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

Contents:
  Meads (additives) (mhalley)
  Yeast Nutrients & energizer (Donald P Perley)
  green glass (Pete Soper)
  Re: Clever Hack to Mash Grain (dw)
  First Batch wo[rri]es (rogerl)

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Date:       03 Mar 89 12:03 -0330
From: <mhalley%MUN.BITNET at CORNELLC.ccs.cornell.edu>
Subject:    Meads (additives)

Hello again,

I have been reading the mead entries with interest and
happily compiling new knowledge until this last onslaught
prompted a reply.
1!  Any damn-fool mead maker knows better than to BOIL
his/her mixture.  It is maintained at a temperature
well below boiling for a protracted (1-5 hours) period,
which, in the cases of either metheglyns or melomels
aids in mingling the various essences of the ingredients
as well as in sterilizing.
2!  I have been making meads, some of which have taken
prizes at competitions, for ten or fifteen years, and I
have never found it necessary to add nutrient to my brew.
Let it be known now, also, that I dislike "sweet" meads,
considering them useful only for sundae syrups, and that
I also find "small" meads without character.  I do not
consider that my brews warrant the cognomen "great",
nonetheless.  I do add acid and tannin IN NATURAL FORMS,
(i.e., citrus fruit and strong tea).  It is worth noting
that discarding the inner rind and pith of the citrus
fruit, while using the zest, juice, and fruit pulp,
minimizes unpleasant bitternesses.  I use one orange and
one cup of double-strength tea for a 1-2 gallon batch,
more accordingly for larger.
3!  Perhaps this book suggests a need for nutrient because
it uses wine yeast.  It is a proven fact that bread yeast
works better on meads than "brewer's" yeasts.  The use of
bread yeast also makes for HEAVY sediment and a real NEED
for aging, however, the aging need not be as long as the
two years stipulated previously.  A four-month minimum is
sufficient, although the products tend to continue to
improve significantly up to about 18 months.
4!  I DID agree with one remark, the one concerning multiple
racking.  Not only is this desirable for taste purposes,
once you get good at it, you can produce a product of
crystal clarity without finings of any sort.  The closest
I come to fining is adding about an ounce of good clear
WATER to the top of each bottle on my final rack.
5!  For comparison purposes, and for those who wish to know
exactly what I consider to be "sweet" or "dry" -- my
melomels tend to be dryer than unfermented apple juice, but
sweeter than commercial ciders, such as Strongbow.  My meads
and metheglyns fall into a sort of "light white" category.
The very sweetest of them compares favourably with a Moselle,
and most are considerably dryer, although I've never quite
achieved a true "sec."  It probably needs more astringency,
which would, in my opinion, destroy some of the "meadish"
character.

For what it's worth, did my comment on yeast and flavour
ever get through to the network?  I never saw it in the
output.

By the way, regarding the question on brewing books and
considering my first interchanges on this hotline, I'm
really dying to COUNT how many people are going to leap
into the breech and tell the lad "Charlie Papazian|"

Further info -- I STILL haven't been abl;e to lay my hands
on a copy.  Can anyone contact me personally about maybe
sending me one and me reimbursing them?

I'M ON MY LAST CORRECTIONS ON MY THESIS|||  WHEEEEE|||||

Cheers to all,
-Ye Olde Batte (MHALLEY at MUN.CA)

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Date: Fri, 3 Mar 89 09:14:02 EST
From: Donald P Perley <steinmetz!trub!perley at uunet.UU.NET>
Subject: Yeast Nutrients & energizer

>  Am I right, or should I use this 'magic
>powder' in beer?  Will increased nutrients decrease the initial lag time
>of the ferment?

Malt should have everything yeast needs in the way of nutrients.  It may
help if you are into low malt, high sugar recipies.  I use it for starting
yeast if I am using sugar water instead of cooled wort, but I don't
try to dose the whole batch.

Some fruit wines are deficient in nutrients (mostly nitrogen) and need
a boost.  One example is cider made from wild apples which sometimes has
trouble fermenting completely (trees in orchards have generally seen some
kind of plant food, so the juice has more nitrogen).

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Date: Fri, 3 Mar 89 10:56:29 est
From: Pete Soper <soper at maxzilla.encore.com>
Subject: green glass

It was a cloudless day here (in North Carolina) yesterday, so I put
a brown and a green bottle of ale out in the sun at noon. Temp of
beer and outdoors were both close to 60 degrees. I left them out
for 30 minutes, then put them inside with a third bottle that had
only seen the inside of a dark room since bottling. After work I
compared the three. There was a small but noticeable change to the
flavor of the "green bottle" beer, but I could not detect a difference
between the "brown bottle" beer and the control. The difference  came
across as a dulling of the distinct flavors that were present in the
unaffected samples. I couldn't detect any difference in aroma.

I decided on 30 minutes rather than the "20 minutes to destruction"
figure I'd read somewhere to assure definite results. Now I wish it
had been 60 minutes to perhaps make a noticeable difference in the
brown bottle sample and accentuate the changes to the green bottle
sample. Obviously, it would have been worthwhile to use more than
one bottle of each color, clear bottles to sample the extreme
case, etc. But on the basis of this trivial experiment I'm convinced
I can go back to a relaxed state and not fear that my green bottle
beer would be ruined by a few moments exposure to sunlight.

Pete Soper, Encore Computer Corp, 901 Kildaire Farm Rd., bldg D
Cary, North Carolina  27511     USA      phone   1 919 481 3730
arpa: soper at encore.com (129.91.1.14)
uucp: {talcott,linus,bu-cs,bellcore,decvax,necntc}!encore!soper

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Date: 3 Mar 89 14:59:22 EST (Friday)
From: dw <Wegeng.Henr at Xerox.COM>
Subject: Re: Clever Hack to Mash Grain

Mashing small amounts og grain in the oven (rather than on the stove) is
described in detail in "Brewing Quality Beers" by Byron Burch. I've used
this technique several times for mash/extract brews, with good sucess.

/Don

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Date: Fri, 3 Mar 89 15:00:01 EST
From: rogerl at Think.COM
Subject: First Batch wo[rri]es

   Date: Fri, 3 Mar 89 03:00:04 est
   From: Michael L. Farkas <Farkas at GODZILLA.SCH.Symbolics.COM>
   Subject: First batch woes... 
   
>All looked like it was going well.  I used liquid yeast and got nice
>fermentation in about 15 hours after pitching.  I decided to do a two
>stage fermentation.  This is where my possible problem begins.
Not likely.

>A week later later, when the violent fermentation was apparently
>done, I racked into a second carboy and attached an "S" shapped
>fermentation lock like I used to use when I made wine.
This may be were the rub might be.  If you are going to do a two stage
fermentation process, the brew should have been transferred when the
S.P. reached the half way point toward your expected ending S.P..  Not
necessarily until "when the violent fermentation" is finished.  Sounds
like you've done a single stage ferment process, with very good sucess.

>The reason for using this lock was because i find it easier to detect
>small abounts of escaping CO2.  A day had passed and no indication of
>escaping gas was present.  I even gave the carboy a little shake, and
>nothing!  I then checked the SG and found that it was approaching 1.0.
That means the brew was ready to be bottled.  Typically single stage
fermentations only take 5 to 8 days.  In fact, if memory serves me
well, single stage processes should not go for more than 10 days max. 

>Realizing the importance of the protective CO2 layer, I panicked and
>bottled!
Above all, remember: Don't Panic and always carry your towel.  Oophs,
wrong saying, but still appropriate, I should have said: Relax, Don't
Worry, and Have a Homebrew.

>  8-O Throughout the process, the temperature has been right
>around 60 to 65 degrees F.  It's been about 5 days now and the beer
>(Irish Ale) seems to have cleared real well.  From what I have read
>and been told this should have taken between two and three weeks
>before bottling.
Sounds like you've got a really nice Ale on your hands.  The reason
why it cleared so fast was the time it spent in the carboy allowed the
particlate matter in the Ale to settle out faster.  Therefore less
time is needed for the bottle to clear.  Ales in general, I have to
agree with other respondents to this forum, is best drunk fresh.  ANd
it sounds like you got a good'n on your hands.

>Did I rush?
Maybe, yes and maybe no.  If you wanted to do a two stage process you
may have let things go too long in the primary.  If you are not as
concerned about what process you used most likely, no.  Ales of type
you are making, here's where I'm making some rask assumptions, are
typically made using a single stage ferment process.  Therefore, yes
you didn't do a two stage process, but does it matter?

>Am I going to have sick beer?
Again, most likely not.  I've not heard of a brew with influenza.
I've seen some contaminated beers, but I don't call that sick, that's
just bad.  

The reason you want the microbeasties to do their thing more slowly is
that the slower the conversion takes place the more character you will
get.  Type of yeast is very important, but just as important is to
control the speed at which these critters take to convert the sugars
to CO2 and alcohol.  Try this recipe again and slow the conversion
speed and taste the two side by side.  It's an interesting test.
above all remember:
Relax,
Don't Worry,
Have A Homebrew!

RDWHAH!
Roger Locniskar

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