Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Homebrew Digest #5371 (July 16, 2008)

HOMEBREW Digest #5371 Wed 16 July 2008


FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
Digest Janitor: pbabcock at hbd.org


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Contents:
Treating water for mash and sparge? (Jim D)
Re: HBD Status ("Dave Larsen")
Cleaning a conical, and rough interior question (Calvin Perilloux)
Re: HBD Status (Tim Runnette)


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Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2008 08:15:24 -0500
From: Jim D <goswell at hotmail.com>
Subject: Treating water for mash and sparge?

The water in my area is quite soft so I usually minimally treat the
mash water with some gypsum and small amounts of other salts
to ensure I get a good conversion. My question is, should I be
treating the sparge water the same as my mash water. In the
case of pale ales, I get some nice flavor benefits by increasing
the calcium and sulfate so it makes sense to treat the sparge
water in that case but since conversion is already completed
I'm wondering if I'm doing more harm that good by messing
with the pH during the sparge.


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Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2008 09:11:18 -0700
From: "Dave Larsen" <hunahpu at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: HBD Status

>
> In the event I
> am let go, the HBD will run only for another 6 months as I will be forced
> to use $500 to terminate the current contract with our ISP (exp
> 8/17/2009), and Home Brew Digest, Inc. will be dissolved. This because I
> will no longer have the means to fund the shortfall to the end of the
> current contract, and, without internet connectivity, the corporation
> becomes obviated.

This sort of knocked the wind out of me. It came just as we were
getting a second wind. Let's just hope and pray that our fearless
Janitor keeps his job.

I imagine that it is very hard to keep this thing going. The HBD has
not had a sponsor in a while, and much of the activity, until very
recently, had gone away. If it hadn't been for the recent increase in
activity, I might have said that maybe it is time to retire the old
HBD. A twenty year run is pretty good. With that said though, I hope
it will continue. I had actually gotten excited again about the HBD.

I would hope that if it does get dissolved that somehow the archives
would still be available. There is so much good information
available. It would be a sad to see all that go.

Dave
Tucson, AZ
http://hunahpu.blogspot.com/


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Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2008 11:09:16 -0700 (PDT)
From: Calvin Perilloux <calvinperilloux at yahoo.com>
Subject: Cleaning a conical, and rough interior question

In previous HBD's:
Lance reports on using a stainless steel sheet to remove dried
kraeusen from the conical fermenter walls. Jim Busch adds that
using stainless for this can lead to scratches in the fermenter.

Lance, I'd recommend just a plastic wallboard putty knife.
I use one of those occasionally on my conical to scrape
off the bulk of the dried kraeusen, and it works well.
Anything left behind needs softening with cleaner (in my
case with a toddler running around, the preferred cleaner
that I keep on hand is PBW instead of caustic). And then
follow up with the famed white scrubby.

Question regarding interior finish of stainless conicals:

I notice the the conical, sloped-wall section of my fermenter
is nice, shiny, and smooth inside. However, the cylindrical,
vertical wall is rougher, much rougher. Is this normal, and
is this a potential sanitation problem? If so, is there a
reasonably good way to polish those walls without in the
process adding thousands of minute "polishing scratches"
to the finish?

Calvin Perilloux
Middletown, Maryland, USA

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Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2008 19:01:46 -0500
From: Tim Runnette <trunnette at mac.com>
Subject: Re: HBD Status

Do you have a way to donate via PayPal to help fund the forum?

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End of HOMEBREW Digest #5371, 07/16/08
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