HOMEBREW Digest #4743 Sun 20 March 2005


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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
  Aerating starters (Fred Johnson)
  Re: March Pump 809 issues (Kent Fletcher)
  beer can house ("Peter A. Ensminger")
  RE: Pumping sparge water ("Ronald La Borde")
  Competition Announcement: 9th Annual B.E.E.R. Brew-off ("mbobiak")
  Christian Oxygenation ("Doug Moyer")
  Diacetyl rest ("Doug Moyer")

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---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 08:41:17 -0500 From: Fred Johnson <FLJohnson at portbridge.com> Subject: Aerating starters Brian thinks Jeff and others like myself who filter the air we pump into our starters are overly protective. In response to John who said: > I don't understand why you would filter your starter air but aerate > the wort with whatever air happens to be in your little corner of the > world at the time. Brian responds: > Those of us who use a stir plate bring plain old air into our starters. > Methinks Jeff is just a little overprotective of his babies, and we > shall just quietly snicker at his paranoia. ;-) To which I reply: There is a big difference between aeration by passive air exchange and aeration by actively, continuously pumping air into the culture container over long periods (days) of time. If the starter is "aerated" by simple diffusion in a semi-closed container (which cannot provide the air the yeast need for a truly aerobic culture), there is little risk of contamination. However, when pumping air into the starter container without filtering the air, whether one pumps it directly into the medium or into the headspace of the container, the amount of bacteria, mold, and wild yeast entering that container could be several orders of magnitude greater than by simple diffusion. Jeff's filtering the pumped air is not the result of his paranoia. He does it out of common sense. Fred L Johnson Apex, North Carolina, USA Return to table of contents
Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 10:06:38 -0800 (PST) From: Kent Fletcher <fletcherhomebrew at yahoo.com> Subject: Re: March Pump 809 issues Jeff is having difficulties with his March 809 pump. Jeff, your biggest problem is that you have the version with the 1600 rpm motor. The version of this pump that most brewers use (if they use this model) is the 809HS, with 3400 rpm, 1/25 hp motor. If possible, you might see if the seller would exchange it for the HS. About the only parts shared are the bronze volute, O-ring and screws, the impeller and drive components are all different, so you can't just swap motors. If you're stuck with this one, you can get rid of your priiming headaches by introducing your strike water THROUGH the pump. Connect your supply to the pump OUTLET, with all valves open, and fill the MLT. This will not only flood the pump volute, it will also purge any trapped air from your pick-up tube in the MLT. Return to table of contents
Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 13:16:47 -0500 From: "Peter A. Ensminger" <ensmingr at twcny.rr.com> Subject: beer can house Good news for lovers of the avant garde ... The Beer Can House in Houston will be restored with a $125,000 grant from the Houston Endowment. The full story (w photo) is here: < http://msnbc.msn.com/id/7234314/ >. Have any Texan HBD'ers seen this place? Cheerio! Peter A. Ensminger Syracuse, NY Return to table of contents
Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 14:54:34 -0600 From: "Ronald La Borde" <pivoron at cox.net> Subject: RE: Pumping sparge water It seems several people have been having problems with air bubbles in the HLT flow to mash tun. This is not normal, something is wrong here, and my guess is air entering somehow through fittings, or bulkheads. Let me say that on my system, I can pump HLT water to the mash tun with no air. But, first I completely flush any air out of the system. Before I start to brew, I circulate water from the HLT through the heat exchange coil and sparge manifold into the mash tun. I might put a gallon or so into the mash tun. Then I circulate and heat up the mash tun to get it warmed up and happy. At this time I can check for any air bubbles and if any are found, I flush them out by opening the valves fully and let me tell you, there's no problem with water flow. I mean, it's enough water to take a shower in. It rushes by and flushes any air out. Once flushed, the system has no more air and stays free of air - unless there's a leak of some kind. So what I am saying is that you make sure the system is clean and purged before the grains ever smell the water. If anything is wrong, fix it before starting the brew. As a side note, I like to collect rain water from the house gutter downspout for my plants. I put a shallow bucket under the downspout and place my magnetic coupled aquarium pump into the bucket. The pump feeds a 50 foot garden hose to a large water holding tank elsewhere. The hose is flat on the ground and rises up about two feet into the vessel. When I engage the pump, flow is strong, steady and plenty fast. This little pump is much smaller than the pumps used for brewing and still it can really move water. So.....do not accept the idea of the pumps being unable to pump much water. If you do not flush air out of the system, all sorts of strange things will happen, and the pumps seem to not be able to do anything. I think the secret is flushing. Another way to flush is to blast water backwards into the outlet port of the pump until all air is removed. Ron ===== Ronald J. La Borde -- Metairie, LA New Orleans is the suburb of Metairie, LA www.hbd.org/rlaborde Return to table of contents
Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 03:29:20 GMT From: "mbobiak" <mbobiak at ic.sunysb.edu> Subject: Competition Announcement: 9th Annual B.E.E.R. Brew-off Brewer's East End Revival (BEER), Long Island's only homebrew club, will be hosting our 9th annual Brew-Off on May 14, 2005. We will accept all homebrewed beers, ciders and meads for this competition and judging will be based on the 2004 BJCP guidelines. We are also calling for judges and a limited number of stewards to help us with the competition. Details are available at our website www.hbd.org/beer or by contating Matt Bobiak: mbobiak AT ic.sunysb.edu or Steve Wynhurst: wynhurst AT optonline.net Return to table of contents
Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 14:59:27 -0500 From: "Doug Moyer" <shyzaboy at yahoo.com> Subject: Christian Oxygenation Christian sez: =================================== I'll going to experiment with not oxygenating my next two batches, a hefeweizen and a weizenbock. I'm going to just pitch a well-aerated starter with the hefe. For the weizenbock, I'll do the same and then repitch after 4 or 5 days with another starter. I'll post my results. =================================== Not good enough. You need to split your batch and aerate the wort on the "control" and not on the experimental batch. Otherwise you have no idea how the experiment affected your results. Then, do a triangle test on the two beers, at various times after kegging/bottling. Brew on! Doug Moyer Troutville, VA Star City Brewers Guild: http://www.starcitybrewers.org Shyzabrau Homebrewery: http://users.adelphia.net/~shyzaboy/homebrewery.html Return to table of contents
Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2005 15:02:42 -0500 From: "Doug Moyer" <shyzaboy at yahoo.com> Subject: Diacetyl rest Leo gets indignant: ==================================== A.J. responded to a dicetyl question: >Probably the best way to increase diacetyl without ruining the beer >otherwise is to use a diacetyl producing strain and skip the diacetyl >rest. It's my understanding that the purpose of a diacetyl rest is to REDUCE diacetyl. ==================================== Yes, and that is exactly what he is talking about. If you SKIP the diacetyl rest, then you can increase the amount of diacetyl that makes it into the final beer. In response to the poster that wanted more diacetyl. Brew on! Doug Moyer Troutville, VA Star City Brewers Guild: http://www.starcitybrewers.org Shzabrau Homebrewery: http://users.adelphia.net/~shyzaboy/homebrewery.html Return to table of contents
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