HOMEBREW Digest #3445 Fri 06 October 2000

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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
  Crash of HBD system ("Lutzen, Karl F.")
  Green Bottles & light ("Warren White")
  Transporting Beers, again. (Rod Prather)
  Elsassa Hops info. request ("Grant Stott")
  Glycol chillers (The Freemans)
  Aussie Malts ("john.lovett")
  Don't blame Bean Counters ("Donald D. Lake")
  Re: Mail Order Supplies (Joel Plutchak)
  chloramine (again) ("Russ&Nancy Tjepkema")
  Chilling, Dry Corriandering ("AYOTTE, ROGER C")
  Hacker-Pschorr Oktoberfest ("Jeff Beinhaur")
  HP Jornada Beer Software Wanted ("Schneider, Brett")
  censorship?! (Eli Daniel)
  CORIANDER -DRY HOPPING? ("Hill, Steve")
  Need Advice on York, PA Brewpubs ("Steve Schultz")
  dry-coriandering (John Penn)
  Suggestions? ("John Watts")
  Mailorder, Dry Spicing ("Grant Knechtel")
  Summertime Counterflow Chillers (Stephen Johnson)
  vienna malt vs. pale ale (Randy Ricchi)
  adelscott (djazzie)
  dry-coriandering (Brian Myers)

* * Beer is our obsession and we're late for therapy! * Send articles for __publication_only__ to post@hbd.org If your e-mail account is being deleted, please unsubscribe first!! To SUBSCRIBE or UNSUBSCRIBE send an e-mail message with the word "subscribe" or "unsubscribe" to request@hbd.org FROM THE E-MAIL ACCOUNT YOU WISH TO HAVE SUBSCRIBED OR UNSUBSCRIBED!!!** IF YOU HAVE SPAM-PROOFED your e-mail address, you cannot subscribe to the digest as we canoot reach you. We will not correct your address for the automation - that's your job. The HBD is a copyrighted document. The compilation is copyright HBD.ORG. Individual postings are copyright by their authors. ASK before reproducing and you'll rarely have trouble. Digest content cannot be reproduced by any means for sale or profit. More information is available by sending the word "info" to req at hbd.org. JANITOR on duty: Pat Babcock and Karl Lutzen (janitor@hbd.org)
---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 5 Oct 2000 21:09:55 -0500 From: "Lutzen, Karl F." <kfl at umr.edu> Subject: Crash of HBD system Well, we crashed again. This time it was due to automated mailers having their own conversation between each other. From the time the mail storm began until we broke the loop, over 19,000 messages were exchanged between the two systems. Fortunately, it was an easy task for us to delete and fix at our end (I have no idea about the other persons end). We have corrected our automation to prevent similar activity in the future. We apologize for the amount of HBD and beer discussion withdrawl this may have caused anyone. We now return you to your regular "fix". ===================================================================== Karl F. Lutzen | Computing and Information Services Network Systems Analyst | University of Missouri - Rolla E-Mail: kfl at umr.edu | 114 Computer Science Bldg. Fax: (573) 341-4216 | 1870 Miner Circle Voice: (573) 341-4841 | Rolla, MO 65409-0360 ===================================================================== Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2000 14:36:43 EST From: "Warren White" <warrenlw63 at hotmail.com> Subject: Green Bottles & light A little lightbulb just went off in my head! Call me Wylie Coyote. Actually this is leading to a question... I generally put my just-filled bottles in a wooden cabinet for about a week to carbonate, in this cabinet I usually have a 40 to 100 watt pearl lightbulb as a heat-source. My problem being is that half of my batch have been bottled in green bottles, (it's a Tripel). I know that direct sunlight and even fluroescent lights can render beers light-struck and useless in a very short period of time. What about normal light bulbs? I'm presuming that they do not give off UV rays, which supposedly do all the damage (just guessing here). So could someone shed a little light on this for me, (ha! ha! real funny Warren). Not worrying mind you, just a little curious/concerned. Cheers! Warren L. White, Melbourne, Australia P.S. A Question: Did you hear they have 2 new uses for sheep in New Zealand? Answer: Meat & Wool? Yoicks! ;-) ;-) ;-) ;-) _________________________________________________________________________ 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: Tue, 03 Oct 2000 01:00:56 -0300 From: Rod Prather <rodpr at iquest.net> Subject: Transporting Beers, again. I want to offer one more data point to the concept that some beers are damaged by travel. My data point is subjective so please forgive me for my lack of scientific method here. Anchor Steam Beer. I love it. I have had it on the west coast many times. The beer is unique in flavor and character. I live in the midwest. I have had the beer on many occasions here and have yet to find one that retains the character of the beer sold on the west coast. As a matter of fact, these transported products are quite non descript. They seem to resemble a pale ale with hardly a hint of the flavors that I find so interesting. Recently, in a local Micro Brew festival, I had the chance to taste Anchor Steam almost side by side with a very good homebrew clone. The Anchor Steam was brought in by the distributor and should have been fresh. Once again, the Anchor was non-descript but the home brew had all the flavors of Steam and was a very close reproduction. Now either they are shipping a different beer east of the Rockies, which I doubt, or this beer doesn't travel well. I know beer is damaged by light and heat but I have often wondered if vibration and shaking for long periods of time may be a factor in the degradation of certain more fragile beers. Any support for such a supposition. - -- Rod Prather, PooterDuude Indianapolis, Indiana Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2000 05:12:32 +1000 From: "Grant Stott" <gstott at primus.com.au> Subject: Elsassa Hops info. request G'day all, The Corio Bay Brewers have been sent some Esassa hops, grown in Tasmania. A web search has produced only one hit suggesting that Elsassa are a low yielding old French variety. If anyone can provide additional info it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks. Grant Stott Geelong Vic. Australia Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2000 01:23:27 -0500 From: The Freemans <potsus at bellsouth.net> Subject: Glycol chillers Mike, I have answered Steven's survey as well. I also feel he will have a hard time coming up with reasonable replacements for the Maxi or Chillzilla. These are basically variations on commercial water recovery systems on boilers. I have been working on an idea which may have merit for both you as well as myself as we try to brew here in the hot summer South. It simply consists of putting a glycol tank (probably 10 gallons as I have a 10 gallon cornie I can delegate to that task.) in my chest freezer and applying the near 0 degree glycol to one side of a MaxiChiller via a small pump. I plan on using propylene glycol rather than ethylene glycol as it is less detrimental to me and any of the local pets who might come in contact with the inevitable small spills.. This would be a case where an output thermometer would be needed on the counterflow chiller to help regulate the flow of coolant rather than the flow of hot wort. By the same token an immersion chiller in my conical could be adapted to regulate fermenting temps with the use of a temp control and a thermocouple. The natural convection present in fermenting wort would help to spread the coolness around. When it is up and running, I'll let you know. Bill Freeman aka Elder Rat KP Brewery - home of "the perfesser" Birmingham, AL Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2000 21:15:33 +1100 From: "john.lovett" <johnl at omni.net.au> Subject: Aussie Malts Some help from all you aussie brewers out there.. I've read conflicting reports about the degree of modification of Australian malts commonly available to the homebrew market. On one hand, i'm told they are fully modified and don't need a protein rest, on the other, i'm told that they are mostly malted for the export market to asia and are undermodified. I'm mainly talking two row Franklin here. Terry Foster "Pale Ale, second ed.", believes a protein rest for well modified malts is detrimental, causing leaching of tannins; Can anyone tell me what is the best step mash regime for a Franklin malt? Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2000 08:24:41 -0400 From: "Donald D. Lake" <dlake at gdi.net> Subject: Don't blame Bean Counters This so-called censorship issue is being blamed on corporate "bean counters". Nothing could be further from the truth. In corporate jargon, "bean counters" are the financial, accounting, CPA types who are stereotyped as too busy counting the beans instead of making them. The bean counters could care less about the bad language that Jim Liddel spews in the the emails you receive. They would be offended, however, over the extraordinary amount of company time you waste reading your HBD mail. It's the HR(human resources)people who are the ones that are offended by the language and force companies to create policies to avoid possibly offending anyone. Let's place the blame where it lies. There is plenty of other stuff to blame on the bean counters. Don Lake Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2000 08:20:31 -0500 (CDT) From: Joel Plutchak <plutchak at ncsa.uiuc.edu> Subject: Re: Mail Order Supplies In HBD #3444, Shane A. Saylor, Eccentric Bard asks: >Does anybody know of stores that do mail order supplies for home brewing? >I knew of a store called the Gourmet Brewer run by a guy named Dave >Bartz. Any ideas if they are still in business? Any other stores? TIA The Gourmet Brewer seems to have disappeared around a year ago. I don't do a huge volume of online homebrew purchases, but like and use the following based on distance, speed, knowledge of staff, selection, and (lastly) price: The Grape and Granary (OH) <http://www.grapeandgranary.com/> Brewer's Coop (IL) <http://www.thebrewerscoop.com/> Northern Brewer (MN) <http://www.northernbrewer.com/> Williams Brewing (CA) <http://www.williamsbrewing.com/> Williams is far from me, but tends to have those weird kegs parts that are hard to find elsewhere. For hops, it's hard to beat Freshops <http://www.freshops.com/>. Hope that helps. Standard disclaimers apply, i.e., I'm just a satisfied customer. - -- Joel Plutchak <plutchak at uiuc.edu> East-central Illinois, USA Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2000 21:30:25 -0400 From: "Russ&Nancy Tjepkema" <russtj at home.com> Subject: chloramine (again) My apologies upfront for bringing up this topic again, but I'm still unclear about what is an effective brewing solution to chloramine treated water. My community just converted to chloramine and before I brew my next batch I wonder if there is a way to minimize it's impact on my beer's taste. So bottom line --- should I worry about it? If so, what are you brewers doing that works to get rid of it or minimize it - I previously filtered my water with carbon filter. Thanks for the help in advance! Russ Tjepkema Virginia Beach. Va Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2000 08:38:00 -0400 From: "AYOTTE, ROGER C" <RCAYOT at solutia.com> Subject: Chilling, Dry Corriandering Steve was wondering about a glycol powered chiller. I would suggest that after his counter-flow chiller, he add a 10' or so length of copper coil immersed in ice. I built a coil that I can use as an immersion chiller, or as a "second stage" chiller. This should bring down the temperature of his wort to pitching, even for a lager. I must admit that this is pure theory right now as I first used this coil to try to chill the water going to my counter-flow chiller, but it didn't have enough "power" this weekend I am going to try the second stage approach, I will keep the HBD posted. As for "Dry Coriandering" I would suggest taking Dave Millers advice and use ethanol or vodka to "extract" the flavors. Soak the coriander in the vodka for a week and then filter off the seeds. Use the concentrate as a flavor extract, you can add as much as you like, In fact this way allows you to adjust the coriander flavor to your exact taste, because you can add some and the flavor should be there immediately, taste, then adjust. Or, if you have some very fine pipettes, you can add the flavor to a small amount of brew, adjust to taste, and then calculate how much you need for the whole 5 or 10 gallons! Roger Ayotte Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2000 09:58:54 -0400 From: "Jeff Beinhaur" <beinhaur at email.msn.com> Subject: Hacker-Pschorr Oktoberfest Thanks to all that responded to my inquiry about the label showing it to be "Ale". Although I received no definitive answer, the general consensus was that some states have archaic liquor laws that say if a beer is over a certain alcohol percentage than it can't be labeled as beer. Considering that Pennsylvania is the Quaker state with our own set of stupid laws, this makes sense. Thanks to Wayne Aldrich who is living in Frankfurt for confirming that Paulener did in fact buy Hacker-Pschorr recently. No matter, it was good tasting beer. Jeff Beinhaur, Camp Hill, PA Home of the Yellow Breeches Brewery Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2000 09:59:14 -0400 From: "Schneider, Brett" <Brett_Schneider at bose.com> Subject: HP Jornada Beer Software Wanted Finally in hand is my new HP Jornada 540. Finally in hand is a need to play catch up. Finally to you all are my needs: I saw and read with delight many past postings about beer related software available for Palm devices. But I did not save them or capture them for current reference. I am looking for sources of software related to beer and the BJCP I can load onto the new device and carry with me on my journies. Are there sources out there for software and or CE compatible docs I can be pointed to? Maybe John Varady was the leader? Direct replies appreciated. Brett Schneider Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2000 10:01:15 -0400 From: Eli Daniel <edaniel at epesi.com> Subject: censorship?! Numerous people have expressed outrage at being asked to tone down the content of their HBD posts for the benefit of "corporate bean counters". Get a grip, folks. Nobody's trying to censor you. Like it or not, lots of us (myself included) receive the HBD at work. Also like it or not, lots of places (corporations and otherwise) filter their incoming email. Niether of these two things is going to change. Given that, all that's being asked to give a little consideration to the folks who won't get their digests when the posts get raunchy. Is it such a hardship to just leave out the scatalogical content instead of demanding that your fellow brewers should get different jobs or a new ISP? Eli Daniel Somerville, MA Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2000 10:07:52 -0400 From: "Hill, Steve" <SHill at advanta.com> Subject: CORIANDER -DRY HOPPING? hello -- tried this about 3 years ago with a spiced beer - worked great! - however, unlike hops that only give aroma when used at this stage of the game - coriander also lends flavor - still pretty good. I took an ounce too for the dry-hopping - I grounded it lightly - basically breaking it into small pieces with a mortal and pestle. and chucked it in - it floated for a couple of days and then sank to the bottom - I would recommend sampling it everyday after it sinks to determine the flavor strength you want-- keep brewing Steve Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2000 14:30:32 GMT From: "Steve Schultz" <steven_schultz at hotmail.com> Subject: Need Advice on York, PA Brewpubs We are going to York, PA with friends and are looking for recommendations on brewpubs. Please comment on these, or any others in the area: Brick House Brewpub & Eatery 3320 E. Market St. York Freedom Brewing 140 Roosevelt Ave. York Whitetail Brewing Company 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. York York Brewing Company 10 Roosevelt Ave. York Thanks in advance, Steve Schultz _________________________________________________________________________ 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: Tue, 03 Oct 2000 11:17:42 -0400 From: John Penn <John.Penn at jhuapl.edu> Subject: dry-coriandering Aaron asks about dry-coriandering... I would suggest soaking the coriander in a small amount of vodka for a few days. Should have the same effect as dry-hopping but with less worry about contamination. Shane asks about the Gourmet Brewer... I had asked about Dave Bartz recently and I don't remember getting a definitive answer but it appears that they are not around. I finally tried Mash Hopping myself but now I read on the HBD--too late--that you should use pellets. My wife is still kind of miffed that my recent bulk hops order from freshops.com is whole hops and is taking up so much freezer space. Got to find time to brew so I can make space in the freezer! I must say freshops was very prompt on my order but I thought pellets were the norm. I was kind of surprised that they only seem to stock whole hops. I think I prefer pellets myself and when I use up the current 3# of whole hops I'll be looking for a bulk pellet hop supplier myself. There seems to be some hop flavor in my recent Rye ESB but I've only had one sample so I can't say whether the mash hopping with whole hops was successful or not. I don't understand the fuss about "Aussie bandwidth" or trying to edit the content of the HBD. The page down key works fine for most of us and its always interesting to get different perspectives from around the world. Anyone know what kind of hops are in "Hop Hazard" from River Horse Brewery in Lambertville, NJ? Interesting hop flavor. Good to see Al K back on the HBD, I"m sure he's still quite busy with those triplets. John Penn Eldersburg, MD Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2000 12:08:46 -0500 From: "John Watts" <watts at radiks.net> Subject: Suggestions? My mother and stepfather are going to be in Prague for 2 weeks starting Saturday. Since I can't fit into their luggage, any suggestion on what beer they can bring back would be appreciated. Rgds John Watts watts at radiks.net Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2000 10:39:41 -0700 From: "Grant Knechtel" <GWK at hartcrowser.com> Subject: Mailorder, Dry Spicing Shane A. Saylor, Eccentric Bard asks in HBD 3444: >Does anybody know of stores that do mail order supplies for home brewing? >I knew of a store called the Gourmet Brewer run by a guy named Dave Bartz. >Any ideas if they are still in business? Any other stores? TIA My local homebrew shop Larrys Brewing Supply sells mail order. Their catalog online: http://www.larrysbrewing.com/online_cat/catalog_index.htm. Currently they do not take orders online but they do have an 800 number 1-800-441-BREW. I am not in any way affiliated except as a satisfied customer. For items Larry's doesn't have I 've also used Williams Brewing, online at http://williamsbrewing.com. Neither am i affiliated with them. I have had excellent service from both. Also note Northern Brewer at the top of the HBD page is generously sponsoring the next year of HBD DSL . Aaron Robert Lyon also asks: >OK, so I brewed a holiday ale about two months ago and have it tucked >away in the corner of my basement split into two 5 gal carboys. I'm >thinking about dry-coriandering one of the carboys with about 1 oz of >cracked coriander seed and have two questions regarding this... >1. Has anyone ever done dry additions with coriander before? If so, how >did they turn out? >2. Are there any special precautions I should take before I add it (i.e. >do I need to sanitize it somehow, etc)? I have done this many times with coriander and other spices in my own Yule Ales. I think they turn out excellent but one never sees the faults of one's own children, does one? One oz. of coriander will be fairly strong, surely your holiday ale will be strongly flavored enough to balance. Do use freshly crushed whole coriander as the powdered supermarket stuff won't taste nearly as good. Usually i coarse crush spices in a mortar & pestle, put in a fine mesh nylon hop steeping bag and shove into the secondary carboy. If i'm feeling nervous about the spice's history (could they be harboring beer spoiling organisms?) i steam the bag and contents 20 minutes or so in a vegetable steamer. I do this in any case with the bag as it's been reused many times and isn't sanitary. Another method is to boil bag and all in minimal water for 10 - 20 minutes or so, then add spice "tea" and bag directly to the carboy. Hope this helps, and Prost! -LabRat Neue Des Moines Hausbrauerei Des Moines, WA, USA Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2000 15:39:34 -0500 From: Stephen Johnson <Stephen.Johnson at vanderbilt.edu> Subject: Summertime Counterflow Chillers Reading Mike's comments to Steve about running counterflow chillers in the summertime prompts me to report on what I've done the past few batches during some pretty hot weather here in Nashville. I came up with this idea after talking with a few of our club members since our last big homebrew club "brew-in" back in May for National Homebrew Day. Our city water is pretty much near the surface and gets into the 70 degree F. range throughout most of the summer. Initially, with my immersion chillers, I found that a pre-chiller immersed in an ice bath helped, but took a lot of ice, and a lot of time to get the temp down to pitching levels, and even more difficult if not impossible to get a lager ready to go. So, I invested in a counterflow unit, the MaxiChiller from Precision Brewing Systems. First step was to knock the wort temp down with the immersion chiller alone to 1) have some really hot water saved for clean-up, 2) bring the temp down to one that allows for more agitation of the wort (HSA thread, anyone?), 3) bring the temp down to one that wouldn't damage my 12 volt motor that keeps me from depending so much on gravity. That worked OK with the pre-chiller in tandem, but reduced the flow rate of the water because of the size of the copper tubing I had for my pre-chiller. It still took a while, and I wasn't satisfied with all the water I was using and trying to recycle by watering plants around the yard. Final solution was to get a $40 submersible pump (which I had bought anyway to pump out my basement when we get those gully washer thunderstorms around here in the spring that dump 5 inches of rain in one day!) that recirculates the ice water through the counterflow chiller and back into the recepticle (a 30 gal. plastic garbage can). It uses a paltry 5 to 10 gallons of water (just enough to cover the intake on the pump and 2 x 10# bags of ice to chill 12 gallons of wort in about 10 minutes. At one point, I had to shut the pump off because even with my wort flow wide open, the temperature coming out was around 50 F! I then water my plants around the yard with the leftover water. A couple of frozen milk jugs would probably do just as well as the bags of ice. Works for me! Steve Johnson Nashville, TN Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2000 20:03:14 -0400 From: Randy Ricchi <rricchi at ccisd.k12.mi.us> Subject: vienna malt vs. pale ale A friend of mine just brewed a lager beer with british pale ale malt, because he was hot to brew a lager and didn't have any pilsner malt on hand. While this type of behavior horrifies me, it got me to wondering: What, exactly, is the difference between vienna malt and british pale ale malt? British Pale Ale malt is typically 3 degrees lovibond, and the Weissheimer Vienna malt that I have on hand is listed as the same. I believe some vienna malts go a little higher, like 5 degrees or so, but in my case, with the 3 degree vienna, would there be any flavor difference, and if so, why? Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 5 Oct 2000 15:38:17 -0400 From: djazzie at juno.com Subject: adelscott I was in France recently and this beer that was phenomenal, called Adelscott! One of the ingredients is whisky malt. I really want to try to make this beer. If anyone knows what the name of the malt I should use is, as well as any clone recipes they might have seen, please let me know! Flavor-wise, it's kind of like a smoke-beer, but a little sweeter. Thanks for your help. Daniel Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 6 Oct 2000 13:32:19 +1300 From: Brian Myers <BrianM at AdvantageGroup.co.nz> Subject: dry-coriandering Aaron asks about dry-coriandering - I've done this several times. My suggestion is to make a "spice tea" - it solves your sanitation issue, and extracts more flavor. My usual practice now is to combine the "spice tea" with the priming sugar. As Aaron suggests, use whole coriander seeds, NOT pre-ground. When you crush the coriander yourself and smell it, you'll know why - that aroma just isn't there with the pre-ground stuff. regards, Brian Return to table of contents
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