HOMEBREW Digest #653 Thu 06 June 1991

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	FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
		Rob Gardner, Digest Coordinator


Contents:
  Thanks and a mead question. ("DRCV06::GRAHAM")
  Yeast repitching/conditioning (John Bates)
  Mashing Crystal and Cara-Pils Malts? (Marc Rouleau)
  Brewpubs in eastern Iowa (Fritz Keinert)
  Re:  Fresh Beer (Chris Shenton)
  Things to do in LA? (John Friedman)
  Re: cream soda in HBD #652 (Jim Grady)
  sunlight and beer (rmm)
  NY, NJ, PA, CT brewclub members??? (Stephen Russell)
  malty ale recipe search (Stephen Russell)
  Fresh Beer and _Under the Influence_ (Chris Carlisle)
  Acid Carboys (Bret Olmsted)
  Really fresh ingredients & alehoof (yes, more questions) (Carl West x4449)
  Correction to "Samuel Adams" posting in Homebrew Digest #652 (Gene Schultz)
  Alternate Beverage massive price increase 
  Beer with real malt taste (David Taylor)
  eugene brewpubs (cwilson)

Send submissions to homebrew%hpfcmi at hplabs.hp.com Send requests to homebrew-request%hpfcmi at hplabs.hp.com [Please do not send me requests for back issues] Archives are available from netlib at mthvax.cs.miami.edu
---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 5 Jun 91 08:27:00 EDT From: "DRCV06::GRAHAM" <graham%drcv06.decnet at drcvax.af.mil> Subject: Thanks and a mead question. Many thanks to those who sent me copies of issue #646. I hope I send on copies to all who asked me to send it to them if I got it. Now, about mead. I'm starting a still mead which will probably require at least a year of aging after bottling. Is it best to bottle this kind of mead with caps, or corks. Since pressure isn't the issue, would corks be better to allow minimal oxygen transfer as in wine or should I use plain old crown caps and seal the mead away from the elements. Thanks for your thoughts, Dan "Beer made with the Derry air." Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 5 Jun 91 09:10:48 MDT From: bates at noaacrd.Colorado.EDU (John Bates) Subject: Yeast repitching/conditioning I know the Forum went around on the subject of repitching yeast a few weeks ago, but I have just had a very interesting experience. We are going through the spring/summer transition here in BOulder, and I decided to try one last lager before switching to ales for the summer. I made a Marzen recipe and used Mev high temperature yeast that I had started. The package was quite old (about a year, I hadn't caught the date at the store or I wouldn't have purchased it) and took about 5 days for the package to swell up. I then started it in about 16 oz a day before brewing, pitched, and had good fermentation in about 24 hours. After a normal fermentation, that batch was kegged, I repitched the yeast into two more different batches, and conditioned the first batch for about 2 weeks. Upon tasting the original batch, something wasn't quite right...not undrinkable, just not all it should be. Well I was supposed to bring this batch to our monthly club meeting...and did with some trepidation. Tasters there agreed it was probably the yeast, but the batch wasn't that off in flavor because the keg was empty by the end of the night. Charlie P. mentioned that they had biologists look at a number of yeast strains and MeV was noted for having some strange critters in the yeast. Now the other two batches from the repitched yeast are ready to drink...and to my joy there is no longer an off yeast taste. Both of these batches are really quite tasty! So IMHO, yeast does improve after repitching once or twice. I know this is also the predominant view of the hard core homebrewers in our club. Regards, John Bates (Norman's evil twin ==> no vacancy...) Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 5 Jun 1991 11:12:21 EDT From: Marc Rouleau <mer6g at fuggles.acc.Virginia.EDU> Subject: Mashing Crystal and Cara-Pils Malts? This question has come up recently, and I've also seen it in the archives, but I've yet to see a really convincing answer one way or another. Dave Miller claims in TCHOHB that you should mash all special malts to extract everything from them. He says that the processes that produce crystal and dextrin malts do not convert all of the starch. Merely steeping them wastes potential extraction and, because of the unconverted starch in the boil, reduces the clarity of the beer. On the other hand, won't mashing convert all those dextrins into simple sugars that yeast like? If so, what happens to the rich mouth feel and sweetness that these malts are intended to produce? I believe that I've had good results mashing crystal and dextrin malts, but I'm new to brewing and would like to hear about this from more experienced brewers. Can anyone confirm (or deny) Miller's view with a technical explanation? Has anyone tried it both ways? -- Marc Rouleau Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 05 Jun 91 10:19:01 CDT From: Fritz Keinert <keinert at iastate.edu> Subject: Brewpubs in eastern Iowa In digest #652, Mark Stroup <ms56+ at andrew.cmu.edu> asked about breweries and brewpubs in eastern Iowa. I only know of one brewpub in all of Iowa; they were only made legal a year or two ago. It is in Iowa City and is called "Fitzpatrick's". I was only there once, but liked it a lot. A second one in Des Moines is supposed to be in the works. There are some more breweries I know of, but they all make typical American beer, in my opinion, anyway. This includes: - A brewery in the Amana Colonies (called "Mill Creek", I think) - The "Dubuque Star" brewery in Dubuque, which is so small that it brews from malt extract; they survive by putting various labels on their beer, so that pubs or restaurants can have their "house brand". - A brewery called "Foecking", which is run entirely by women and aimed at the yuppie drinker. I am not quite sure where that one is; Quad Cities maybe. Anyway, I would recommend Fitzpatrick's, but not much else. Fritz Keinert <keinert at iastate.edu> Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 5 Jun 91 11:17:34 EDT From: Chris Shenton <chris at asylum.gsfc.nasa.gov> Subject: Re: Fresh Beer On Tuesday, 4 Jun 1991 10:40:45 EDT, m14051 at mwvm.mitre.org (John DeCarlo) said: John> I have found that 1 week-old beer brewed with liquid yeast is John> much, much better than the 1 week-old beer I made with dry John> packets. I now regularly drink the beer young and enjoy it and John> remark on the changes that occur as it ages. By ``young'' do you mean ``1 week-old''? After one week, is the beer adequately carbonated? or are you doing more authentic (pronounced ``flat'') English-style ales? What changes did you make to your brewing procedure -- or recipes -- which improved your relatively-young beer? Inquiring minds want to know! As an aside, now that I keg, I find my beer lasts only a fraction of the time it used too -- not that it spoils, but my friends come over and hose it down in under a week! :-( I rarely have time to taste it changing. Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 5 Jun 91 10:31:52 -0600 From: John Friedman <friedman at col.hp.com> Subject: Things to do in LA? I'll be in LA for a week in mid-August for a friend's wedding, and I'm looking for things to do, e.g., bands to see, clubs to check out, brewpubs to drink at, etc... Any help would be truely appreciated! Please reply directly to my email address. Thanks!!! John friedman at col.hp.com Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 5 Jun 91 13:04:22 EDT From: Jim Grady <jimg at hpwald.wal.hp.com> Subject: Re: cream soda in HBD #652 I am a recent subscriber so I didn't see the first request but I am also interested in any cream soda recipes from scratch so I would vote for posting any recipes. If anybody is interested, Ihor Slabicky mentioned that: > Canada (at least Montreal and the southern part of Quebec province) has > a soda called 'Cream Soda' or in French 'Soda Mousse'. This is a clear > soda which tastes remarkably like cream (as in dairy cream) and has a > long lasting head (for soda that is). The Canadian cream soda uses as > an ingredient either saponin or quialla (sorry about the spellings) which > is an extract from plants that is used to make soap - I guess just a bit > in the soda makes for the wonderful head you get. Quialla [sic, but I don't know how to spell it either] extract is also in the heading liquids available for homebrewers - to increase the head retention, not to give it one in the first place. I've never used them so I cannot report on how well they work. Has anybody else tried them? Are they yet another foreign object to keep out of my beer? - -- Jim Grady Hewlett-Packard Co. 175 Wyman St. Waltham, MA 02254 Internet: jimg at hpwala.wal.hp.com FAX: (617) 890-5451 Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 5 Jun 91 13:50:46 EDT From: rmm at apollo.hp.com Subject: sunlight and beer I have a question... When does sunlight stop threatening beer? (especially homebrew). According to Papazian, strong sunlight can ruin the flavor of beer in a matter of minutes. For this reason, I make sure that my carboys stay out of the sun and I only use brown bottles. I noticed, though, that at least a couple of excellant quality beers like Newcastle brown ale, and Sam Smith's Oatmeal Stout come in clear bottles. I would guess that these people know what they're doing, and that they put their beer in clear bottles because it is not at risk. Can someone shed a little more light (ow, that hurt :-) on this for me? Thanks. -ralph rmm at apollo.hp.com ( do I need a disclaimer for such a wimpy question? ) Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 4 Jun 91 16:31:23 EDT From: srussell at snoopy.msc.cornell.edu (Stephen Russell) Subject: NY, NJ, PA, CT brewclub members??? Greetings again! Our homebrew club (the Ithaca Brewer's Union) is organizing a trip to Vernon Valley, NJ, the weekend of July 27-28. We will be there for "Germanfest", one of their many summer activities, but of more importance for subscribers to this digest, we will be getting a tour of the Clement Brewing Company (formerly the Vernon Valley Brewing Co.) courtesy of owner James Clement. The brewery is one of the few in the world that uses wooden casks for fermenting. Anyhow, James has said that the tour is open to all who are interested. I have been trying to get in touch with regional brewclubs, in NY, NJ, PA, and CT, and would like to hear from you if you are a member of a club in one of these states. However, I also wanted to let others know as well. I figure that we could have an ersatz "conference", simply meaning a friendly get-together or something for all the homebrewers who show up. Well, let me know if you are interested (please e-mail directly). STEVE srussell at snoopy.msc.cornell.edu Return to table of contents
Date: Tue, 4 Jun 91 16:21:20 EDT From: srussell at snoopy.msc.cornell.edu (Stephen Russell) Subject: malty ale recipe search Tried to submit this in the missing #646, but here goes again..... I would like to try and make a malty ale, such as Fuller's ESB. Do any of you have recipes I could use?? One common approach to making a beer maltier, in both aroma and flavor, is to use Munich malt. However, I assume that Brit- ish brewers use British ingredients (pale ale, crystal, amber, chocolate, and black malts, roasted and flaked barley, adjuncts, and various sugars like Demerara and treacle) and therefore, Fuller's would be devoid of German malts like Munich. So I'm curious as to how they achieve it. Maybe the darker sugars come off as malty??? Or maybe using a certain yeast strain? I am perfectly willing to try recipes that contain Munich malt, since one of the neat things about being a homebrewer is the freedom to make German beers out of British ingredients and vice versa. I just wondered how they do it. Extract, partial mash, all-grain, whatever you've got will be gladly accepted. Thanks in advance, STEVE srussell at snoopy.msc.cornell.edu Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 05 Jun 91 14:30:36 CST From: Chris Carlisle <C24884CC at WUVMD.Wustl.Edu> Subject: Fresh Beer and _Under the Influence_ Our cat accidentally unearthed the last of a hidden cache of homebrew that my husband had forgotten about, made two years ago. It was great, but I don't think it had more than about six more months of life. It was almost too smooth! The St. Louis Post Dispatch is running a series on _Under the Influence_ all this week, with an exerpt per day. I've been reading it with great enjoyment. It's interesting to see which of the brewery's legends are false. It was also great to learn of the Busch's Prohibition-era pact with Al Capone, and to realize that what saved them was _not_ their diversification into soda, health beverages, etc. as they claim when you take the tour, but their real estate. They _owned_ a lot of corner saloons here in St. Louis and sold them off to gas stations. Read the book, it's fun! Chris Carlisle C24884cc at wuvmd Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 5 Jun 91 12:24:06 -0700 From: ez005426 at pollux.ucdavis.edu (Bret Olmsted) Subject: Acid Carboys I am searching for a 6.7 gallon acid carboy. I called up Great Fermentations of Marin and he said he can not get them in. He mentioned it had something to do with the war and government auctions in Sacremento. I was wondering if anybody knew of alternative places to buy these carboys. I live in the Bay Area and do not want to travel to far, really I would like to mail order it. My current one broke and I would like to continue brewing. Bret Olmsted InterNet: bsolmsted at ucdavis.edu BitNet: bsolmsted at ucdavis UUCP: ucdavis!bsolmsted GEnie: G.OLMSTED Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 5 Jun 91 12:36:34 EDT From: eisen at kopf.HQ.Ileaf.COM (Carl West x4449) Subject: Really fresh ingredients & alehoof (yes, more questions) Having gotten my hops plants into the ground very late, I don't expect much of a harvest, certainly not enough for more than one batch. I understand that drying is necessary for storage, but is it necessary that I dry the hops before I use them? or can I use them straight off the vine? The weight will be different, but aside from that? While on the subject of very fresh ingredients, what about putting just-germinated barley directly into the mash? crushing it should be fairly easy, it seems that it would squish without busting up the husk much at all. I assume that by skipping the kilning you'd lose some body and flavor, but if you're trying for something light... Anybody ever used alehoof instead of hops? I'm told that that's what is growing all over my yard. Carl Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 5 Jun 91 15:25:26 PDT From: gschultz at cheetah.llnl.gov (Gene Schultz) Subject: Correction to "Samuel Adams" posting in Homebrew Digest #652 Whoever sent e-mail to me inquiring about the possible lack of fermentables in the Samuel Adams taste alike recipe I posted in Homebrew Digest #652 caused me to run down to the local homebrew store over lunch. Guess what-- the Coopers Draught kit is 3.75 lb., not 3.3 lb. There are .45 lb more fermentables than I stated. Sorry. ---Gene Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 5 Jun 91 12:09:04 CST From: < at hpfcla.fc.hp.com, at cdp.igc.org:pals at inland.com> Subject: Alternate Beverage massive price increase I am an extract brewer, and have always purchased my supplies from Alternate Beverage. Generally, I've been happy with them. Up to now, any problems I've had with them relate to their growing pains. Their selection has been good, and prices reasonable. Their extract recipe packages are also very convenient. However, I just called yesterday to place an order for some extract recipes, and their prices have *SKYROCKETED*. Example: Brown Ale recipe, was $17.95 in the fall/winter 1990 catalog, is now $22.95! That's a 27.9% increase!! The person I talked to on the phone blamed this largely on the U.S. dollar-British pound exchange rate, as the malt extracts they buy are British. Sorry, folks - it doesn't wash. Here is a table of the dollar-pound exchange rate over the last year, as quoted in the Wall Street Journal: Date How many U.S. dollars to buy one British Pound May 9, 1990 1.67 Sept. 13, 1990 1.86 Dec. 19, 1990 1.93 Jan. 30, 1991 1.96 March 27, 1991 1.74 April 25, 1991 1.69 June 3, 1991 1.69 So, exchange rates are the same as they were one year ago. Even in January of this year, the pound was only 16% higher than it is now. Besides just to rant and rave, my purpose is to 1) see if anyone has other information as to what prompted this drastic increase, and 2) encourage other Alternate customers to let Alternate know how they feel about this. Randy Pals pals at inland.com Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 6 Jun 91 15:06 EST From: David Taylor <DAVID at phillip.edu.au> Subject: Beer with real malt taste >From: m14051 at mwvm.mitre.org (John DeCarlo) >Subject: Re: Beer with Taste??? >>From: David Taylor <DAVID at phillip.edu.au> >>Our commercial brewers seem to be able to handle cane sugar >>well, producing beer devoid of body and flavour yet with 5% >>alcohol. When I try to make a similar strength brew without >>sugar the malt comes through strongly. So... why don't *you* >>use cane sugar? >I didn't notice a smiley-face here. If I don't want any malt >taste, I drink root beer or lemonade. Why drink beer if it >doesn't have any taste to it? If you haven't had a wheat beer, >you might be surprised at how good it is without much malt >flavor. I didn't phrase my query very well - what I meant was an attack on commercial brewers and praise for homebrew. Homebrewers here in Oz criticize the products of the large commercial brewers as being low in flavour while being high in alcohol. When we try to brew our own all malt beer to 5% v/v alcohol the result is very prominant malt character. It is apparent that the big boys are using cane sugar or other cheap fermentables (brewery watchers have seen the sugar syrup tankers pulling up to the breweries). Labels are not required to list all ingredients so mention 'fine quality malt and hops' etc. I understand that one of the prominent American brands is honest enough to list rice on its label. I am wondering how the commercials can use sugar and produce light but clean tasting, relatively high alcohol beers, when if I use sugar I often get estery cider flavours that cause me to tip the batch out. The major Melbourne brewer is very protective of its yeast strain which came from Carlsberg nearly a century ago and has been maintained and improved over that time. Apparently it is now characterised to ferment the part malt wort under slight pressure so would not be any good under homebrew conditions. The resulting mass market beer is excellent in its *consistency* and clean, slightly grainy, slightly bitter taste, though it doesn't suit most homebrewers who've tasted real malt and hops in a brew. Aussie homebrewers have been mainly influenced by English publications - Dave Line, Winemaker magazine and a few others, who just about all use sugar in their recipes. Hence my comments which were prompted by reading 'The Cat's Meow' - most of the recipes from you lot are all malt. Those that use other sugars include honey, dextrose (which I believe ferments cleanly) or fruit. I love it! There's more variety and sheer INTEREST in TCM than in ten 'Brewing Beers Like Those You Buy'. I'm changing my ways as a result of seeing how American homebrewing has advanced - my sanitizing methods have improved, I'm leaving the sugar on the shelf, and I've been inspired with enough recipe ideas to keep me going a lifetime! So, what I meant to ask was, how did you arrive at the all malt position? What bad experiences have you had with cheap fermentables? Or good ones? John, I didn't say that I drink beer with no malt taste (unless someone else is buying!), as I said, once you've had a real, malty homebrew, there's nothing quite the same! P.S. I didn't get HBD 646 either Watch those boiling kettles! [the above is the opinion of David Taylor] Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 5 Jun 91 22:37:38 -0700 From: cwilson at cs.uoregon.edu Subject: eugene brewpubs Andy Kurtz <ak35+ at andrew.cmu.edu> asks >i'm going to be in Eugene OR next week for a few days and would like to >know the state of beer there -- bars, micros, etc... We have three brewpubs. The first two are part of the MacMenamin (sp?) chain (big in the Portland area). - High Street Brewery & Cafe *Beer Art: They carry a nice range of their own brews. The standard bearers are Crystal (self explanatory) and Terminator (industrial strength stout). Usually one can find about 5 others, including some strange ones: Ruby (raspberry), blueberry, or rose petal. Their beers are pleasant and not at all objectionable. As well, they will have about 10 beers on tap representing other Northwest micros. *Ambiance: An old house festooned with deadhead paraphernalia. Very nice patio in the back with tables under the maples. Great on a hot day (here >70). - East 19th Street Cafe *Beer Art: As above. *Ambiance: Former submarine sandwich joint converted to a merrye olde englande pub by a group of new agers with florescent paint. In the student ghetto next to the track stadium. Our favorite for department meetings Friday afternoon. - Steelhead Brewery *Beer Art: Rather disappointing, but since they're in their start-up phase I should withhold judgement. They carry the usual range - pale, amber, stout, plus a special (bock, etc.). Palatable, but a bit harsh. *Ambiance: Nice decor - woodwork and brick (nearly a fern bar). Fewer students than the other two; more interesting food. Chris Wilson Dept. of Computer and Information Science University of Oregon Return to table of contents
End of HOMEBREW Digest #653, 06/06/91 ************************************* -------
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