HOMEBREW Digest #3436 Fri 22 September 2000

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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
		Digest Janitor: janitor@hbd.org
		Many thanks to the Observer & Eccentric Newspapers of 
		Livonia, Michigan for sponsoring the Homebrew Digest.
				URL: http://www.oeonline.com


Contents:
  CO2 purging procedure ("Jack Schmidling")
  Copper ("Tracy P. Hamilton")
  A note on Atmel Microcontrollers and 110V water heater elements ("Peter J. Calinski")
  re: Automated Process Control (automating your brew setup) (The Artist Formerly Known As Kap'n Salty)
  HBD Sponsorship (Eric Schoville)
  Keg co2 purging ("Kevin Jones")
  Oak chips in beer (John Adsit)
  Sanitation (D H)
  Keg CO2 Purging (Dan Listermann)
  Consistent Infections (Brad Richards)
  Cranberries (Keith Busby)
  Stuttgart, Germany - travel info requested (syavorsk)
  HBD for the world and a question (PVanslyke)
  Butter beer (jhecksel)
  RE: Stainless in Seattle out of business? ("Don and Sarah Cole")
  Re: Open kettles (David Lamotte)
  YEASTS ("Shane A. Saylor, Eccentric Bard")
  Intro ("Shane A. Saylor, Eccentric Bard")
  Oak Shavings & Purging Kegs? ("Warren White")
  Chicago brewpubs (Warandle1)
  RE: The 3-ring circus project ("Dave Howell")
  mild coming good (Edward Doernberg)
  spargewort and fruitflies (BShotola)
  re: Plastic Carboys ("Mark Tumarkin")
  books in german (kjwagner)
  hop plug production (kjwagner)
  Pumps - Setting the record straight (R.A.)" <rbarrett at ford.com>

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---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2000 09:09:32 -0500 From: "Jack Schmidling" <arf at mc.net> Subject: CO2 purging procedure From: "Sweeney, David" <David at studentlife.tamu.edu> >People talk about "purging" the cornelius keg with CO2 prior to transferring the beer from the primary....... "People talk about" lots of things that are actually pretty pointless but then we wouldn't have magazines and digests, would we? Granting that the now nearly finished beer has vast amounts of disolved CO2 in it, what do you suppose happens as soon as you start transferring the beer? Right.... CO2 escapes and as it is heavier than oxygen, it sits on top of the beer like a nice protective blanket. The longer the transfer goes on, the heavier the blanket. Don't feel bad though, I did it for years before I untied the other "half of my brain from behind my back". >How do you transfer the beer into the keg? Racking cane and gravity? Is there a way to transfer the beer under gas pressure? Gas is a problem unless you ferment it in another keg. I use the same pump that I use for everything else but with a twist..... I mentioned this once before but can't help repeating it as it is so bloody clever. Every time I fill a keg, I marvel at my genious. When pumping into the keg from the "open" fermenter, I have a special gadget attached to a CO2 pinlock connector. It is set pressure ball valve that opens up when the pressure gets to 10psi and closes again at 8psi. In a 10 gallon keg it takes nearly half the keg before it kets to 10psi but the counter-pressure generated very early in the fill is enough to totally inhibit foam. The in and out hoses are clear so I can easily monitor the foam going into the keg and adjust the pump speed to make sure the line is always clear. I can run at full speed as soon as a little pressure is built up. Like everyone else, I always opened the vent on the keg to allow the pressure to escape and always had problems getting all the beer in the keg because of foam. I usually had to come back hours later to finish after the foam subsided. Then one day I forgot to open the vent and noted the pump laboring but the line absolutely bubble free. Again, I am a slow learner but I do learn. One other advantage of this system is that no natural CO2 is lost while kegging and just letting the keg sit at dispensing pressure for a few days brings it up to snuff. js ASTROPHOTO OF THE WEEK http://user.mc.net/arf/weekly.htm Home Page: Beer, Cheese, Astronomy, Videos http://user.mc.net/arf Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2000 10:20:27 -0500 From: "Tracy P. Hamilton" <chem013 at uabdpo.dpo.uab.edu> Subject: Copper Marc Donelly said: "The reason why I think it's ok (as long as you use lead free solder) is many brew kettles are copper and home plumbing is copper (both hot and cold) with no problems. check out copper.org" I went there. The slogan was "Copper, the Other Stainless." Better than "Copper, it's what's for Dinner!", I guess. Tracy P. Hamilton Birmingham Brewmasters Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2000 11:17:59 -0400 From: "Peter J. Calinski" <PCalinski at iname.com> Subject: A note on Atmel Microcontrollers and 110V water heater elements Pannicke, Glen A. mentioned the Atmel AVR microcontroller. I like this family compared to all the others and have been using it for over a year. The software development suite available from the Atmel website (freeware) is great if you are an assembly language programmer like me. I can't speak for the Basic tools. I also can't speak for the quickie programmer on the website referenced. I built my own programmer. One thing to look into is availability of the chips. This past spring, I contacted the factory rep. about ordering 1000 pieces of one of the family and was told that none of the family was available. If I ordered that day, I could start receiving an allotment in March of 2001. It seems that all the cell phone manufactures are sucking up all the EEPROMs they can get and Atmel is dedicating a large portion of their production to EERROM chips. Perhaps the distributors are getting an allotment so they can supply onesy/twosy quantities if that is all you need. Also, I was working from a 2 year old catalog that indicated future higher speed versions. Well, they never developed the product line to include these. I had to switch to the Scenix microcontollers. I don't like them but they do run at 50 MHz. They are turbo versions of the PICs (with some extra features I believe). The register addressing is so convoluted that it is a real pain. Also, the development tools are quite rudimentary compared the AVR tools. So, bottom line, I like the AVR line the best but check out the availability before you commit. - -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pannicke, Glen A. also asked. 3. How about 110V? I know the wattage is about 1/2 and therefore the heat is cut proportionally. Just a data point. I brew with three 110V water heater elements. They are rated at 120V, 1440W so they must draw 12 amps or so. In a test I ran, three elements brought 5 Gallons of water from 60F to a full boil in 20 minutes. The water was in an uninsulated plastic bucket without a cover. I chose 110V because the GFIs are about $6.00 each while 220 GFIs are $$$$. I can also coarsely control the heat by turning elements off. Pete Calinski East Amherst NY Near Buffalo NY Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2000 15:33:52 GMT From: mikey at swampgas.com (The Artist Formerly Known As Kap'n Salty) Subject: re: Automated Process Control (automating your brew setup) "Dave Howell" <djhowell at uswest.net> wrote: > OK, now the real challenge: Why not use an embedded microcontroller (either > on your IDE card or on a wirewrap or prototype board) and make your own PLC? > The Basic Stamp from Parallax is perfect. You can wire it with very little > difficulty, and moderate expense ( $150 by the time you stop experimenting > and finish the controller). You program the chip from your serial port. You > program it in PBASIC. If you are a C or assembly language programmer, or > you're like me and just want to roll it yourself (this is why we mash all > grain, right?), then use a PIC (from Microchip) PIC16C84 or similar chip. > This is a little more expensive to get set up if you buy a programmer (the > device which loads your assembled code into the EEPROM), but you have far > greater control. Both of these chips have ADC built in. Both are extremely > well supported with a user community (very similar to brewing), free tools > (simulator, development environment), and development advice (applications > notes), and in the case of the Parallax Stamp, a tutorial in how to build a > PID controller (their Stamps In Class Industrial Controls experiments). A couple of comments: Neither PIC 16C84 (or 16F84) nor the Basic Stamp have ADC built in (the newer 16F87x line does). They DO allow you to measure variable resistances, however, by timing the discharge of a capacitor coupled with a resistance (which in this case could be a thermistor). I would really avoid the PIC altogether unless you plan to use them regularly, as you will need a programmer and will need to either learn the assembly language (actually not too difficult since there are only 30-something op codes) or buy a compiler. I like PICS and use them regularly but they are probably not appropriate for a one-off automation project. An even better choice than the Basic Stamp or a PIC would be the BX-24. This chip is pin-for-pin compatible with the stamp, but far more powerful, as well as the same cost or possibly cheaper. It includes 8 channels of 10-bit ADC, 32K program memory, 401 bytes data, and runs at least 7-10 times faster than the stamp. It also does high-speed buffered serial IO, which is very nice when you're talking to a PC). You program it using a variant of Visual Basic (not a major selling point for me, but a lot of people are already familiar with VB...). This chip requires only a battery providing 7.5 - 12 volts, or a regulated 5 volt supply to run. Embedded on the chip are two LEDS (one red and one green) configured as output pins, so there's no need to even hook up any status LEDS. The unit is programmed via a serial port (like the stamp). If you decide to go this route, BTW, avoid the DevKit -- just get a solderless breadboard and a female DB-9 connector and you will be good to go -- you can wire up a permanent circuit later. The BX-24 is well-supported with an active user group and lot's o example circuits and code available on the web. More at: http://www.basicx.com/bx24overview.htm I have no affiliation with these guys, but I use a couple of these chips for robotics and have been quite pleased. ************************************** Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball. Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2000 11:03:12 -0500 From: Eric Schoville <Eric.Schoville at oracle.com> Subject: HBD Sponsorship All, Having just read the HBD sponsorship page at http://hbd.org/sponsorhbd.html, I thought I would contribute some comments. I question whether or not a DSL line is the best possible solution for the future of the HBD. While I can see some definite advantages of this route, mainly immediate access to the server by Pat, the cost of $2400 per year seems extreme. If we can find another host for the server, wouldn't that be preferable to paying $2400 per year and having advertising on the server. Surely amongst all of the subscribers, someone knows of a company or school who could host the HBD. Eric Schoville Flower Mound, TX Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2000 11:46:25 -0500 From: "Kevin Jones" <mrkjones at mindspring.com> Subject: Keg co2 purging David, I've been working with kegs for some time now. I used to use way too much CO2 trying to purge my kegs. Now I use several methods. If I'm filling a keg from another source, such as the carboy, just fill first then purge. If you fill from the bottom up, like any other transfer, you don't pick up O2. When full, purge. This is where I get creative. I have two lines for CO2. One has the standard GAS IN (gray) ball lock fitting, the other has a LIQUID OUT (black) fitting. With the lid off, add CO2 through the dip tube. NOTE: Start with a LOW REGULATED PRESSURE, about 3-5 lbs. or you will get a beer geyser. Trust me, its not pretty!. Two advantages. CO2 being heavier than air and you are filling from the bottom up. The other, let the foam created fill the head space. When the foam approaches the top, put the lid on with the pop off valve open. When you get foam out the valve, close the valve and you have completely purged the keg. Also from this point you can continue to add CO2 up to the desired pressure/carbonation level desired. The bubbling up through the beer will speed up the process. If by any chance you are using a carbonation stone (metal or otherwise and they are well worth the money) you can achieve the same results without having to use the reverse flow method through the dip tube. As for purging empty kegs or less than full, again I use the IN through the OUT method, i.e. filling from the bottom up. Use a low pressure, less than 10 lbs. because even though CO2 is heavier than air, it will mix. As for how long it takes, I think about 20-30 sec. at 10 lbs. This figure was scientifically arrived at by careful laboratory experimentation. I sniffed the air coming from the open lid area while purging. When you inhale straight CO2--you will know it!. I suggest sitting down during this experiment or you find yourself on the floor before your first beer! You also asked about transferring beer. Non-carbonated beer is handled like another transfer. If the beer is kegged and carbonated, you can transfer under pressure several ways. From keg to keg, rig up two lines with ball lock fitting on each end. One will be two (gray) gas IN fittings the other two Liquid (black) fittings. In this case you do need to purge the empty keg first. Then seal and pressurize to match the pressure in the beer keg. Connect the two kegs together with the lines described above. Gas goes to Gas, Liquid to Liquid. Sit the full keg above the receiving keg for gravity feed. Bleed the pressure from the receiving keg just enough to start a siphon. Clear lines really help here. The pressures will equalize and all the beer will siphon from one to the other, under pressure, without foam. You are filling from the bottom up through the dip tube. As you might have guessed by now, if you have kegs, you can't have too many ball lock fittings On other trick. Counter fill soda bottles. Buy some Carbonator caps. Blue caps that fit the threads of most soda bottles and fit the GAS line of the ball lock fittings. To take kegged beer with you (beer meeting, party, etc), purge the plastic soda bottle by squeezing the air out, tighten the cap and then fill with CO2 at keg pressure. Make a line with GAS on one end and Liquid on the other. Connect the keg and soda bottle together. Some beer will enter the bottle and then stop when the pressure equalizes. GENTLY, loosen the treaded Carbonator cap until gas begins to escape. Beer will run in slowly, under pressure, min foam. It will leak beer a little but with practice, its only a few drops. Fill to desired level, tighten treads, disconnect and top off with CO2, go have fun! Drink Better Beer Kevin Jones Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2000 10:46:07 -0600 From: John Adsit <jadsit at jeffco.k12.co.us> Subject: Oak chips in beer Recent posts have asked about when to add oak chips to beer, presumably for the purpose of getting the oak flavor characteristic of the days when beer was stored in oak barrels. When I did the Heineken brewery tour in Amsterdam, they had an old film that showed highlights of the process of creating the oak barrels. The last step was to hold the bung over the thick black smoke of a highly resinous fire. They said the purpose was to coat the barrel with pitch and prevent the oak from ruining the flavor of the beer. Is oak flavor a desired characteristic in beer? - -- John Adsit Boulder, Colorado jadsit at jeffco.k12.co.us Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2000 11:09:06 -0700 (PDT) From: D H <uqob at yahoo.com> Subject: Sanitation I know people often get sick of this subject but I'm obsessed so bear with me. 1.I'm curious as to if throw-off and bottling hoses can be sanitized. Does soaking them in b-brite and then boiling them in 475F water make them sterile before or after use? 2. When wracking and using a bottling wand what does one do between bottles? Theoretically, once the wand is covered with beer, each time you remove it and place it in another bottle, each subsequent bottle filled is exposed to greater and greater infection. Is there a solution I can rest the wand in, while in between bottles? Or do people think the wand exposure is minimal? 3. I soak my beer bottles in B-brite, use very hot water to rinse them (using a bottle washer) and then bake them dry at 475F for 20 minutes. While still hot, I place foil over the tops until I am ready to bottle. a) How long does one think a bottle will stay sterile, with just a foil seal? b) For long term storage , should I cap the bottles? c) In the case of swing tops, do people typically soak in a sanitizing solution the upper metal and plastic tops or do you boil them? I'm just trying to get the cleanest beer possible and am royally annoyed to see that "ring" around the neck of the bottle. It drives me nuts. I sanitize everything in b-brite, boil all utensils I use, keep my wort very clean through limited contact and STILL I get that ring. I'm figuring it's got to be my hose or the actual bottling process, since I find it very hard to believe that a bottle baked at 475F has little if any bacteria in it. I boil my caps and leave them soaking in 151 proof vodka as I cap. Any ideas as to what I could be doing wrong? Thanks, Uqob __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Send instant messages & get email alerts with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com/ Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2000 15:18:06 -0400 From: Dan Listermann <72723.1707 at compuserve.com> Subject: Keg CO2 Purging David Sweeney (david at studentlife.tamu.edu ) asks about purging corny kegs. I do a lot of horizontal fining of my kegs so I have to counterpressure transfer and therefore need to be sure that there is no air in the recieving keg. This is simply done by filling the keg with water and pushing it out with CO2. Inverting the keg and letting any remaining water settle onto the door makes its removal easy with just a spritz of the relief valve. For just going from a fermenter to a keg this may be a bit of overkill, but you could attach your syphon hose to the out disconnect and fill from the dip tube while opening the relief valve. At the past Bloatarian meeting Tim Rastedder, formally of the dearly departed Brew Works ( sob, sob, sob....) had an interesting idea. Hold a lit match over the whatever vessal you are trying to evacuate ( bottles, mini kegs, corny kegs, carboys, ect.) and time how long it takes to extinguish. You may only have to do it once, but it gives you an idea of how long is long enough. Dan Listermann dan at listermann.com Check out our new E-tail site at listermann.com Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2000 16:30:14 -0400 (EDT) From: richards at cs.vassar.edu (Brad Richards) Subject: Consistent Infections Hello All, I'm an all-grain brewer who's back at it after a five-year hiatus. I've brewed four batches over the past few weeks, and all have had DMS contamination that I attribute to infections. I'm at my wits I looked through the HBD archive before posting and didn't see anything that helped. I apologize if this is one of those topics that pops up so frequently that it drives folks into a rage. If that's the case, please elect one of your number to flame me so that the rest of you can be spared the trouble. ;-) A bit about my setup and procedures: First, I'm the most anal homebrewer I know when it comes to sanitation. I can sterile wort for starters, and boil the starter vessel, fermentation lock (glass), and stopper for 30 minutes before making a starter. I usually pitch a 1-quart starter and have lags in the 4-8 hour range. My setup includes ball-valves on the mash/lauter tun and brewkettle, so I don't have to start siphons. I always ferment in glass carboys, which I religiously scrub and sanitize. When racking time comes, I use CO2 to pressurize the primary to get things started instead of having to start a siphon by mouth or other device. I use an immersion chiller that's mounted through the lid on my brewkettle. The kettle remains closed from the time the chiller goes in (10 minutes before the end of the boil) until the chilled wort's in the primary. Before using tubes or hoses, I wash them well and give them a long soak in an Iodophor solution. I don't rinse. Instead, I shake off the excess solution and then drain the first runnings through the equipment into a separate container. I rinse carboys with (cheap) bottled beer after soaking the beer bottle in Iodophor and flaming its mouth. I clean all equipment immediately after use, then give it a dip in an Iodophor solution before letting it dry. My carboys do their fermenting in the basement, but I always bring them up to the kitchen to rack or bottle. I clean the kitchen well and wipe down the counters with Iodophor solution. When racking or filling the primary I wear disposable latex gloves (sanitized) and a dust mask. The only tubing in common between the four infected batches is a racking cane (that was new before the first of these batches), and my 1" diameter blowoff tube. (I realize that this makes it a likely candidate for the infections, but I have cleaned and sanitized it very thoroughly each time, and haven't had trouble with a blowoff hose before. I'll try a new one for my next batch.) I'm also concerned that I might be mixing in nasty bugs when I aerate after pitching the starter. (I don't do anything unusual at this stage -- just shake the carboy for several minutes to mix in some air after filling it.) I've long wondered why folks don't get more concerned about this step of the process though, and would feel better if someone would put my mind at ease. ;-) I'd be grateful for any advice on ways in which I can improve my sanitation and process, as I'm getting tired of producing tainted beer! Thanks, Brad Richards Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2000 16:01:35 -0500 From: Keith Busby <kbusby at facstaff.wisc.edu> Subject: Cranberries Is there any collective knowledge or, better still, wisdom on the use of cranberries in brewing? P-Lambic or just fruit beer? Sourmash cranberry? Cranberry wit? Keith Busby Professor of French University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of French and Italian 618 Van Hise Hall Madison, WI 53706 (608) 262-3941 (608) 265-3892 (fax) Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2000 18:01:11 -0400 From: syavorsk at csc.com Subject: Stuttgart, Germany - travel info requested Collective, I will be traveling to Stuttgart the first week in October. If anyone can share information on local brew "don't miss" locations, I would greatly appreciate it. Also, anything within a few hours drive might be able to be worked into the plans. ("How far is Koln, again. ... or Brussels, ... maybe we could take a side trip, honey?") Thanks in advance for any help, Steve Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2000 18:20:09 EDT From: PVanslyke at aol.com Subject: HBD for the world and a question Goodmorning, I echo the greatness of the recent mix of views from other countries. After all, the internet is a worldwide entity now and the HBD is a part of the internet. Without the input from other areas we would be brewing only what we grew up on locally. Now for the question. I seem to remember having read somewhere (I really need to start writing stuff down - they sat memmory is the second thing to go) that Eldrige, Pope & Co. were no longer going to bottle Thomas Hardy's Ale. If that is true, maybe I hadn't ought drink the two remaining bottles I have (1995 bottling). Has anyone else heard this? Paul VanSlyke >> brewin' and relaxin' in Deposit, NY - USA Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2000 18:49:00 -0700 From: jhecksel at voyager.net Subject: Butter beer Hello all: I was reading the Harry Potter books to my daughter last month. One of the beverages mentioned is "butter beer". At the time I assumed that it was a made-up, fictitious beverage....after all, Harry Potter is fiction. Then it occurred to me that maybe there *is* a British brew called butter beer....some low alcohol, high diacetyl brew. Does anybody on the list have any insight on the topic? Best regards from Eaton Rapids, Michigan Joe Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2000 19:25:10 -0500 From: "Don and Sarah Cole" <dcole at mc.net> Subject: RE: Stainless in Seattle out of business? >Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2000 22:09:00 -0400 >From: "Donald D. Lake" <dlake at gdi.net> >Subject: Stainless in Seattle out of business? >Does anyone know if the Beeronline d/b/a "Stainless in Seattle" people >are still in business? Their phone # was disconnected and the website >seemed abandoned. Yep, their gone. I'm sorry too. Their tree systems looked great. Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 13:48:02 +1000 From: David Lamotte <lamotted at ozemail.com.au> Subject: Re: Open kettles Glen A Pannicke replied to Brian Lundeen with some good info extracted from the Practical Brewer, and observed that " Most professional brewing systems which I have either witnessed or viewed in pictures and diagrams have a closed top with a vent tube. They are not totally open to the air and depending on the system, the ratio of vent opening to exposed wort surface area is small. Not that I've measured it, but I'd say that a 1:10 ratio is not too far off the mark. So a 5/6 closed lid comes pretty close. " Now it's my turn.... While I am very open about my boiling, Kunze goes into considerable detail on the design of such industrial kettles and observes that the discharge vent always has an opening 1/6th the diameter of the kettle. If my maths are correct this would give an area of only 3% of the kettle surface area (1/6 is 17%). This is a fairly tightly fitting lid. The kettle exhaust is also fitted with a flap which enables it to be completely sealed during heating in order to conserve energy. Why this is so? Kunze unfortunately (typically) gives very little detail, except that this section is obsessed with energy use and its minimisation. Sounds like a case of industrial cost savings to me. With such a tight fitting lid, it makes you wonder how much DMS can be driven off. Perhaps this is why AB 'cleans' their hot wort with a blast of air on its way to the chiller. Kunze also quotes a evaporation rate of 10-15% (noting that as most boils are for 1 hour you can use the same figure for either total evaporation, or the hourly rate). The percentage is the amount evaporated, divided by the preboil volume. So if you boil 5.5 gal down to 5, this is a evaporation rate of 9% (0.5/5.5). He goes on to say that the evaporation rate of 10 to 15% was a measure of a good boil, however changes to kettle design has changed this. The calandria system described by Glenn is only one of the many discussed by Kunze, and he quotes an evaportaion rate of only 5% for this type of system. Interestingly, he makes no comment on the deleterious effects of 'boiling too hard', whereas George Fix writes in "An Analysis of BT" ... "The key to successful wort boiling is to avoid excess and to find a balance. Extracting hop constituents and removing DMS require at least some thermal loading. We found that percent of volume evaporation during the boil is a very useful control parameter. ... The best general recommendation is an evaporation rate of 9-11%. In all cases, avoid evaporation rates in excess of 15% ... also striking is the number of times the negative effects from (excess evaporation) are incorrectly identified as problems in fermentation." This provoked quite a bit of discussion (search the archives for 'fix And loading' in 1998) which George clarified in HBD 2710. Hope this helps.... David Lamotte Newcastle N.S.W. Australia Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2000 22:56:17 -0400 From: "Shane A. Saylor, Eccentric Bard" <taliesin2 at earthlink.net> Subject: YEASTS I know the answer is going to be a "no", but I'm going to ask anyhow. Are all beer yeasts the same? If not, what are differences? What is the difference between yeast and Wyeast? And which is better, dry yeast or liquid yeast??? And just what the heck is liquid yeast???? - -- Everything on this earth has a purpose, and every disease an herb to cure it, and every person a mission. This is the Indian theory of existence. --Mourning Dove, 1888-1936 - --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: herbs-unsubscribe at witchhaven.com For additional commands, e-mail: witchhaven-help at witchhaven.com Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2000 22:56:19 -0400 From: "Shane A. Saylor, Eccentric Bard" <taliesin2 at earthlink.net> Subject: Intro Greetings from Centreville, Virginia! My name is Shane, I'm white, 30, single and I have had a kit for about 5 yrs years now. Haven't really used it. But would like to. Any words of wisdom to pass along? Any words to prevent bone headed mistakes would especially be appreciated. :-) - -- Everything on this earth has a purpose, and every disease an herb to cure it, and every person a mission. This is the Indian theory of existence. --Mourning Dove, 1888-1936 - --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: herbs-unsubscribe at witchhaven.com For additional commands, e-mail: witchhaven-help at witchhaven.com Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 13:34:34 EST From: "Warren White" <warrenlw63 at hotmail.com> Subject: Oak Shavings & Purging Kegs? Mark Tumarkin thinks of something to soak in Bourbon or Rum rather than one's self... :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) I'm sure we've all had stouts, etc that have been finished in bourbon casks. Very nice. Has anyone tried soaking oak shavings in bourbon (or a good rum might be interesting) prior to using in beer? Mark Tumarkin Gainesville, Fl * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * I've often entertained thoughts along a similar line, that being soaking some oak chips/shavings in Port. What a waste you say? I'd say you'd be right. Maybe a cheap Port perhaps? Nothing ventured, nothing gained. This could possibly do interesting things to an Old Ale, Imperial Stout or even a Belgian Strong or Trappist Ale, I think if memory serves me correct (though it doesn't too often) aren't Lambics or maybe even Oud Bruins fermented in old Port or Sherry Casks? * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * David Sweeny wants to give his SWMBO (sorry Graham) or keg a blast I've bought my kegging equipment and now I need some help. People talk about "purging" the cornelius keg with CO2 prior to transferring the beer from the primary. I know you blast the keg with CO2, but what is the process and for how long? 1 second, 10 secs, 1 minute? Is the lid open? on and closed? on and loose? Output open? * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Dial your regulator up to 20psi with her lid on and the valve closed, gas her up until you don't hear her groaning any more, don't ask me how one can tell the sex of their keg, some probably don't care, (might have something to do with male or female fittings). When she doesn't groan anymore, either (a) go to sleep or (b) open the valve and let her blow off until all the gas has gone (Peg your nose or keep the blanket down). Repeat this one more time you manly thing! Yes, you can do it! Gas her up until you don't hear her groaning any more, open your relief valve again. Then gas her up for a third time, this time she has to hold her breath, do not open the relief valve until you are ready to fill her up with beer. After you have filled her up with beer (make her shout), take her home or put her in the fridge. Leave her overnight at about 3 degress celcius, you can figure the farenheit about 35 I'd say. Take her out of the fridge the next morning, make her fetch you breakfast and whisper sweet nothings in her ear, then attach the gas hose with your regular set at about 15 psi and shake the bejezus out of her about 100 times (ah! Your first taste of domestic violence). Put her back in the fridge for about a day. Repeat this process 2 more times, by this time she should not gurgle any more. Leave her for about a week. (She should have forgiven you by then). Make this a ritual with either your SWMBFWB (She Who Must Be Filled With Beer for the acronymically-challenged) (sorry again Graham) ears of Wedded or Imbibing bliss! * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * P.S. Question: What do you do If a Bird craps on your windshield? Answer: You NEVER ask her out on another date! * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Warren L. White, Melbourne, Australia Winning Friends and Influencing People In an Un-Dale Carnegie like way! _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at http://profiles.msn.com. Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2000 23:54:20 EDT From: Warandle1 at aol.com Subject: Chicago brewpubs I will be downtown Chicago for a week next month--near the Merchandise Mart and Tribune Bldg. Are there any good brewpubs reasonably close by? Or how about a good bar with a nice selection of commercial brews? A just saw (two months ago) an article (which I cannot find) on Chicago brewpubs; it seemed like most (all?) brewpubs were outside the downtown area. Does anyone have a suggestion? Where is Goose Island (not the island, the brewery)? Thanks Will Randle Ashland, MO Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2000 21:41:07 -0700 From: "Dave Howell" <djhowell at uswest.net> Subject: RE: The 3-ring circus project In re a post in # 3434 earlier: >Thusly, we have O - Obeyed, BF - Brewed For, T - Tolerated, S - Supplicated, A - Avoided... you get my drift. How about SWMBBO: She who must be Bought Off? > 1. Will boiling wort have any adverse effect upon an electric hot > water tank heating element? Use a low-heat-density element, preferably one with nickel (not tin or zinc) plating. http://www.grainger.com is a good source. Buy two (you might damage one, and probably won't ever find the exact replacement, or the replacement will be .1 inch too long for your heating chamber...) > 2. Do 220V heating elements have enough thermal output to bring > wort from sparge temp to boil within a reasonable amount of time? Heck, and yes. You rate the element by the wattage: 5500W is typical. This brings 12.5 gal of water up 90 deg in 60 min. in a water heater. As brewers, we don't need to go that far (in temperature) until the boil. > 3. How about 110V? I know the wattage is about 1/2 and therefore > the heat is cut proportionally. The wattage is heat. Actually, if P=V^2/R (watts is volts squared divided by resistance) then a 220V 4500W element is 10.75 Ohms. At 120V, that same 10.75 Ohms yeilds 1339.5W, which is a lot less than half. > 4. I've seen some RIMS systems use black pipe as the RIMS chamber. > What is the composition of black pipe & it's effect upon wort? Black pipe is cast iron (I do not know how pure), oxidized to prevent rust. It's effect is to donate ions to the wort, and slightly decrease it's pH. I think you'd get rust in your chamber despite your best intentions when storing it. Dave Miller says you can cause haze, slow fermentation, and get metallic flavors with high concentrations of iron (but I have no idea about how high a concentration you'd get). > 5. Given enough electrical power, is propane supplement even needed? But what can you do with 1500W? OK, world, check my math: 1 BTU = 1 lb H20 through 1 deg F (nominally at 60 deg F). 8.3 lbs H2O per gallon Given a 3.5 Gal mash (or say, 2.5 gal with 8 lbs of grain: an OK assumption?) warming for mash-in from 75 deg to 136 deg F: 3.50 * 8.30 = 29.05 * 1 deg = 29.05 BTU = 30649.45 W-sec (looked up). Given 1500W, it will take 20.43 sec to raise this amount of water 1 deg F. To go 61 deg F, that will take 1246.4 sec, or 20.8 min. This is consistent with the advertised recovery times for a 1500 W water heater: 9 gal 90 deg in 60 min. Now, we don't see this, quite, in real life, because we lose heat from the piping, and the sides and top of the mash tun. Insulation will help. I get about 22 min to heat 2.75 gal to strike temp. The sparge water will take longer (to raise 5 gal from 75-168 deg), about 50 min. >6. Does a 180,000 BTU cajun cooker throw enough heat at a 10 gal batch to bring it to boil quickly? (this may be a dumb question) So, I use gas to conduct the boil. 35000 BTU boils 6.2 gal in about 18 min starting at 168 deg F (again, bigtime heat loss in blowing heat by the sides of the pot, and more out the top of the boiler). For the 180,000 BTU burner, 5 times the heat, for 1.3 times the mass... you run the danger of caramelizing the wort. This is much like brewing in the bad old days when I was a starving college graduate with a menial job: I used my girlfriend's (she's now SWMBO) electric stove, and it gave me slow brew sessions. If you have a 220V outlet near your brew station, go for the 220V option, and cut your times to less than half, and you can go for the larger volumes... FWIW, there is much commentary lately about how a recirculated electric-element boil is not really desirable (recombining volatiles or some such). Dave Howell OK world, I now have a largish chest freezer (and built a temperature controller): beer will now be spelled l-a-g-e-r! Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 14:39:12 +0800 From: Edward Doernberg <shevedd at q-net.net.au> Subject: mild coming good I just finished raking my mild to secondary. This is the one that was a bit harsh as a wort. Aside from one of my secondary fermenters developing a leek (luckily another was available and sterile in preparation for the other half of the batch) which cost bout 3L of beer there where no problems. The harsh flavour is still present but barely noticeable. I suspect it will be quite pleasant by the time it is carbonated The use of 2 yeasts was defiantly a good idea. The WhitLabs 002 English and 005 British where the chosen. Both tasted good if a little warm even by real ale standards. I think I found the 005 had a cleaner flavour profile but I preferred the 002. It could be the other way around as I didn't label the samples. What maters to me is that I could taste the difference. Both finished at 1.010 I also noticed the difference in the yeast cake. The 002 being more solid able to be piked up ad a lump. The 005 was much more liquid and mixed more easily with the beer when I tipped the fermenter. Not that the consistency of the yeast cake is very important. In any case I am very happy with how this beer is turning out. I will bottle when I get around to it. Considering how much I dislike the task it may be some weeks. My kingdom for a keg. Edward Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 03:14:37 EDT From: BShotola at aol.com Subject: spargewort and fruitflies Hello and a happy Octoberfest prost to all! I am about a month away from my first and only sparge experience (how sweet it was) and upon ruminating about how it came to be that my original gravity was about four points lower than the recipe I was making said it should be (and I won't bring up which wanker wrote the book, no matter) I just came upon the idea that perhaps I sparged TOO QUICKLY and lost some beauteous runnings. The humanity! I am using the Listermann whirlybird setup a-la Williams Brewing and in my excitement of seeing that baby revolving around, spreading warm rain over my sweet grain bed I think I left the Babcock, er, petcocks, er, you know, the valves, wide open most of the time. It took maybe half an hour to run through. What is the definitive, university rated, Australian Burdoo Hilton, backyard barbecue approved sparge rate? I was careful to keep the bed covered with 1/2 inch or so of sparge water most of the time. Is slower better? Please don't send me to the ARCHIVES. Sob. Speaking of moth infestation, I am occasionally bugged by fruit flies in the pantry and wonder if they could infect my cooling wort. They are hard to get rid of completely- the little bastards are hard to slap and I don't wish to set off a pyrithian bomb in the brewing zone either. Hmmm. Maybe there is a fruitfly.com page out there. Bob Shotola Yamhill Oregon Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 06:55:43 -0400 From: "Mark Tumarkin" <mark_t at ix.netcom.com> Subject: re: Plastic Carboys Richard Foote gave us a lot of good info on possible shortcomings of plastic carboys. He mentions that: >Many of these 5 gal. water bottles have ridges molded in for strength. One concern would be ease of cleaning. Another concern related to cleaning is that these plastic carboys are easily scratched. The scratches can then harbor nasty bugs. They may be cheap, but don't go that route. Mark Tumarkin Gainesville, FL Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 12:20:40 +0000 From: kjwagner at att.net Subject: books in german Does anybody know if any of the better homebrew books have been translated into German? I have a friend that is working in Germany for a couple years. A co-worker of his is interested in learning to brew but is having trouble finding a decent reference written in German. I would be most interested in the works of Daniels, Fix, Korzonas, Miller, and/or Noonan. Thanks, Ken Wagner Columbus, OH kjwagner at att.net Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 12:26:12 +0000 From: kjwagner at att.net Subject: hop plug production I heard a rumor that one of the major hop plug producers went out of business and that, as a result, there will be a shortage of plugs from this year's crop. Does anybody know if there is any truth to this? Thanks, Ken Wagner Columbus, OH kjwagner at att.net Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 08:48:57 -0400 From: "Barrett, Bob (R.A.)" <rbarrett at ford.com> Subject: Pumps - Setting the record straight Don Lake of Windermere Brewing Co. a division of Lake Water Brewery and wholly-owned subsidiary of Canal Water Beverages, Inc writes: >Although I never mentioned any names of where I bought the pump, Bill Stewart of Moving Brews , recognized my name and called me to inquire about the problems I was having.< I too had a very good experience with Bill Stewart of Moving Brews. Bill is a long time home brewer that has a vast knowledge of pumps and how they are to be used to get the best results and to make them last safely. I was looking for a pump and found their site while browsing one day http://movingbrews.com/ and decided to give them a call. Bill helped me over the phone to determine the pump I would need to build my gott cooler all grain system. Nice to know that there are still people out there that like to help others and don't look at the wallet first. Don also writes: >After spending an enormous amount of time on the phone asking questions and analyzing the problem....< Not that it's a bad thing, but be aware that Bill does like to talk and. ask questions. Before I realized it, I was on the phone for 45 minutes. I think that it's a good idea to share our good experiences as well as our bad ones. Bill Stewart at Moving Brews is one of the good ones. I am not associated with Bill Stewart or Moving Brews yahda, yahda... Just a satisfied customer!!! We make the beer we drink!!! Bob Barrett Ann Arbor, MI Return to table of contents
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