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!

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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 !-)  

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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"

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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


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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)



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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

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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)

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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


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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.

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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)

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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 ?

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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)

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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.

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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

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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!


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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 :-)  

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End of HOMEBREW Digest #993, 10/19/92