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


Contents:
  Pre-cooking wheat?? (Dennis J. Templeton)
  Recipe calculators (Phillip Seitz)
  Hopback Filter Material (C.R. Saikley)
  Request for Mead Recipes (Justin Seiferth)
  The Cat's Meow 2 - Updated Text version ("Karl F. Lutzen" )
  Re: N.P.R. History of Beer (Richard Childers)
  Re:trub filter ("Bob Jones")
  party ball kegging? (Kenneth Haney)
  Godzilla vs Mothra (7226 Lacroix)
  Flat beer (doug)
  Re: Smartcaps (korz)
  Colorado Brews (Brewing Chemist Brian Walter)
  off the trub = off the yeast? (Peter Maxwell)


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**For Cat's Meow information, send mail to lutzen at novell.physics.umr.edu**


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

Date: Mon, 9 Nov 92 12:03:24 -0500
From: djt2 at po.CWRU.Edu (Dennis J. Templeton)
Subject:  Pre-cooking wheat??



Several posts recently have described the procedures used at the Celis
brewery to make their Texas style wheat beer.  The description is of a
grist that is 1/2 belgian 2 row malt and 1/2 hard red wheat.  No mention is
made of pre-cooking the wheat.

I have always used rolled wheat flakes from the local food coop since these
are pre gelatinized (cooked) but I would use whole red wheat if I didn't
have to boil it for 45 minutes or more.  What is the story, does Celis cook
the wheat? or have I been mislead into thinking cooking is essential when
it really isnt?

thanks,
dennis

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Date: Mon, 9 Nov 92 16:56 GMT
From: Phillip Seitz <0004531571 at mcimail.com>
Subject: Recipe calculators

Chris C. has spoiled us all with BRF, and I am reluctant to go back to
my days of pencil and calculator to make up my recipes.  However, I
am getting very tired and weary of mixing pounds, gallons, cups and 
grams, as I'm sure many others out there do.  

My question: are there any computer programs out there that do all the 
calculation on a metric basis?  (I.e., kilos per liter, and, for hops,
grams per liter).

Bonus question: could someone out there PRETTY PLEASE send me the address
of the mead lovers' interest group?  I promised this to a Belgian friend
who also keeps bees and is a molecular biologist. Wouldn't you want someone
like this joining in on the conversation?

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Date: Mon, 9 Nov 92 09:28:55 PST
From: grumpy!cr at uunet.UU.NET (C.R. Saikley)
Subject: Hopback Filter Material

From: rstya at map.mda.ca (Roy Styan)

>I've reciently redesigned my hopback. It is now a long cylindrical tube
>(made out of stainless steel wire mesh), pinched off at one end, with the other
>stuck in the outlet of the brew kettle.  

	[ascii graphics deleted]

>Works great for hops, but all this talk about trub started me thinking.  What 
>if I filled the tube with some sort of material that would let the beer through
>but not the trub?  

How about fresh hop cones? It's not the perfect filter material, but it does
have other advantages. I've tried a similar arrangement and it works pretty 
well. I've also heard that Sierra Nevada filters their wort over fresh hops 
for the aromatics, but that's just hearsay.

CR

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Date: Mon, 9 Nov 92 11:20:46 MST
From: seiferth at rufous.cs.unm.edu (Justin Seiferth)
Subject: Request for Mead Recipes

I've made a couple of batches of Gingersnap Honey Mead from TCJHB and
love it, so much that I find myself drinking and brewing much less beer.
I really enjoy the crisp taste of the raspberry mead but would like to
"branch out" with other mead recipes.  Could those of you who also make  
mead post tried and true concoctions and/or hints- such as add the honey
and bring to boil before adding spices/hops (this avoids skimming the
flavourful additions off when you skim the bee bodies and wax out)?

seiferth at rufous.cs.unm.edu


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Date:     9 Nov 92 13:41:45 CST
From: "Karl F. Lutzen" <LUTZEN at physics.umr.edu>
Subject:  The Cat's Meow 2 - Updated Text version

For all of you fine folks that have been waiting for the plain text
version of the updated Cat's Meow 2, it was finally completed over the
weekend.  The file has been uploaded to sierra.stanford.edu and is
available for anonymous ftp under /pub/homebrew/recipe-book/cats_meow_ed2.

For those who need to use the listserver they can send a message to
listserv at sierra.stanford.edu with

    get homebrew recipe-book/cats_meow_ed2

as the body of the message.

Due to an unfortunate oversight with the original CM2 text version, there
was no easy way to provide update files as with the PostScript version.
Discovering this, I bit the bullet and completely re-formatted the whole
kit-and-kaboodle.  This time the page numbers are formatted "chapter-
page", so in the future simple update files are all that is required.

I am very sorry for the delay in getting this file finished as problems
have abounded. About a third of the way into the job, my computer
glitched and started to eat the data on the hard drives, and I lost
everything.  (backups? what backups?)  At least it's done and I have
seen to it that this problem will not occur again.  (ordered a tape drive!)

Enjoy, one and all...



- ----------------------------------------------------------------------
Karl Lutzen                    |   lutzen at physics.umr.edu
University of Missouri - Rolla |
Physics Department             |          (314) 341-6317
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------

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Date: Mon, 9 Nov 92 12:27:43 PST
From: Richard Childers <rchilder at us.oracle.com>
Subject: Re: N.P.R. History of Beer


>Date: Fri, 6 Nov 92 11:16:55 -0500
>From: yoost at judy.indstate.edu
>Subject: N.P.R. History of Beer


"This a.m. on national public radio I heard a man who taught at a University in
 Philadelphia talking about an article or book he had written about the history
 of BEER and some new discovery that dates it back 5,000 years !"

"If the person who wrote that article is reading this or if someone is reading
 this who knows the origin would you please post it."

I heard this reported on the BBC, and they referred to this month's _Nature_
as the source ( _Nature_ is a British scientific journal available in libraries
everywhere ).

"I found it most interesting especially the part about the 'God of Brewing'..."

Actually, I believe She is a Goddess ...

				-=*=-

>Date: Fri, 6 Nov 92 12:48 CST
>From: akcs.chrisc at vpnet.chi.il.us (chris campanelli)
>Subject: Godzilla vs Mothra

"A funny thing happened the other night.  I went to a fight and a
 hockey game broke out.  Rather, I went to a homebrew meeting and
 a calm discussion took place.  Big deal you say?  Big deal I say
 considering who was doing the discussing.  The two parties
 involved were Al and Jack."

Cool !!
 
"The funniest thing about the whole night was the reactions of
 several HBD subscribers who saw Al and Jack for the first time. 
 The common observation was that they always thought that Al was a
 lot older and that Jack was a lot younger."

No surprise here.


- -- richard

=====
- -- richard childers		rchilder at us.oracle.com		1 415 506 2411
         oracle data center  --  unix systems & network administration

                    Klein flask for rent. Inquire within.

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Date: Mon, 9 Nov 92 12:35:48 PST
From: "Bob Jones" <bjones at novax.llnl.gov>
Subject: Re:trub filter

In HBD 1008 Roy Styan asks what material would make a good trub filter. I 
would recommend HOPS, I only use leaf hops and as they fall in the 
kettle a filter is formed at the bottom over my SS screen. A large 
majority of the trub is therefore filtered out.

Bob Jones

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Date: Mon, 9 Nov 92 13:34:41 MST
From: haney at soul.ampex.com (Kenneth Haney)
Subject: party ball kegging?



Hi,

   I was wondering if any of you have any experience in kegging using
those Coors party balls? I have two of them and would love to use them
rather than throw them away.

Thanks
Ken
haney at ampex.com

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Date: Mon, 9 Nov 92 14:05:52 MST
From: stevel at chs.com (7226 Lacroix)
Subject: Godzilla vs Mothra

	It was certainly refreshing to see humor find its way into this
ongoing battle between these guys.  Many thanks to Chris C. for showing us
once again that homebrewing can be fun.....and as for you other 2 guys....
try not to step on my toy jeeps and tanks.

Steve Lacroix
Primitive Brewing

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Date: Mon, 09 Nov 92 13:39:26 EDT
From: doug <doug at metabolism.bitstream.com>
Subject: Flat beer


Greetings:
   I've a bit of a carbonation problem.  My problem is that I bottled
   a spiced ale (nutmeg cloves & orange peel) about a month ago.  The
   ale  is completely flat.  Not a bubble.  Thinking that I had
   relaxed a little too much and enjoyed one too many homebrews I
   thought perhaps I forgot the priming sugar.  So I opened every
   bottle carefully and added a bit of sugar.  Two weeks later...  NO
   CHANGE.  I'm thinking about starting some yeast and repitching. 
   Any thoughts on this.  I know I have a pretty good chance of
   contamination....  BTW there is almost no sediment in the bottles.

   Thanks in advance.
   Post me here or abroad
 \/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
   Allison, my ale is true...
   Doug Connolly                Bitstream, Inc.      (617) 497-6222
   uunet!huxley!doug            215 First St.            X618
   doug at bitstream.com           Cambridge, MA  02142
 /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/


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Date: Mon, 9 Nov 92 16:20 CST
From: korz at iepubj.att.com
Subject: Re: Smartcaps

Someone (sorry) asked about SmartCap(tm) sterilizing.

A few months ago, Craig Martens posted a "letter" written by Bruce Zenner
who headed the development of SmartCaps for Aquanautics.  He said that
indeed the oxygen scavenging is activated by exposure to high humidity
and that boiling would render the caps virtually equal to regular caps.
He suggested that a water/household bleach solution or sodium metabisulphite
should be used to sanitize the caps.

Al.

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Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 18:02:38 -0700 (MST)
From: walter at lamar.ColoState.EDU (Brewing Chemist Brian Walter)
Subject: Colorado Brews


Howdy,

	The mention of CO brews being weaker is left over from
an old law, to best of my knowledge.  I know CO at one time 
sold 3.2 beer, but do not know if this was a ruling for all beer,
or just for 18 - 21 year olds, or ...  I know you can get "normal"
strength beer here though.  I personally have not bought anything
from the giants since moving here in August, but was assured that
the beers are not 3.2 beers.  I KNOW that some of the stouts and
porters and ambers and ... that I have bought here are over 3.2%,
as well as my homebrew! ;->

	I will look into the laws and get back to the HBD with
some more definite information.  

 - Brian

P.S. Incidentally, the student union here on the CSU campus
     sells beer, but it is 3.2 beer.  So, it is available,
     but supposedly the stuff you get in the liquor stores
     is "full" strength.



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Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 20:01:02 -0800 (PST)
From: Peter Maxwell <peterm at hpdtlpm.ctgsc.hp.com>
Subject: off the trub = off the yeast?

Thanks for all the responses regarding the trub issue.  I brewed a batch
over the weekend, trying to "do the right thing" and got peculiar
results.  I'd be interested in reading comments on the experience.  I
brewed an extract/specialty grain batch on Saturday, siphoned off the
wort into the fermenter leaving most of the hop pellets behind and a lot
of the trub.  I pitched the yeast around 2 pm.  At 11.30 pm I noticed
that the airlock was showing signs of slightly higher pressure so I
thought I'd rack off the trub then rather than leave it until the next
morning when fermentation might catch up with me.  Well, not only did
this make me later for bed than I wanted to be but it seemed to stop
everything!  By 5 pm the following day (i.e.  27 hours later) it was as
dead as a doornail, and was showing no signs of life, so I pitched some
more yeast.  This morning it seems to be starting to ferment.  The
temperature is around 67 degrees.

This is wierd.  It seems as though the racking took most of the yeast
with it.  After I pitched the new yeast I noticed that very soon
afterwards there was a noticeable sediment on the bottom.  It looked as
though the yeast has sunk to the bottom.  Maybe I was racking off the
yeast rather than, or as well as, the trub.

Any feedback on this is welcome.  I'm very tempted after all this to
simply forget all about it.

	Peter


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End of HOMEBREW Digest #1009, 11/10/92