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

Contents:
  extract brews, stirring, aging, etc. (Dick Dunn)
  re: cerveza con limon (Jeffrey R. Hagen)
  magic carbouys - do they exist (Jeff Miller)
  general notes and questions (Aaron Fager)
  HD #83 (florianb)
  "Dry" beer (Roger Rose)

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Date: 22 Feb 89 00:22:31 MST (Wed)
From: hplabs!utah-cs!cs.utexas.edu!raven!rcd (Dick Dunn)
Subject: extract brews, stirring, aging, etc.

For the complaint about lack of extract recipes, all I can say is: take
heart.  There are a few people who insist that you can't make good beer
without doing your own mashing.  They're snobs; they're also wrong...and
fortunately, they're also in the tiny minority among homebrewers.  Mashing
gives you more control and a lot more possibilities, but the Holy Grail it
ain't.  For what it's worth, I've been brewing off and on for a decade--
no mashing.  (I've done extract brews and meads.)  I've had a couple of
very successful barley wines made with extracts.

There are various basic recipes for extract beers all over the place, but
beyond that, just experiment!  Play with different combinations of light
and dark malts; add specialty stuff; play with hops and see what that does.
Make your own recipes.  It's really not that hard.
_ _ _ _ _

Regarding T. Andrews' comments on a fermentation which seemed to slow or
not go, then take off after some stirring:
> You did the right thing.  There are tree things which suggest
> themselves as possible reasons for the problem:
> 	(a) you didn't stir the yeast in when pitching
This is not so likely.  Yeast added at the top of a brew will likely find
something to eat somewhere.
> 	(b) you hadn't gotten any oxygen in there before pitching
This can slow things down, and may give you a slight unusual taste, but
won't really stop things.  It's particularly unlikely if you boil only part
of the batch and then add clean tap water to top up, since there's usually
a fair amount of air in tap water unless you boil it.
> 	(c) most likely: the top wasn't on there firmly, and the
> 	CO2 was leaking out around the edge...
A good bet with this type of fermenter.

There's a fourth possibility--and it's something which causes two sorts of
perplexity:  If you boil a small part of the batch (say, less than 1/2),
cool, and mix with water to bring up to volume, it's possible to get a
serious stratification in the fermenter due to SG and temperature
differences.  Unless you actually get the fermentation going well, you
don't get the agitation to stir things up and break the layers.  I've seen
this confound both fermentation and SG readings (which are usually taken
from the top).
_ _ _ _ _

> Light makes beer skunky. Sunlight or artificial, direct or indirect, light
> will have an effect on beer...

True, although incandescent is the least damaging and sunlight the most.
It seems to be the short wavelengths that cause the problem, although I'd
like to see some controlled experiments.
_ _ _ _ _

> ...I am quite surprised that homebrewing books, especially those
> oriented toward novices, don't emphasize the importance of allowing
> your brew to age before drinking.  In fact, many state that homebrews
> need to be drunk young...

and also

> Which brings us to aging. My intermediate-level experience is: let that
> stuff age for at least two months from primary to first taste. Longer is
> better. My brew always improves over time. By the last bottle I usually 
> wish I had let the entire batch sit for four months...

We seem to go 'round this one in both rec.food.drink and the mailing list
every few months.  In fact, although there are a few beer types which
actually improve with age, most don't.  Beer is perishable and best
consumed fresh.

Let me talk about ales in particular, since lagers obviously have some
aging in the brewing process.  After an ale is brewed, fermented, and
bottled (or kegged), the only time it needs is enough to carbonate and
clear.  This is a matter of days.  As soon as it's ready, serve it!!  There
are tastes which are going off from the minute it's done.  If your beer
takes a long time to be "ready" to drink, it means that you're getting rid
of some off taste, since there are other things going downhill (unless you
happen to like stale beer:-).  In this case, you probably need to find out
what you're doing in the brewing that is keeping your beer from being
drinkable young.  I think the homebrew books want to get you to the point
where you can make a beer that you can enjoy while it's still fresh, alive,
and young--something you can rarely do with a commercial beer.  I suggest
(in my eternal optimism) that it is the prospect of fresh beer, and not the
promise of instant gratification, that makes homebrew texts recommend
little aging.  Since most homebrewers start with ales (for simplicity and
better chance of success), there is no reason to age.

I made a beer for a party last year.  I got a late start on it, so it was
served just 16 days after brewing...and it was a very good beer (IMHO!:-).
It was racked at day 4 and bottled at day 8, so it was in bottle for 8
days when it was served!  I have a few bottles left, and I tasted one this
evening as a check.  It is still a good beer after almost a year (it was
brewed 3/2/88), sound, tasty and all, but it's not fresh the way it was at
the party.

There are two possibly offsetting problems:  process and contamination.
You can make mistakes in process which require age to mellow out; you can
get contamination which gets worse with age.  I suggest that most of us
went through a stage of getting rid of contamination, after which our beers
would tolerate aging without some nasty crud growing in them.  But once we
got to where our beers were good enough to *allow* aging, we didn't go back
and fix the things that made them *require* aging.

>...The point is, an IPA I brewed on New Year's
> day was very bitter and still yeasty two or three weeks after
> bottling...

Hmmm..."yeasty" is a wrong term.  Yeast does not impart a taste to beer; if
you have a taste you want to call yeasty, that's just power of suggestion.
There's really something else going on.  As to bitter--and I assume you
mean something other than the proper bitterness of hops since you know what
an IPA is!--the most common cause is extracting tannins from the husks of
specialty grains and malts, which happens if you boil them.  This is also
suggested by the fact that it ages out.  For the benefit of anyone just
tuning in, especially extract brewers:  DON'T BOIL THE GRAINS!!!  Extract
the goodies by steeping well below boiling temperature; add the liquid to
the boil but discard the spent grain.

> My beers seem to get smoother with age and even just plain ales don't
> show any signs of deterioration after many months.  If anything, they
> may get a little drier.  

The slight drying with age is commonly noted.  It is to be expected, and if
you are brewing beers to age (such as barley wines), it is a Good Thing.
It comes from very slow continued fermentation of mostly-non-fermentable
sugars.  If your beers don't deteriorate over a matter of months, that's a
good sign that you've got clean process.

> What is the general consensus on aging?

I don't think there is one...but there are lots of opinions, and mine is
that for ales, you shouldn't need to age.

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Date: Tue, 21 Feb 89 23:25:37 MST
From: hplabs!ames!cmcl2!arizona!modular!hagen (Jeffrey R. Hagen)
Subject: re: cerveza con limon

Sorry, I should have been more explicit.
In Mexico, Corona makes a number of different brews.
The kind that makes American students stupid is 'Victoria' I think.
It comes in 325 ml bottles and is very light. I don't like it much
compared to the other choices.  There are others that I have tried
and liked called 'barril' and 'familiar'.  'familiar' is darker than
the 'barril' and comes in the quart bottles I talked about.

As to these kindly corrections to my Spanish, I looked up the words 
lima and limon in the Spanish dictionary and you folks are
absolutely right. I maintain, however, if you go down to Guaymas
go into a bar and hold up an American style lemon and a Mexican lime, 
the bartender will identify both as limon. 

Jeff Hagen
Modular Mining Systems
Tucson, Az
arizona!modular!hagen

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Date: Wed, 22 Feb 89 8:32:28 CDT
From: Jeff Miller <jmiller at unix.eta.com>
Subject: magic carbouys - do they exist

After blowing up a second glass fermenter with thermal shock I broke down
and went to my homebrew supplier to get a plastic fermenter.  While I was
there he was telling me about a pyrex carbouy that he picked up some years
back.  The question to the net is, has anybody else seen these?  I understand
that they might be VARY expensive but it might be nice to come across one
in a surplus store.

Jeff Miller (jmiller at eta.com) 

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Date: Wed, 22 Feb 89 11:11:45 EDT
From: Aaron Fager <aaron at mthvax.miami.edu>
Subject: general notes and questions

Just some comments after having read the group for a while....

1.  Regarding Pale Ale bitterness:  Here in Coral Gables/South Miami,
the Wine and Brew by You had a pale ale with rice syrup added, giving
extra alcohol content with less bitter aftertaste.  

2.  Regarding the six-month cider experiment:  why six months?  A good
cider can be had in just two days time, and that saves you six months
of waiting.  Were you trying to make apple wine? 8-)

3.  A question for y'all:  Are there any outlets in Poughkeepsie, New
York?  I bought a kit for a friend up there, but he hasn't had much
luck.  I heard that mail order stuff isn't as 'fresh', so I would like
to have him make a good brew.  Any suggestions?

4.  Ditto for Puerto Rico.  I figure that must have something local since
shipping must be costing brewers a mint.  If so, I have someone interested
in a brewing kit.  Should be fun.....

5.  Regarding clarity versus taste:  How much of a difference will there
be if I don't add beverage settler before bottling?  I don't want to
waste a batch in experimentation.  Will it taste like there is powder,
or other non-beer flavors, or will it just be the murkiness in the way 
of a good looking brew?

Thanks much,
Aaron Fager, University of Miami.

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Date: 22 Feb 89 12:26:53 PST (Wed)
From: florianb%tekred.cna.tek.com at RELAY.CS.NET
Subject: HD #83

John Coughlin comments:

[I  store my beer in a refrigerator,  and it always tastes fine.  I guess
that proves once and for all that  the  little  light *does* go out when
you close the 'fridge door  8-).]

Mine tastes fine, too.  However, storing homebrew in the reefer does seem
to increase its vapor pressure.  I put it in, and in a little while, it
disappears.  My wife and I have decided that this may be due to little
people who snag our homebrew and leave moldy leftovers in its place.

Paul Perlemutter inquires:

Paul Perlmutter inquires about draft beer.  I understand that the original
meaning of draft implied keg conditioning, without co2 charging.  Very little
carbonation.  As for M----r beer, the "draft" seems to have a better foam
head retention than ordinary.  It also tastes flatter.  The flavor seems to
be about the same as regular.  As for "dry", I regard it as another in the
endless effort of commercial breweries to try and pawn off their swill as
something special.

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Date: Wed, 22 Feb 89 17:33:06 MST
From: stcvax!rlr at hplabs.HP.COM (Roger Rose)
Subject: "Dry" beer

Paul Perlmutter <paul at hppaul> writes:
> ...
> Also,  what is "dry" beer that the Japanese seem to enjoy?

I looked into this a few weeks back.  "Dry" beer is an idea which
started in Japan.  The process is to lengthen the period that the beer
is fermented, so the last tiny bit of residual sugar (read "body",
"malt character", etc.) ferments out.  What is left is a beer with 1-2%
higher alcohol and no residual sweetness.

The only American Dry beer is Michelob Dry.  Busch varies the process
slightly from the Japanese by starting with less malt, so the end
result contains the same alcohol level as beer.  (After all, in America
"higher-alcohol" is rapidly gaining the same media opinion as leprosy.)

Prior to finding an article describing the process, I tried a
side-by-side tasting of Mich and Mich Dry.  My guess was less malt and
more noticeable hops (probably due to decreased malt).  Basically, Mich
Dry is what might be expected if Busch attempted to brew a beer in the
style of Coors Light.

(I can't say that I would care to buy another six pack, and I'm not even
particularly opposed to Michelob. -- When I'm in the mood for something
light.)

BTW.  I found it interesting that Michelob Dry didn't use twist-off caps.
      Probably goes with the bold new image.  ;-)

-roger

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