HOMEBREW Digest #4466 Sat 31 January 2004


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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
  Re: Lightbulb as heat source ("Greg 'groggy' Lehey")
  That lager taste (Nate & Brenda Wahl)
  Heating Pad for Fermentor (Fred Johnson)
  RE: Cooking with beer ("Bill Dubas")
  RE: Fermenter Heating ("Thomas, Chris")
  Frozen kegs or fermenters (Richard Feight)
  Session beer ("Dave Draper")
  Refrigerator Heaters ("Jason Henning")
  RE: Heating Pad for Fermentor ("Martin Brungard")
  Fermenter Heating (hollen)
  Sanitizing beer bottles ("Dave Burley")
  Dog Fish Head ("Patrick Macy")
  re: Kegging questions ("Michael O'Donnell")
  RE:  Speaking of Irish Red Ales ("Houseman, David L")
  Re: trash can bags for brewing (Derric)
  Subject: Lightbulb as heat source? ("Steve Dale-Johnson")
  Re: Concept of "Session Beer" (Jeff Renner)
  Re: St. Patty's Day Brew (Jeff Renner)
  Re: Ginty's Irish-American (Jeff Renner)
  Re: Gypsum vs Calcium Chloride ("Martin Brungard")
  making marmite (bruce)
  Wilhelm ("A. J. delange")
  Re: Cooking with beer (lbg webmaster)
  Re: fusels & esters ("-S")

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---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 17:44:56 +1030 From: "Greg 'groggy' Lehey" <grog at lemis.com> Subject: Re: Lightbulb as heat source On Thursday, 29 January 2004 at 9:45:32 -0500, Jeff and/or Donna May wrote: > I am having the same problem with my fermenting fridge not staying warm > enough to ferment ales. It is in the laundry room where it stays around 62F > during the winter months. I am considering the light bulb approach with a > thermostat. It works for my pump house, so it should work for my fridge. > > My concern is exposing the beer to light. I ferment in glass carboys and I > try to prevent the beer from getting light-struck. Should I be concerned > about the light bulb exposing the fermenting beer to too much light? I > guess I could cover the carboy to shield it. Hmm, good question. I hadn't thought of that one. I'd expect that the most damage to be done to the beer by ultraviolet light, which is almost absent in tungsten light. It's obviously playing it safe to keep the light away from the beer, though. If possible I'd strongly recommend putting the light bulb under the beer, not above it, since the warm air rises. My fridge has an area below the fermenters where I can put the bulb. See http://www.lemis.com/grog/brewing/temperature-control.html. Greg - -- Finger grog at lemis.com for PGP public key. See complete headers for address and phone numbers. Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 05:37:15 -0500 From: Nate & Brenda Wahl <cruiser at coastalwave.net> Subject: That lager taste In HBD 4464, Robert Sandefer writes: "Esters are important certainly but I've also detected a flavor in many lagers but not in ales. For lack of a better term, my wife and I call it "that lager flavor". I have had occassion to wonder if that flavor may be due to a sulfur-containing compound (just my guess)." I also pick up on this 'flavor' in a lot of lagers, and often wondered if others did, too. Not a lot has been said about it. It seems to be a 'bite' more than a flavor, though; it hits the middle center of the tongue. What most people describe as 'clean and crisp' possibly, but something I find rather unpleasant. A lot of commercial lagers seem to have this going. Almost all of the Canadian lagers (50 and LeBatt Blue seem worse) although some of the premium beers like LeBatt Classic (Classique!) don't, go figure. Killians Red does, Linie's Red doesn't. Miller products seem to be based on it, and to a lesser extent in the Bud family. I hardly ever get it in continental pilsners, though, but do in a number of their darker bretheren, the marzens, bocks, dortmunders, etc. Not very prevalent in American micros at all. I didn't see any other replies, so maybe its a sensitivity thing for a few; but I'd like to reiterate Robert's call for comments and/or potential causes. Thanks! Cheers, Nate Wahl Oak Harbor, Ohio, (65.1, 146.4) Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 07:08:40 -0500 From: Fred Johnson <FLJohnson at portbridge.com> Subject: Heating Pad for Fermentor Martin has been using a heating pad in his fermentation chamber to keep it warm enough during very cold weather. This certainly sounds reasonable, but I do wonder how long that heating pad will last, as they aren't normally used 24 hours a day for a couple of weeks at a time. I wonder if they are designed to meet such extended use. Anyone have any experience or thoughts on this? Martin? Fred L Johnson Apex, North Carolina, USA Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 13:33:54 +0000 From: "Bill Dubas" <bill_dubas at hotmail.com> Subject: RE: Cooking with beer Steve from Stevenson WA points us to an Emeril Lagasse site containing a few recipes using beer as an ingredient. http://houseandhome.msn.com/Food/Experts/CookingwithBeer.aspx Did anyone happen to scroll down to the bottom of this page and explore the "Beer Basics" link? It will take you to a page with an article on understanding beer terminology. Content is provided by Better Homes and Gardens. A fellow homebrewer friend of mine summed the article up nicely . . . . "The author must be a tea drinker!" (Not that there's anything wrong with that) One of the statements that I questioned was: "Keg beer offers a fresher flavor than bottle or can beer since the keg beer hasn't been pasteurized to kill the yeast. Keg beer must be kept constantly at about 45 degrees so the yeast won't start working again." I would guess that brewpubs and small micros do not pasteurize their beer because of limited resources and distribution. I can also see this being true for real ales served in kegs in the UK. But is this practice (not pasteurizing kegged beer) something that is done by large micros and megabreweries? I assumed that all large breweries pasteurized their beer, whether it was going into bottles, cans, or kegs. Regards, Bill Dubas North Texas Homebrewers Assoc. Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 09:02:21 -0500 From: "Thomas, Chris" <CThomas at wilmorite.com> Subject: RE: Fermenter Heating One suggestion I saw was to use a ceramic heating element like those used in reptile cages. Uses a standard light bulb socket. Found it - here's the website. http://www.oregonbrewcrew.com/freezer/freezer.html Regards, Chris. Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 06:05:15 -0800 (PST) From: Richard Feight <richardfeight at yahoo.com> Subject: Frozen kegs or fermenters Because everyone's been so fruitfull with their suggestions and I am excited to see that there are other that have dealt with this problem successfully, first off. I'd like to thank everyone who contributed. Second, for the benefit of those who may be wrestling with frozen kegs i will attempt to summarize the responses I've received: Several people have suggested a 40 watt bulb in the fridge. The main problem I've heard is this may cause the fridge to run if the bulb is always turned on and the fridge is on. Turn the fridge off or use a timer. Others have suggested a small heating pad from a local grocier (Meijers in Michigan), small engine pad from a tractor or small engine supply store (Tractor Supply in Michigan) or possible a waterbed heater could serve the same purpose, or your local homebrew shop. This could be hooked up to a temperature controller. One of the more creative ideas was to wire a temperature controller to the fridge and heating unit, weather it be a heating pad or waterbed heater... so that you can control the usage of the fridge with the touch of the button on the controller. One way for maintaining a min temp the other for turning on the fridge and cooling. Thanks again for all your responses. Rich Lansing, Michigan Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 07:30:38 -0700 From: "Dave Draper" <david at draper.name> Subject: Session beer Dear Friends, >From my time in the UK, a "session beer" was anything you could drink all evening without being completely gassed out of your mind at closing time. Hence the "ordinary bitters" at 3.5-4% ABV were very commonly treated as such, and in some circles the two terms were used interchangeably. Thus I'd say a 6% ABV beer would be excluded-- I don't know about you, but I couldn't last more than a few pints of 6% before I would need to retire gracelessly from the field. Keep in mind that the British drinking culture is vastly different from the American one because of the archaic licensing laws in that green and pleasant land. These included, until quite recently, very narrow hours of operation for most pubs, with an iron-clad closing time of 11pm. Even as late as the 90s, it was very common indeed for people to go to the pub after work, arriving by 7 or 8, and then quaffing as many pints as they could possibly fit into the few hours remaining before closing time. Quite bizarre to my way of thinking and drinking, but it's just a cultural thing. In the interest of propriety I won't describe what it was sometimes like on the streets and kerbs outside areas with many pubs at about 11:30 pm... let's just say it was usually in technicolor. Cheers, Dave in ABQ =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- David S. Draper, Institute of Meteoritics, Univ New Mexico David at Draper dot name Beer page: http://www.unm.edu/~draper/beer.html Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 09:33:38 -0500 From: "Jason Henning" <jason at thehennings.com> Subject: Refrigerator Heaters Hey now- Light bulbs are nice for, as the name suggests, lighting things up. If you want to heat, I would use a heater. A fan in the heater would be ideal. It might be nice if the heater and the fan had different control settings. If it were GFI protected, that would be a plus. This type of heater is very much available in any department store. They're being sold as hair dryers. A hair dryer won't burn out leaving your brew to go cold. A hair dryer isn't so fragile so as to break if hit. A hair dryer doesn't produce any light waves that could damage beer. A hair dryer also protects you from the hot surfaces it creates. So leave the light bulb in your reading lamp and get a hair dryer. As for as temperature control, use a thermostat. Timers are good at controlling cycle length but not all that good at temperature control. Maybe running a heater for 15 minutes every 6 hours works when the ambient temperature is steady works. What happens when the temperature in the fridge is already above your target point? The heater will turn on and heat it some more. Timers are for cycle length, thermostats are for temperature control. Use a t-stat for the best results. - ---------- Is that 120 minute IPA mentioned a few days ago an IPA? I mean really, 21% and 100+ IBUs? Sounds like an big a** barleywine to me. Just to seem as overboard as these guys, I'm calling my barleywine "Jason's Delusory 75 Minute Double Imperial Bitter Squared", should be a good one! . Cheers, Jason Henning 68 ms from Jeff on the superhighway Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 05:38:59 -0900 From: "Martin Brungard" <mabrungard at hotmail.com> Subject: RE: Heating Pad for Fermentor Fred's comments on the longevity of heating pads are wise. I am using the pad for a week or two at a time. Normal use would be a few hours for an ache. After I thought about it for a while, I think that any concern about the ability of a heating pad in continous, long-term service is unfounded. A heating pad is a relatively low wattage, resistive element. Additionally, many pads sold in the US are evaluated by Underwriters Laboratory (UL). They check for products that could pose a hazard. I assume that a heating pad that has received a UL designation is relatively safe. A heating pad is an incredibly simple item. Just an array of high resistance wire or metal film on a plastic substrate. The rear window defroster is an example of the concept, excepting its applied to glass instead of plastic. They operate continuously with a temperature controller that limits the voltage or current to the heating element(s). My experience is that the life expectancy of a heating pad in long-term service is plenty long. My pad is now 10 or 15 years old now. Additionally, I'm pretty sure that the consequences of heating pad failure is that it stops heating. I suppose that it could melt or catch fire, but I'm assuming that a UL listing means that they have investigated and confirmed that that failure mode cannot occur. A properly designed heating pad would see the full line voltage of 110v when set on high and lower voltage or current at lower settings. Martin Brungard Tallahassee, FL Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 10:20:11 -0500 (EST) From: hollen at woodsprite.com Subject: Fermenter Heating Well, no one has mentioned my method, so I will pipe up. It is cheap and simple. I ferment exclusively in corny kegs, so it will need to be modified for all those demented souls who still use dangerous glass carboys. B-} I get a small 30 gallon clean trash can, put the corny in it, fill with water almost up to the rubber of the corny and put in an aquarium heater. For about $20, you can get one of 100 watt capacity with a built in thermostat. No building, no electronics, just plug and play. Couldn't be simpler. dion - -- Dion Hollenbeck Email: hollen at woodsprite.com Home Page: http://www.woodsprite.com Brewing Page: http://hbd.org/hollen Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 10:52:26 -0500 From: "Dave Burley" <Dave_Burley at charter.net> Subject: Sanitizing beer bottles Brewsters; Bill Frazier asks about how I sanitize my beer bottles before I bottle my beer. I haven't botttled beer routinely for a while, as I mostly keg. But when I do/did, I use a strong warm bleach solution which gets poured from bottle to bottle and then rinse each bottle with ( my very ) hot water three times . I developed the two fisted rinse method ( which none of my helpers can really master - maybe it's the prebottling warmup beers? or maybe they can't rub their belly and scratch their head simultaneously? ) in which I hold a bottle in each hand and swirl and dump. The two bottles are then refilled to about 1/4 full of hot water, swirled and dumped, etc. This way, I can rinse 50 bottles in a few minutes, then lay a sheet of plastic film over the bottles arranged side by side on several layers of newspaper on the floor. While they cool, use that time to get set up. >From time to time I make a Whitbread bottle conditioned ale or a mit hefe Weisen wheat beer, so I rinse as above, put the appropriate amount of a sugar water solution into each bottle ( instead of using a botttling bucket) and add the partially cleared beer directly from my secondary and cap. To be clear, I also use this same basic method on my kegs ( i.e. warm bleach solution first ), pressurize briefly and push some of this bleach solution out the "out" before depressurizing and rinsing thrice with swirling and dumping and then filling the keg with hot water and pushing out the water with CO2. If you are squeamish about using bleach solution on a SS pressure vessel, use another sanitizer. BTW I am aware that bleach can corrode SS ( dangerous for a pressure vessel) so I never STORE bleach in SS. Keep on Brewin' Dave Burley Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 11:05:00 -0500 From: "Patrick Macy" <whodatpat at hotmail.com> Subject: Dog Fish Head I will admit that the 60, 90, & 120 minuit IPA's from Dog Fish head are a work of art. However, not being a Hop-Head, I tend to lose intrest after the 60 minute IPA. Anyway, the point of this email is that I believe that most people are missing out on what may there best beer. Dog Fish Head has a craft brew called Midas Touch. It has a very complex flavor without a lot of hops and is also high octain. Maid from Malt, Honey and Grape, it has characteristics of a great ale, a clean dry wine and a mellow mead. Even better for those of you who are not frome these parts, the clone recipie published on Brew Your Own. http://byo.com/recipe/1011.html is amazingly close to the real thing. I strongly recoment giving this one a try. Patrick Macy Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 09:30:23 -0800 From: "Michael O'Donnell" <mooseo at stanford.edu> Subject: re: Kegging questions Hi Chris, A couple of thoughts on your space issues, but all of them will cost a little money: - Buy another keg: this is the best option, since it means that you can have 2 beers on tap at once... I find that when I have multiple beers in the fridge, rather than waiting until my kegs are empty to brew, I brew more often and enjoy it more. Basically, if you like the hobby, you'll end up owning more than 1 keg (er, 12 in my case). These aren't necessarily expensive if you are willing to buy a dirty one (on ebay or from a couple of sources that people have mentioned on here) for around $20 with shipping... then replace the o-rings (about $5), maybe the poppets and give it a good scrubbing and you are a 2-keg man for under $30. - Build a counterpressure filler: This will take some effort, but if you are reasonably handy, it can be done for ~$20-30... a cheap one won't be as nice as a ready-made one, but it will work. Do a google search for plans. - Buy a carbonator cap for a 2-liter soda bottle: the cheapest option, I think they are around $12, but not ideal. I have one and it is useful for transporting beer, but it isn't really ideal. Every time you want a beer, you will have to open it up, pour your beer, reseal the cap (mine leaks gas if I'm not careful, YMMV), and re-pressurize. - Drink: Invite some friends over, serve chips. Problem solved. Make sure to have backup supplies, because your keg will give that sucking sound much earlier than you expect. cheers, mike monterey, ca >------------------------------ > >Date: Thu, 29 Jan 2004 10:52:53 -0500 >From: "Chris Keenan" <chrisk at flagshipcinemas.com> >Subject: kegging questions > >Hello, > >I would first like to thank all of you who helped me so much with the >encouragement to move to kegging. I did it for my last batch and I am in >love with both the product and the time it saved me. I do have a couple of >questions though, that I am sure are elementary for you all, but I am >stumped. > >1) I think that I dispensing the beer all wrong. I have a standard 5 gallon >corney keg with a CO2 set up. I am not able to convert a 'fridge (yet) and >I keep the keg in a standard 'fridge with the shelving removed. I also have >the tavern style tap which attached directly to the quick disconnect of the >corney. When I first drew a glass, it was great, now when I draw a pint, I >get probably 3/4 foam and 1/4 beer. This as you know is not all that >appealing. I have tried dispensing using no CO2 flow, I have used CO2 flow >low and then at 1 - 2 psi above the psi to carbonate, and I still get foam, >what is the solution here, I am stumped. I am convinced that I am >dispensing wrong, yet I cannot find good advice on this... > >2) I have a brew in my Carboy that is ready to be moved to the keg for Super >Bowl Sunday. I still have some of my prior batch in the keg, is there a >good way to get out the beer and so that I can force carbonate the next >batch without purchasing a counter-pressure bottle filter, as I really do >not want to spend the money, yet. > >Thanks for the help!! >Chris >Everett, MA +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Michael O'Donnell Hopkins Marine Station, Stanford University Oceanview Boulevard Pacific Grove, CA 93950 mooseo at stanford.edu ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 12:59:42 -0500 From: "Houseman, David L" <David.Houseman at unisys.com> Subject: RE: Speaking of Irish Red Ales Steve, Yes, IRA will be in the new 2004 edition of the BJCP style guidelines. However, these will not be released before March. But that shouldn't stop the BlueBonnet from using the IRA style definition in Zymurgy and including this in your competition. That version in Zymurgy was a draft version. While the final form may very somewhat this is certainly close enough for now. Our current plan is that we will post the new style guidelines sometime in March for review and [constructive] comment. Then when we've incorporated these into the final version this will be released officially sometime in June. Many competitions have some local or regional styles in their competitions; competitions aren't limited to only what the BJCP publishes as a style guideline, although this does the serve the purposes of the vast majority of competitions. Just so that brewers and judges have the same information to work from. David Houseman BJCP Competition Director Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 10:35:57 -0800 (PST) From: Derric <derric1961 at yahoo.com> Subject: Re: trash can bags for brewing A little searching on the net indicates that there are food grade bags available. For example, at http://www.interplas.com/products.html?category=DL "Drum Liners on Rolls Prepare, process, or store liquids, pastes, or powders in these clear industrial grade polyethylene bags. Perforation between bags allows for easy tear-off. Other sizes are available. Please ask us about custom sizing. 38" x 65" fits 55-gallon drums and 36" x 48" fits 50-gallon drums. Meets FDA specifications." Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 11:32:59 -0800 From: "Steve Dale-Johnson" <sdalejohnson at hotmail.com> Subject: Subject: Lightbulb as heat source? Perhaps a better idea than a light bulb would be to sit the carboys on one of those thermostatically controlled waterbed heaters. Most of the guys on this digest will be old enough to remember when everyone seemed to have a waterbed in the '80's, my parents still have a couple in pieces sitting in the basement. I have not needed to do this myself (love this time of year for the lagers) but I was looking at it the other day and the heater is a tough, thick plastic with a bulb-type thermostat probe that might even be able to be enclosed in shrink tubing and placed in the beer, if not just taped on the surface of the carboy. The thermostat is designed to keep the bed at body (warm room) temperatures and the adjustment range would be bang on, not to mention having built-in feedback to self-control once you get it calibrated. Heating capacity should be enough for even the biggest batches. Steve Dale-Johnson Brewing at 1918 miles, 298 degrees Rennerian Delta (Vancouver), BC, Canada. Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 16:00:04 -0500 From: Jeff Renner <jeffrenner at comcast.net> Subject: Re: Concept of "Session Beer" Alexandre Enkerli <aenkerli at indiana.edu> wrote from Moncton, NB, Canada: >After googling a bit for explanations, I thought I'd ask the collective. >So, what are the "limits" of a session beer? Great question! One that deserves to to be discussed, like all matters of great moment, over a few pints. Lacking that opportunity, I'll make a quick stab at what a session beer should be for me. If you were to a search for ["session beer" "Michael Jackson"] or ["session beer" "Roger Protz"] (two top British beer writers), you'd get a feel for what I think a session beer should be, because, as you note, this is a distinctively British term. When two or more Brits gather in their local for a session, they expect everyone to stand a round, or two, or three. So if four of them get together, they may end up drinking multiples of fours - that's pints, each, at 568 ml each. So a session beer should be inviting, easy drinking, low in alcohol, non-satiating. Miller Lite's slogan "Tastes great, less filling" is not a bad start, but Lite is not, to my mind, a session beer. It fails on the first criterion - it isn't inviting. An inviting beer leaves a lingering flavor that invites another swallow. This is related to easy drinking. A session beer has enough flavor to enjoy but not so much to be distracting. Every once in a while, you should stop after a swallow and say to yourself, "Damn, this is a good beer." But you shouldn't be tempted to meditate on it. You've got important things to talk about with your mates besides beer, even though beer may be one of the topics. It should be interesting enough to be boringly tiresome, but not so strong in flavor to fatigue your palate, either. It shouldn't be served so cold your taste buds are numbed. A session beer should be moderate enough in body that it is not satiating, and should be low in carbonation so it doesn't fill you up with gas. Easy drinking is not enough, though. I remember, albeit somewhat hazily, a wonderful keg of Reissdorf Koelsch at a picnic that was perilously easy to drink. However, by the end of the afternoon, I felt like someone had stolen the bones in my legs. A session beer should be low enough in alcohol to encourage conversation but not tangle your tongue. You should be able to stand up at the table and say, "This is my round. What are you drinking?" and make it back from the bar holding four pints and not spill a drop on your shoes. Or at least not much. You should be able to still play a good game of darts or skittles or shove ha'penny. At the end of the evening you should be able to walk home (it's a local, remember?) without falling into the canal. You should wake the next morning from a refreshing night of sleep and feel fine. There is only one beer that fills all these criteria for me - British (or British-style) cask conditioned ordinary bitter (though an argument can be made for mild). An ideal session beer for me would be a medium amber (for complexity) bitter of about 1.037 original gravity (~3.7% ABV), hopped in the low to mid 30's, preferably dry-hopped. The Brits pack a lot of flavor into a beer like this. Part of this is in the brewing and part of it is that it has low carbonation and served at cellar temperature. I think that there are some low gravity German beers (schankbier) that are also served from casks at cellar temperatures and with low carbonation that would qualify, but I am not familiar with them. So, for me, I'm a bitter man. Jeff - -- Jeff Renner in Ann Arbor, Michigan USA, JeffRenner at comcast.net "One never knows, do one?" Fats Waller, American Musician, 1904-1943 Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 16:12:00 -0500 From: Jeff Renner <jeffrenner at comcast.net> Subject: Re: St. Patty's Day Brew Bill Wible <nospam02 at brewbyyou.net> writes from Malvern, PA 19355 writes: >Very frequently, we see these recipes, like yours, >that call for crystal malt in everything from >35L to 25L to 55L to 65L. I don't understand >where this comes from. > >All the major suppliers supply crystal malt in >20L, 40L, 60L, 80L and 120L. There is no such >thing as 55L, 35L or 25L crystal. I evidently had some 35L crystal when I originally formulated the recipe - not sure where it came from. I don't worry about such small details - 40L is probably indistinguishable from 35, and what's more, there is probably a range of colors in a batch and even more from batch to batch. British crystal from Crisp is nominally 45L (40-50) http://www.specialtymalts.com/crisp_malting/descriptions.html. This is what I used most recently. But I should probably change the recipe for the future to read 40-50L. Do brew it - it's a great recipe. Jeff - -- Jeff Renner in Ann Arbor, Michigan USA, JeffRenner at comcast.net "One never knows, do one?" Fats Waller, American Musician, 1904-1943 Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 16:15:33 -0500 From: Jeff Renner <jeffrenner at comcast.net> Subject: Re: Ginty's Irish-American Ted Grudzinski <tgrudzin at yahoo.com> asks >Do I trest the maize and barley in any special way, or >just add it to the mash? Just mix them dry with the crushed malt - flakes are pre-gelatinized. Some people have trouble with flakes causing a slow run-off, but I never have. If you are worried, you could use rice hulls. Do make sure the flaked maize is fresh. Jeff - -- Jeff Renner in Ann Arbor, Michigan USA, JeffRenner at comcast.net "One never knows, do one?" Fats Waller, American Musician, 1904-1943 Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 13:15:34 -0900 From: "Martin Brungard" <mabrungard at hotmail.com> Subject: Re: Gypsum vs Calcium Chloride Darrell asked for thoughts on the use of gypsum or calcium chloride for mash pH adjustments. A number of folks poked around the question, but never pointed out the answer. Sure, either of these minerals add calcium to the water. Neither mineral affects water pH by itself. In other words, adding these minerals to your sparge water will not drop the water's pH. You have to add an acid for that. But in conjunction with a grain mash, the combination of the organic phosphate (phytin) found in malt and the calcium does produce a pH reduction in the mash. Either mineral is equally effective at pH adjustment. The real difference between the minerals is their effect on the "flavor ion" concentrations. I use the term flavor ions to denote the main water flavor contributors, sodium, chloride, and sulfate. In the case of gypsum, the added sulfate concentration enhances the bitterness of the finished beer. The added chloride from the calcium chloride addition enhances the perception of sweetness in the beer. So the selection of which mineral to add to your mash for pH affect is dependent on the flavor perception you want to enhance in the finished beer. A bock will benefit from a completely different mineral addition (chloride) than an IPA (sulfate). Martin Brungard Tallahassee, FL Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 18:50:58 -0800 From: bruce <bruce.m.bush at verizon.net> Subject: making marmite I have heard that Marmite (and I presume, Vegemite) is made of spent brewing yeast and was developed as a protein supplement during WW II. For those who don't know, Marmite is a very tangy, salty spead that many Brits like, and many Americans don't. I recently took the lees from a batch of my beer and boiled it down into a thick sludge. It is not bad on toast, though it does not taste exactly like Marmite ( probably because of the hops). Has anyone else tried this? I hate to throw away good sludge. By the way, the spent grain, after malting and sparging, is good as breakfast cereal and in breads. It can also be used to make a very good crisp-bread like rye crisp. Bruce Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 23:50:19 +0100 From: "A. J. delange" <ajdel at cox.net> Subject: Wilhelm Small thing for sure but Willy's title (as confirmed by the Kaltenberg website) was Herzog. This is usually translated as "elector" which, I think, means he got to participate in the selection of the Holy Roman Emperor (when he wasn't publishing a Gebot about one thing or another). Cheers, A.J. Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 19:10:56 -0600 From: lbg webmaster <homebrew at sunflower.com> Subject: Re: Cooking with beer I have gathered some good recipes using beer on our club website at: http://www.sunflower.com/~homebrew/cook.html Vanberg & DeWulf importers have a bunch of recipes using Belgians at: http://www.belgianexperts.com/kitchen.php Many breweries, Pyramid comes to mind, feature recipes using their beers on their websites. Pete Clouston Lawrence, KS Lawrence Brewers Guild http://www.sunflower.com/~homebrew Return to table of contents
Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2004 20:17:25 -0500 From: "-S" <-s at adelphia.net> Subject: Re: fusels & esters Chad writes that Randy writes about banana esters ... >> Did you possibly mean pitch a small volume of yeast >> and ferment warm? This would result in a greater >> amount of yeast growth. This has been my >> practice with weizens for years. > This is where I got the idea: ....MBAATQ 1975... > High > levels of amino acids and high sugar adjunct levels are effective in > producing higher levels of fusel alcohols. High levels of aminos create fusels by the catabolic route and low levels that appear with high adjunct by the anabolic mechanism. No mystery. >**Higher than normal yeast rates > produce more fusel alcohols; isoamyl alcohol in particular is increased by > 80% for a four-fold increase in pitching rate.** I'd have to see the conditions and details to make sense of that, but I have serious reservations about using this as a generalization. Usually greater yeast growth implies greater levels of fusels. If you seriously underpitch, then you'd probably get more growth by pitching 4X more which could lead to the conclusion above. Vastly overpitching normal levels shouldn't be expected to cause excessive fusel levels, but there are exceptions ... === > So I think, with regard to ester production, there are at least two > different mechanisms at work. Yes there are, but the impact of fusel levels has limited impact on final ester levels.. Fusels are precursors for esters - necessary precedents, *BUT* the levels of esters produced is more strongly influenced by levels of acetylCoA and the enzymes available from the specific yeast rather than fusel levels. It's harder to predict the "hidden variable" of actylCoA pooling. I glossed over it in my ester&fusel overview, but there are two steps in the conversion of fusels to esters. The second step in which an alcohol(specific) acetyl-transferase produces the final ester is the yeast dependent step. These alcohol-transferase genes go by names ATF1... ATFn and the genetic hardware appears to control the specific yeast's ester profile. >It seems there are two ways to obtain big > ester, pitch small and warm and pitch big and warm. Maybe - but the evidence is quite tenuous. Warm is a winner - no doubt. BY&F notes that pitching rate influences ester levels but the effect is not very predictable. Maule(1967, JIB 73) reports ester levels reduced by large increases in pitching level. Pitching big will reduce overall growth since the yeast run out of sterols and UFAs earlier (more yeast sharing the same O2), which should - at first glance - increase esters as growth stalls. OTOH - if the big pitching causes the FAN to be used up early in fermentation, then perhaps the free acetylCoA levels of the yeast never rise - reducing ester formation. It seems that if you pitch big and run out of FAN or carbos early then you get few esters. If you stall because of lack of O2 product or most other nutrient deficiencies then you get big esters. It depends on wort conditions and yeast reqs ultimately. Underpitching is a safe bet for more esters. Overpitching is a craps shoot. > But here's the REALLY interesting part. The five gallon batch presented > very little banana and a subdued clove character. The one gallon batch > presented very little clove but a more pronounced banana character as a > result of the higher pitching rate. This is consistent with the papers > assertion that isoamyl alcohol increases with "greater than normal" > pitching rates (banana is isoamyl acetate). Yeah but ....what of the factors ? First - the term "isoamyl alcohol" needs some explanation (to me at least). It implies a fusel, yet normally "banana ester" in beer is attributed to isoamyl ACETATE - an ester. Other esters, isoamyl hexanoate, isoamyl propionate are said to produce a banana notes too but isoamyl acetate is the big banana of beer I believe. You can't neglect the huge impact of oxygen on ester levels either. Open ferments can be very low in esters compared to their closed neighbors. Kunze also suggests high attenuation is a recipe for more esters. I agree that temp and pitching rate are serious factors, but there are too many "gotchas" for a simplistic approach. -S Return to table of contents
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