HOMEBREW Digest #3465 Mon 30 October 2000

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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
  flogging a long dead horse and bulkhead ("Alan McKay")
  volume ("Alan McKay")
  Cleaning CF Chillers (Demonick)
  Trip to Scotland- Report (RobertS735)
  cutting kegs (Mjbrewit)
  Frozen Lager? (Hop_Head)
  thicker ginger beer ("Stephen Taylor")
  Homebrew shop in Endicott NY ("Peter J. Calinski")
  smarter than the average sysop? ("Sean Richens")
  umlauts and keyboards ("Sean Richens")
  Doh! Units foible. (Kraeusening) ("Pat Babcock")
  open fermentation   (the deets) (Clifton Moore)
  really bad batch ("John Herman")

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---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 28 Oct 2000 08:36:30 -0400 From: "Alan McKay" <amckay at ottawa.com> Subject: flogging a long dead horse and bulkhead So, anyone still wan't to claim we don't need real pictures? Mark, your idea sounds great and your description is fine, but one can't make a silk's purse out of a sow's ear, and I admire your effort at ASCII text, but I sure as hell would like to see a picture of this thing : ||+ /------[]||+-}----| / []||+ } | - -----/ []||+ } | []||+ } | []||+ } | - -----\ []||+ } | \ []||+ } | \------[]||+-}----| | | ||+ | Female CPVC-| | | | | O-Ring -------| | | | Gott Bulkhead --| | | Washer -----------| | Male CPVC ------------| Try viewing that in a TrueType font! Even in Courier I still don't quite get it since I'm not familiar with most of the pieces you are talking about. Mark, if you send me a picture I'll put it up on the web somewhere. cheers, -Alan Return to table of contents
Date: Sat, 28 Oct 2000 08:38:19 -0400 From: "Alan McKay" <amckay at ottawa.com> Subject: volume > V=L(Pi * R^2) > > Where L is the length of the tube in inches. Actually, L is the length of the tube in whatever units you want to use : inches, centimeters or Andryllian tarflaks. cheers, -Alan Return to table of contents
Date: Sat, 28 Oct 2000 08:03:22 -0700 From: Demonick <demonick at zgi.com> Subject: Cleaning CF Chillers The post by Brad Miller <millerb at targen.com> about using caustics made me want to share. Bleach is a great caustic. After I am done with a carboy, I rinse well with water, throw in 1.5 cups of household bleach (7 gal carboys), fill with cold water and cap. The carboys sit full of bleach solution until I am ready to use them again. It could be 3 weeks. It could be 3 months. On brew day, I rinse the CFC with tap water. As well as a rinse it fills the system with water as a siphon prime. I then siphon out the bleach solution from the carboy through the CFC. I join the CFC wort-in and wort-out tubes to create a closed system full of bleach solution and let it sit. Then I rinse the carboy, fill with iodophor, and let it sit. Sometime during the boil, I siphon the iodophor out of the carboy through the CFC. I may collect the solution for later use. After about 5 gallons I join the CFC wort-in and wort-out tubing again, and let it sit full of iodophor solution. The rest of the iodophor solution in the carboy is dumped out, the carboy allowed to drip dry upside down for a minute, then sealed. Sometime earlier or at this time I boil 1.5 gallons of water for a few minutes, then siphon it out of the pan through the CFC as a final rinse. Again, join the ends of the CFC wort-in and wort-out tubes to preserve the prime. The water will cool immedidately upon turning on the CFC cooling water. It sounds like a lot of BS, but all the time is in-between time. You can do part of it or all of it the night before, or during the mash, or during the sparge, or during the boil. The final rinse water can be boiled at any time and allowed to sit covered until needed. Siphoning can run mostly unattended. One of the GREAT advantages is that you always preserve the siphon prime by joing the CFC wort-in and wort-out tubes. "Joining" them can be as simple as dropping the open ends of both full tubes into a bucket of iodophor. When you need to start the next siphon, just raise both tube siphon source, lower the wort-out tube, and the siphon starts. Works the same when starting the kettle siphon. You can let the final CFC rinse water drain into the fermenter or wait for the water to clear the tube before collecting wort. You can initially fill the system from the tap. This means you never need to suck or blow to start a siphon. Domenick Venezia Venezia & Company, LLC Maker of PrimeTab (206) 782-1152 phone (206) 782-6766 fax orders demonick at zgi dot com http://www.primetab.com Return to table of contents
Date: Sat, 28 Oct 2000 15:34:59 EDT From: RobertS735 at aol.com Subject: Trip to Scotland- Report Friends of the Brew. I just returned from 10 days in Scotland, and want to make a brief report on the beer related things I found. This may be a heresy, but I can honestly say that found the examples I drank to be uninspiring, and generally not very impressive. But then I may have had higher expectations than reasonable. Here is what I tasted: in no particular order. Tennant's Lager, Bellhaven's Best Ale, Tomantoul's Loch Nessie, Caffrey's Ale, Guiness, Theakson's Old Peculiar, Murfey's Stout, Boddington's Ale, Courage Director's Bitter, London Pride Best Bitter, and Bellhaven St.Andrews. In summary I thought they all had a lighter character, and mouth feel than I supposed they would have. The gravity was lighter, and by and large there was little hop character at all. The bitters I tasted were bitter only in comparison to the other ales. In other words not that dry or bitter. There was no significant hop nose. I suppose "balanced" could be applied to them all, but another way of saying balanced is to say they were undifferentiated in nature, bordering on bland. By far the most enjoyable beer of all was the Guiness. It was as good as we have come to think of it as. The next best was the Boddington's- in the airport at London Gatwick on the return trip. As for Scotland- it is a beautiful and wonderful place, but for drinking- stick to the whisky. Haggis is as unappetizing as advertised- stay away from it too. Bob the beer man. Return to table of contents
Date: Sat, 28 Oct 2000 17:35:49 EDT From: Mjbrewit at aol.com Subject: cutting kegs If you are taking the entire top off of the keg (to fit on a stove perhaps) a circular saw with a metal cutting blade ($6) is effective. Wear glasses, though and do it in a well ventilated area, there will be lots of sparks. Debur with a regular file. Then simply use coarse sandpaper to finish it smooth. Unfortunately, this does not work if cutting a hole in the top in an effort maintain the handles of a sanke keg. For that use a sawsall, or a dremel, or a drill with a cutting mandrel. You will go through a boatload of cutting disks with a dremel or drill, Walmart sells them fairly cheap. Mike Brennan, Chicago > > Return to table of contents
Date: Sat, 28 Oct 2000 22:32:53 -0400 (EDT) From: Hop_Head at webtv.net Subject: Frozen Lager? I just checked my lager and would you believe it? It was partially frozen! Will this hurt it? Do I need to do anything to fix it (Besides raise the temp.)? Well, I guess my new lager fridge work good! Hoppy Brewing Jim Return to table of contents
Date: Sun, 29 Oct 2000 19:34:47 +1100 From: "Stephen Taylor" <stephentaylor at one.net.au> Subject: thicker ginger beer Hi, I make a kit ginger beer this time every year for xmas, 18 lts, kegged, agood summer drink but it allways seems just a tad too thin when compared to our local brew pubs Has any one an idea to thicken it besides reducing water or adding more kit.I was thinking of scooping some wort out of my boiler next brewup or just doing amini mash of a little pale, has anyone tried this, what about some hops added and alittle ginger powder, iam not keen to go the whole hog and grow a ginger beer plant just yet, thanks in advance Steve Taylor, newcastle in oz Return to table of contents
Date: Sat, 28 Oct 2000 22:13:18 -0400 From: "Peter J. Calinski" <PCalinski at iname.com> Subject: Homebrew shop in Endicott NY A few months ago I found a homebrew shop that had some unusual items I was interested in. I didn't have the time to look into it then. Now, I just tried their URL and it 404ed. I also tried the phone number (607-785-4233) and found it was disconnected. I believe the name was 'West Creek Home Brew" in or near Endicott NY. Does anyone know how to contact the owner/operator? Thanks in Advance. Pete Calinski East Amherst NY Near Buffalo NY Return to table of contents
Date: Sun, 29 Oct 2000 12:44:50 -0600 From: "Sean Richens" <srichens at sprint.ca> Subject: smarter than the average sysop? I wonder how many on this discussion group have their access limited by screening software at work? I usually do all this from home unless I come across a great brewing resource by accident (I work in fungal-based pharmaceuticals so this happens quite frequently). Of course, we could all come to an understanding to always spell beer "beir" and brewing "brawing", similarly for heps, yeest, molt, etc. That should work for about a year or so, no? Sean Richens srichens.spamsucks at sprint.ca Return to table of contents
Date: Sun, 29 Oct 2000 12:57:02 -0600 From: "Sean Richens" <srichens at sprint.ca> Subject: umlauts and keyboards FYI, if you don't have a simple way of coding an umlaut for an email, you don't have to resort to things like adding ":" as if it were a "compose" character. The correct way to deal with an umlaut is to add the letter "e" after the "a", "o" or "u" that wants an umlaut. At least the Germans will understand what you mean. Sean Richens srichens.spamsucks at sprint.ca Return to table of contents
Date: Sun, 29 Oct 2000 15:10:34 -0500 From: "Pat Babcock" <pbabcock at hbd.org> Subject: Doh! Units foible. (Kraeusening) Greetings, Beerlings! Take me to your lager.... I said: > If that 1/2 cup was dissolved in a pint of water, > the gravity of the priming solution is 45*.5/.125 > or 180 pp/g. Its contribution to a 5 gallon batch > would have been 45*.5/(5+1/8)=4.4 pp/g (rounded). > This can be also be written as 180*1/8/(5-1/8)=4.4. Doh! The units should not have been pp/g on those two. The gravity of the priming solution should have read 1.180 or 180 points, and the contribution to the full batch should have been 1.0044 or 4.4 points. My apologies for any confusion over my fubar. BTW: PLEASE check the math... - -- - See ya! Pat Babcock in SE Michigan pbabcock at hbd.org Home Brew Digest Janitor janitor@hbd.org HBD Web Site http://hbd.org The Home Brew Page http://hbd.org/pbabcock "The monster's back, isn't it?" - Kim Babcock after I emerged from my yeast lab Saturday Return to table of contents
Date: Sun, 29 Oct 2000 12:31:06 -0900 From: Clifton Moore <cmoore at gci.net> Subject: open fermentation (the deets) I made a comment on HBD about open fermentation that has stimulated some interest so I thought I would make a stab at providing details. My boiling keg has the top cut out and a valved tap in the bottom. As my boiling schedule nears the end I make sure that all the tools that will need to be clean are hanging in the boiling wort. This includes a long utility spoon, wort chilling coil, thermometer, and a strainer. I also have a sanitized surface to allow for a place to put anything that I need to remove from the boil and put down. This could be a cookie sheet with an iodoform wash. I sanitize the valve by running enough wort into a pan that the valve is fully submerged. Cycle the wort back into the kettle a few times to assure that the valve is clean and then place a wrap of aluminum foil over the valve to keep it clean. I use a ball valve, so there is a captured bit of wort in the ball that will sit there until end of primary. (I am thinking of purging this valve early in ferment so that I will at least have some yeast in there. Will the valve stand the CO2 pressure?) At end of boil I immediately start water flow in the immersion chiller. As the temp falls off I agitate the wort by stirring with my strainer collecting as much of the hops as I can. This prevents the vegetable matter from clogging my valve later during run off. When the temperature goes below 80 deg F. I start O2 injection with welding gas pushed through a sanitized fish tank air stone. I run the chiller until the wort is down below 65 deg. F. then remove from the kettle any other tools that will no longer be used. Big yeast pitch time. I harvest yeast from previous brews, so I like to have a big slug of yeast paste to shovel into the wort. I have never concerned myself with overpitching yeast. Give it a good stir and cover the kettle with a pan lid or clean rag to keep dust and insects out. I give it a good stir now and then until a good yeast head forms then just let it sit for a few days. Secondary fermentation is done in unconverted Corny kegs. I tend to transfer to secondary early in the ferment so that there is still strong turbulence driven by active fermentation. I know that there is a good bed of trub on the keg bottom, and the yeast in suspension are active and suitable for future harvest, so off they go into Cornys. I close the Corny but loosen the pressure vent to prevent pressure build up. The kegs are set at an angle of about 30 deg off vertical so that the sick up tube is not sitting in the middle of the soon to be accumulating yeast bed. If your pickup tube is not centered take note of this and orient the keg such that the tube end will escape yeast bed immersion. This is important in as much as this bed is thick enough that it will not pass through the tube when it comes to transferring to a serving keg. Let the ferment finish then transfer the product under CO2 pressure to a clean keg via a hose fitted with an out fitting at each end. After transfer I purge the head space within the serving keg and then crank up the pressure to force carbonate. The source keg / secondary fermenter is now ready for yeast harvest and preparation for being a serving keg from the next fermenter. The yeast bed is suspended as well as possible by swishing the remains in the keg and dumping into a sanitized gallon jug. I then dispense a bit of the previously transferred beer into this keg to finish the yeast purge, swish it about, and dump it into the yeast collection jug making an effort to include yeast debris at the top of the fluid level left from the ferment phase. This keg is now ready to receive beer from another Corny fermenter. The harvested yeast is stirred up and debris allowed to settle. A few cycles back and forth to a second yeast jug yields a good clean yeast harvest ready for the refrigerator. This process requires one extra Corny and a transfer tube. Never again will I clean or carry a glass fermenter. One additional point I should mention is that I use two converted kegs to brew with. One is fitted as a mash tun and both have valves at the bottom. I collect about 20 gallons of wort and use both kegs as boiling kettles. After boil I have about 18 gallons between the two kegs. This goes nicely into four Corny fermenters with a little head space. So with one extra Corny for transfer I need a total of five Cornys which at the end yields four Cornys with over four gallons in each. This procedure may sound tedious, but the work savings is substantial over the entire life of the brewing process. Return to table of contents
Date: Sun, 29 Oct 2000 22:10:07 -0500 From: "John Herman" <johnvic at earthlink.net> Subject: really bad batch I have not had a really bad batch in a while, but I just dumped one. So why am I crying over spilled beer? Because I don't want to repeat the mistake! I made a brown ale and it had 2 problems. One was it wasn't brown enough. That was simple, I didn't crush my chocolate malt enough. The other problem was that it smelled like a weizen! I noticed when I went to pitch my starter that it smelled like a weizen yeast ( I used Wyeast 1335 British II ). I am very good about sanitation, but perhaps I messed up. Is it possible that an infection could smell like weizen. When I tasted my sample, it tasted like weizen. Also, the gravity was a bit high, 1.023. The starting gravity was 1.050 after fermenting for 7 days. I oxygenated and the fermentation started within 12 hours. Any ideas? John Herman johnvic at earthlink.net Return to table of contents
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