HOMEBREW Digest #4549 Wed 23 June 2004


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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
  Conical fermenter ("Gary Smith")
  Berliner Weisse, continued (Chad Hogan)
  Better Bottle? ("Brian Schar")
  Jet City Triple 7 Nectar Apricot (Michael Gerber)

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---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 22 Jun 2004 22:16:35 -0500 From: "Gary Smith" <mandolinist at ameritech.net> Subject: Conical fermenter As if I don't have enough toys already I'm about to add another... I have a RIMS using sabco kegs. I've got the Sabco fermenter which is a great size and has it all I need except for a dump port for the yeast. I thought about having a ferule attached to the bottom and using a 1.5" tri- clover valve which I already own. With a bottom valve in place it would be unwieldy without legs and it wouldn't be a true conical anyway so it would be inefficient for removing the yeast/trub. so I nixed that idea. I'll leave it as it is; a really convenient fermenter. Since a conical seems to have all that I want in terms of trub extraction/ yeast collection, the question now becomes the volume of conical to go for. I see some beautiful ready made ones that range from 7 Gal, 12.2 Gal, & 24 Gal in size. The way it seems to me is if I were making a 5 Gal batch the 7 gal would be right. With my usual 9-10 Gal output with the RIMS the 12 Gal seems right & the 24 would be more than I need & probably tougher to sanitize. So... Anyone using a conical fermenter while using sabco size kettles to brew with? If so what size batches are you making & how do you feel about the size of your fermenter? Would you find a larger conical is better or is what you have just right? Thanks, Gary Gary Smith CQ DX de KA1J http://musician.dyndns.org http://musician.dyndns.org/homebrew.html "The only things worthwhile in life are music and cats" - Albert Einstein - Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 23 Jun 2004 00:16:38 -0600 From: Chad Hogan <chad.hogan at gmail.com> Subject: Berliner Weisse, continued Thanks for the replies Marc and Raj, Ouch. That sounds much too sour for my tastes. I have a very difficult time handling too much sour in anything. I've given up and gone off-style by stopping the souring at the point where I though it was nicely tart but not too sour for me -- I'm sure I'm well off the Berliner Weisse target. Ah well, maybe it won't win any awards, but I'm sure it will be tasty. Raj, perhaps you're extending the word "mash" beyond what I would, but I don't think I really did a sour mash exactly. I mashed through a protein rest and a saccharification, and let the wort cool with a little raw grain for infection with wild bugs added periodically. It was much more of a spontaneous fermentation. I had a krausen going and everything, purely with the infection from the added grain. I left this for several days before I did a short boil (10 min) to pasteurize. Then I pitched yeast, and it has since gone through primary attenuation. That was very quick, undoubtedly due to a large pitch, good oxygenation, and low OG. About DMS: Interesting point. Infections aside, I had always heard that the bulk of DMS was itself a product of boiling (can anyone comment?) While there can be quantities within the malted grain itself, I understood that this portion was quite small except in the case of low-quality malt, or perhaps some six-row varieties. So boiling a covered wort generates DMS that stays, boiling uncovered allows the boil-generated DMS to escape. Or something to that effect. Perhaps I am mistaken? Perhaps DMS is generated very quickly, but takes time to escape? I'm a scientist at heart and by trade, so these questions interest me... In any case, I did a short boil. I gathered that the point to a short boil is driven by a few things. First, the wort itself is meant to be *very* pale and cloudy, with no hot or cold breaks. Someone had the idea that the BW was originally completely unboiled -- a wort was collected and simply left until it was good to drink. I thought that sounded like an interesting idea. Plus, the idea of a wild fermentation, with all its funky depth, could be very interesting in a small beer. I am very interested in small beers, and especially small beers with a lot of depth and charatcter. For me, the only reason I did even a short boil was for the pasteurization to stop the souring. Some day I may get brave enough to try a fully wild + pitched ferment without the pasteurization, but I fear the sour. Oh yes, and there is one more reason for the wild souring: it is somewhat challenging to get unusual yeasts and related products in this part of the world. Possible, of course, but it takes several weeks or more of planning. I rarely think that far in advance :) Chad Hogan, Calgary, AB Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 23 Jun 2004 09:43:49 -0700 From: "Brian Schar" <schar at cardica.com> Subject: Better Bottle? Has anyone tried fermenting in the PET-based Better Bottle? I've seen this advertised in BYO for a couple of months and I'm interested in trying it. I have long been an advocate of non-glass fermentation vessels from a safety standpoint, because I've known two people who were seriously injured when their glass carboys broke. I'd appreciate any feedback. On a separate topic, I had an embarrassing experience recently when I took a couple of bottles of my hefeweizen to our homebrew club meeting, and they were both undrinkably awful. They were definitely bacterially contaminated. I had run out of sterilized bottles about 3/4 of the way through bottling, and figured I'd just finish off with bottled I had cleaned and rinsed but not sterilized. Big mistake. Be sure to clean your bottles thoroughly before bottling! Brian Schar Menlo Park, CA Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 23 Jun 2004 12:10:36 -0700 (PDT) From: Michael Gerber <enderwiggins23 at yahoo.com> Subject: Jet City Triple 7 Nectar Apricot I was recently reminicing with my fiancee about some of our favorite beers from times past. Jet City Apricot was remembered VERY fondly by us both. I did some research and it is clear that Ranier Brewing was bought and no longer produces beer. But does anyone have the skinny on Jet City? Who was the genius (Brewmaster) behind the Jet City Apricot? What is he doing now? Does anyone know of any other Apricot Ryes? I know of Pyramid Apricot and the Magic Hat #9 which I love dearly. Any other good apricot beers come to mind? Does anyone have a real recipe of the Jet City Apricot Rye? I haven't found that one yet. thanks, -Michael Return to table of contents
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