HOMEBREW Digest #993 Mon 19 October 1992

Digest #992 Digest #994


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


Contents:
  Yarrow (HULTINP)
  Digest 992 and Jack's perfect brews (matth)
  Beer Across America (Guy D. McConnell)
  Re: Mendocino Brewing Company (hinkens)
  RE- HBD #992 (Chris McDermott)
  Re: American Wheat ALe (Jeff Benjamin)
  Homebrew Digest #992 (October 16, 1992) (brians)
  Revisionist history:  AWA (Darryl Richman)
  Re: dryhop VS end-of-boil/dead yeast?/Small batches (korz)
  California Red and GABF ("CBER::MRGATE::\"A1::RIDGELY\"")
  Red Mtn Ale (Douglas Behm)
  apparent attenuation (Rob Bradley)
  Glo:gg Recipe (HULTINP)
  Please, clean up files (Pierre Jelenc)
  Malt Liquor (Brewing Chemist Brian Walter)
  efficient wort chilling (wolfgang)

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---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 08:34 EDT From: HULTINP at QUCDN.QueensU.CA Subject: Yarrow In HBD #990 (which I missed) and again in #991 there is talk of the use of yarrow (or milfoil) as a bittering agent in "pre-hops" brews. In H.S. Corran "A History of Brewing", David & Charles Inc., North Pomfret Vt., 1975 (ISBN 0 7153 6735 8) we find: " Before hopped beer became customary in Germany, a mixture of herbs including bog myrtle, rosemary, and yarrow, among others, was employed; this mixture was known as gruit... There is no doubt that similar herbs were used in England, France and the Low Countries also." There is no data supplied on how much gruit was used or how much yarrow etc was in the gruit. As for the question of "pre-hops" this term can mean quite a long time ago in some parts of the world. England got hops relatively late, and there is a lot of data on 16th century recipes for unhopped ale. However, the continent was mostly switched on to hops by the beginning of the 16th century, and if you want "authentic" products, finding the recipes for continental styles will be tough. BTW unhopped ale brewed according to an English recipe from the late 16th century without any bittering agent actually is pretty good, in a different sort of way! Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 92 09:10:48 -0400 From: matth at bedford.progress.com Subject: Digest 992 and Jack's perfect brews In today's digest, #992, Jack S. Says: > How can you possibly suggest that I would make beer that I do not like? I wish I could attain that type of consistent perfection! I know I've had batches that either not what I had intended for the final product or for some reason I just wasn't wild about. I have a hard time believing that every brew someone makes the brewer loves *unless* the brewer is not trying new styles or only uses recipes that he/she has tasted from other brewers. -Matth Matthew J. Harper ! Progress Software Corp. ! {disclaimer.i} God created heaven and earth to grow barley and hops. Now he homebrews !-) Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 92 9:01:23 CDT From: guy at mspe5.b11.ingr.com (Guy D. McConnell) Subject: Beer Across America In Digest #992, Joe McCauley writes: > Yesterday I heard a third-hand report of some difficulties they're having > at Beer Across America. (For those of you who are not familiar with BAA, > it is a mail-order service you can "subscribe" to, in which every so > often (once a month?) they send you a six-pack of a beer from some > microbrewery (a different one each time) and a bill for something like > $12.95 including shipping. While this may seem a bit expensive for a > six-pack of beer, it's worth it to many subscribers if most of the beers > are not available in their areas.) Yes, $12.95 does sound high for a six-pack of most beer. The good news is that BAA sends *two* six-packs, one each from two different breweries each month for $13.50, plus shipping, I believe. Their number, for those interested, is: 1-800-854-BEER. - -- Guy McConnell guy at mspe5.b11.ingr.com "All I need is a pint a day" Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 09:39:02 -0600 From: hinkens at macc.wisc.edu Subject: Re: Mendocino Brewing Company Rick Smith writes: >I was just wondering if anyone out there is familiar with the Mendocino >Brewing Company. I have spotted a few bottles of their product lately >and wonder if it is worth a purchase. If anyone knows anything please >post it. MANGE BABY!!!! nothing but cheese all of the time! ---Rick >Smith/AAAF at CATCC The Mendocino Brewing Company has a number of brews available including Black Hawk Stout, Blue Heron Pale, Eye of the Hawk, Red Tail Ale, and Yuletide Porter. A quote I heard about their brews goes as follows: "I don't really care for the Red Tail Ale, but the Blue Heron Pale Ale is pretty good." I have had the Red Tail ale and find it a very fine brew. If you ever get to CA, I hear the brewery is really something. There is an outdoor beer garden with hop trellises growing up the walls with their aroma filling the air! Supposedly, the food is really good, too! Their address is: 13351 Hwy 101 South, Hopland, CA 95449 (707) 744 1015 -Jay Hinkens Madison, Wisconsin Return to table of contents
Date: 16 Oct 1992 11:44:01 -0500 From: Chris McDermott <mcdermott at draper.com> Subject: RE- HBD #992 RE: HBD #992 Rob Bradley says about Genesee Cream Ale: > I have since learned that it's main claim to fame is its price. Back in college, before I developed better taste, we had a saying that wnd like this: "When your wallet says NO, Genesee says GO." Some thoughts about maple flavoring in beer: A few people have commented on using maple syrup in their recipies and have felt that the resulting brews did not have much maple character. Dan Vachon (dvac%druwa.att.com at hplb.hpl.hp.com) says that next time he will try to add the syrup at the end of the boil. I don't think this will work any better because I don't beleive the maple character is lost in the boil. This is because maple syrup itself is made by boiling down maple tree sap. This leads me to beleive that the maple flavor is either lost as its constituents are used up in the ferment, or is scrubbed out by the ferment's co2 production. So my suggestion is to add maple syrup at bottling time instead of the normal priming sugar. Comments? _ Christopher K. McDermott Internet: mcdermott at draper.com C.S. Draper Laboratory, Inc. Voice: (617) 258-2362 555 Technology Square FAX: (617) 258-1131 Cambridge, MA 02149 (USA) Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 92 10:23:00 MDT From: Jeff Benjamin <benji at hpfcbug.fc.hp.com> Subject: Re: American Wheat ALe > American wheats, > exemplified by the insipid Anchor Wheat and Red Hook Brewery's > Wheat Hook, use standard ale yeast. The result is an underhopped, > virtually flavorless beverage reminiscent of Miller Lite. I have to disagree with Jon's invective against the American Wheat style. While not as radicaly different from a pale as as as stout, or even a Bavarian Wheat, American Wheat beers can be different from Miller and even be extremely tasty. A well-made American Wheat should have a low hopping rate (as does the Bavarian style), but that does not preclude having any hop character at all. Even we hop-heads have to come down every once and a while. The main characteristic of an American Wheat should be a sharp fruitiness from the wheat malt that doesn't exist in an all-barley pale ale. I do agree, though, that Anchor and Red Hook do not exemplify the style very well. Try a Schell Wheat beer, or if you're in Ft. Collins, Colorado look for O'Dell's Heartland Wheat (seasonal), or come by my place and try a blue-ribbon winning Fat Wanda's American Wheat. - -- Jeff Benjamin benji at hpfcla.fc.hp.com Hewlett Packard Co. Fort Collins, Colorado "Midnight shakes the memory as a madman shakes a dead geranium." - T.S. Eliot Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 92 16:18 GMT From: brians <brians_+a_neripo_+lbrians+r%NERI at mcimail.com> Subject: Homebrew Digest #992 (October 16, 1992) MHS: Source date is: 16-Oct-92 11:42 EDT I'm putting together my Xmas beer. NOrmally, I make 5gal and use a full mash + extract to get gravity up. Since I have 50# of malt sitting around, I'd just as soon not buy extract if I don't have to. My thought is to scale down to 3 gal and use ~9# grain in the mash, using only first runnings. I'd like to get a 1.060-1.070 gravity if possible. My calculations show this is possible; anybody else have a prediction for using just first runnings? If the 1st runnings seem low, could I just sparge a couple gallons and boil for 2-3 hours to get the volume & gravity where I want it? Are there risks to a long boil apart from caramelization? ============== In HBD 992, Chris Cook wonders: >The option that appeals to me more is to start brewing a lot of experimental, >1-gallon batches. Has anyone else worked this way? I'm running blind here, >and if anyone's worked out some of the pitfalls, I'd love to hear them. Do >you just scale all the ingredients by 5? My experience has been that scaling is fine with extract+steep grains, but if you are doing all grain, you'll have more trouble. I tried once to step down a Weizen recipe from 5 to 3 gal, and got horrifying yield; the grain bed behaves very differently for me when the amount of grain is <4# or so (I use the popular yet oft-vilified Zapap(c) bucket in a bucket system). My entirely unscientific explanation for this is the "one for the pot" theory: when you make tea you are supposed to put in a certain amount of tea for each cup, and "one for the pot". I find if you don't do this, a 5 cup pot of tea might be fine with only 5 measures, but a 2 cup pot is too weak without that third. A similar effect may be at work with my mash. Lameness may also be at work. >I figure to divide a Wyeast package (using >my standard starter) into 5 or more; You're welcome to, but that sounds perilous to me; maybe making up a good 2 pints of starter would make this possible, though making sure each batch gets a decent dose of yeast might require 5 small starters. My one comment is that you might be better off doing 2.5 - 3 gal batches. It isn't as cost effective but the difference in scale isn't quite so dramatic. Remember, when you make a 1 gal batch you'll leave plenty behind with the yeast slurry, etc., bottling maybe only .75 gal. Do you trust an "experimental" batch that yields so little? Finding 3 gal carboys shouldn't be too tough. Good luck! Brian Schuth (brians%neri at mcimail.com) Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 92 09:43:11 PDT From: Darryl Richman <darrylri at microsoft.com> Subject: Revisionist history: AWA Today's (yesterday) post by Jon Binkley speculates on the history of American Wheat Ales. Jon's point, if I may be so bold to summarize, is that these are the bland variety of wheat beers that have little to distinguish them from industrial beer. In fact, I disagree with this estimation; run a tasting with AWAs and industrial beer side by side and you will see, true to their micro heritage, that AWAs have substantially more body than Miller Lite, or Miller Genuine Draft for that matter, and more flavor and character as well. As to their origin, I believe that Anchor Wheat is the originator of the style. Fritz Maytag has been quoted several times as saying that the design of the beer was purposeful. Maytag was well aware of the German Weizens, their unique character, and how it is brought about, and had access to the yeast strains required. But he wanted to produce a quality product for his market, which at the time was California, and which is very hot and dry in the summer (SF excluded, of course ;-). This required, he has indicated, a beer that was more in the vein of a lawnmower beer. AWAs are definitely the training wheels beers for many micros' line ups, along with other bland styles like Cream Ale and sometimes the pale lagers. Jon is absolutely correct to point out that there is plenty of other micro beer available to enjoy, and even the occassional micro that does attain the interesting character of a Weizen. But to denigrate a brewery for attempting find competitive niches is counterproductive. After all, it's not as if Anchor or Red Hook stopped producing some of their other, more distinctive products in order to make room for these. Such an attitude can also smack of snobbishness, which can turn off a lot people who might otherwise be interested enough to try "different" styles of beer. --Darryl Richman Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 92 14:26 CDT From: iepubj!korz at ihlpa.att.com Subject: Re: dryhop VS end-of-boil/dead yeast?/Small batches Chris McDermott asks: >What will give a beer more hop aromatics, hopping at the end of the boil, or >dry-hopping with an equal amount? Say hopping at the end of the boil means >steeping the hops for a few minutes after turning off the gas. Without a doubt dryhopping. I suggest dryhopping after all the fermentation is over (so the escaping CO2 does not scrub out the aromatics) for 7 to 10 days. Once the fermentation is complete, there is generally little sugar left for nasties and the acidity and alcohol will kill most that would dare to live on the hops. I like whole hops over pellets because they float and then you rack (siphon) out from under them. Pellets float for a while and then sink, making racking a problem. Roy Styan writes: >Subject: I think I killed my yeast. > >I am currently brewing a batch of cream ale. It went through an 8 day >primary fermentation at 15C. I racked to secondary and let it sit for >a couple of days to let the yeast build up before lagering. I seems it >still had a lot of fermenting to do, as it built up a strong (for a secondary) >ferment. Dispite all warnings from just about every source imaginable, >I just chucked the carboy into the fridge and let it cool down to about >1 deg. C. The yeast were not happy. I think I killed them. There were >no signs of life in there. I raised the temp. to 4 deg. C. Still no sign of >life. That was over a week ago. > >What do you guys think? Should I repitch? Raise the temp. back up to 15C and >try again? Ignore the probLem? What's the gravity? If it is 25 to 35% of the original gravity (you can estimate the OG if you didn't measure it -- send me private email if you don't know how), then I'd say don't worry. If there is more gravity left, I'd say you did kill the yeast. In this case, I suggest bringing it back up to 15C and pitching more yeast. Note that if you did not aerate your wort well, you may end up with a high final gravity anyway, but 8 days at 15C sounds reasonable. Whatever you do, don't re-aerate. I suspect that it should be all fermented out. Chris Cook asks about how to try a lot of recipes without becoming an alcoholic: [stuff deleted] >My first thought was to share like crazy. Too expensive, >although very popular. There. You've answered your own question, but you don't know it yet. Join a club, or start one if there's none around. Keep good records and urge your fellow club members to do so also. Between 20 brewer's you can try 80 different recipes per month and you only need to bring eight bottles of your beer to a meeting. Look at the recipes in the back of Zymurgy or in books. They don't really vary that much, do they. Keep your experiments within the general boundaries of normal recipes and you won't make undrinkable beer (i.e. don't try adding 5 pounds of roasted barley or 7 ounces of Nugget to a 5 gallon batch). > >The option that appeals to me more is to start brewing a lot of >experimental, 1-gallon batches. Has anyone else worked this way? >I'm running blind here, and if anyone's worked out some of the >pitfalls, I'd love to hear them. Do you just scale all the >ingredients by 5? Yes and no. I have not tried this, but Jay Hersh has written in this forum that hops don't scale linearly. Jay-- if you could shed some light on this, please do. >Doesn't seem like it'd be that easy, but >maybe. Yeast pitching rates? I figure to divide a Wyeast >package (using my standard starter) into 5 or more; any >complications or precautions are welcome. Splitting your starter sounds like a good plan. >Any obvious changes in >technique? That seems relative unchanged, but who knows. I suggest changing only one thing at a time. Keep the hops and yeast the same and change the malt, etc. >As an >aside, does anyone know a source for gallon glass bottles? (Near >Washington, DC) Check with glass recycling centers. I got my gallon jugs with Ocean Spray Cranberry Juice in them at the grocery store. Perhaps you could ask your neighbors to help you out buying juice by the gallon? Perhaps a restaurant nearby buys juices by the gallon? >Mashing gets simpler, I guess, but all my stuff assumes at least >5 pounds of grain. I expect the 44 quart cooler/lauter tun will >get cumbersome quickly, for example. Jack, you're Easymash may >be the best bet. I disagree. With very little grain in the bottom of the pot, your grain bed would still be very shallow. This would also accentuate the poor extract efficiency of the Easymash system -- its biggest design flaw is that the runoff is drawn from a very limited area of the grain bed. I suggest, the "Al Korzonas LITTLEMASH System(tm)" - -- a coffee can with a bunch of holes in the bottom and a grain bag in it. No muss, no fuss, no shipping, no handling, no sales tax, no stamps please. (Actually, it's not my idea -- either Papazian or Miller say this is what one of the industrial brewer's did to measure extraction efficiency through a deep grain bed -- they used a lot more than one coffee can -- wasn't it 7?!) Al. Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 16:37:40 -0400 (EDT) From: "CBER::MRGATE::\"A1::RIDGELY\"" at CBER.CBER.FDA.GOV Subject: California Red and GABF From: NAME: Bill Ridgely FUNC: HFB-300 TEL: FTS 402-1336 <RIDGELY at A1 at CBER> To: SMTP%"HOMEBREW at HPFCMI.FC.HP.COM" at MRGATE at WPC Last week, I commented >after selecting 18 medalists (count 'em!) in the American Lager, Light Lager, Premium Lager, Dry Lager, and Malt Liquor categories ...< OK, I counted 'em, and I blew it. Hopefully, the point was made anyway. Besides, doesn't 1 + 1 = 3? Bill Ridgely (ridgely at cber.cber.fda.gov) Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 92 15:47:21 CDT From: Douglas Behm <DBEHM at UA1VM.UA.EDU> Subject: Red Mtn Ale What happened in the fight for control of this company ? When I read the post that control had changed so did the taste of the beer. I must be highly susceptable to suggestion or did the beer change ? Return to table of contents
Date: Sat, 17 Oct 92 00:24:42 -0400 From: bradley at adx.adelphi.edu (Rob Bradley) Subject: apparent attenuation So what's the big deal with apparent attenuation, and how can Wyeast be so sure in predicting it? Let OG = original gravity (without decimal, e.g. 1046 instead of 1.046), FG = final gravity Then AE = apparent attenuation is computed by means of the equation OG - FG AE = ----------- x 100 % . OG - 1000 My latest, Stewart Namor Pale Ale, (conscious typo: SNPA, see?) yields 1048 - 1012 AE = ----------- x 100% = 75% 1048 - 1000 I used Wyeast 1056 (apparently not Sierra Nevada yeast after all)-: which, according to Wyeast literature, has "apparent attenuation 73-77%". Right on the money, Wyeast! So how can they be so sure? Don't I have a lot of control over my final gravity through mash time and temperature? Is the Wyeast figure based on the assumption of either extract or a fairly standard mash, or is the figure 73-77% largely independent of mash schedule? Last season I brewed 6 ales with OGs in the 1045-1057 range, all mashed in a relatively hot, short infusion mash, all fermented with either Edme or Munton & Fison dried yeasts. For all batches, AE was in the range 60-65% with an average of 63%. Have other dried yeast users gotten similar numbers? Using Wyeast 1056 in my SNPA (a recipe similar to last season's ales) has knocked about 6 points off the final gravity. I kind of miss the extra body, and the unexpected FG has thrown my hop/malt balance off. A final question: A fact sheet I have describing 1007, 1028, 1056, 1098 [German, London, American and British] all list AE range as 73-75 or 73-77. Then we have 1084 [Irish] at 71-75% and 1338 [European] at 67-71%. Is there some particular polysaccharide which the first four can eat but the last tow cannot? And a further one which European can't eat but the others can? Or is it more complicated than all this? I know I'm stealing somebody else's line here, but inquiring minds want to know. A resident of Stewart Manor, NY, Rob (bradley at adx.adelphi.edu) Return to table of contents
Date: Sat, 17 Oct 1992 15:45 EDT From: HULTINP at QUCDN.QueensU.CA Subject: Glo:gg Recipe There was a request for a recipe for Glo:gg from scratch. This is the recipe my family has used every Christmas for the last 20 years or so. It comes from Brown, D. "Foods of the World: The Cooking of Scandinavia", Time-Life Books, New York, 1968. "PROFESSOR'S GLO:GG" 20-25 Servings Mix in 6-8 quart enamel pot: 2 qts dry red wine 2 qts muscatel 1 pt sweet vermouth 2 Tbsp Angostura Bitters 2 cups raisins 1 orange peel (without white part) 12 whole cardamoms, bruised in mortar/pestle 10 whole cloves 1 piece, ca 2" fresh ginger 1 stick cinnamon Let this stand, tightly covered, at room temperature at least 12 hours. Shortly before serving, add 12 oz aquavit 1.5 cups sugar Mix well, heat rapidly to full boil on high heat. Remove from heat as soon as it boils. Add 2 c whole blanched peeled almonds Serve it immediately, hot, in small cups. The drink is quite chunky, and we usually put a small spoon in each cup to eat the raisins and almonds with. It goes to your head very sneakily and tastes really good so people tend to drink a lot of it! The aquavit is important, the caraway flavour is noticeable in the glo:gg so don't substitute vodka or any such stuff. Have fun with it. Phil Hultin. Return to table of contents
Date: Sat, 17 Oct 92 19:21:34 EDT From: Pierre Jelenc at cunixf.cc.columbia.edu Subject: Please, clean up files Dear HBD contributors, Please try to submit pure ASCII files for publications. For those of us who must print because of time quotas that preclude reading on-line, all these CTRL-Z, CTRL-L, ESC, and other non-printing characters wreak havoc with paper-saving 4-pages-to-a-sheet printing programs. Please set your editor to "plain ASCII" or whatever the setting is, cut your lines before 80 characters, and don't put form-feeds or escape sequences. The trees will thank you. (It took me 4 tries to finally print HBD 992; it had one CTRL-Z, one CTRL-L, one ESC-Z, and several long lines.) Pierre Pierre Jelenc pcj1 at cunixf.cc.columbia.edu Columbia University, New York Return to table of contents
Date: Sun, 18 Oct 1992 13:01:44 -0600 From: walter at lamar.ColoState.EDU (Brewing Chemist Brian Walter) Subject: Malt Liquor Howdy all, With the talk of malt liquor, and a definition of style, I believe it most appropiate to turn to Micheal Jackson for the answer. In perusing my copy of The New World Guide To Beer which I picked up at the GABF, Malt Liquor is defined as follows: Malt Liquor - American term for a strong lager. American versions are usually cheaply made, sometimes with a high proportion of sugar. Not very malty, and not liquor. Often consumed for a quick "high". Serve at 7C (45 F). Well, I believe that about says it all, although I disagree with Mr. Jackson on the serving temperature. If I remember my early college days I always found malt liquor best served as close to freezing as possible ;^) Good Day, Brian J Walter |Science, like nature, must also be tamed| Relax, Chemistry Graduate Student|with a view towards its preservation. |Don't Worry Colorado State University |Given the same state of integrity, it | Have A walter at lamar.colostate.edu|will surely serve us well. -N. Peart | Homebrew! Return to table of contents
Date: Sun, 18 Oct 92 19:39:57 -0700 From: wolfgang at cats.UCSC.EDU Subject: efficient wort chilling For rapid and efficient wort chilling: I use an immersion-type wort chiller and I live in drought-stricken Santa Cruz (no water, but 3 brew pubs! 8-). To ease the water usage of wort chilling, I have developed the following method (excuse me if this is obvious!). I siphon water from an intake bucket with ice in it, thru the wort chiller, into an outflow bucket. The ice water chills the wort rapidly, I use much less water than if using straight tap water, and I can easily control the flow rate by changing the height of the uptake bucket. The details: I can chill 2.5-3 gallons of wort (I'm still doing extracts!) in 10-15 minutes! I usually dump the first gallon of outflow water down the drain and replace the water in the intake bucket with cool tap water. However, being quite water conscious, I recycle the rest of the water from the outflow bucket by dumping it into the intake bucket. The ice in the intake bucket chills it once it's dumped in. To be even more water-efficient, I start the intake with the water I've used for sanitizing. The ice comes from my freezer. This method may seem like a bit more work (I need to refill the intake 1-3 times during chilling and I empty the outflow a couple of times), but it sure does save water. It also chills the wort VERY rapidly. The water running through the chiller is 32F and it doesn't require as much equipment as the 'double-chiller' method I've seen described. Also, the temp of your tap water is no longer an issue. Just prepare ahead and freeze some ice! By the way, you can start the siphon by holding the intake end over a faucet, sealing it with your hand and using the water pressure to fill the system. Don't try sucking! If you can suck through 30-40 feet of tubing, then you've got some lungs! I got a sprained diaphram when I tried :-) Return to table of contents
End of HOMEBREW Digest #993, 10/19/92