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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
  Rejuvenating primary fermentor yeast with low gravity wort ("Steve Seeley")
  identify the style. (leavitdg)
  Re: More Hydrometers ("steve.alexander")
  Hydrometer reading - yeast contribution (Fred Johnson)
  RE: Looking for Homebrew Stores and Breweries in Michigan ("Michael Fairbrother")
  GAC and Choramine ("A.J deLange")
  Pilsner mash schedule ("Cave, Jim")
  Re: looking for opinions (Paul Waters)
  Re: Pilsner mash schedule/decoction experiment (Denny Conn)
  Refractometers, Hydrometers and Clinitest ("Dave Burley")
  RE: Chloramine removal by activated carbon filtration ("Mike Sharp")
  Achieving that typical British bitter character (RiedelD)
  RE: Name that Style ("Brian Lundeen")
  More Hydrometers ("A.J deLange")
  style to brew or brew to style ("Steve Dale-Johnson")


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Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2005 22:23:08 -0800
From: "Steve Seeley" <seseeley at hotpop.com>
Subject: Rejuvenating primary fermentor yeast with low gravity wort

	In Digest #4902 (December 02, 2005) Jeff Renner suggested to Jim
Cave to "rejuvenate his yeast from a primary fermentor with low gravity
(1.025) starter wort before using it on a Barley Wine".  My question is
how much 1.025 starter wort would you use on a pint of yeast slurry?

	I brewed a English Brown a week ago for the purpose of building
up yeast for a up coming Barley Wine brew session.  Last Sunday I
collected a quart of primary yeast slurry from the Brown.  I typically
boil and chill a gallon of water to rinse the trub out of the yeast
with.  I'll probably end up with a pint of pure yeast slurry after
rinsing.

	I like your idea of re-oxygenating the yeast after rinsing the
yeast.  I don't have a stir plate but do have a air stone, aquarium pump
and filter.  If I put a stopper in a 2.5 gallon carboy without the air
lock and run the air stone through the 1/4" hole of the stopper to the
bottom of the carboy should I get enough oxygen into the starter wort to
build up the yeast cell walls?  Does this only affect new yeast or will
it also strengthen existing yeast cells?

Thanks for the help,
Steve Seeley from Shingle Spring CA (Between Sacramento and Tahoe)




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Date: Tue, 06 Dec 2005 05:52:47 -0500
From: leavitdg at plattsburgh.edu
Subject: identify the style.

I'd say its sort of a Russian Imperial Honey Porter!


Darrell



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Date: Tue, 06 Dec 2005 06:56:49 -0500
From: "steve.alexander" <-s at adelphia.net>
Subject: Re: More Hydrometers

A.J deLange wrote:

 >>As Plato is a percentage the accuracy of the
 >>balance as a fraction of the weight of water plus sugar sets the
 >>accuracy to which you can prepare solutions i.e if you are making 200
 >>grams of solution and the balance has an accuracy of 0.1 gram then your
 >>error will be 100*sqrt(2)*.1/200 = .07P (sqrt of 2 because you are
 >>making 2 weighings).

Oops - there's an error in your error !  I don't agree with this error
analysis, tho' I believe it's better than AJ states.

It's a little didactic to go through it on HBD, and I am certain AJ
just committed mental typo (don't we all) but just so everyone
understands well enough to calculate error on their own ...

In the compounding of error through calculations, if we have an error
in terms of the measured value (for example grams of error when
measuring mass), then we must carry the error through the calculation
we are making in a manner that depends on the calculation.  Let's say
we have mass measurements M1 and M2 with error amount Me1 and Me2.
Now we want to calculate some function of these two readings and want
to know what is the error in the result.
     R = F(M1, M2),   Re = ???
In the general case, resulting error is
     Re = sqrt (  (dF/dM1)^2 * Me1^2 + (dF/dM2) * Me2^2  )
where the lower case 'd' represent the partial derivative of the the F
function with respect to the variable where the measurement is
inserted, and "^" exponentiation.

If we are adding or subtracting two measurements, for example
Mr = M1 + M2, then the partials are unity and the error of the
sum is just:
Mer = sqrt( Me1^2 + Me2^2 )
Same value of Mer applies if Mr = M1 - M2

If instead we are multiplying or dividing two measurements
    P = M1 / M2, *or*  P = M1 * M2
then error calculation is:
    Pe = P * sqrt(  (Me1/M1)^2 + (Me2/M2)^2 )
Note that (Me1/M1) and (Me2/M2) is just the fractional error, that is
the percent error divided by 100.0 so
     %err = sqrt( %err1^2 + %err2^2 )

- --

In AJs example we are measuring Ms = mass of sugar solute, Mtot = mass
of the solution(water + sugar) and the function compounding the two
measurements is division:
    Plato = P = Ms / Mtot
    Pe = ??? error in Plato
For 200grams of 10P solution we have Ms = 20gm, Mtot = 200gm.  Then
given measurement error Mes = Metot = 0.1 grams Then the error in the
plato is:
    Pe = 10P * sqrt(  (0.1/20)^2 + (0.1/200^) )
    Pe = 0.05024938...P
About 0.05P error, not 0.07P.

Note that this error is almost entirely due to the sugar mass
measurement which matches our intuition.

===

AJ's valuation of the air pressure impact is correct - too small to
matter.  I too estimated the fractional change in volume above the
liquid at ~10^-4 but then (doh!) started thinking in terms of SG
change rather than SG-1 or Plato something more nearly proportional
to above-volume.

===

 >>> If we measure wort at 17C, then estimate its SG at 20C by assuming
 >>> it acts like water, and then estimate the extract% assuming it
 >>> acts like sucrose solution ...  that's fine - but it's several
 >>> leaps of faith away from any literal observation.
 >
 >A nominally 10P sucrose solution at 17C has measured density of
 >1.038724 and thus 17/20 SG of 1.04059.
[...]
 >Thus the density and SG estimates are in error by 0.000122 (about
 >.03P). This isn't bad compared to my goal of 0.1 to 0.2P.


That's a very very nice result AJ, sincere thanks, and also sincere
envy of your densitometer.  I absolutely hate suggesting work for
others, but how would you feel about someday comparing this result for
sucrose with measurements of wort extract density vs temp ?  A first
hunch is that majority maltose would not cause as much volumetric
expansion as sucrose - but who really knows ?  Was the ASBC correction
table based on sucrose (I assume so).

In any case my point is made; an HBer without access to a $600 ASBC
correction table will blithely calculate an eighth of an SG degree
error into his measurement by ignoring the fact that water and sucrose
solutions have different expansion wrt a 3C temp difference.  There is
yet another error involved in assuming that wort solutions behave like
sucrose - two actually, one wrt thermal expansion and another in
assuming that Plato's sucrose relation holds accurately for wort.
Note that the ASBC table isn't of much value once fermentation has
begun and the ethanol expansion term swells. I agree that one cause of
a 0.1 or 0.2 degree error can be ignored if we are trying to
accurately determine SG to 0.5 degree, or Plato to 0.1P, but you
really can't ignore too many such sources of error before ...

A hydrometer is already brushing against a lot of different physical
issues which impact it's accuracy.  Although increasing the accuracy
of a hydrometer by a few bits, for example making one with a very
large V and small tube cross section is possible, it would be useless
without controlling measurement conditions with great care.  Ultimately
all the hydrometer can determine is density, and it's numerous proxies
in terms of SG, sucrose extract equivalent and so on.  What we really
want to determine is extent of fermentation and the dots from density
to fermentation progress are a bit tenuous.

 -S



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Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2005 07:20:26 -0500
From: Fred Johnson <FLJohnson at portbridge.com>
Subject: Hydrometer reading - yeast contribution

I believe Bill Velek is essentially correct in that the yeast in 
suspension contribute little to the hydrometer reading. I believe 
bouyancy is related to the molar concentration of the solutes. Small 
molecules in high concentrations are largely responsible for buoying up 
the hydrometer. Yeast have an extremely high "molecular weight", so 
their molar concentration is negligible.

Bill's fish analogy is a good one, every time a fish happens to bump 
the boat from the bottom, the boat will float a little higher 
momentarily, but the frequency that this happens is very small. Yeast 
are more plentiful than fish, but not much so compared to the dissolved 
salts and sugars. The same actually applies to proteins in solution 
also. Their molar concentrations are relatively small compared to the 
sugar and salt concentrations.

Fred L Johnson
Apex, North Carolina, USA



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Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2005 07:56:44 -0500
From: "Michael Fairbrother" <fairbrother at tenebril.com>
Subject: RE: Looking for Homebrew Stores and Breweries in Michigan

Jeff, I can't claim I have all of them, but hopefully most in my all
things beer map.

http://www.nhbrewers.com/mapbeer.html

Just drag the map to view the Michigan area, and select the markers at
the top for which information you are looking for.

Cheers
Michael Fairbrother



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Date: Tue, 06 Dec 2005 13:30:46 +0000
From: "A.J deLange" <ajdel at cox.net>
Subject: GAC and Choramine

GAC filtration is the method used by most small breweries (up through 
regionals) for chloramine removal. The relevant equations are (for 
monochloramine) C* + NH2Cl + H2O <--> CO* + Cl- + NH4- where C* 
represents an active carbon site. The oxidized carbon sites oxidize 
chloramine CO* + 2NH2Cl --> C* + 2H+ + 2Cl- + H2O + N2 thus restoring 
the GAC i.e. it is never consumed. The overal reaction is, thus 3NH2Cl 
- --> 2H+ + 3Cl- + NH4+ + N2. Note again that the GAC does not appear in 
the overall equation. Thus monochloramine is decomposed into chloride 
ions, nitrogen gas and ammonium ions. The nitrogen will escape and the 
yeast will thank you for the ammonia (the amounts are quite small as 
there is not much chloramine in the water to start with in most cases. 
If you smell chlorine after passing water through a GAC filter you 
didn't give it enough "contact time". Put it through again.

A.J.


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Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2005 07:09:54 -0800
From: "Cave, Jim" <Cave at psc.org>
Subject: Pilsner mash schedule

Aaron Linder asks about pilsner mash schedules and how to achieve a nice
malty pilsner.  He does state whether he wants a Czech or German
pilsner.  I believe the most component to achieving this goal is to get
a very high quality, European maritime malt, preferably German.  This is
vital to get the malt characteristics that you desire.  BTW, I mash in
at about 62-63 C for 30 minutes and step up to 65.5 for 30 minutes then
to 68C, for 30 minutes then to mash-off.  I find the signature of the
German pilsners is that roundness of flavour at the back of your palate.
You can play around with decoction mashes if you want (that is probably
best for a Czech style), but is unnecessary for a German one, which is
my favourite.  Also, check out the archives for 1st wort hopping. 

Hope this helps.
Jim 




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Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2005 07:29:50 -0800 (PST)
From: Paul Waters <pwaters3 at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: looking for opinions

jeff at henze.us
>What is the purpose of letting the cold break settle
for 30 >minutes prior
>to adding O2 to it? I've been just adding O2 as soon
as I get >done putting
>the wort in primary - is there an advantage to
waiting?

I wanted the cold break to settle out I before I added
the yeast so that the yeast would be on top of the
cold break and not under it mainly as I have read that
it is better for the yeast.

I dont have any evidence that would indicate one way
or the other that this is good.
The other reason I did it this way was I had to go
feed cows and it was getting late. LOL
They are good for getting rid of spent grains

As a note the the story, I gave the slowly fermenting
celebrator clone another shot of O2 and its doing
nicely now.

Thanks to all who responded to my 1st questions.

I have a new question.
I'm looking to brew a Belgian Golden/Duvel clone.

Thinking about doing it the the hard way and start
with the yeast from a bottle of Duvel. Is the yeast at
the bottom of the bottle the real yeast or just a
primimg yeast?

Or would I be better off to use say Wyeast 1388
Belgian Strong Ale Yeast or White Labs WLP575 Belgian
Style Ale yeast, WLP570 Blend Belgian Golden Ale?

Thanks all

Paul W
Mad Cow Brewing






		


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Date: Tue, 06 Dec 2005 08:47:04 -0800
From: Denny Conn <denny at projectoneaudio.com>
Subject: Re: Pilsner mash schedule/decoction experiment

That was me, and I'm STILL collecting data and trying to get the article 
finished.  I'll give you a little heads up, though...in blind tastings with 
BJCP judges and pro brewers, less than half identified or preferred the 
decocted beers!

         ------------>Denny

At 11:34 PM 12/5/05 -0500, you wrote:
>I remember back several months ago someone was doing a grand decoction vs.
>non-decoction experiment with pilsner style beers.  Are there any results
>from that?




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Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2005 12:44:10 -0500
From: "Dave Burley" <Dave_Burley at charter.net>
Subject: Refractometers, Hydrometers and Clinitest

Brewsters:

Once the fermentation begins neither a hydrometer nor a refractometer are any 
good for measuring sugar content as the alcohol content makes it impossible to 
determine an accurate value given two variables ( sugar and alcohol) which 
affect the solution density  and one measurement.

Clinitest is the only way to determine sugar content once fermentation has 
begun and especially at the end.
The real beauty is that it measures it directly unlike either refractometric 
or hydrometric methods and bubbles don't affect it..

Takes only 2 or 5 drops or you can dilute the sample and use it for higher 
values than 5%.

Keep on Brewin'

Dave Burley




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Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2005 11:02:46 -0800
From: "Mike Sharp" <rdcpro at hotmail.com>
Subject: RE: Chloramine removal by activated carbon filtration

Kyle Jones asks about  Chloramine removal by activated carbon filtration
("Wiscer")

"I have found anecdotal evidence that filtering with activated carbon will
not remove chloramines from treated water."

This is probably because the flow rates are too high.  It requires
relatively small granules of activated carbon, and *very* slow flow rates
with household AC filters.  

"Apparently, chloramines, when filtered through AC, break down into various
products, including nitrogen gas and chlorine, explaining the chlorine smell
I was getting."

Chlorine is not a product of Chloramine decomposition--otherwise Chloromine
would be considered a THM precursor.  Chloride is, however, a product, which
contributes to the increased TDS downstream of a AC filter.  But then, there
are other problems with AC filtration, such as bacterial seeding of
downstream water.  That's why one standard setup for commercial/industrial
water treatment is to treat first with GAC filtration, followed by resin ion
exchange (softening), followed by RO treatment.  This will produce
relatively high purity water (1-2 megohms), if TFC membranes are used at
high pressure (approx 250psi).  To improve recovery, you need a fairly high
recycle flow rate for the retentate side.

"Pure chlorine breaks down into chloride ions, but in its pure form,
combines with organics to form trihalogenated methanes (THMs), which are
suspected carcinogens."

Chlorine is a THM precursor, but that doesn't necessarily mean having
residual chlorine means you have THMs in the product water.  There has to be
organic matter involved.  It depends on the source.  The cedar river
watershed near me produces water that is so low in organics that until
recently, it wasn't even chlorinated.

"It seems that AC is a good start, but needs to be followed up by RO or ion
exchange in order to remove all the byproducts."

I'd steer clear of AC-only filtration, because of the bacterial seeding
problems associated with it.  Household filters sometimes have silver in
them to supposedly reduce the problem, but I suspect that helps only a
little (it depends on the presence of silver in the product water), and then
only if the flow rates are very low.  Removing the sanitizer, and replacing
it with bacteria seems like a bad idea to me.

The standard treatment setup I mentioned works very well, if you're trying
to produce ultra high purity water.  Whether that's a good idea for brewing
or not is up to you I guess.  I've built water systems for UHP manufacturing
that produce good quality water ( consistently greater than 17 megohm ) with
the pretreatment I mentioned, followed by UV sterilization and mixed bed IX.
But even the pretreatment process alone seems like a lot of trouble for
brewing, unless you have other water issues (excess iron, etc) to deal with.
And then you may need other treatments as well.  And you'll also always have
to add minerals and salts to the water.

Regards,
Mike Sharp

Kent, WA
[1891.3, 294deg] AR


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Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2005 11:27:13 -0800 
From: RiedelD at pac.dfo-mpo.gc.ca
Subject: Achieving that typical British bitter character

After sampling a Christmas offering called "Bah Humbug" from the Wychwood
brewery in Witney, UK, it occurred to me that I don't seem to be able to
replicate the 'typical British bitter' character.  I admit it's not fair to
lump all British pale, hoppy ales into one category, but I do find that ales
from Conniston Bluebird Bitter, Fuller's London Pride, Blacksheep Bitter,
and the aforementioned Wychwood beer to Gale's HSB all share similar
attributes:  a dry, hoppy (but not resinous), almost tight flavour profile
commonly with what I perceive as a slight metallic edge, a balanced caramel
component and a noticeable, but fairly restrained hop aroma.  They are all
very enjoyable beers and they all seem to elude me as a brewer!

The usual approach would be to single infuse at 149-150F using good British
malts of Maris Otter barley, UK hops like EKG and Fuggle, enough crystal for
colour and flavour, and an English yeast strain.  This alone does not seem
to achieve the profile I'm looking for.  Does anyone have some advice on
achieving the 'British bitter' character?  My next thoughts are to try a
simplified hop schedule (1 bittering addition for 60' and 1 aroma addition
for 1') and a proportion of sugar in the boil replacing some of the malt to
encourage a lower SG finish.

Any thoughts?
Dave Riedel
Victoria, Canada







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Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2005 18:31:49 -0600
From: "Brian Lundeen" <blundeen at mts.net>
Subject: RE: Name that Style

> Date: Mon, 05 Dec 2005 08:52:17 -0500
> From: "Randy Pressley" <RANDYP at cityofws.org>
> Subject: Name that Style
> 
> I brewed an all grain Saturday and now I need someone to help 
> me identify the style.
> 
> 20 lbs pale malt
> 1 lb choc malt
> 2 lb crystal (50L)
> 3 lbs honey
> 2 oz Mt Hood Boiling
> 1 oz Goldings Flavor
> 1 oz Saaz Aroma
> Nottingham yeast
> 
> Yield 7 gallons
> OG 1.098
> FG (to be determined)
> 

Ooh, ooh, can I play? Can I play?

I think it's a Baltic Porter. Not necessarily a great Baltic Porter, but not
totally out of style either. Of course, I'm working on the assumption that
your hydrometer reading is not completely out to lunch. You measured it
before throwing the yeast in, right? Otherwise, we might be looking at a
Dark Mild. ;-)

Did I win? Did I win?

Cheers
Brian



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Date: Wed, 07 Dec 2005 01:48:08 +0000
From: "A.J deLange" <ajdel at cox.net>
Subject: More Hydrometers

Steve,

Having trouble posting these (server says they are "multipart" whatever 
that means and, as you say, it's probably a bit over the top anyway but 
I'll try without reproducing your comments. I use this little formula 
for ratios of numbers which are of the same order of magnitude. The 
reasoning in the case of Plato measurement is thus:
P/100 = (W1+e)/(W2 + g) = [(W1/W2) + e/W2]/(1 + g/W2) ~ (W1/W2 +e/W2)(1 
 - g/W2) = W1/W2 +e/W2 -gW1/W22 -eg/W1W2 ~ W1/W2 +eW2 -gW2
with the first approximation from Taylor series expansion of (1/(1+g/W2) 
and tossing higher order terms and the second from calling the eg terms 
small relative to the others and noting that W1 is at least 
approximately equal to W2 (remember that these are tared weights). It's 
a quick, dirty and easy to remember relationship sufficient for 
ballparking which got an answer approximately the same as your answer. 
Close enough for bounding.

I have pondered the question of how wort behaves with temperature as 
opposed to sucrose and even as to how wort specific gravity as a 
function of extract relates to sucrose solutions. The whole thing turns 
on the fact that sucrose is the only one of the common sugars that is 
not in the least hygroscopic which means that you can work with it in 
the lab. We've all dumped out maltose on a humid day and seen what 
happens within minutes. You can't get the stuff from jar to flask by way 
of balance without picking up water. You can watch the numbers on the 
balance climb. I've concluded that this is why the Normal boys used 
sucrose. Perhaps working in the dead of winter in Northern Wisconsin you 
might be able to check out maltose and some of the other sugars. This 
said, the densities of maltose, glucose, and fructose solutions are very 
close to the densities of sucrose solutions of equal strength and even 
dextrines are surprisingly similar. Experimentation of this sort is of 
great interest and I'd be happy to add maltose vs temp to the list of 
things that I want to investigate. I haven't even got a complete set of 
sucrose data yet. There are lots of pitfalls even with a modern 
instrument (for example, the rate at which water leaves a volumetric 
flask is rapid enough that readings can get thrown off if taken over the 
course of a few minute) that make me appreciate all the more the work of 
Dr. Plato and his troops.

Save your $600. The corrections are:

 -0.56084 +.0017885*T + .0013063*T2 for worts from 0 to 5P

 -0.69685 + 0.01367*T + 0.0010621*T2 for worts from 5 to 10P

 -0.77782 + 0.017288*T + 0.0010822*T2 for worts from 10 to 15P

0.87895 + 0.023601*T + 0.0010285*T2 for worts from 15 to 20P

Temperatures (T) are in Centigrade and the corrections are degrees P to 
be added to a reading made on a hydrometer calibrated for 20C read at T. 
I think it's much easier to try to get the temperature close to 20C or 
whatever your hydrometer is calibrated for.

At this point in the discussion I'll bring up one of my favorite 
analogies: the altimeter in an airplane. The connection between what 
that instrument says and the actual altitude is also tenuous. It does 
not read actual altitude. It reads barometric pressure which changes 
from day to day and location to location (the local barometer is 
reported to a pilot approaching an airport or overflying a particular 
region). Furthermore the instrument itself can't be calibrated to much 
better than 200' accuracy. But the object isn't to know exactly how high 
you are. It's to know that you are at the same altitude as someone else 
whose altimeter reads the same (within 200 feet) or more important to 
know that you are not at the same altitude as some one whose altimeter 
reads 1000 feet higher and that you won't whack into the ground in 
instument conditions if you come down to the minimum descent altitude 
(300 feet i.e. the calibration accuracy plus a 100 foot margin). So by a 
combination of calibrations and corrections we have a working system. 
It's much the same with the hydrometer. Follow the protocols of the ASBC 
and we can be pretty confident that your 10P wort is close to my 10P 
wort. Furthermore we know that when the daily drop in apparent extract 
levels off fermentation is complete. And better still with experience we 
learn what sort of a AE profile to expect from a given yeast with a 
given wort and can thus use AE to let us predict the time to completion 
of fermentation. Of course a deviation is also a clear indication of a 
problem.  Final reflection: with all our science (in line DO meters, 
alcohol meters, gas flow meters, sugar spectrum analyzers etc.) AE is 
still the main metric used in the industry to monitor fermentation 
progress and I'll wager that 95% or more of breweries determine AE with 
a hydrometer.

A.J.



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Date: Tue, 06 Dec 2005 18:43:26 -0800
From: "Steve Dale-Johnson" <sdalejohnson at hotmail.com>
Subject: style to brew or brew to style

Randy Pressley wants to fit a style to his brew.  While I prefer to brew to 
a style and judge how well it fits, this one caught my imagination.

<snip>

I brewed an all grain Saturday and now I need
someone to help me identify the style.

20 lbs pale malt
1 lb choc malt
2 lb crystal (50L)
3 lbs honey
2 oz Mt Hood Boiling
1 oz Goldings Flavor
1 oz Saaz Aroma
Nottingham yeast

Yield 7 gallons
OG 1.098
FG (to be determined)
<snip>

It starts to read like an english style Red or maybe a light Porter, but 
then I saw the gravity.
I vote for a blend between a Porter and a roundhouse kick to the head, 
perhaps a "Porterhouse"?  ;)'




Steve Dale-Johnson
Brewing at 1918 miles, 298 degrees Rennerian
Delta (Vancouver), BC, Canada.




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