HOMEBREW Digest #3770 Thu 25 October 2001


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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
  Raspberry beer (Denis Bekaert)
  free beer bottles available (ensmingr)
  The Definitive LPG vs. Natural Gas Manifesto (Brett Hetherington)
  Re: Raspberry Pale Ale (Steven S)
  Re: Rennerian calculator correction... (gsferg)
  Burning Bras And Airlocks ("Phil & Jill Yates")
  Hot Scotchies! ("Zemo")
  re: UNC chemists figure out what casues skunkiness ("Mark Tumarkin")
  Re: What ever happened to........ (Jeff Renner)
  Holiday Beer ("Neal Andreae")
  re: Sudden Laziness ("Mark Tumarkin")
  San Antonio? ("Spencer W. Thomas")
  Re: Force Carbonation (Demonick)
  Mecca compass ("Davies, Steve")
  Distance in Beers (Nathan Matta)
  Dreaming of Fruit Beer (Grenadine, Cranberry) (Alexandre Enkerli)
  Re: Force Carbonation (Spencer W Thomas)
  Re: n/a beer (Spencer W Thomas)
  UM MAlt ... ("Stephen Alexander")

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---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2001 22:22:38 -0700 (PDT) From: Denis Bekaert <Denis-B at rocketmail.com> Subject: Raspberry beer Stephan asked..."With the onset of fall, I have been brewing more and have decided that I would like to add a Raspberry pale ale to the list. With so many recommendations as how to go about using fruit in a pale ale, I am starting to get confused. What is the proper way to utilize raspberry in a pale ale? " I just returned from a visit to Austin, during which I made a couple of trips to St. Patricks of Texas...and they have a Belgian Raspberry juice that you add at bottling/kegging that supposed to be just the ticket. This would eliminate much of the haze problem. It's about 7.5 USD for a pint, but very pure stuff. I'm going to try it later this Fall.... Denis in Beechgrove, Tennessee where moonshine is our history, but homebrewing is our passion Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 01:29:25 -0400 From: ensmingr at twcny.rr.com Subject: free beer bottles available Greetings, I have 5 cases (~5x24 bottles) of clean, delabelled, brown, 12 oz bottles to donate to a needy homebrewer. You just need to pick them up at my house here in Syracuse, NY. Send me a note if you're interested. Cheerio! Peter A. Ensminger Syracuse, NY Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 00:27:06 -0600 From: Brett Hetherington <Bretth at idcomm.com> Subject: The Definitive LPG vs. Natural Gas Manifesto Howdy Wortheads, It's simple. LPG is heavier than air, so it sinks. Natural gas is lighter than air, so it rises. You might not smell a propane leak, but you'll probably smell a natural gas leak, since your nose is on your face, not your foot. Most people have hot water heaters which have burners situated near the floor. LPG + hot water heaters = roofs (rooves?) rising several feet into the air. A lot of people are killed or left homeless each year from using gasoline as a cleaner inside their homes, because gasoline creates heavier-than-air vapor too. Millions of people rely on propane to heat their homes safely though. Here are a couple of things that you can do to use propane inside your home safely: Use copper line to connect your equipment to your propane tank which is stored outside. Use a regulator rated for outdoor use, or make a protective cover out of a 5 gallon bucket. Use your nose for a primary leak test. Get right up there and sniff! Use soapy water for a secondary leak test, just spray it liberally on all the joints with a spray bottle. Look for growing bubbles. If both of those test negative, It's probably safe to run a cigarette lighter or match around all your fittings. This will reveal even the tiniest of leaks. If you blow yourself up though, remember, I AIN'T GOT NO MONEY, So don't come whining to me! you've been warned. Make Beer, Not War. -Brett Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 06:46:33 -0400 (EDT) From: Steven S <steven at 403forbidden.net> Subject: Re: Raspberry Pale Ale > What is the proper way to utilize raspberry in a pale ale? proper? i think whatever works! >Do I use frozen berries, pureee, or juice? I used fresh/frozen in my first attempt at a Raspberry Wheat. I took fresh fruit and froze it. My latest attempt i just got store bought frozen fruit with no preservatives. A high quality puree might work better, less fruit cruft to have to filter out or wait to settle. >Do I add to secondary, steep in the wort, add to both primary and >secondary? I'm of the opinion that putting it in the wort would probably kill off the aroma that I'm looking for. I rack onto the raspberrys in my secondary, once primary fermentation is almost done. I got a nice secondary fermentation this time around. Has to keep the blow off tube in place. >Can pectin enzyme, used to reduce haze, be used in beer? I noticed a good deal of haze at first with mine, which i asked about on hbd. I put the carboy outside for a few cold evenings and what ever was the major contributor to the murk dropped out. When i bottled it was dark red and with a normal wheat haze. >Any recipes or information concerning raspberry pale ales would be >greatly appreciated. Cant help here, i'm not a big Pale Ale fan nor have I brewed any PA's but I would suggest find the PA recipe everyone else loves and throw the raspberrys in. >P.s. I am extract brewing, as all of my all-grain is stuck in storage, >until the basement is finished..... Nothing wrong with that, i brew all grain batches in my tiny apt kitchen. A closet looks like a brewery exploded in it. Steven St.Laurent ::: stevensl at mindspring.net ::: 403forbidden.net [580.2, 181.4] Rennerian ::: Lilburn (atlanta) GA "Dictators ride to and fro upon tigers which they dare not dismount. And the tigers are getting hungry." Winston Churchill - 1937 Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 07:01:15 -0400 From: gsferg at clary.gwi.net Subject: Re: Rennerian calculator correction... Our Fearless Janitor spake thusly: >Well! In spite of the thesis by our esteemed colleague, George S. >Fergusson (and others), I believe the Rennerian Coordinate calculator >should display its values in the Henning Coordinate System of [Distance, >Bearing] as origuinally defined so as not to confuse anyone associated >with reality. Unfortunately, though, to that same definition, we'll be >forced to bury Jeff in his back yard in order to make the calculation >static. To this end, I propose that we refer to the coordinates in our >system as APPARENT Rennerian, pointing to his domicile. I'm sure Jeff >would prefer this to his imminent and untimely demise - an event required >to mack ACTUAL Rennerian a static number. At the risk of perpetuating what appears to be a horribly off-topic (if popular) thread and completing the task of making a total ass of myself, I'm going to respond to this. You make a good point about the risk of confusing people and after much ponderous deliberation and a few beers I must concur: [distance,bearing] it is. I'm all the time confusing anyone associated with reality, at least that's what my wife tells me. What was I thinking! I also agree completely with your suggestion of fixing the coordinate origin on Jeff's house rather than on Jeff himself, and for the use of the term APPARENT to show that there are perhaps coordinate corrections that need be applied. There is nothing worse than a moving target! One reason why the use of true north is so appealing to land surveyors is that the north pole doesn't move whereas magnetic north wanders around many miles over a relatively short period of time (a few years). Actually, not to get too fussy, but the north pole wanders around too, due to precession but only in about a 250' circle and at that, over 250,000 years or so. The effect of the north pole moving 30 inches over our lifetime isn't appreciable on a true bearing; the effect on a Rennerian coordinate of Jeff driving 5 miles to Walmart would excessive. >As for the derivation of the same system in terms of "Beering", I do >believe this is worthy of further study! I need a base of reference for >the division. If a few intrepid individuals in areas where walking about >whilst consuming homebrew is legal (which rules out most Canadian cities - >unless you can carry a roof about with you) and each owning a GPS could >consume a standard 12oz homebrew whilst walking in a straight line >(challenging if you've been in multiple trials of this derivation) could >report back with their linear distance travelled and, perhaps, their >height, stride length and any impediments to mobility they may be stricken >with, we can, perhaps, make this happen in terms of an ideal "average" >home brewer... Oh Phew! I was worried for a while that people would think this was a really stupid idea. However, my worries, along with my anxiety, gradually subsided after I had a few homebrews! Worrying is after all like paying interest on a debt you may never incur. I have received some feedback from a few readers politely suggesting that I'm cracked, or on crack (I wasn't sure which) but none of them suggested it was a stupid idea, just one fraught with difficulties. I agree! We should not be deterred! I hereby volunteer for a position on the team of "intrepid individuals" and look forward to providing some solid quantitative data for this initiative. While it is probably illegal here in Maine to walk around drinking publicly, I live in the country and I believe I can get 4-5 miles, or 5-6 beers (which ever comes first) down the road before getting picked up (and likely delivered home) by the local constable. This will certainly provide enough data for a first approximation. I think what we're looking for here is a good average. My foot isn't exactly 1 US Foot long, but that hasn't caused major problems for me. The likelihood that my beer consumption and length of pace whilst striding purposefully down the road might be more, or less, than that of some other "intrepid individual" isn't going to horribly skew the data either. What we do need however is a good representative sample, and we should all agree to a simple set of experimental criteria so that the results are more or less comparable. At the risk of taking all the fun out of this, I propose the following rules: 1) We either haul a wagon of beer (as Dennis Collins has suggested privately) or have a support vehicle following us with homebrew on tap as opposed to carrying beer. This is to prevent skewing the data in favor of big strong people who can carry more beer. 2) We all drink a really hoppy Pale Ale. 3) Avoid steep hills and excessively hot weather which could skew the results. 4) Do it several times and average your results. 5) Relax. Don't hurry. Have a Homebrew. For those of you in more urban settings where cops might be inclined to jail you, why not use one of those walking exercise treadmill thingies! Great idea! Then your experiment could be conducted in the privacy of your own home without the risk of getting arrested, lost, harrassed, or mugged (except perhaps by your wife). Added benefit: ample beer supply, digital readout of distance traveled, speed in miles per hour (easily converted to gallons per hour) and calories burned! Rolf Karlsson's first-pass approximation of 3 beers to the mile I suspect is not far from wrong. I'll let you know what I come up with. Feets don't fail me now! George- - -- George S. Fergusson <gsferg at clary.gwi.net> Oracle DBA, Programmer, Humorist Whitefield, Maine US [729.7, 79.6] Renerian - -------------- I am a man, I can change, if I have to, I guess. Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 21:22:23 +1000 From: "Phil & Jill Yates" <yates at acenet.com.au> Subject: Burning Bras And Airlocks Jeff Renner quotes Gary Krone with the following: >I brewed a batch of Robust Porter last week and activity in the airlock >started like crazy the next day. After that it stopped cold. I just >checked the SG and it is at 1.020. OG was 1.046 at 80 degrees. Should I >pitch another batch of yeast into it to get the SG down closer to the >recommended FG of 1.012? Or should I just rack into into the secondary and >let it go? Jeff had some good suggestions for Gary and he may well be right on target. But before Gary gets too worried I would suggest he make sure that his airlock is not misleading him. I used to think of the bubbling from the airlock as a natural part of brewing and a good indication of activity. Until one day I realised that the slightest break in the seal will end all visual excitement observed from the airlock and can lead one to believe that fermentation activity has ceased. Doc Pivo once expressed his disgust in the faith brewers put in their airlock. I am inclined to agree with him. I have long since given up using the silly little things. In fact I view all brewers who put any faith in this little piece of plastic crap as pure infidels! In Burradoo the use of such is banned. Infidels are shot on sight!! I could be way off the mark in my advice to Gary, but I strongly recommend to all brewers that you visually observe the goings on in your fermentation rather than the poot poot poot chuffing out of your airlock. Throw the silly thing away! Women in the 1970's did just that with their bras!! Brewers in the 21st century should do the same with their airlocks!! But please don't burn them. I used to enjoy burning my girlfriend's bras, but these plastic airlocks really give off a stink (worse than Ray's bottle of skunk oil)! Sorry Pat, you are probably going to ban me. Cheers Phil Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 06:52:43 -0500 From: "Zemo" <zemo at buyvictory.com> Subject: Hot Scotchies! Nils Hedglin queried: > On a completely unrelated topic, I was talking to another homebrewer about > mixed beer drinks (Snakebite, Raddler, etc). He said he likes to make a > drink of 2 parts wort, straight from the lauter tun, & 1 part whiskey. I've > asked around a bit, but noone has ever heard about this. He says it has a > similar affect as the Raddler, the wort cuts the strong alcohol taste & the > alcohol cuts the strong sweet taste. Has anyone else tried this? Maybe Ray Daniels remembers his source, but I first read this in his book _101 Ideas for Homebrew Fun_. His recipe called for scotch instead of whiskey. I've turned a few people on to this, but always get strange looks, since sparge/runoff is usually before 9am. 8^)> Zemo 232,262 Rennerian (static?) Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 08:22:45 -0400 From: "Mark Tumarkin" <mark_t at ix.netcom.com> Subject: re: UNC chemists figure out what casues skunkiness Marc, Thanks for the heads up on the work being done at UNC & in Belgium on the causes of skunkiness. You gave us the URL http://www.unc.edu/news/newsserv/research/forbes101801.htm in that article, they say: "A report on the findings will appear in the Nov. 5 issue of a publication called Chemistry - A European Journal and appeared online this weeek. Besides Forbes, authors are UNC chemistry doctoral student Colin S. Burns and Dr. Denis De Keukeleire and his doctoral student Arne Heyerick of the University of Gent in Belgium." Can you point us to the online info mentioned? The article also says that the "Belgian collaborators have applied for a patent on a process that will alter and retard the photochemistry of beer to make the beverage easier to store and give it a longer shelf life." It will certainly be interesting to see where this leads. thanks, Mark Tumarkin Gainesville, FL Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 08:59:14 -0400 From: Jeff Renner <JeffRenner at mediaone.net> Subject: Re: What ever happened to........ "David Craft" <David-Craft at craftinsurance.com> asked: >What ever happened to........ > >Good old Latitude and Longitude Truth be told, none of it is as useful as town and state/province/country etc., which has been the whole point of this fun. The advantage is shown by Alex Enkerli <aenkerli at indiana.edu>, who you might think from his email address is in Bloomington, but: >Speaking of beer-drinking in Montreal streets, I'd like to know from >other Montreal HBDers. There's a few Montreal HB resources on the Net >but meeting more local HBers is always fun. Jeff - -- Jeff Renner in Ann Arbor, Michigan USA, JeffRenner at mediaone.net "One never knows, do one?" Fats Waller, American Musician, 1904-1943 Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 09:38:30 -0400 From: "Neal Andreae" <cstone at shentel.net> Subject: Holiday Beer I did an extract Holiday beer a couple weeks ago with assorted spices. It fermented violently for two days then settled down but the krausen(?) looked kind of creamy unlike the others I have done.. After 7 days I racked to the secondary and the yeast kicked in again and has been steadily bubbling for three days. Another creamy kind of krausen(?) has developed. It tasted and smelled good when I racked to secondary. Is this a sign of contamination or what. OG 1085 SG 1040 FG???? Wyeast American Ale II was used. Neal Upperville, Virginia Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 09:36:55 -0400 From: "Mark Tumarkin" <mark_t at ix.netcom.com> Subject: re: Sudden Laziness Michael writes: "I'm brewing an American Amber ale from extracts, and everything seemed to be smurfy. The primary fermenter started burping like mad within 8 hours after pitching Munton's ale yeast, but then by 30 hours it inexplicably "stopped cold". I went ahead and racked to secondary at three days, but I was surprised how much gunk there was in there (hop pellet leftovers, irish moss, and ??etc??). Gravities Expected Measured Original 1.048 (I think) Right around there 3 days ?? 1.015 Final 1.008-012 N/A So did I contaminate it somehow (easy enough to believe)? Should I just toss it now and pretend it never happened?" Well, Michael, you describe what sounds like a typical (though not ideal) fermentation and also typical questions for a new brewer. The short answers to your questions are: 1) Probably not; taste it and find out. 2) No!!! Certainly not before giving it plenty of aging time, and repeating answer #1. The longer answers are a bit, well, longer. By your description, I'd guess that the fermentation was done at ambient room temperature and proceeded normally till finished (judging by your final gravity which seems to be within the expected numbers). While the fermentation was quick, this is common for many homebrewers and can still produce quite good beer. In asking about possible contamination, you say it's "easy enough to believe". Why? Do you have questions about your sanitation processes? While it's possible (probable?) that you may have low level contamination; it's also likely that your beer is quite drinkable, with any contamination being below taste thresholds or at least at tolerable levels. It's very difficult to totally eliminate all the nasties in your wort/finished beer, and any that make it through can create problems that become more noticeable with longer storage times. The nasties are able to consume fermentables that are left by the yeast, thus leading to a lower gravity, drier beer as well as off flavors. If you suspect a low level infection, it's a good idea to consume that batch quickly. With many homebrewers and their friends, that's generally not a problem :>) Your second question, "Should I just toss it now and pretend it never happened?", is also a common one for new brewers with a problem. The answer is definitely NO, on both counts. Don't toss it, that's alcohol abuse. Certainly give it a good long aging period (at least six months) before giving up. They say time heals all wounds. While this isn't necessarily so with a problem brew; given time some problem flavors may fade or combine with other flavors to the point where your beer is drinkable. Even if the beer stays undrinkable, don't pretend it never happened. Use it as a learning experience. See if you can figure out what caused the problem and how to avoid it in the future. And keep good, detailed notes on brewing sessions to aid in this process. Now, the reason you asked these questions (and the reason most of us read the HBD) is that you want to brew better beer. There are many things that will help you make better beer, but there are some practices that will have the greatest impact in improving your beer and your questions lead directly to several these. 1) Sanitation 2) Sanitation 3) Sanitation 4) Fermentation temperature control 5) Use large, stepped-up yeast starters Don't get anal about it but be as scrupulously clean as possible in your brewing. My strong recommendation would be to use a no-rinse sanitizer like iodophor or Star-san. Search the back archives of the HBD and you'll find lots of info about best practices, different sanitizers, etc. Ditto on #4 and #5. Fermentation temp control will have a tremendous impact on your beer quality. The yeast love a warm, ambient room temp fermentation but it can lead to off flavors that are easily avoided with a cooler, controlled fermentation. A dedicated fridge with a temp controller is the best solution, but if this is more money (or space) than you can want, there are other cheaper, smaller solutions. Again, check the archives for some of the creative solutions that other HBD'rs have come up with. A large starter will help you avoid contamination and brew cleaner beer (at least assuming you practice good sanitation while making the starter). Some other high impact practices: 6) Oxygenate your starters & wort 7) Use the best quality & freshest ingredients 8) Taste your beer (and other's) critically and think about the flavors you perceive in terms of the brewing processes and ingredients that created these flavors 9) Read the HBD, join your local homebrew club, enter competitions for feedback (or get feedback from the judges & brewers in your local club) 10) Brew Often anyway, hope this helps and hope your beer turned out well Mark Tumarkin Gainesville, FL Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 10:51:58 -0400 From: "Spencer W. Thomas" <spencer at umich.edu> Subject: San Antonio? I'll be in San Antonio, TX Nov 28 - Dec 1. From pubcrawler, it looks like the brewpub scene is pretty much not, with a single brewpub worth going to. Any other recommendations? I'll be staying near the River Walk, and won't have a car. =S Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 08:10:57 -0700 From: Demonick <demonick at zgi.com> Subject: Re: Force Carbonation From: Ant Hayes <Ant.Hayes at FifthQuadrant.co.za> > ... bubbles being smaller than force carbonated wine bubble came up. My > understanding of force carbonation is that bubble size is a function of > how slowly the gas was dissolved, the size of the holes in the > carbonation stone, and how long the carbonated liquid is left to settle. I've heard this over and over again and I can't let it go by again. Once the CO2 is dissolved in the liquid, it all comes out of solution the same way. In short, how the CO2 gets into solution is irrelevant. Once in solution it forgets how it got there. How it comes out of solution is dependent ONLY on the nature and characteristics of the liquid. Whether the CO2 is put in solution by burping yeast or a coarse airstone or a fine airstone or simply shaken into solution under pressure, has NO effect on what happens when the CO2 fizzes out of solution. What happens when the CO2 comes out of solution is dependent on the temperature and characteristics of the solution only. For example there may be a difference between how equal amounts of CO2 come out of solution between a light Pilsner and a heavy Scotch Ale. There will be no difference between how CO2 comes out of solution between 2 identical Pilsners carbonated to the same extent in different ways. Domenick Venezia Venezia & Company, LLC Maker of PrimeTab (206) 782-1152 phone (206) 782-6766 fax demonick at zgi dot com http://www.primetab.com Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 11:50:19 -0400 From: "Davies, Steve" <Steve.Davies at dciem.dnd.ca> Subject: Mecca compass > Rennerian coordinates must include errors. Rennerian distances are > straight-line, a homebrewer could not walk and drink each Rennerian route; > just imagine any terrain (snow, boulder, swamp, ocean, house) that you > must cross in a continuously straight line. Walking speed depends upon > height / stride length, age, fitness, terrain, rate of elevation change > plus environmental conditions. As a British Columbia Forester all > coordinates used were bearing then distance; the first value obtained from > a mapped route was compass bearing then its linear map distance. > > Rennerian needs 2 assumptions: 1. A Walking Speed based upon age, height > and fitness. Read the following URL but screen down 34? times past a > formula and bullets to the pedestrian velocity paragraphs. Exercise > research and countless mathematical models (crosswalk light timing and the > upcoming windchill charts) suggest 3mph (4.83km/h). > http://ntl.bts.gov/DOCS/97095/ch02/body_ch02_02.html > > 2. A Straight-Line Distance Unit that can be converted to 'Beers' without > using highway mileage. The group question is, "How many beer can one > comfortably consume per first hour of responsible drinking?" The stomach > and intestinal tract can absorb 1200ml/h (40.58oz/h) at 3mph (4.828km/h). > I suggest 3 beer per hour, so, every mile equals a beer. > http://www.speckdesign.com/Tools2a.html > > Rennerians suppose a Mecca of Jeff Renner - much like a braille compass. > I suggest the following signature format regardless of Rennerian love: > __________________________________________ > > Steven Davies > sdavies at dciem.dnd.ca > Toronto, Ontario, Canada Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 12:28:18 -0400 From: Nathan Matta <whatsa at MIT.EDU> Subject: Distance in Beers I was telling SWMBO about the suggestion to measure Rennerian distances in beers, and she had a good argument. What's the point of a unit of distance if it isn't useful in a practical system? Smokes is a reasonable unit in which to describe an area, since you could actually smoke and ride. After, say, 8 smokes you could stop, and be where you were trying to go. Beers don't really work in the same way. Even within the continental US, it really isn't meaningful to say, "Just head west, and drink 83 beers. I'm the blue house on the right with the yard gnomes." If we say that 1 beer is equal to 2 miles, then you're really measuring the distance in miles (since that's what anyone will convert to before using the measurement). Obviously the same goes for kilometers, etc. As entertaining as the idea is, I fear that the beers measurement is only useful on a very small scale. Unless, of course, we use Beers to indicate how many beers an average homebrewer would consume during the trip to the destination in question. For example: From Cambridge, MA (my current location) to Cedar Rapids, IA (my hometown), is about 22 hours of driving. Assuming a reasonable speed and endurance, I would probably take 2 days to make this trip. Say 1 beer for lunch, 2 beers at dinner, would mean I was 6 beers away from home. Obviously this method isn't perfect. First of all, this means that the entire continental US is only maybe 90 square beers. The measurement is far too coarse (and by its nature we can't use fractions. Who among you would toss any portion of a decent beer?). Also, nothing is said about the mode of travel. I suppose that could be specified. So I would be 3 beers by plane, 6 beers by car, or probably about 180 beers by foot from Cedar Rapids. Just a few thoughts... Nathan ======================================== Nathan Matta Fuzzy Beer Home Brewery Randolph, MA, USA Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 12:42:03 -0400 (EDT) From: Alexandre Enkerli <aenkerli at indiana.edu> Subject: Dreaming of Fruit Beer (Grenadine, Cranberry) Hello all! I just tasted a fairly good beer...in a dream. It was a Bavarian grenadine weiss, as far as I could tell. It was full-bodied, sweet, not hoppy, had a fairly powerful grenadine taste but wasn't at all like a cooler. I know this all sounds strange, but I'd like to take up my dream's challenge. Now, I'll need advice on this one. Any idea on how I could give grenadine taste to a weiss? Adding pomegranate seeds? Or is pure grenadine extract available? Oh, and as the finished product would likely be hazy (with all the pectine), I'll call it either "dunstiger Traum" or "unscharfer Traum." I might in fact resort to the obvious: adding grenadine syrup to the finished brew. But where's the challenge in that? Also, this dream might relate to something I thought of a few weeks ago. I was drinking a pint of a tangy Belgian wit that I had just made and had the idea of adding pure cranberry extract to it. The result was too tart to my taste but the overall mix wasn't bad at all. So, what's the best road to a sweet cranberry wit? High mash temp? Crystal malt? Non-attenuative yeast? A combination of all of this? TIA for your help. Alex in Montreal [62.8, 893.3km] BD Rennerian Alex Enkerli Ph.D. Candidate Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology Indiana University Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 15:15:51 -0400 From: Spencer W Thomas <spencer at engin.umich.edu> Subject: Re: Force Carbonation >>>>> "Ant" == Ant Hayes <Ant.Hayes at FifthQuadrant.co.za> writes: Ant> I was at a wine tasting class last night, and the old story Ant> of Champagne bubbles being smaller than force carbonated wine Ant> bubble came up. Dissolved gas is dissolved gas. It doesn't matter how it got there. So what is different about "naturally carbonated" beverages from "force carbonated" beverages? Off the top of my head, I suspect that it has to do with compounds released by the yeast during and after carbonation. Because that's the only difference that I can think of between a force-carbonated and naturally-carbonated "versions" of the same beverage. My opinion, based on having had a year of college chemistry and a physics degree. =Spencer Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 15:40:39 -0400 From: Spencer W Thomas <spencer at engin.umich.edu> Subject: Re: n/a beer >>>>> "Nathan" == Nathan Matta <whatsa at MIT.EDU> writes: Nathan> As long as you were using a heat bath to drive the alcohol Nathan> out of the beer without collecting the vapor I don't think Nathan> this would be an issue. You know, I hadn't thought about it this way. Is it illegal to pour wine into a pan and boil it, because it "removes the alcohol" from the wine? Somehow I don't think so. :-) Otherwise, many of us violate the law on a regular basis, just cooking dinner. =Spencer Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 24 Oct 2001 18:42:32 -0400 From: "Stephen Alexander" <steve-alexander at att.net> Subject: UM MAlt ... Martin Brungard asks ... >If undermodified grain just has less of the kernel converted, >does that also mean that the unconverted portion is still raw? Not exactly. The whole kernel undergoes a number of changes to become even poorly malted. There are regions of greater and lesser change. Also some parameters of modification first increase then finally decrease while most monotonically increase. >If this is >the case, couldn't the effect of undermodified grain be mimicked by adding >a portion of raw barley (flaked or whole(if you can find it)) to the grist >along with well-modified barley that we commonly have available? Yes and no. You could probably simulate it to some extent by adding a fraction of raw barley but there are problems. Having a grist with 100% undermodified malts will give a different set of soluble proteins and beta-glucans than having 85% well-modified and 15% unmalted. During after WW2 the UK made beers with a percentage of raw barley, but the raw flavors became significant above some modest level (~10% I think) . The malting and kilning process removes some of the grassy hexanal-related aroma/flavors and adds toasted 'malty' flavors even to pale malts. The original soaking of barley before malting also washes off a lot of soluble husk phenolics. I've home malted a number of times and the water from the first soak looks like weak tea. >Looking at the undermodified barley specs, it appears that the >undermodification is on the order of 10 to 15 percent based on the >acrospire length data. Could this mean that using 10 to 15 percent raw >barley might produce the same effect. You're in the right ballpark but you shouldn't base anything serious on acrospire length. It's a nice but very crude measure of modification. It can vary based on barley species and treatment by the maltster. The things we are really concerned about are issues like the degradation of beta-glucans, and proteins and the development of enzymes and the availability of carbohydrates. These have separate and better measures. >I assume that the raw barley would >require the same low temp rests to properly convert the mash. There's the rub. The degradation of beta-glucans and proteins that occur during malting are directly related to degradation of the cell walls within the kernel's starchy endosperm. With these cell walls intact in raw grain you'll have a tough time penetrating and performing any enzymatic decomposition of the cell during mashing. The low temp enzymes won't be able to get in there. After a boil (decoction or pre-cooking) the cell walls are significantly disrupted, so the enzymes will have more to work on. Still my recollection is that the starch becomes more accessible, but the three enzymes which are synergistically involved in the cell wall degradation won't do much work in the mash tun. You're right Martin - adding some raw grain is in some ways similar to using undermodified malt, but it's not similar enough to consider it a replacement process, particularly in terms of flavor. -S Return to table of contents
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