HOMEBREW Digest #5471 Thu 18 December 2008
FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
Re: priming ("Greg 'groggy' Lehey")
Re: Priming sugar ("Bill Pierce")
Gruit recipe (Ted Manahan)
One Step vs. Straight-A (Rick) Theiner" <rickdude@tds.net>
Using a coolship to get enough HSA (Matt)
Re: priming (Robert Tower)
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Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2008 15:31:32 +1100
From: "Greg 'groggy' Lehey" <grog at lemis.com>
Subject: Re: priming
On Wednesday, 17 December 2008 at 13:25:36 +0000, Fred Scheer wrote:
> HI All:
>
> I'm preparing a paper for the MBAA on
> priming for Bottle conditioned beers.
> Now, I would like to know how much priming
> sugar, what type is used by Homebrewers,
> Pub Brewers.
> I would appreciate any input.
I used to use 6 g of pure cane sugar for 750 ml. I'm kegging now, but
if I went back, I might back off a little in the quantity.
Greg
- --
Finger grog at Freebsd.org for PGP public key.
See complete headers for address and phone numbers.
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Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2008 09:23:37 -0500
From: "Bill Pierce" <BillPierce at aol.com>
Subject: Re: Priming sugar
In HBD #5470 Fred Scheer asks about homebrew priming. I have been
priming almost all of my beers, even those that are kegged, for
several years now. I believe that the action of the live yeast on
the priming sugar helps to scavenge oxygen from the head space and
serves to retard oxidation and staling of the beer. I measure the
priming sugar by weight based on the volume of the beer and its
original fermentation temperature, using a rather complex formula
originally presented by Michael L. Hall in "Brew by the Numbers" in
the Summer 1995 issue of Zymurgy (I have incorporated the formula
into my brewing spreadsheet):
Priming sugar weight in grams = 15.195 * Volume of beer in US
gallons * (Desired carbonation level in volumes of CO2 - 3.0378 +
(0.050062 * Fermentation temperature of beer in degrees F) -
(0.00026555 * Fermentation temperature of beer in degrees F^2))
The formula is based on the assumption that one molecule of glucose
is fermented by the yeast into two molecules of ethanol and two
molecules of carbon dioxide. It also assumes that the priming sugar
is completely fermentable. It includes the equilibrium volumes of
CO2 already in solution based on the original fermentation
temperature. I stress that measuring priming sugar by weight is
much more accurate than by volume. Thanks to the formula and a
digital scale accurate to the nearest 2 grams, I am able to achieve
precise levels of carbonation in my beers.
I also now use white table sugar (cane or beet) for priming rather
than corn sugar. A couple of years ago I ran out of corn sugar at a
critical time and was forced to improvise. I find no difference in
flavor as far as I can tell. To be strictly accurate, I adjust the
amount of sugar in Hall's formula, which is calculated for corn
sugar.
After some research I found that the extract potential of corn sugar
is 1.042, based on the fact that it is approximately 9 percent
water. The corn sugar used by brewers and bakers is dextrose
monohydrate, that is, with one water molecule bound to each molecule
of glucose. The chemical weight of glucose (C6 H12 O6) is 180 grams
per mole based on the atomic weights, and for water (H2 O) it is 18
grams per mole. Therefore the weight of dextrose monohydrate is 198
(180 + 18) grams per mole, and it is 9.09 percent (18/198) water by
weight.
I confirmed this with an experiment in which I weighed 119.9 grams
of corn sugar with my laboratory balance and added distilled water
at 20 degrees C until the volume was 1 liter (measured to the
nearest 2 ml, the accuracy of the graduated cylinder I was using).
The weight and volume I used are merely scaled from the 1 pound and
1 US gallon used in calculating the extract potential. The measured
specific gravity using my reasonably accurate hydrometer was 1.042.
The extract potential of sucrose is 1.04621, used as a reference
value for gravity and alcohol calculations in brewing. Therefore I
prime with 90.9 percent (42 gravity points divided by 46.21 points),
or 91 percent in round numbers, as much white table sugar by weight
as the corn sugar calculated by the formula.
Brew on!
Bill Pierce
Cellar Door Homebrewery
Burlington, Ontario
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Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2008 09:43:48 -0700
From: Ted Manahan <ted_manahan at hotmail.com>
Subject: Gruit recipe
My gruit recipe is at
http://fossilCreekBrewing.com/Recipies/20080217_Smokey_Walls_Gruit_Ale.html
This is not a "balanced" recipe. It is quite smokey and sweet - just the
way I like it. You can use a couple lapsang souchong tea bags for
additional smoke aroma.
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Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2008 11:24:04 -0600
From: "Eric (Rick) Theiner" <rickdude at tds.net>
Subject: One Step vs. Straight-A
Hi Bill,
I'm the guy that makes One Step and Straight-A and I saw your post,
so I figured I'd shoot you an answer...
Straight-A was developed primarily to clean nasty, grimy beer bottles.
The history is that I was getting bottles from my local beer distributor
who used returnable "bar bottles." They'd sell a case for 4 bucks in
these awesome waxed cardboard cases (some of which I'm still using
18 years later), so it was a deal. The problem was that those bottles
were NAAAASTY!!
I tried B-Brite and was unhappy with it for a number of reasons, but
then it occurred to me, "hey, I'm a chemist who works in cleaners,
why don't I make something better?" Straight-A resulted from that
and it found a pretty good following through the mid to late 90's
primarily through word of mouth. I don't market it as a sanitizer,
although B-Brite was being sold that way at the time (don't know if
it still is) and I put in more peroxide generating material in my
version, so if anyone uses B-Brite for that reason, you can rest
assured that Straight-A has the same content in terms of active
oxygen.
Everyone goes on about PBW, but Straight-A is essentially the same
thing in a cheaper container without the phosphates (I'm still trying
to do the environmentally friendly thing).
One Step was originally intended to be a final rinse type of product.
I cannot legally call it a sanitizer because the cost involved in doing
that (registering with the EPA, etc.) is cost prohibitive for me.
HOWEVER, one of my associates has successfully convinced the
manufacturer of the active ingredient (i.e. the guys that have the
big bucks) to register it as an algeacide/fungicide for use in water
treatment and agricultural use. We have not been able to get them
to do the same for hard surface sanitizing, but this might give you
an idea regarding the capacity of sanitizing for this type of product.
If anyone is interested, they can check out the EPA review document
here--
http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/biopesticides/ingredients/tech_docs/
brad_128860.pdf
Anyway, the point is that I wanted to make One Step a single step
sanitizer to compete with iodophors (Star San was not available then).
It is also a reasonably good cleaner, but the tough stuff is Straight-A.
And a big caveat is that you cannot clean and sanitize the same
surface at the same time. So you should always pre-clean a surface
prior to sanitizing (regardless of the product).
I hope this answers your questions, but feel free to contact me if you
have any more.
Rick Theiner
LOGIC, Inc.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2008 09:37:20 -0800 (PST)
From: Matt <baumssl27 at yahoo.com>
Subject: Using a coolship to get enough HSA
I just came across an abstract of a very old paper:
Briant, L. "[Wort] Coolers - Use and Abuse of."
J. Fed. Inst. Brewing, 1904, 10, 286-289.
The paper is on open wort coolers (coolships) about
which Briant surprisingly notes that "One of the most
important objects of the cooler is to enable the wort
to combine at high temperature (180-190F) with a
suitable quantity of oxygen."
Unfortunately in this abstract he doesn't explain why
the HSA was desired. Any ideas?
Matt
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Date: Thu, 18 Dec 2008 10:42:09 -0800
From: Robert Tower <roberttower at sbcglobal.net>
Subject: Re: priming
Fred Scheer is writing a paper on bottle conditioning for the MBAA and
wants to know how we all do it.
I am a homebrewer and I use sucrose, generally cane sugar but sometimes
beet sugar. I use it at the rate of 5 oz. per 5 gallons of beer (142 g
to 19 L) to get medium carbonation. Every now and then this bothers me
as this amount is rather high compared to conventional homebrew wisdom
which is to add 4 oz. (113 g) to 5 gallons. But in my use, it takes 5
oz. to achieve "normal" carbonation levels. At 5 oz. my beers are not
excessively gassy by any means.
Recently I brewed a mild ale which typically has a low to low-medium
level of carbonation. For this I primed with 4 oz. in 5 gallons and I
got something in the middle of "low-medium". In the past I've
experimented with levels as low as 3 oz. (85 g) per 5 gallons but even
after 4 weeks or more of conditioning at room temperature or higher the
carbonation level was unacceptably low.
When I brew Bavarian-style hefeweizen I bottle it in thick walled 500 mL
bottles (the kind intended for reuse) that I've saved from
German/Russian/Eastern European commercial beers over the years. I prime
at the rate of 7 oz. (198 g) per 5 gallons. The results are aggressively
effervescent but still nothing like champagne levels. If I find myself
running low on thick walled bottles then I lower the priming to 6 oz,
(170 g).
Bob Tower / Los Angeles, CA
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End of HOMEBREW Digest #5471, 12/18/08
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