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


Contents:
  Hops Primer: a historic addendum (OIT_JAMES)
  Whitbread warning (donald oconnor)
  damp barley grind, bread yeast, historical (THOMASR)
  Nashville, TN, brewpubs ("ROBERT W. HOSTETLER")
  immersion chillers revisited (Ed Hitchcock)
  Easymashs (Jack Schmidling)
  Infection in Plastic Primary ("Anthony Johnston")
  The Ultimate Chiller? ("Bob Jones")
  Chimay Yeast Problem ("William A Kitch")
  RE: dry hopping - HELP! (""Robert C. Santore"")
  Metallic Cherry Beer, or the cheapskate always loses (Charles Coronella)
  lauter tun and fridge questions (atzeiner)
  Re: Hops Primer  (Drew Lynch)
  German Weissbier yeast (David Pike)
  Oregon hops and storing grain (Glenn Tinseth)
  WE'D LIKE TO INVITE YOU T ("ROSQUETE.WNETS385")
  Immersion Chiller <swan song> (Carl West)
  Re: Immersion chiller architecture (Frank Jones)
  Fleishman's yeast, wetting malt (Ulick Stafford)
  Bring the king's taster! (LLROW)


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

Date: 19 Apr 1993 22:04:53 -0500 (EST)
From: OIT_JAMES at VAX1.ACS.JMU.EDU
Subject: Hops Primer: a historic addendum


	Thanks to Russ Gelinas for sharing his primer.
After reading it, I wondered if some of the books in my
dusty library contained any relevant information.  I was
surprised to find a short essay on growing & harvesting
hops in an old Family Encyclopedia.   I have typed the
material as best I can, any mistakes are probably mine
and not in the original text.  I wonder if anyone has a
copyright on something this old?

_A New Family Encyclopedia; or Compendum of Universal
Knowledge: Comprehending a Plain and Practical View of
Those Subjects, Most Interesting to Persons, In the
Ordinary Profession of Life_. Edited by Charles A. Gooch,
New York, 1831.  Section II,  Art of Gardening, or
Horticulture, p459.

"    HOP.  Any bit of a root will grow and become a
plant.  The young plants should be planted in the fall,
three or four together in a clump, or hill, and the hills
should be seven to ten feet apart.  The first year of
planting, put four rods, or little poles, to each hill,
and let two vines up each pole, treading the rest of the
vines down to creep about the ground.  In a month after
the vines begin to mount the poles, cut off all the
creeping vines, and draw up a hill of earth around the
poles a foot high, covering all the crowns of the plant.
At the end of another month, draw some more earth up,
making the hill higher and higher.  When the fall comes,
cut off all the vines, that have gone up the poles, a
foot from the gound; take down the poles; dig down the
hills, and open the ground all round the crowns of the
plants; and before winter sets in, cut all down to the
very crowns, and then cover the crowns with earth three
or four inches thick.  Through this earth, the hop-shoots
will start in spring.  You will want but eight of them to
go up your four poles; and the rest, when three inches
long, you may cut, and eat as asparagus.  This year you
put poles 20 feet long to your hops.  Proceed the same as
before, only make your hills larger; and this year you
will have plenty of hops to gather for use.  Be sure to
open the ground every fall; and cut all off close down to
the crown of the plants.  They are fit to gather when you
see, upon opening the leaves of the hop, a great deal of
yellow dust, and when the seeds which you will find at
the sockets of the leaves of the hop, begin to be plump.
Gather them nicely, and let no leaves or stalks be amoung
them, and lay them out on a cloth to dry in the sun,
taking care that no rain or dew fall on them.  When
perfectly dry, put them, very hardly and closely pressed
into a new bag, made of thick Russia linen; and in this
state they will keep good, and fit to use, for twenty, or
perhaps, three times twenty years."

	 _ The Complete Book of Edible Landscaping_ from
Sierra Club Books, 1982, includes the following
information:

	The vine can attain 25 feet in a season.  A hop
vine can be trained on a trellis or with support posts to
become a small weeping tree, and therefore can be grown
in a container or planter box.  The vines require rich
soil, good drainage, plenty of water after growth starts,
and full sunlight.  The book also recommends thining the
shoots early in the spring, and eating what you harvest.
Mildew, aphids, and mites can be a problem.

	 An organic gardening encyclopedia I have contained
information about what to do with the spent hops,
including amounts of nitrogen and phosphorus, if anyone
is interested.  I was going to send it as well, but this
has gotten pretty lengthy and my fingers are worn out.

** remember a standard disclaimer now **

James Wilson	
oit_james at vax1.acs.jmu.edu	

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Date: Tue, 20 Apr 93 00:37:05 -0500
From: oconnor at ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (donald oconnor)
Subject: Whitbread warning


In HBD #1122 George Fix suggests calling Seth Schneider at Crosby and 
Baker for first hand information regarding the Whitbread and Mauri 
yeasts.  Curiously, my posts on this subject were in part based on first 
hand information contained in recent conversations with Seth.  These 
chats were in fact prompted by George's earlier posts.  It was 
Seth's opinion, in view of all the data including George's plate counts, 
that the new Whitbread should be regarded as neither inferior nor 
superior to the old Whitbread.  As of two weeks ago, Crosby and Baker
had not decided whether or not to distribute the Mauri yeast.

Return to table of contents


Date: Tue, 20 Apr 93 12:25:15 MET DST
From: THOMASR at EZRZ1.vmsmail.ethz.ch
Subject: damp barley grind, bread yeast, historical

hell all,
Russ Gelinas (hbd1123) mentioned getting good results by chance, when
he used a corona to crush "damp" malt. Well, this is sort of similar
to the wet grinding that is often used in mainland europe to crush
grains. The theory is if you could wet the outside of the grains 
without doing the same to the inside, then the husk would just split
(being more elastic in a moist state) and the goodies inside would still
be crushed finely. In practice, it works. However, usually there are
two alternatives to wetting:
1. using steam treatment;
2. Contact with the strike water (which for these mashes is at ca. 30 deg. C,
decoction) for a certain amount of time ---- down to 7 seconds!!.
I've been experimenting with lager grains from Hurlimann (which
just crumble to dust in a Marcato Mulino mill) by spraying them with
a plant sprayer just before the crush. This makes a great improvement,
although I imagine nothing like a MaltMill(TM). Once I have my method down
I'll post full "instructions".
**********************
Jack in the same hbd mentioned his experiment with fleishmann's (sp)
bread yeast. I have also tried a couple of brews, with the locally
available "bread" yeast. In all honesty one batch was highly clovy,
but the other (albeit a heavy dark beer) was not overwhelmingly so.
I suspect that my yeast was not actually bred  for bread use, but
was actually produced by a brewery.
I must say, given another source of proper yeast, I'd never use
bread yeast again.
*********************
Finally, I'm still getting inquiries about the historical recipes
from the 1820's book I've got a copy of. I have posted all but
the table beer, but these may have been missed.
Could you mail me with a subject line: history yes
if you think I should post again.
If I get sufficient responses I'll post, otherwise I'll
send direct (if you already asked me directly, could you remail me,
we have a serious disk space shortage on this machine, which means I
get scrubbed very often.)

Rob Thomas.

P.S. how does everyone do those trailing remarks/quotes.... I presume
they are automatic.?


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Date: 20 Apr 93 07:46:00 EST
From: "ROBERT W. HOSTETLER" <8220RWH at indy.navy.mil>
Subject: Nashville, TN, brewpubs

I'll be in Nashville this weekend, and any info on local brewpubs
would be greatly appreciated. With TN's wierd liquor laws, they
might not even be legal... Private responses welcomed.

Bob Hostetler				8220rwh at indy.navy.mil
				or	roberth131 at aol.com


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Date: 20 Apr 1993 10:42:18 -0300
From: Ed Hitchcock <ECH at ac.dal.ca>
Subject: immersion chillers revisited

     I would like to both recant my post to yesterday's HBD, and
respond to another post in that same issue concerning immersion
chillers.  Just so you won't have to look it up, I made a flat
spiral chiller from 1/4" OD tubing.  I mentioned that the
resistance was very high, and that people thinking of going 1/4"
should either a) think again or b) buy lots of hose clamps.
     I now say ignore a), go for b).  I did a temperature test run
last night.  This thing dropped 5 gallons of rolling boil water
down to 70F in under 15 minutes.  The outflow water was initially
hot, but no hotter than tap water.  I had the cold water running
into the centre and spiraling out, creating (to a very limited
degree) a counterflow efect.  Best of all, since the coldest spot
was dead centre at the top of the wort, it created a significant
convection current.  I never had to stir the liquid once, and
temperature readings showed very little difference throughout the
pot.  I was genuinely impressed.

	ed

  ___   
 /   \   \     Ed Hitchcock                   +<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>+
|      0  \   Dept of Anatomy & Neurobiology  +    Drink             +
|          > Dalhousie University             +     Noise / Make     +
|      0  /   Beer Wasteland                  +              Beer    +
 \___/   /     ech at ac.dal.ca                  +<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>+



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Date: Tue, 20 Apr 93 08:53 CDT
From: arf at genesis.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling)
Subject: Easymashs

 
 >From: mcglew at sde.mdso.vf.ge.com (McGlew Raymond)
 >Subject: Easymash
 
 >I was at my neighborhood hardware store recently looking for ss screen
 for an easymash (home made) when I spotted some springs, some of which
 were loosely coiled (i.e. had about 1/8 to 1/2 inch spaces between
 coils.  If I bought one that would snugly fit over copper tubing, and
 pinched off the other end, this might work great (especially if I waited
 until alter the mash and placed the copper tube siphon-like into the
 mash kettle.  Anything wrong with this idea?
  
 Nothing other than the range of "1/8 to 1/2 in spaces".  That goes from 
 almost adequate to just about useless.  The mesh size I use on the EM 
 strainer is 32, i.e 32 holes to the inch.  That makes the opening 
 considerably less than 1/32" when the wire size is taken into consideration.
 
 Furthermore, the spring is likely to bend and change the spacing during use.  
 You can buy the screen you need for about 10 cents and I don't see any 
 advantage in the spring.
 
 js
 
 

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Date: Tue, 20 Apr 93 9:47:16 CDT
From: "Anthony Johnston" <anthony at chemsun.chem.umn.edu>
Subject: Infection in Plastic Primary

Forwarded message:






 











 
 I just wanted to write in after seeing the messages on skimming out of a
 plastic fermenter.  My last batch that I brewed (a "Golden" ale that I
 formulated to be a cheaper and faster quaffing alternative to my other
 brews) was placed in a plastic fermenter for the primary fermentation.
 It didn't seem as though the lid fit as tightly as it once had, because
 there was nary a jiggle of the airlock the whole time, but I could see
 the Krausen rise and fall.  Anyway after 4 or 5 days I racked to my
 glass secondary and after a few days I noticed what looked like large
 spots on the surface of the brew but closer inspection showed them to be
 composed of tiny bubbles.  I popped the airlock off and smelled the
 
 brew, but couldn't detect any off odor.  I swirled the contents around
 and the bubbles dissipated, but within a day they were back.  It just
 doesn't look like anything I've ever seen before, and I thought that
 once the beer was fermenting and alcoholic that it wouldn't support an
 infection.  Has anyone had such a problem before?
 
 Tony Johnston
 Homebrewer and Chemist    (Better Living through Zymurgy)
 anthony at chemsun.chem.umn.edu
 
 


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Date: Tue, 20 Apr 93 08:14:54 PST  
From: "Bob Jones" <bjones at novax.llnl.gov>
Subject: The Ultimate Chiller?

In the last digest Richard Childers suggested an immersion chiller that
might be stirred and parallel cooling chillers. Well tommorrow is here... In
my talk at the AHA conference, one of the topics will a motor driven
stirred parallel immersion chiller. Micah and I will be discussing several
of our home grown hair brained ideas. For those that are attending I won't
spill the beans about how much better it works. I'll just invite you all
along. I will tell you that it IS better! I will bring pictures and slides of
the chiller for all sceptics to see.

Bob Jones

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Date: Tue, 20 Apr 93 10:01:50 CST  
From: "William A Kitch" <kitchwa at bongo.cc.utexas.edu>
Subject: Chimay Yeast Problem

I recently cultured yeast from a bottle of Chimay and used it in an ale
recipe.  The fermentation went fine but the yeast are extremly reluctant
to settle out.  It's been in the secondary for 10 days and only the top
inch has clarified!  Two questions:
  1) Has anyone had problems w/chimay taking a long time to settle out?
  2) Any suggestions for helping out the process?  I could add some
     clarifying agents but at this stage I'm concerned about infection
     sense fermentation is complete and no CO2 is being produced.

WAK
|- William A Kitch                          (512) 471-4929 -|
|- Geotechnical Engineering                                -|
|- ECJ 9.227                                               -|
|- Univ of Texas at Austin, TX 78712-1076                  -|

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Date: Tue, 20 Apr 93 12:02:03 -0400
From: ""Robert C. Santore"" <rsantore at mailbox.syr.edu>
Subject: RE: dry hopping - HELP!

In HBD 1123 Peter Maxwell notes:
 > I tasted my first batch of dry hopped beer yesterday.  The effect was great,
 > but I was disturbed to see all this "stuff" in the beer.  It was sticking to
 > the sides of the bottles, which had to be rotated to loosen it so it would
 > sink.  It only "sort of" sank and they all have this fairly thick, loosely
 > packed layer on the bottom - not at all pleasant.

Ah, Peter.  Let me relate a similar dry-hopping experience.  
It involves a pale ale I brewed that I wanted to try dry hopping . . .
like your batch, this was the first time I ever dry hopped.  I used
Cascade pellets in the secondary, about 5 days before bottling.  When
I bottled the beer tasted fantastic, and with a beautiful hop aroma. 
I put the batch down for the requisite conditioning, and after ten days
wanted to have my first carbonated taste.  To my horror, there was this
almost feathery white growth throughout all of the bottles.  I chilled 
one and tasted it - YUCK!  It was undrinkable.  I was devastated.  I
imagine some beasty got in with the hops.  I know the batch was not
otherwise contaminated, because I used a cup of the yeast from this
batch's primary to start another batch that came out wonderfully well.
Anyway, I left the beer in the cellar thinking that some day I'd have
to open all those bottles and dump it down the drain.  I had never had
a throwaway and was not looking forward to it.  Well, I'm good at not
getting around to do unpleasant tasks, so I waited about three months
before I draged the cases upstairs to do the dirty deed.  At the last
minute I decided to put one in the fridge and wait 'till the next day.
Incredibly, this batch turned out great!  It is unlike anything I've
ever had before.  Whatever awful flavor developed early on is completely
gone.  I have no doubt that there was an infection.  Even now there is
this very fluffy sediment that stirrs up easily, and the beer is over-
carbonated.  That is an unfortunate combination, because as soon as you
pop the top, the bubbles rising up through the sediment cause it to mix
all throughout the bottle.  What I do now is get the bottles real cold, 
then take an opener and crack the top just enough to let out the gas, 
then recap (with the same cap) and stick it back in the fridge.  That
solves the overcarbonation problem.  When pouring I leave an inch in 
the bottle to pour a clear glass, or if it's just for me I don't even
worry about it.  So the moral is, even if you do have an infection and
some nasty tasting beer, don't be too hasty to dump it.  I am not sure
I'd want to repeat this brew (it really is wonderful, but man is it 
hard to wait four months before you find out if you have beer or sewer
water).  I've been reluctant to dry hop ever since, but the hop-tea
alternative just does not give the same result.  

Anyone out there have a way of sanitizing hops without destroying the
aroma?

Bob Santore
rsantore at mailbox.syr.edu

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Date: Tue, 20 Apr 93 10:09:13 -0600
From: coronell at cadesm24.eng.utah.edu (Charles Coronella)
Subject: Metallic Cherry Beer, or the cheapskate always loses

I recently made my third annual cherry beer.  I was excited to use my new 
4-gallon (aluminum) pot for the boil.  I got this pot real cheap($12), and it
would allow me to do nearly full boils.  When I  transferred the beer to
secondary, the taste was pretty good, but had a slight metallic flavoring. 
Unusual, but I'm used to strange flavors in my beers.  Hell, that's one of the
reasons I brew.  I thought nothing of it.  But apparently, the taste got
stronger with time.  It was prominent at  bottling, and the metallic taste has
become overwhelming in the bottled beers.  For the first time, I find myself
pouring my own brews down the drain!!  :-( 

My previous pot was aluminum, but gave no perceptable metal flavors.  I've 
been looking for a low cost, full sized kettle, and thought that I'd found an 
inexpensive alternative.  Guess I was wrong.  Let this be a warning for all 
the cheapskates out there.  Any suggestions on where to find 28-quart
stainless kettles for less than $150? 

Wonder if all this aluminum has anything to do with my recent memory loss 
problems...
- ---------------------
On another note, I'd like to congratulate all the recent contributors to the 
HBD for being so well behaved.  And especially, I'd like to thank Rob for 
maintaining the HBD.  Also,  I note that there's been a small backlog of
submissions, so that a note might not appear for a day or two.  I think it
would help if everyone tried their best to keep posts short (including
 .sig files and quoted text from previous posts.) 

Chuck  coronellrjds at che.utah.edu 
?

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Date: Tue, 20 Apr 93 11:05:59 CDT
From: atzeiner at iastate.edu
Subject: lauter tun and fridge questions



I am going to start partial grain and then all grain brewing soon and I have
started to make a Zapap lauter tun.  I drilled all the holes in the bottom of
a 4 gal. pail and the bottom of it is around 3 inches from the bottom of the
other 4 gal. pail.  I think I remember reading that it's better to have only
about 1 1/2 inches from the strainer part to the bottom of the outer pail.  Is
that right??  Also, how far from the bottom of the outer pail do you want to
make the draining hole??( I think I read 1/2 inch)  Another question I have
is, what is the best way to disperse the sparging water into this kind of
lauter tun?  I know it should be sorta sprinkled rather that just poured into
the tun.  Is there a specific HBD digest that has good info on sparging
technique?  I would like to know a little more that the basics that are in
TNCJOHB...
	Also, I just bought an old fridge so I can brew in the summer and it's
the old kind with just a single door.  The freezer part is just a little metal
thing at the top with a small plastic door.  I figure that I would remove the
door from the freezer so that when the thermostat turns the fridge on, the
freezer section will cool the rest of the fridge.  Is there any reason to not
do this?
	I am also wondering what kind of external temperature controllers are
the best and where they can be gotten the cheapest...  I saw a couple of ads
in Zymurgy for these for $30 and $32, but I dont know what kind they are.


Thanks...Andy

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Date: Tue, 20 Apr 93 09:28:30 -0700
From: Drew Lynch <chrnlgc!ra!drew at uucp-gw-2.pa.dec.com>
Subject: Re: Hops Primer 


>  Not that I am worried, mind you.  I expect my brown thumb alone will
>  confirm that none of my hop plants grow more than a manageable 4-5 feet.
>  But in case my best efforts are unable to control their growth, what
>  should I (have you) done?

  My plants went about 20' the first year.  I simply tied strong brown
twine (the really coarse kind) to the exposed beams at the second
floor roofline.  They climb like mad.  This year, I am adding more
lengths of twine.  I have two hop plants in planters, one on each side
of my porch.  They each grow up a 6'x 1' vertical trellis rooted in
the soil in the large pot, onto a 2'x 8' horizontal trellis mounted to
the fence on each side, and from there to four strings reaching from
each side up to a central point on the roofline.  This should create a
really nice shady hop canopy for those hot summer months. Harvesting
is as simple as reaching out my second floor bedroom window and
snipping the twine.


		Hoppy Gardening,
			Drew

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Date: Tue, 20 Apr 93 9:45:54 PDT
From: davep at cirrus.com (David Pike)
Subject: German Weissbier yeast


Anybody out there in HBD land have a good weissbier yeast for let. Please
contact me by private email. Thank you.

Dave


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Date: Tue, 20 Apr 93 12:01:36 PDT
From: tinsethg at ucs.orst.edu (Glenn Tinseth)
Subject: Oregon hops and storing grain

Recently Joel Birkeland asked about hops in Oregon and whether there are
any U-Pick hop fields. First of all, the Mt. Angel area is a big hop
growing center, at least a thousand acres of hop fields of every 
imaginable variety. Unfortunately for the homebrewer, U-Pick hops doesn't 
happen as far as I know. The hops are machine harvested and 
immediately kilned and baled, and then sold either directly to the big
brewers under contract or to any of a number of brokers. 

Yakima, WA is definitely the US hop center with Oregon and Idaho in 2nd and
3rd positions. California and New York were both historically hop producers
but are not commercial today. Hops will grow just about anywhere but to be
commercially competitive requires just the right conditions (Yakima being as
close to perfect as the US has to offer).

Hopefully those of you coming to our fair state in July for the conference
will have an opportunity to tour a hop yard or two. Let me know via email
if there is much interest and I may be able to set up something (no promises)
since several of the big Oregon hop farms are just up the road from my farm.

Cheers,

Glenn Tinseth
The Hop Source
tinsethg at ucs.orst.edu
(503)873-2879

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Date: Tue, 20 Apr 93 19:18 GMT
From: "ROSQUETE.WNETS385" <6790753%356_WEST_58TH_5TH_FL%NEW_YORK_NY%WNET_6790753 at mcimail.com>
Subject: WE'D LIKE TO INVITE YOU T



     Date: 20-Apr-93      Time: 03:13 PM       Msg: EXT04099

WE'D LIKE TO INVITE YOU TO "RUN AWAY" WITH US IN JUNE AT THE "CORPORA
TE      CHALLENGE". TOMORROW IS THE LAST DAY TO SIGN UP FOR THE RUN I
N CENTRAL PARK, A  SPECIAL RUNNER'S T-SHIRT & A PICNIC. Call 4981



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Date: Tue, 20 Apr 93 15:44:13 EDT
From: eisen at kopf.HQ.Ileaf.COM (Carl West)
Subject: Immersion Chiller <swan song>


One last try, after this, I give up.

Given any particular wort chiller, the object of the game is to remove heat 
from the wort as quickly as possible until it reaches the target temp. 
The way to do this is to keep the chiller as cold as possible for as much of 
its length as possible. If the output water is hot, the last portion of your 
chiller is warmer than it should be. The way to keep the chiller cold is to 
run as much cold water through the chiller as possible, the limiting factor 
here is mechanical, not thermodynamic; how much pressure can you put on your 
chiller before you blow a fitting? :) IF you are putting maximum available 
flow through your chiller, you're getting the fastest cooling your system will 
give you.

Yes, this uses a lot of water. 
Do you want to save water or get a good cold break? 
That's the question you have to answer.

Keep in mind when you think about this that heat and temperature are different 
concepts and that raising the _temperature_ of the cooling water is _not_ 
the object of the game, the object of the game is to pump as much _heat_
as possible out of the _wort_ as quickly as possible.

- -- Carl

Keep the chiller as cold as possible.

There, I'm done. 
Was it good for you?

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Date: Tue, 20 Apr 93 15:23:15 MDT
From: frank at Solbourne.COM (Frank Jones)
Subject: Re: Immersion chiller architecture

In #1123 richard childers asks

 ->On that thread, has anyone considered a parallel chiller architecture ?

	Well, yes I have. . . more than considered it, I built and use
one.

	I've been following this thread with some interest myself.
When first presented with the problem of a wort chiller, my thoughts
were that the surface area of most commercial chillers is
insufficient. My thought process was that the majority of the heat
exchange would take place in the first few feet, and as the
temperature of the water inside the tube approached the temperature of
the wort the heat exchange rate would flatten off, so that the rest of
the tubing would be mostly exhaust with little heat exchange
properties. This is more intuitive than proven fact, not wanting to go
to that much effort to build bunches of test chillers. I have some
experience with auto air conditioning design and construction in a
previous lifetime (BC :=: Before Computers :) ). It was the normal
practice of condenser and evaporator design to split the flow of
coolant into multiple paths, and to obtain maximum tube surface area
by finning the coils.  With that preamble. . .

	My chiller: I dismissed the concept of finning the tubing
because of cleaning issues (but that would undoubtedly make it most
efficient). The design I ended up with needs one modification (e.g., I
need to build another one to fix it, and haven't yet) which I'll cover
after the description.  The chiller uses four circuits of 1/4 inch
soft copper tubing, each coil is about 9' to 10' in length and is
coiled like an electric stove burner element, with the exit tube
running under the coil (from the inside) to return to the outside of
the coil (and support the coil as well) approximately 2" from the
inlet tube. I attached these coils to an inlet and exit manifold that
was made from a 1" rigid tube, elbowed vertically, with an elbow on
top for the hose attachment. This allows several things to work
together, in that the manifolds are close together (convenient hand
hold), the coils are made to be about 4" smaller in diameter than my
brew pot and vertically only take up about 5" of space, so the coils
are below the surface of the wort. This allows me to to use a gentle
side to side motion while the chiller is running, but keep the coils
below the surface, and with the manifolds together I can keep the lid
mostly on the pot, to keep airborne stuff out. I used 1/4" tubing
because the volume to surface area is greater than on 3/8", and it is
easier to bend by hand without kinking. The 4-to-1 manifold was made
by flattening a short section of 1" rigid tubing so that 4-1/4" tubes
would slip fit into the flattened tube, then it was staked with a
small chisel between the 1/4 tubes to minimize the gap area needed to
be filled with solder.

	I had wanted to run some "scientific" type tests against a
friend's commercially built chiller to see how fast it is under the
same conditions, e.g., start with boiling water, same cold water
source, and measure times to drop to certain temperatures, but haven't
had much time for that kind of thing lately. (I intend to do so in the
near future.)  My chiller will take boiling wort down to 60 deg F in
less than 10 mins, which if memory serves me is faster that my
friend's chiller.

	Flaw in this design: Solder. I used lead free silver, but
there is still the problem of solder in contact with the wort. I was
careful to clean all the joints so the surface contact is minimal. I
do use it currently but the next chiller will have the inlet and
exhaust tubes turn vertically in a bundle and the manifolds will be
above the surface, thus removing the solder problem.

	This chiller required a lot of work, and isn't for someone
that hasn't had a lot of experience with a soldering torch, but I'm
very happy with the results.

If anyone wants more details/has questions, email to me directly.

chill out folks. . . :)

fj..

- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Franklin R. Jones                          National Technical Support Engineer
frank at Solbourne.COM  <-Internet...snail->  Solbourne Computer Inc.
    303.678.4769                           1900 Pike Road
fax 303.772.3646                           Longmont, CO 80501
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"If we are not supposed to play with words...
                                               then why do we have so many??
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  . . .and from a co-worker that I have turned into a homebrewer, just
  by proximity! :) A chiller with a slightly different bent. (sorry I
  had to. ;)

  Meet Ken ("KJ") Sullivan.

===============================

Hi,

This is a followup to Frank Joneses posting about a multi-coil parallel
chiller.  Frank introduced me to homebrewing.  I consider him to be
very knowledgeable.  I've been listening to him talk about the
redesigned chiller and decided to build one for myself.  I hate
plumbing.  I used 4 sections of 3/8" soft copper tube each about 12'
long, coiled into a spiral.  The solder connections are made outside
of the wort.  I used a 'T' with short, capped off sections on either
side, and drilled 3/8" holes for the coils.  One 'T' is the water
source, the other 'T' is the drain.

                        [] <- hose thread
                        ||
                        ||
                     ___||___
                    [________] <- 'T' w/ caps & holes
                     ||||||||
                    // |||| \\
                   // //  \\ \\ <- 3/8"x12' copper coils
                   || ||   || ||
                   || ||   || ||
                  input to coils  

The return from the coils drains into another 'T' setup and out a
drain hose.  I assembled it using a wire tube bender, 1/2" rigid pipe
and fittings, lead-free solder and a propane torch.  I had to resolder
some joints after I pressure tested it.  I cleaned it, cleaned it,
cleaned it, and boiled it.  It seemed to work pretty good. :-) I sorta
goofed, I wound the 1st coil one way and the remain three another.  It
still works.  I would suggest using 1/4" tube for tighter coils and
less wort displacement.  Also, wind all the coils the same way,
starting from the outside winding inwards and coming out from the
center. I separated the coils with books while I soldered them into
the 'T's.  Kinda tricky :)

KJ

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Date: Tue, 20 Apr 93 18:32:27 EST
From: Ulick Stafford <ulick at bizet.helios.nd.edu>
Subject: Fleishman's yeast, wetting malt

In 1123 js spoke of a beer he made with plated out Fleischman's.  A pale bock
I made by adding adding a number of cakes to the wort won a ribbon in a 
competition.  In another competition the worst comment was some ale character,
high temp fermentation? or dried yeast?  Hardly a total disaster.  The other
judge thought it might be oxidized but he was listed as a novice and the first
of 5 judges or so to so judge the beer.  Last competition I am entering.  It is
disgracful to enter a contest paying someone money to drink your beer and not
even getting a qualified judgement.  It is about time I wrote AHA a snotty
letter.  Oops a bit of a sidetrack.  Anyway, I suggest that Jack's plated out 
yeast was one of the contaminent yeasts rather than the predominant one.
Fleischmans is not pure culture, but it is probably no worse than good dried
yeasts.

Russ Gelinas spoke of a good grind he achieved in a Corona with damp yeast.
I read somewhere (a German source, I think) that better grinds can be
achievedbysoaking the grains for 40 seconds prior to grinding.  I guess the 
reason for this may be that the outside of the husks is lubricated slightly
reducing shredding.  Wet milling is another commercial technique.  I think
i`ll try misting the grains slightly next time I brew to see if it helps.
__________________________________________________________________________
 'Heineken!?! ... F#$% that s at &* ...  | Ulick Stafford, Dept of Chem. Eng.  
    Pabst Blue Ribbon!'               | Notre Dame IN 46556
                                      |    ulick at bach.helios.nd.edu   


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Date: Tuesday, 20 April 93 21:25:27 CST
From: LLROW at UTXDP.DP.UTEXAS.EDU
Subject: Bring the king's taster!

Yesterday I carved a hole in my old fermentation bucket (I now use
glass carbouys for both stages) in order to fashion a bottling bucket with
spigot.  I got carried away and ended up with a hole too big to fit the
spigot gaskets well enough to keep water from trickling out.  Out of
desperation and in fear of having to buy a new bucket if I felt like
continuing, I closed part of the hole up with a silicon sealant.  Does
anyone else think this was a bad idea?  The sealant does not say that
it's food grade, nor does it say anything about the health risks of the
cured silicon (only the ropy stuff that stinks of molten horse bones).
Will this affect my beer if it's only in contact for 10-20 min as I run
it through whilst bottling?  Should I peel the silicon off and try larger
gaskets?

Steve


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End of HOMEBREW Digest #1124, 04/21/93