HOMEBREW Digest #5061 Mon 18 September 2006


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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
  New to brewing and currently making some mead (need some answers) ("Michael Kolaghassi")
  Re: yeast settling and crash cooling ("steve.alexander")
  RE:  An essay on homebrewing (Bill Tobler)
  Homebrewing Economics ("A.J deLange")
  Beers for Women ("Alexandre Enkerli")
  Old Hops a Problem? ("Dave and Joan King")

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---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2006 05:54:11 +0000 From: "Michael Kolaghassi" <kolaghassi89 at hotmail.com> Subject: New to brewing and currently making some mead (need some answers) Hey everyone Im new to this list and brewing. Well I'm makin a one gallon batch of Joe's Ancient Orange Mead right now, and it's hiding in my computer desk drawer, haha. I have a question regarding foam. I used baker's yeast like the recipe said (fleischmann's highly active rapid rise to be exact) and after I mixed it with the must I woke up the next day to find that it had ALOT of an orangish thick foam and it got into my airlock turning the water yellowish, spurting out some drops. I dumped some liquid out of the gallon carboy and fitted the rubber stopper with a piece of siphoning tube leading into a jug filled with water so if it foams up itll go in there. It still foamed again but it didnt go into the tube, instead it stopped a little before the end of the jug but it blocked my view of what was goin on inside, so I opened the jug and poured some water down the neck so it ran down the sides to clear off all the crap...is all this stuff normal??? OH and how long will it take before I can drink it (I really don't mind aging right now, this is an experimental first batch)? And what would the approximate ABV be? I used about 3.5lbs of honey...and I dont have a hydrometer/ whatever-thing. I really appreciate any answers, Michael Kolaghassi Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2006 02:06:20 -0400 From: "steve.alexander" <-s at adelphia.net> Subject: Re: yeast settling and crash cooling Matt wrote: > This explanation is not consistent with what I have heard from > commercial brewers [...] When I asked why, their > answers were the same: to get the yeast out. I hear the same > explanation from some American commercial brewers--but as they > generally filter they tend to mention both the yeast AND the haze > aspect. > Haze yes - yeast ... not so simple It is important to perform an extended chill before filtering. This allows the formation of the unstable haze complexes which is filterable in the complexed state, but not warmer. Also the amount of yeast in suspension should be minimized to reduce filtering time& costs. > The contradiction with what Steve has said (or my reading of it, > anyway) is that these brewers seemed to say that *even after > fermentation has stopped*, crash-cooling can cause the yeast to fall > clear sooner. Given Stokes' Law, the only reasonable mechanism for > this would be improved flocculation induced by the cold (which is why > things might be different for inanimate vs. animate objects, by the > way). > No - that really doesn't wash with the facts. Several descriptions in the lit describe the clearing of beer and wine with several "waves" of turbidity dropping successively. The last wave are the individual cells which fall slowest according to Stokes. Just because yeast cell surfaces become "sticky" doesn't mean they instantly find each other and clump into floccs. The beer isn't really clear till the single cells fall, and this takes longer at cold temps. Flocculation prevents or reduces the re-suspension. > So I think there are two possibilities: > > 1. Even after fermentation is over, cold shock can cause yeast to > flocculate more effectively than they already are. It is hard for me > to believe this is not true, at least for some common strains. Possible, but I doubt it. > or > > 2. For these brewers, "fermentation has stopped" doesn't necessarily > mean that every last bit of sugar is gone, but rather that they are > okay with the attenuation as is. Thus, as Steve says they are simply > arresting fermentation prematurely, to induce flocculation. For some > of these breweries (the American ones that are going to filter anyway) > this is easy for me to believe. For De Dolle, Kerkom (who allegedly > primary for 3 weeks), St. Bernardus, et al, I am more skeptical. > Crash cooling & filtering is performed when the beer is a few SG degrees above the finish as a time saving device. The cold (dropping an ale ferment from 20C to 2C for example) both stalls fermentation induces flocculence changes in fermenting cells. In a large CCV the cooling causes a substantial convection - which is exactly the sort of gentle stirring which will assist flocculation. The cold increases CO2 solubility which could help prevent bubble formation that will re-suspend the yeast cake. Also commercial brewers are more aware of and concerned with autolysis - which is greatly retarded in the cooled beer too. You can't get these sort of thermal convection in a small fermenter. It's worth noting that ale yeasts have a much greater tendency to stay attached to daughter cells and generally flocc better than lager yeasts. > I don't know where the truth lies. Right now my interest in this is > really driven by the question of "how do I get the yeast to drop clear > as fast as possible, so I can drink my beer before the (probably > thermo-lactic) infection that has been plaguing me ruins it?" And > going forward, there is a much more desirable solution to that problem. > (See my previous question about boiling water). > The crash-cooling might buy you a little time, but it's no substitute for sanitation. Thermolactic fermentation peak around 40C, but please note that the the lacto-bacterial culture used in Berliner Weiss is thermophilic too, yet the lactic development takes place at cool cellar temps according to the books. The solution to your problem is to re-double your sanitation procedures, not crash-cooling. -S Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2006 05:43:39 -0500 From: Bill Tobler <brewbetter1 at houston.rr.com> Subject: RE: An essay on homebrewing Peter, thanks for clearing that up. I was scratching my head over that post. I read it twice and still couldn't figure it out. Cheers! On Tap: Sweet San Fran (Steam Beer) Big Black Dog (Am. IPA) Kolsch Schwarzbier Conditioning: Octoberfest Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2006 11:49:10 +0000 From: "A.J deLange" <ajdel at cox.net> Subject: Homebrewing Economics For about $120 worth of raw materials (malt, hops, propane) I get 3*120 pints of beer which comes out to $0.33 a pint. This sounds good at first but then someone mentions the NRE. I'm still at the hundreds of $ a pint level and I've got to get that number down. I can't stop either! A.J. Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2006 19:01:02 -0400 From: "Alexandre Enkerli" <enkerli at gmail.com> Subject: Beers for Women Do you have good recipes for beers that most women are likely to enjoy? Kevin Gray posted an exchange we had about beer, culture, and gender. http://kevbrews.blogspot.com/2006/09/craft-brew-culture.html One thing that came up is the lack of recipes for women-friendly beers. Of course, women have as diverse tastes as men but there's a tendency for women not to like the typical American IPA. Wheat and fruit sounds like common ingredients in woman-friendly beers. But there are surely other things to think about. Some people (bartenders, say) have told me that women tend to like the chocolate and coffee character of some porters and stouts. Maybe that's a good approach. If you have brewed a beer which has helped a woman get into beer (and she wasn't into beer before), what did it? - -- Alexandre http://enkerli.wordpress.com/ Return to table of contents
Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2006 19:35:50 -0400 From: "Dave and Joan King" <dking3 at stny.rr.com> Subject: Old Hops a Problem? I'm done picking my hops for this year, in fact, I'm not sure the ones drying now are useable. Many of them have dark brown tips to the individual "pedals." They seem to smell OK. Does anyone think they should not be used? Thanks, Dave King, President of BIER http://www.thebierclub.com/ [396.1, 89.1] Apparent Rennerian Return to table of contents
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