HOMEBREW Digest #738 Fri 04 October 1991

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


Contents:
  Liverwort (RCARLSON)
  siphon tube end caps (dave ballard)
  bottle caps from hell (dave ballard)
  Odd Cola... (Greg Roody - dtn 237-7122  03-Oct-1991 0927)
  re: Geary's (Tim Ness)
  GMcD,Geary (Russ Gelinas)
  Re: A call for recipes  (Chris Shenton)
  re: Express bottle washing (Darryl Richman)
  Munich Beer Recipe (Brian Bliss)
  re: request for homebrew mailings (Darryl Richman)
  Re:  Homebrew Digest #737 (October 03, 1991) (A.D. Williams)
  weizen experiment results (Marty Albini)
  Hop ecstasy. ("DRCV06::GRAHAM")
  Re:  Express bottle washing (Greg Wageman)
  MISC (Jack Schmidling)
  High Fermentation Temps (Steve Carter)
  Samuel Adams' Boston Ale (Brian Smithey)
  cleaning blow-off tube (Bryan Gros)

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---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 3 Oct 91 01:27 PDT From: RCARLSON at MAX.U.WASHINGTON.EDU Subject: Liverwort Last week I brewed a scotch ale. At the end of the sparge I had collected 9 gallons at SG = 1.050. Although I've used the same boiler for five years (a keg with water heater element welded inside), on this day the wort smoked and burned as it boiled. When my 1.5 hour boil (burn) was over, I opened the tap to drain the wort. Nothing came out. Looking inside, I saw a slab of liver clinging to the side of the boiler. Using my spoon, I found another clogging my tap, and many small specimens as well. Summing up the courage to actually touch this strange and repulsive substance, I found it to be like a wet newspaper, and found it to separate into sheets. Naturally my first reaction was that the brewing Gods had sent down some gremlins to throw the liver of some errant homebrewer (who wouldn't heed their warnings) into my boil. Or perhaps an issue of Zymurgy. But having kept a close watch over my boiler that day, I can't help but wonder if there is a scientific basis for this wierdness. Perhaps excess flour from the first runnings of the sparge which I did NOT recycle combined with the high gravity of the wort to make "wort dumplings" I would like to hear from anyone who has had this experience or has any theories about what caused it. It gives me the willies. I would consider there to be safety in numbers, but if I stand alone, I may just heed the warnings of the brewing gods and hang up my apron. MORE TECHNICAL INFO: At the end of the boil the SG was only 1.060. The heating element had a thick black crust on it. Ron Carlson Return to table of contents
Date: 3 Oct 1991 7:38 EDT From: dab at pyuxe.cc.bellcore.com (dave ballard) Subject: siphon tube end caps Hey now- You know those little red thangs that fit on the end of the sihon tubes? Does anyone know if they come in different sizes? When I racked to my bottling bucket last night, there was total yeast carnage at the bottom of my carboy resulting in more sludge than most superfund sites. I ended up sacrificing about a quarter-inch of brew to avoid sucking up the nasties. A longer end cap would have been helpful as I could have jammed it into the trub as normal without having the opening submerged in slime. later dab ======================================================================= Dave Ballard dab at pyuxe.cc.bellcore.com Return to table of contents
Date: 3 Oct 1991 8:25 EDT From: dab at pyuxe.cc.bellcore.com (dave ballard) Subject: bottle caps from hell Hey now- I had a pretty bad cap experience last night and thought I'd give a word of warning. The caps were over-runs, blue with "Clearly Canadian" printed on them. When I boiled them for sanitation, the rubber lining came off of every single one. At this point I had my beer/sugar in the bottling bucket ready to go, so I was a little peeved. I decided to try again- this time just bringing the water to a boil, turing the heat off, and dumping the caps in. Within like 3 minutes half the caps were peeling. I ended up having to drive to a friend's house to get more. I plan on doing a little minor bitching to the place where I bought them, but in the meantime I figured I'd spread the word to avoid these Canadian caps from hell.... later -dab ======================================================================= Dave Ballard dab at pyuxe.cc.bellcore.com Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 3 Oct 91 06:32:22 PDT From: Greg Roody - dtn 237-7122 03-Oct-1991 0927 <roody at necsc.enet.dec.com> Subject: Odd Cola... Somebody wrote in yesterday about a spruce cola sold in Canada and that made me remember "INCA COLA" which is very popular in Peru and other South American countries. It tastes exactly like Bazooka Bubble gum, only you don't get a comic with it. It's incredibly sweet and sicklingly gummy. They must use xanthum (sp?) gum. But the beer down there was very good............. Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 3 Oct 91 13:28 GMT From: Tim Ness <0003073267 at mcimail.com> Subject: re: Geary's In HBD #737 there is this comment: >IN HBD #736 Jeff Frane asks about Geary's Ale. >Brewed and bottled in Portland, ME. It is by far the best beer I've ever had >from a microbrewery. Of course I haven't had nearly the range of opportunities >that you on the west coast have. I can however recommend staying away from >Wild Goose (from one of the Carolinas I believe). It is interesting that you mention both Geary's and Wild Goose. The man responsible for the recipe development of both brews is Alan Pugsley. Alan is now Brewmaster at the Wild Goose Brewery in Cambridge Md. I believe both breweries have similar equipment and brewing styles also via Alan's participation in the setting up of the breweries. It has been awhile since I have had a fresh Geary's ( I do remember enjoying it however), but I see (taste) no reason why Wild Goose should be recommended to stay away from. I bought a case fresh from Cambridge last weekend and still find it to be one of the most refreshing Microbrewed beers on the East Coast. It has a very HOPPY character but I doubt that should be enough for the bad review. Was the sample you tried bought out of Mid Atlantic region ? Maybe it was just an older bottle. Fresh is the only way to enjoy a brew, that's why we homebrew anyway......Tim Ness Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 3 Oct 1991 9:55:16 -0400 (EDT) From: R_GELINAS at UNHH.UNH.EDU (Russ Gelinas) Subject: GMcD,Geary Thanks, Dan K., for letting me know I'm not out of line in thinking that Gritty McDuff's brew is lousy. Like you, neither my wife nor I could even finish the pale ale (and we'll drink just about anything). I think Mr. Davies would be much happier down the street at $3 Deweys. Geary's Ale, though, is very good. Not as good as Sierra Nevada, but better than most micro-beer I've tasted. In my mailbox at work today: a bottle of Liefman's Kriek, direct from Belgium! Yeehah! Russ Gelinas OPAL/ESP UNH Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 3 Oct 91 10:16:49 EDT From: Chris Shenton <chris at asylum.gsfc.nasa.gov> Subject: Re: A call for recipes On Wed, 02 Oct 91 08:39:16 -0700, night at mapme7.map.tek.com said: Mark> I have noticed that most recipes posted are ones that the homebrewers Mark> have yet to try... This disturbs me. Like brewing a pig-in-a-poke... Mark> Would every homebrewer who has brewed at least 10 batches post the recipe Mark> of their ONE, and only one, FAVORITE batch? Perhaps with the favorite-batch recipes people could say *why* this was a good beer and compare it to commercial examples. Also, how they might tweak it next time and what taste they were targetting -- if any. That way the folks in HBD-land would know more closely what taste they were going to get. Perhaps you could collect and re-post? Or maybe archive them? And are you interested in extract or all-grain recipes, or both? Bis spaeter! Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 3 Oct 91 08:54:48 -0700 From: darryl at ism.isc.com (Darryl Richman) Subject: re: Express bottle washing Nuking bottles *may* be a good idea. But nuking dry bottles is not, as this will burn out your magnetron bulb. If you want to sanitize with the uwave, add an ounce or two of water and then boil the water for several minutes to sanitize by steam heat. Unfortunately, this eliminates the advantage you mentioned of not warming the bottles. I've done this a few times in anticipation of bottling a few from the keg. --Darryl Richman Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 3 Oct 91 11:07:14 CDT From: bliss at csrd.uiuc.edu (Brian Bliss) Subject: Munich Beer Recipe on Barvarian Weizen: Is the Wyeast a Weisse or a Weizen yeast? (I don't have a package around to check) If it is a Weisse yeast, then the beer should be quite sour, and I wouldln't be surprised with an weird smelling fermentation. I have never heard of adding amylaze to already fermenting beer. A friend of mine mentioned it last night, and I thought that one would add it during the mash. How well does it work? (If this Batch has SG < 1, then pretty well) but does anyone else have any practical expreience adding it in the secondary? - -------------------------- Recipes - heres my best so far: Munich Beer: 10 lbs pale alt Malt 5 lbs munich malt .5 lb dextrin malt 1.5 lb amber crystal malt 1 0z gypsum .333 oz burton H2O salts 5.5 g hallertauer 90 min 1.5 oz cascade 60 min .25 oz cascade 30 min .25 cascade 15 min wyeast munich beer yeast the sparge stuck, so i got out a big strainer and sparged individual 1 lb strainerfulls of grain. I let the stuff settle, and it cleared up. After the boil, I had 3 gal 1.077 S.G. wort. fermented 2 months at 40F, added polyclar, racked and dryhopped with 1/4 oz hallertau pellets two days later, moved to room temp a week later, let sit for a week, and bottled. Finished the last bottle the other night. You should get twice as much with a good sparge. The wort really needed to to be dry hopped longer - the pellets never really completely dissolved, and kind of filtered themselves out in the siphon. Serve very cold or very warm. bb P.S. I had tried to post this recipe about a week ago, at 2:20 in the morning. apparrently it got to rob just as the digests were being packaged for morning delivery, because it never would up in the next day's (or the next day's) digest, but the mail I sent 10 minutes earlier did. Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 3 Oct 91 09:20:40 -0700 From: darryl at ism.isc.com (Darryl Richman) Subject: re: request for homebrew mailings mlh at cygnus.ta52.lanl.gov (Michael L. Hall) writes: > I would like to get my name on ANY homebrew related > mailing lists or digests. I am a homebrewer and the > editor of our local homebrew club's newsletter. I'm the (retiring) editor of "The Brews & News", the newsletter of the Maltose Falcons Home Brewing Society (in LA). We run a newsletter exchange program: you send us yours and we'll send you ours. Mail a copy of yours to The Maltose Falcons, 22836 Ventura Blvd. #2, Woodland Hills, CA 91364 and include a note about exchanging newsletters. We exchange with about 50 clubs. There are a surprising number of newsletter editors on this digest. John Polstra of the Brews Brothers (Seattle), Doug Henderson of the Oregon Brew Crew (Portland), Russ Wigglesworth of the San Andreas Malts (San Francisco), I think that Russ Pencin of the Worts of Wisdom (San Jose), Martin Lodahl of the Gold Country Brewers (Sacramento), Dr. John Lenz of the IBUs (Ithaca, NY), and... and... well there must some more. Also, there's a very active homebrew forum on CompuServe, sponsored by the AHA. Costs a bunch to get on and read it, but there's a very large and diverse population and a lot of interesting discussion. (How come nobody has mentioned Anchor's spruce beer here?) I believe that there are discussion groups on Prodigy and Genie, too, but I haven't been on Prodigy in over 2 years, and I've never been on Genie. --Darryl Richman Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 3 Oct 91 12:32:40 -0400 From: adw3345 at ultb.isc.rit.edu (A.D. Williams) Subject: Re: Homebrew Digest #737 (October 03, 1991) Well, last night I opened my first bottle of my first batch of homebrew. The beer had a good head and a nice smell, and was definately alcoholic. However, it had a very strong hops taste and was watery. Also, it was dark and cloudy rather than pale yellow. I used the standard malt-extract single stage fermentation method, which I found to be the simplest to start with. How can I improve this batch? Should I let it age further, or was there something seriously wrong with the way I prepared it? Reading this mailing list, I think it was said that a watery taste is a result of using too much (corn) sugar. Is this true? Thanks for any help, and I enjoy reading this mail group. Y'all are just so wonderful :-). Derrick Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 3 Oct 91 10:13:17 PDT From: Marty Albini <martya at sdd.hp.com> Subject: weizen experiment results A while back, I began the search for the elusive "wheat beer" character after brewing a batch that didn't have much. I decided to isolate variables, and turn the knobs all the way up on the ones under scrutiny. I brewed two batches: a "doppelweizen," 1.090 OG of 100% wheat, very little hops, a pure culture of S. delbruckii (the bavarian weizen yeast) from MeV; then a barleywine (1.090 OG, same hops) which I poured onto the yeast cake in the secondary left over from the first batch. The results were interesting, if not really drinkable. Both finished at around 1.030, indicating that S. delbruckii is not a very attenuative yeast, and proceeded at a leisurely pace, starting slowly and behaving itself well (no blown-out stoppers or foam gysers). Both beers were cloyingly sweet. My guess is that another yeast tossed in after S. delbruckii conks out would get these batches down around 1.010 or lower, and I understand this is the practice in Bavaria. Why not mix the yeasts at pitching time? S. delbruckii, I fear, would start so slowly and compete so poorly that an agressive ale yeast would "eat its lunch," so to speak. I have sworn off the Wyeast mixed-species wheat beer yeast for that reason, as I noticed that very effect when I used it. I've also had excellent wheat beers made with it, so I suspect that the semi-random whims of Father Bacchus and temperature have a lot to do with it. BTW, since MeV is out of business, and Wyeast wants $15 for a bag of S. delbruckii, I may have the only culture of this yeast in SoCal. If anybody wants some, come see me soon! The all-wheat beer had the clove aroma and complex, fruity character I was looking for. It was quite pronounced, in fact, but not unpleasently so. The flavor was just sort of unbalanced, missing something that my untrained tongue can't identify. It also had a soapy aftertaste that I noticed with a couple of other 100% wheat batches I'd tasted, so I think we can safely chalk this up to the malt alone. The barleywine had the same complex flavors the doppelweizen had, but much more subdued. I wouldn't think "wheat beer" if someone handed me a glass without telling me what it was; I'd think "wow, you fermented this much to warm and the yeast must have up and died on you halfway thru." There was such a rich mixture of strong flavors, it's hard to distinguish them, but you wouldn't mistake it for the doppelweizen. No soapy aftertaste, for one thing. So it's not the yeast alone. It's not the grain alone. In fact, it's not the grain and the yeast together either; I think the flavor isn't complete without some barley malt. I guess when I get that figured out I'll start fooling with hops too, but I'm content to get the sweet stuff right for the moment. That yeast cake is now fermenting its third batch (thanks for the tip, Fr. Barleywine!) with a 2:1 mix of wheat and barley malts. When it finishes up, I'm going to pitch some Whitbread and let it eat (after the obligatory tasting and gravity measuring). I'll probably mix my two experiments and do the same, for a kickass wheat beer for the winter. Which will probably be spent somewhere else. As of 10/15/91, I will no longer be employed by HP, and won't have access to this fine publication. So if anybody out there wants to get ahold of me electronically, beter do it soon! It's been fun, I've learned a lot, met some interesting people. Hope to see many of you again. - -- ________________________________________________Marty Albini___________ "To enjoy the flavor of life, take big bites. Moderation is for monks." phone : (619) 592-4177 UUCP : {hplabs|nosc|hpfcla|ucsd}!hp-sdd!martya Internet : martya at sdd.hp.com US mail : Hewlett-Packard Co., 16399 W. Bernardo Drive, San Diego CA 92127-1899 USA Return to table of contents
Date: 3 Oct 91 14:32:00 EDT From: "DRCV06::GRAHAM" <graham%drcv06.decnet at drcvax.af.mil> Subject: Hop ecstasy. A few digests ago a poster observed that he got an extra kick from homebrews, even if they weren't especially high in alcohol. This is easily explained. Nearly every herbal medicine book will tell you that hops are classed as hypnotics. The lupulins are a great barbituate. fHomebrew relaxes you as much because of the hops as for the ethanol. If you want to prove this, make some tea from a few hop pellets, plugs or dried cones. Sweeten it a bit and drink up. You'll probably be asleep in a little while. Hops have been used as a soporific for thousands of years. They work even better if mixed with catnip, valarian and scullcap. Hoppy Oktoberfest, Dan Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 3 Oct 91 11:44:23 PDT From: greg at cemax.com (Greg Wageman) Subject: Re: Express bottle washing Jim Buchman writes: >Is there any reason that microwaving the bottles for a couple minutes at >high power wouldn't do the trick equally well? This would fry the little >nasty contaminants directly and not unduly heat the glass ( I would >imagine). It would be faster than heating /cooling in the dishwasher >or oven, and you wouldn't have to worry about annealing the glass. It's my understanding that microwave energy requires moisture to generate heat (those bi-polar water molecules oscillating in the field, you know). Dry, clean bottles wouldn't have any reason to heat up; the question still remains, would it disrupt the microbes? I don't know. The reason some of us use the dishwasher is that it does the double duty of washing *and* sanitizing in one step. What I do is rinse the bottles thoroughly with hot water immediately after pouring the beer. This removes the yeast cake and prepares the bottle for storage. I then put the rinsed bottles back into the (originally empty) case. When a batch is ready for bottling, I first clean the dishwasher. If yours has a screen for catching large food particles (some do; some grind it up), this must be cleaned first, otherwise you'll be bathing your bottles in the remains of last week's dinner. I usually run the thing through one wash cycle, empty, with a couple of tablespoons chlorine bleach, then allow it to rinse itself. Then I fill it with two cases of bottles, bottom rack first, overflow to the top rack. Repeat the above cycle: 1 wash with bleach, one rinse, this time with a hot dry cycle. (Now admittedly this may be overkill, but the one thing I *hate* is to have a batch ruined by an infection. It helps me not to worry.) I find that if I start this before I begin the rest of the preparations for bottling (sanitizing another carboy for racking, boiling caps, etc.), the bottles have dried and cooled to the point where I can use them straight out of the dishwasher when I'm ready. -Greg Return to table of contents
Date: Wed, 2 Oct 91 23:51 CDT From: arf at ddsw1.mcs.com (Jack Schmidling) Subject: MISC To: Homebrew Digest Fm: Jack Schmidling From: afd at hera.cc.bellcore.com (adietz) Subject: Re: NITROSAMINES (Jack Schmidling) >Dammit Jack - I'm an engineer, not a medical doctor! >What are the physiological effects of nitrosamines and why should I be concerned about this? They turn engineers into feedstock for funeral directors. They are carcinogenic. ......... From: Jeff Frane <70670.2067 at compuserve.com> >To Jack Schmidling: That's Briess, with two "ss". Thanks you. The bags at Baderbrau said "Chilton" on them and spelling isn't obvious over the phone. > Has your "limited research" gotten any farther than the notes I passed along from Great Western Malting? My apology for not crediting you as a source. Other than that, the "research is limited to what was detailed in the article. The insight in crystal malt came from Noonan as mentioned in another article. I have also been told that Great Western sells malt made by other sources and would appreciate any info you have on them to the contrary. >Before anyone goes reeling off to drink Coors (eeagh!) do remember that GW switched to an indirect process a number of years ago. They supply pale malt (primarily Klages) to virtually all the west coast breweries, both mega- and micro-. I *know* they use an indirect process because I've toured their Vancouver plant at least four times, and have a friend who works there. The local brewshop seems to carry only Briess. From: Jeff Frane <70670.2067 at compuserve.com> Subject: Comments in General >On the subject of oxidation and momilies, etc.... >Has Jack Schmidling never tasted oxydized beer? ARF says: As I have never tasted anyone else's hombrew and have been using the roundly condemned procedure all my brewing life, a no answer would prove my case wouldn't it? Well, to be totally objective, I suspect that "off" taste that an occasional batch aquires, just might be what y'all are talking about. The problem was particularly persistant when I was kegging beer. (5 gal of beer in a 7.5 gal keg) It is entirely possible that all my beer was potentially bad but I drank it faster than it could oxidize. The "off" taste I have in mind took a month or more to develop. >If that's the case, I would be happy to let him join us in judging homebrew at the Oregon State Fair next May; I'm sure we'll find him some good--well, bad--examples. I suspect this would be of help to all home brewers. As with pictures, a taste is worth a thousand words. However, even that is misleading. I will give you an example: The guy who criticized my billowing foam guaranteed that it will taste "cidery" because of oxidation. Never having tasted beer that tasted like apple cider, I brought him a bottle of my "off flavor" beer to see if that is what he meant by cider. His comment: "nothing wrong with this beer, could use a little more hops though". I have posted another article ("Plastic") on the beer actually made in the video. ............... You can all ignore the article on "Plastic". Bad science. The last bottle was as yucky as the glass ones. jack Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 3 Oct 91 13:02:09 -0700 From: scarter at qualcomm.com (Steve Carter) Subject: High Fermentation Temps I've been battling the San Diego summer heat for my last two batches, and realized that I don't fully understand the enemy... I understandthat high temperatures during primary fermentation causes overactive yeasties and off flavors, but how about in the secondary, when most of the fermentation is complete? How about during aging in the bottles or keg? On a similar note, how does changing the temperature affect the beer at these different stages. I've heard the conventional wisdom about not taking bottles out of the fridge, warming them, then returning them to the fridge, but is this really a problem? Such antics may become necessary for me soon when I buy a fridge for brewing: if I'm in the middle of lagering, and want to start another batch, I'll need to warm the fridge to 65 degrees for my primary for a few days. Will my lager be angry? What will happen if I'm keeping my finished, drinkable kegs in the fridge and bounce their temp up and down a few times? On the other hand, maybe I should just relax and wait for the winter ;-). Steve Carter Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 3 Oct 91 16:10:27 PDT From: smithey at esosun.css.gov (Brian Smithey) Subject: Samuel Adams' Boston Ale On a trip to Boston a couple of years ago I had some Sam Adam's Boston Ale on tap at a restaurant. At the time I was told that it wasn't bottled, only available in kegs; I even seem to recall that it was brewed in Boston, not in PA, but I could be wrong about that. Anyway, I saw an "article"/ad the other day in "All About Beer" that had a photo of bottled SA Ale. Has anybody seen SA Ale in bottles, particularly out on the West coast? Does anybody know of plans to start shipping this stuff around the country? Thanks, Brian - -- Brian Smithey smithey at esosun.css.gov - uunet!seismo!esosun!smithey Return to table of contents
Date: Thu, 3 Oct 91 16:19:41 PDT From: bgros at sensitivity.berkeley.edu (Bryan Gros) Subject: cleaning blow-off tube i finally filled my carboy up to 5gal or more last time, and sure enough, lots of brown foamy stuff was pushed through the tube and into my mason jar of water. in fact, too much stuff, so i had to clean the wall and floor the first night...mason jars aren't big enough! the question is, now my blow off tube is coated with hard brown stuff on the inside. how do i get this out? or do i need to clean it? In all three batches so far, i have not removed the blow off tube to put an air lock on the carboy; i simply leave the tube on in a jar of sanitized water. seems like the same thing as an airlock to me. but the foam had a week to dry in the tube. surely you people that blow off krausen don't buy a new tube every time?? - Bryan bgros at sensitivity.berkeley.edu p.s. so are there no homebrew clubs in the east bay? or in SF? Return to table of contents
End of HOMEBREW Digest #738, 10/04/91 ************************************* -------
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