passes through the 
liquid is really far than I expect from my ideal of shining golden
Bavarian Weiss. Has anyone else had this experience with this brand
of malt extract or others? I have more experience with grain than I
do with extracts so I would value the opinions of extract brewers with 
Wheat experience.

Frank Dobner

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Date: Mon, 27 Jul 92 10:52 CDT
From: korz at ihpubj.att.com
Subject: Re: Sour brown ale/starters

Steve writes:
>in some cases of yeast blends, such as Chimay).

Chimay is fermented with a single strain culture and (to the best of
my memory) bottled with a single culture too.  I think that the
bottling culture *may* be the same culture.

I've successfully brewed an Orval clone by culturing from the bottom
of Orval bottles.  It is reported that Orval uses a mixed culture of
5 strains at bottling, with which I can concur.  Of the three bottles
in which the yeast did start, all three starters tasted and smelled
differently.  I simply used the one that smelled and tasted like Orval.
The resulting brew also did.

I suggest you go ahead and culture the bottle dregs, then taste the
starter and decide whether to use it or not.

Sorry I can't help you with your Flander's Brown recipe, but I'd like
to comment on starters in general.  Someone (sorry) said they use
corn sugar + yeast nutrient for their starters.  I propose that 1 oz
(by weight) of light dried malt extract in 8 fl. oz. of water boiled
10 min (or, even better, pressure cooked) then cooled to 80F would be
much easier.  I've used this type of light wort (1.020) for starters
for two years and have had very good luck with it.

Al.

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Date: Mon, 27 Jul 92 10:25:23 -0700
From: lgold at Cadence.COM (Lynn Gold)
Subject: cider with raw meat????!?

Someone submitted a recipe for a cider made with baker's yeast and
raw meat.  Is this recipe for real?  Wouldn't the meat start growing
lots of nasty stuff?

- --Lynn

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Date: Mon, 27 Jul 92 11:15 CDT
From: korz at ihpubj.att.com
Subject: Re: Question on racking after chilling

Brett writes:
>  I recently made an immersion chiller, and used it for the first time 2
>days ago. It worked brilliantly, cooling my brew from boiling to cold in
>about 15-20 mins. However, when I then immediately racked to primary, I was
>stunned by the prodigious amount of break material, at least 5-6 litres
>(what we measure in in Australia). As a result, from 21+lt of wort, I only
>successfully got 18lt to primary, and even then I transferred a small amount
>of break material with it.
>  So how can I enjoy the benefits of chilling without sacrificing a large
>percentage of wort in the process? The only thing I can think of that I
>might have done to contribute to the problem was to pour the boiled wort
>into another container before chilling, in order to strain out the leaf hops
>in the boil.

After chilling, I let the wort sit for 1/2 hour to an hour (depending on
how tired I am) and the hot and cold break mostly sink to the bottom.  I
then pour the wort through a funnel which has a strainer in the bottom.
Sometimes the strainer clogs near the middle of the pour (drat!) in which
case I must either stir with something sanitized or dump the funnel, clear
the strainer, resanitize and begin again.  If it keeps clogging, I just
remove the strainer and let the break go into the fermenter.  Usually,
the strainer clogs only at the very end and thus I get all but about one
quart (~liter) of wort into the fermenter.  If a little break gets into
the fermenter, no problem -- it's not worth worrying about.

I suggest you let your kettle sit (covered) for a 1/2 hour or so before
transfer to the fermenter and you'll probably get 20 of 21 liters into
the fermenter.  Minimizing trub during the primary fermentation will
minimize higher alcohol production (which we would prefer to avoid).
Incidently, trub during respiration is good.  I'm thinking about pitching
the yeast right into the chilled wort in the kettle and let the yeast
munch on the trub during the 1/2 hour to 1 hour "break settling rest."

>  One other question that occurs to me. What is the recommended procedure
>for dry-hopping in the secondary with pellet hops?. Are they added as is, or
>'dissolved' first?

If you can get fresh leaf hops, use them.  Leaf hops will float a lot longer
than pelletized hops and then allow you to siphon out from under them.  In
either case, just toss the hops into the secondary (I just toss them into
the primary seven days or so before bottling for single-stage ferments).

Al.

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Date: Mon, 27 Jul 92 19:57 EDT
From: tom at kalten.bach1.sai.com (Tom Kaltenbach)
Subject: Re: software review:  THREAD

> Date: Sat, 25 Jul 1992 17:17 EST
> > From: Frank Tutzauer <COMFRANK at ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu>
> Subject: software review:  THREAD
> 
> Hey, now.  I just downloaded Tom Kaltenbach's THREAD program today, which 
> he announced in the HomeBrew Digest yesterday.  The program's a jewel.  It 
>           .            .              .
>           .            .              .
>           .            .              .
> perusing the output file, whereas with Magellan, I couldn't leave the
> terminal.  Great program, Tom.  You've given me more time to brew now.
> 
> - --frank
> 

Thanks, Frank, for the nice review of THREAD.  I'm glad other homebrewers
are finding the program to be useful.

I've had a couple of inquiries about how to gain access to the archives
at sierra.stanford.edu via ftp.  By convention, anonymous ftp sites
have guest accounts with the account name "anonymous" and usually your 
e-mail address as the password.  Before transferring a given file, make 
sure the file type is set to binary/ASCII as appropriate.

Tom Kaltenbach
tom at kalten.bach1.sai.com

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Date: Mon, 27 Jul 92 11:46 CDT
From: akcs.chrisc at vpnet.chi.il.us (chris campanelli)
Subject: Unwarranted flame

> . . . I agree with Chris Campanelli . . .

     Whoa pal.  After reading your legitimization of Mr. Gorman's flame,
I'm a little confused.  Correct me if I'm wrong but you agree with me in
the taste description of Mr. Schmidling's beer yet at the same time you
defend Mr. Gorman's flame?  Perchance you misunderstood my rebuttal.  I
will state my position once more but this time with the shroud of sarcasm
removed.

     I find Mr. Gorman's flame extremely distasteful.  I do not nor will
I ever condone such a blatant personal attack.  Furthermore, anyone who
tries to use a logical, structured explanation in defense of such an
attack, as I perceive you're trying to do, should fare no better than the
flame's author.

     I stand with John Norton.  To hell with you snobs.

chris campanelli

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Date: Mon, 27 Jul 92 18:57:36 PDT
From: Mark N. Davis <mndavis at pbhya.PacBell.COM>
Subject: Re: Dry hopping with pellets

> Brett Shorten asks:

>   One other question that occurs to me. What is the recommended procedure
> for dry-hopping in the secondary with pellet hops?. Are they added as is, or
> 'dissolved' first?

Have you ever seen the Alka-Seltzer commercials? You know, "Plop plop, fizz
fizz". That about sums it up. I've tried several methods of dry hopping in
the secondary, and each has it own advantages/disadvantages. At first I just
dumped some pellets into the carboy (ala Alka-Seltzer) and let it do its stuff.
Very easy, and when the hops sink it done. Cleanup on the other hand was very
tedious. Next I tried whole hops. Same general results, but a little harder to
add through the carboy neck, and higher possibilty of infection I assume. 
After being sick of cleaning hop scum from my carboys, I tried using a hop bag
inside. After what seemed hours of wrestling I managed to beat the carboy two
falls out of three, and got a full hop bag through the narrow neck. A similar
battle ensued upon removal, and I ended up with a face full of wet hop goo
(but I was particularly proud of an escape I performed from a near pin >:-)
Finally, I tried a hop bag with pellets. Don't bother! The pellets are ground
fine enough to float right out of the hop bag and the results are simila to
pellets by themselves, except you get to go on a fishing expedition for the
empty hop bag.
You asked for the recommended method...I doubt you'll find one specific choice
(which is typical of the HBD - and why I find it so informative). Personally,
I'm sticking with the Alka-Seltzer.

                             Lager Daze,
                               Mark


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Date: Mon, 27 Jul 92 17:34:00 CDT
From: whg at tellabs.com
Subject:  Re: Advanced Brewing (NON-EXTRACT) worth it?


It has always seemed to me that, yes you can make better beer in an
all grain process, but I'd say you can also likely make much worse beer.
Given the same process from the point of the boil on, I've always felt 
there are a lot of things you can screw up in the mash/sparge process 
(bad crush, poor temp control, oversparging) that could potentially give
you a sorry wort.  It seems to me that while you can maybe only climb so
far up the quality scale with extracts, short of an infection you can
only be soo bad as well.  As of yet I'm still doing partial (1/3 of
sugars) mashes. I wouldn't be at all surprised if when I take the final
plunge (next fall?) that initially the quality of my brews goes down.
Especially when entered in a compitition and they need to examplify a
partiular style.  There's a lot of variable to get right.  

Random ravings from,

Walter Gude    ||   whg at tellabs.com



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Date:     28 Jul 92 14:06:33 SAST
From: DBIRCH at eleceng.uct.ac.za
Subject:  washing hops

My question concerns harvesting hops.  Is it standard practice
to wash the cone after harvesting and drying or will rinsing
wash away the good stuff?  The reason I ask is that after
drying and freezing my first harvest I noticed some small bugs
or spiders in the bag.  I'll probably rinse them before I use
the hops or else I'll end up making "Spider Ale".

I havent the faintest idea. I do know that back in the old days
farmers used burning sulphur to fumigate their hops once they had
been dried. Perhaps spiders etc are responsible for those unique
flavours that are always so hard to duplicate.

Dave

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Date: Tue, 28 Jul 92 09:40:29 -0400
From: djt2 at po.CWRU.Edu (Dennis J. Templeton)
Subject: Connecting copper filter pipe to cooler-mashtun



Tom asks about how to best connect the slotted copper tubing to the opening
of his cooler tun.  I thought I'd share what I did since it avoided all the
fuss with the "food grade (ha)" silicone sealant.

I used the 5 gallon Rubbermaid/Gott water cooler (orange) and unscrewed the
spigot... I saved it in case the cooler is ever reincarnated as a cooler.

For a filter, I spiralled about 3 feet of flexible 3/8 inch copper tubing
to fit the bottom, and cut 1/4 in slits in the bottom spaced about 1 inch
apart, as has been suggested here before.

To connect the two, I used a polypropylene (working temp to 250 degrees)
3/8 inch tube-to-tube bulkhead union that fit precisely in the cooler hole. 
Once the bulkhead is tightened, the gasket that comes with the cooler seals
well. If you take the bulkhead out you can still use the cooler.

This part comes from US Plastics Corp (800)537-9724 (part number 61123, $1.20)  
It's worth getting their catalog, as they have a full line of valves, vinyl
tubing, and tanks too.  Minimum order is $10 I think.

I then connected some 3/8 vinyl tubing to the outlet with a valve clamp.  I
run this about 5 feet over directly into the kettle on a cajun cooker.

It works for me.

dennis


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Date: Tue, 28 Jul 92 10:24:17 CDT
From: tony at spss.com (Tony Babinec)
Subject: overnight brewing

Deborah Poirier says she accumulated 6 gallons of wort and let it sit
overnight intending to add hops and to boil in the morning.  Is
there a problem with that?  I would be concerned that as the
temperature of the wort fell, bacteria and wild yeast might
establish themselves.  On the other hand, upon boiling the wort in
the morning, anything that started in the wort should be killed. 
Is this true?  You hear scare stories about commercial breweries
that get certain infections that are difficult to eradicate.  The
question is whether there was enough time for anything to get
started in earnest.  Certain resultant flavors, such as souring,
should they become established, would be permanent and irremovable
in that batch of beer.

Sour mashing is easily accomplished as an overnight brew.  For the
allgrain brewer, conduct the mash as usual.  At the end of starch
conversion, let the temperature of the mash fall to roughly 130-135
degrees F, add a half-pound of cracked malt, cover the mash, and
insulate it.  Let it sit from 15 to 24 hours and resume brewing. 
That is, sparge and collect the wort.  If you leave the mash in the
brewpot, you might set your oven to 135 and place the mash pot in
the oven overnight.  Charlie Papazian's new edition describes sour
mashing in an appendix, and even suggests a method for the extract
brewer.  In any case, you are relying on the fact that the malts
you use are figuratively crawling with bacteria.  The resultant
soured beer might be called a Kentucky Common Beer.  Or, you might
use the beer as a base for a fruit beer.

In "Belgian Ales," Pierre Rajotte describes the "Oud Broun" style
typified by Rodenbach and Goudenband.  He gives a few recipes.  The
grain bill for these produces a fairly pale beer.  Rajotte suggests
using a longer boil, say 2 hours.  He also says he has left the
wort on the stove overnight at a low simmer.  The idea is to
achieve a reddening or browning through long simmer and resultant
caramelization of sugars in the wort.  In the morning, add the
finishing hops, end boil, and do the usual wort chill and racking.
With appropriate yeast, you'll emulate an Old Brown.  Or, again,
this beer becomes a nice base beer for fruit, notably raspberries.

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Date: 28 Jul 1992 11:23:29 -0400 (EDT)
From: homebrew at tso.uc.EDU (Ed Westemeier)
Subject: Lauter tuns & hop drying

Tom Feller asks about building a cooler lauter tun using a round picnic
cooler and copper pipe filter network.
 
For the past year, I've been using a variation of the Phil's Sparging
System, by Listermann Mfg. Co.  They advertise in _Zymurgy_ and the
products (like Phil's Philler) are available in many homebrew retail
outlets.
 
Besides the basic system using two plastic buckets, assorted
tubing and fittings, sparging sprinkler and perforated plastic plate,
they also make the plate in sizes to fit 5 & 10 gal. round coolers
(the "Gott" model (Rubbermaid brand) orange drinking water
coolers that you often see used by highway construction crews.
 
Using this system with a Gott cooler, I have been enjoying easy
mashing/lautering and relaxing a whole lot more than I used to.
The Gott cooler holds the temperature of contents to within a few
degrees for 2 hours or more, and the perforated plastic screen
element is easy to clean.  In short, it's both simple and effective.
 
Usual disclaimers, but ask your retailer to order the sparge system
sized for one of these coolers.  As I recall, it was well under 20 
bucks, and the cooler was available in my local K-mart for about 12
bucks.
 
Also, Carl West asked about sun-drying hops.
 
Not a good idea, IMHO.  That's why hop growers build oast houses.
Direct sunlight has a deleterious effect on hops AFTER they have
been harvested.  Dry them in the shade and you'll be a lot better off. 

- --Ed

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Date: 	Mon, 27 Jul 1992 20:00:00 -0400
From: Glenn Anderson <glenn.anderson at canrem.com>
Subject: blue stuff, pets, space


On July 21, Jeff Frane sez:
>Glenn asks about little blue flakes coming out of his wort chiller.
Sounds to me like verdigris --

On July 22, John Hartman sez:
>I suspect you used some chlorinated solution to store your chiller. I
used to do that with mine and found that the chlorine slowly corrodes the
copper.


Thanks for the comments guys. I did in fact use a chlorine solution to 
sanitize the chiller after the first couple of uses and perhaps I was
less than thorough in rinsing as it was going to storage. Since the
blue flake problem occurred I have stopped doing the final rinse with
sanitizing solution, I simply do a 5 minute "power" rinse with hot-hot
water, then put it away for next time - no more flakes.
The moral of the story, for those interested, don't leave cholorine
sanitizing solution in contact with brewing copper for any extended period
of time, you may end up with verdigris, which you should definatly worry
about.

On July 23 Dave Ballard sez:
>When the shuttle Discovery lifted off last January, it had, officially,
42 experiments to conduct.  But thanks to a Canadian pub and avid 
homebrewer-astronaut Bill Readdy, a 43rd experiment was added at the 
last minute: a study of the effect of zero gravity on hops.
 .
 .
 .
Stepping behind the bar, Readdy drew the first glass of Discovery Ale,
rapidly quaffed a few mouthfulls, caught the drips on his NASA rugby 
shirt, and proclaimed, "I declare this ale fit for human consumption!"

Hey now Dave, what was ommitted was just before Bill Readdy made that
declaration he states "Beauty, eh. Bob and Doug MacKenzie would be
proud. It just goes to show theres more to Canadians than snowshoes and
ice fishing."


On July 23 Jeff Mizner sez:
>Well, not one to be the last to try something new, I went to Canada and 
bought 12 liters & 24 half liters, with caps (good sealing caps).  
They don't break, they're easy to clean, they're light and my next batch
of bitter will go in them.  When they get old, you can recycle them (at
least in Raleigh...).

Any comments???  My local BrewStoreMeister said that they were available
but rather expensive.  He said that Coors had floated some trial marketing


Jeff, I used to use the 500ml PET bottles prior to moving to kegs. They
cost me about 35 cents a piece with the cap (which is re-useable). I now
have about 200 bottles and caps which I have no use for. I would be glad 
trade them for a Cornelius keg if anyone is interested. (sure)

The PET bottles are excellent, you simply fill them, squeeze the air out 
and cap. The bottles then "pop" out once the priming has taken effect. I 
found it to be a good barometer of when the beer had finished priming as 
bottles became hard with the pressure. They're easy to clean, re-useable
and recycleable.

The only problem I had was that I found they tipped over easily, which 
stirred up sediment which made the beer chewy.

 ...GA
- ---
 þ DeLuxeý 1.21 #11377 þ Brewer fails CRC - More bottles than caps
- --
Canada Remote Systems  - Toronto, Ontario/Detroit, MI
World's Largest PCBOARD System - 416-629-7000/629-7044

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Date: Tue, 28 Jul 92 11:20 CDT
From: arf at ddsw1.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)
Subject: CONSOLATION PRIZE

 
 To: Homebrew Digest
 Fm: Jack Schmidling
 
 I am pleased to announce that a MALTMILL is speeding on its way to Sheridan 
 Adams as winner of the recent giveaway.  He has informed me that he is indeed 
 a homebrewer and has been through the baptism of the rolling pin.  Hopefully, 
 he will now be able to crush enough grain to do a whole batch with grain.
 
 Congratulations again, Sheridan.
 
 Now, it should be obvious to most that there is one very disappointed reader 
 out there who, like many of us, thought he was the winner based on counting 
 articles in the indices.  To allay any feelings of unfairness, I have decided 
 to award Dan Keever, a consolation prize.
 
 I was hoping to send him a (not yet released) MALTMILL jr., but I am not 
 happy with the overall operation of this scaled down version and I am not yet 
 ready to put one into the field, even a free one.
 
 Therefore, I am sending to him a (soon to be announced) EASYMASHER KIT.  This 
 is a spigot, strainer and all the fittings needed to convert any large kettle 
 into a mash tun or killer brew kettle for extract or grain.  It's all brass 
 and copper, no window screen:)
 
 Congratulations, Dan Keever.  Send me your address and it will be on its way.
 
 js
 
 Here cum da flames :)
 
 
 
 
 


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Date: Tue, 28 Jul 92 12:01:09 PDT
From: rush at xanadu.llnl.gov (Alan Edwards)
Subject: Packaging Hops

Hello Fellow Relaxers,

I would like to share with you my method of packaging homegrown hops.
Three words:  baby food jars.

I was at home worrying one day (shame on me) about how to package the
fruits of my new hobby when I came up with this idea.  I was mainly
worried about using plastic ziplocks to keep hops in my freezer.  My
freezer gives this unpleasant "freezer" odor to food and ice cubes.  This
is a taste I definitely did not want in my homebrew.  I was considering
asking my local brewstore entrepreneur to package the hops for me in
exchange for some of my hops, or money.  He has one of those vacuum
sealing machines that seals food in thick plastic bags.  I was also
considering getting one of those sealing machines myself, but they are
a little expensive.

So I said, "why not glass".  Baby food jars are the perfect size.  I can
cram about half an ounce of dried hops into the really small jars (2oz,
I think).  Extrapolating, with the help of many college courses in
mathematics, the larger 4oz jars will hold about one ounce of dried hops.
I have to extrapolate because the harvests from this first year of growth
on the first three hop varieties to mature were less that an ounce each.
(I expect to get around two or three ounces from the next two varieties
to become ready--Chinook and Cascade.)

What I do is weigh the flowers, then put them in a large mixing bowl.  I
then stick the jar the into the pile of flowers and start shoving the
hops in with my hands.  Then, I make sure to label the jars with the
variety and weight, using masking tape.  It works for me.  The jars seal
pretty well.  This would be a space-saver over just cramming flowers into
a plastic bag; but I'll bet that those sealing machines would pack them
tighter.  Maybe I'd get one if I had the money and was sure that the
plastic was not permeable to freezer odors.  (There's another gadget to
put on the list.)

If you don't have a toddler yourself, maybe you know a friend who does.

Happy Hopping,
 -Alan
 .------------------------------------.
 | Alan Edwards: rush at xanadu.llnl.gov |      Member: The Hoppy Cappers
 |     or: alan-edwards at llnl.gov      |      homebrew club, Modesto, CA
 `------------------------------------'

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Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1992 15:13:19 -0400 (EDT)
From: Stephen Brent Peters <sp2q+ at andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: priming sugar & rice solids

Hi Gang,
I just want to take some of your time to relate my meager experiences with
priming with malt and brewing with rice solids.

My latest batch, turned out like a cream ale:

   3 lbs dried light malt extract
   1 lb dried rice solids
   1 package wyeast american ale yeast
   1 oz haullertaur hops boiling
   1/2 oz H hops put in 10 minutes before the end of the boil
   1/2 oz H hops finishing
   1/2 cup roasted barley

Don't be anal-retentive about the hop amounts.  I winged it on the fly, approx-
imating from a Papazian recipie.  The significant techincal improvements in
this batch were the liquid yeast and using malt instead of corn sugar for
priming.  If anyone out there is thinking of moving up to liquid yeast, do it.
The taste of the yeast itself is much improved - it still tastes like yeast,
but it doesn't taste _bad_, and leaves much subtler favors.  I read in
Papazian's book that using malt for priming makes for different bubbles that
have a _creamier_ texture.  Sure enough, it does.  The result was a light,
refreshing brew with a delicate delicious flavor that leaves your tongue
floating on a cloud.

About the rice solids: last year I bought something I think was called
"sweet rice" at an Asian grocery store.  When cooked this stuff produced
a mush rather than your typical rice kernels.  It was mildly sweet too if I
remember correctly.  Is this a way of making my own rice solids?  Anyone have
a clue what would happen if I dumped a pound or two in the brewkettle?

next week I'll be driving all the way across the USA and stopping at every
brewery I can find!  See you in SanFrancisco!

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Date: Tue, 28 Jul 92 15:52:46 -0400
From: Arun Welch <welch at cis.ohio-state.edu>
Subject: Blueberry melomel recipe?

Hi there, 
 Since blueberry's are coming into season here I'd like to try making a
blueberry melomel.  Anyone got a good recipe?

 ...arun



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Date: Tue, 28 Jul 92 14:57:24 -0500
From: oconnor at ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (donald oconnor)
Subject: o-rings


There seems to be some disagreement with my earlier statement regarding
the 'dirty o-ring infecting your beer' myth so i went ahead and did a 
little experiment.

i took 10 dirty large o-rings from used soda kegs.  some had dr. pepper,
sprite, big red, mountain dew and i don't know what else.  i rinsed them
off under the faucet for a few seconds, then soaked them in a pail of
water overnight, then hung them up in the garage for 2 days.  I then
heat sealed them in a polyethylene bag with plain water for a day.
when i opened the bag i could not smell any soda pop whatsoever.  also,
the water tasted just like water.

let me explain why this business of dirty o-rings ruining the flavor
profile of homebrew has never made any sense.  Beer is essentially
water with a little alcohol.  If you soak o-rings in water and/or
alcohol and the stuff won't come out, then why in the hell would
it ever come out in your beer which, i'll repeat myself,  is 
water and alcohol?  Secondly, if you can smell the pop on the
o-ring, then it is coming out.  that's why you can smell it.  Third,
o-rings are not very large.  Unless you believe there are little
elves making soda pop in there, it's hard to imagine getting enough
of anything out of them to ruin 5 or as some claim, 20 gallons of 
flavorful, malty brew.

finally, o-rings are cheap and since my wife sells them i guess this
makes me the world's worst salesman. on the other hand, hard hats are
cheap but we're not all wearing them because Chicken Little says the
sky is falling.

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Date: Tue, 28 Jul 92 14:01:09 PDT
From: David A. Haberman <haberman at hpdavidh.ple.af.mil>
Subject: Boston anyone?

I will be on Boston the week of Aug. 3-7 for the MACWORLD Expo.  I would like
to meet up sometime with those of you in the area or at the conference.
Please send me a message if you are interested in getting together.  I will be
able to read your messages until 3:00 PM PDT this Friday.

- --
The reply address in the header may not work at your site.  My system is new
and is not in a name server yet.  You must use the numeric address or the
alternate one for another system I use frequently.

David A. Haberman     haberman at 192.42.141.199  or  habermand at pl-edwards.af.mil

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Date: 28 Jul 92 13:56:00 PST
From: "MR. DAVID HABERMAN" <HABERMAND at scivx1>
Subject: Boston Anyone?

uI will be on Boston the week of Aug. 5-9 for the MACWORLD Expo.  I would like
to meet up sometime with those of you in the area or at the conference. 
Please send me a message if you are interested in getting together.  I will be
able to read your messages until 3:00 PM PDT this Friday.

 -
David A. Haberman   <habermand at pl-edwards.af.mil> or <haberman at 192.42.141.199>
                      (Use one of the above addresses, the header is wrong)

Well they worked their will on John Barleycorn, but he lived to tell the tale.
For they pour him out of an old brown jug, and they call him home brewed ale!


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Date: 28 Jul 1992 17:08:17 -0400 (EDT)
From: homebrew at tso.uc.EDU (Ed Westemeier)
Subject: Sun drying hops (correction)

I responded to a question about drying hops in the sun by saying
that direct sunlight had a deleterious effect on hops after
harvesting.  This was based on some traditional wisdom (or
"momily") that had been rattling around in my skull, not from
any actual scientific information.  I felt a bit guilty about my
hasty answer, and herewith retract it.
 
There is no reason why you can not use the sun to dry your hops.
 
The harmful effect of sunlight that produces skunky or light-
struck beer is based on the fact that the iso-alpha acids that
are produced during the boil are inherently unstable.  The light
produces a reaction between the iso-alpha acids and some 
sulfur compounds found in the proteins, and the result is that
skunky note we universally abhor.  
 
The alpha acids in the hop flowers are much more stable, and
should not be adversely affected by the sunlight.  RDWHAHB.
 
- -- Ed

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Date: 28 Jul 1992 21:13:39 -0400 (EDT)
From: JEFF at RCC.RTI.ORG
Subject: Sanitizing Beer Bottles in Dishwasher

IN REPLY TO:
 
      poirier at inrs-ener.uquebec.ca
 
>>Hello fellow fizzicists!
 
 
>>Now I have two questions:
 
>>1. do many of you use your dishwashwers to sanitize bottles and hoses? I do,
>>with extra hot water and I slosh in a few glugs of bleach midway along. No
>>problems so far, but is this the safest way to go? Would "sparkleen" or just
>>regular dishwashing detergent work better?

>>Thanks for any advice.
>>Deb

I have used the same bottle sanitizing technique since brewing my first batch
in 1980 and have never had problems, assuming you're not getting bottles out
of a trash can.  After consuming a beer (homebrew or import or non-twistoff
longneck), I rinse it out thoroughly with tap water and allow to dry upside
down in the sink.  After drying, I place all "clean" bottles upside down in
it's case until bottling time.  Then I run the bottles through the dishwasher
WITH NO SOAP!  I visually inspect each bottle prior to filling- if there
appears to be a problem, set that bottle aside for a future batch and use a
chlorine solution to really clean it.  It's easy and it works!  
- ------------------------------

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Date: Tue, 28 Jul 92 19:21 EDT
From: tom at kalten.bach1.sai.com (Tom Kaltenbach)
Subject: RE: THREADing for the Mac

>  
> Date: 27 Jul 1992 12:44:44 -0500
> From: Chris McDermott <mcdermott at draper.com>
> Subject: THREADing for the Mac
>  
> THREADing for the Mac
> For all you Mac users in HbD land who can't use  Tom Kaltenbachs, reportedly
> excellent, program for doing searches through back digest on PCs:
>  
> I use a program call BBEdit, the bare-bones editor.  This is FREE program
> that is not only an excelent TEXT editor, but it also can do disk based file
> searches for text strings.  The strings can be specified as just a plain 
> string or as a regular expression (a la grep).  I leave it as an exercise 
> for the reader to discover the other neat features of this program.
>       .             .                .
>       .             .                .
>       .             .                .
> /Chris
> 

I'm a firm believer in useful, general utility programs.  In fact, I've used 
a similar program to the one Chris mentioned for the last couple of years 
for searching the back issues of the digest.  However, using such a utility 
is a very time-consuming task for an extensive search.  The reason is that 
general file searching utilities have no knowledge about the individual 
messages that comprise the Homebrew digest, and this is the reason that I 
wrote THREAD.  Time to toot my own horn.  8-)

THREAD is a message-based search program.  That means that it reads each 
message from a given digest issue, and searches just the message for all the 
key words.  In contrast, a general file search utility searches the entire 
file for the key words.  For example, let's say we wanted to extract all the 
advice on growing your own hops, and let's say the general utility program 
can handle logical operators (i.e. AND, OR, NOT).  Then a search for "grow" 
AND "hops" with THREAD will pull up only those MESSAGES with the key words, 
whereas the general utility will pull up every DIGEST with the key words.  
The result is that you have to sift through a huge amount of unrelated text 
to extract the messages related to growing hops.  Believe me, even with 
THREAD, you get plenty of messages that are not of interest -- in the search 
example above, you'll also get messages related to "the growth of the hops 
industry", etc.  In short, a message-based search program will save a huge 
amount of time and effort for the homebrewer.

Maybe someone in the Mac world that has the Turbo Pascal compiler for the 
Mac could compile THREAD and upload it somewhere for other Mac users?  I've 
provided the source code with the THREAD program files...  

Just as an aside, I've released the THREAD program as public domain.  I 
don't ask for any donations or registration fees.  I started writing THREAD 
to save time for myself, and quickly realized that others might benefit from 
it too.  Therefore, I put more effort into making the program fast on PCs 
with a variety of processors/clock speeds, documenting the program and 
source code, and debugging it before it was released.

Tom Kaltenbach
tom at kalten.bach1.sai.com

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Date: Tue, 28 Jul 92 19:25:08 PDT
From: rush at xanadu.llnl.gov (Alan Edwards)
Subject: Packing Hops: Addendum

Hi Brewpeoples,

I made a mistake in my last post about using baby food jars for storing
hops.  I wrote:

| I can cram about half an ounce of dried hops into the really small jars
| (2oz, I think)....the larger 4oz jars will hold about one ounce of
| dried hops.

Well, I just got home and packed the first pickings from my Chinook plant
and realized that the small jars are 4 fluid ounces and the large ones
are 6 ounces.  With a little effort I was able to cram one ounce of fully
dried hops into the 6oz jar.  (I got 0.6 ounces into the 4oz jar.)  One
other thing I remembered:  your hands smell absolutely wonderful after
packing the hops!  A small amount of lupulin sticks to your hands.  Not
much sticks to the glass bowl though.  Use glass; lupulin seems to stick
more to plastic.

Happy Hopping,
 -Alan
 .------------------------------------.
 | Alan Edwards: rush at xanadu.llnl.gov |      Member: The Hoppy Cappers
 |     or: alan-edwards at llnl.gov      |      homebrew club, Modesto, CA
 `------------------------------------'

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End of HOMEBREW Digest #937, 07/29/92