Home Brew Digest: March 2009

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Homebrew Digest #5534 (March 31, 2009)

HOMEBREW Digest #5534 Tue 31 March 2009

FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
Sparge Arms [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED] ("Williams, Rowan")
Re: Scottsdale, AZ brew pubs (zac boak)
StarSan 5.2 ("A.J deLange")

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----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 31 Mar 2009 14:40:56 +1100
From: "Williams, Rowan" <Rowan.Williams at ag.gov.au>
Subject: Sparge Arms [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]

Thanks everyone for taking the time to reply re my question of sparge arms.
There was a lot of good sensible advice in the replies and PM's that I received
so it's great to know that the knowledge is still being shared.

What's also interesting to note is that the days of ordering locally for a
particular sparge arm to, er, phil the mashtun with sparge water are
apparently gone! I asked the usual suppliers and have been advised that
they're no longer getting them in wholesale. Fortunately, the aussie market
forces have had an impact and an aussie supplier has 24cm and 32cm diameter
copper rings in stock, just like the one's you suggested David, complete with the
holes on the upper side of the ring! And freight is nowhere near as nasty...

Cheers,
Rowan

Canberra Brewers Club, Australia
[9588.6, 261.5] AR (statute miles)

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------------------------------

Date: Tue, 31 Mar 2009 06:14:39 -0700 (PDT)
From: zac boak <boakis2000 at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Scottsdale, AZ brew pubs

Hi everyone. I lived in Chandler, AZ for a few years.
Chandler is south of Scottsdale on the 101 freeway by about
15 miles or so if my memory serves me correctly. There are
a few good places to go.
First off there is a brew pub called "Rock
Bottom" right in Scottsdale. Good food and beer.
It is a chain, but not all of them serve the same beers as
they each have their own brew master. You can become a
member of their "Mug Club" for free and then you
receive a 1/2 liter instead of a pint for no extra charge,
and you collect points towards free beer, food, and
merchandise.
Another place that i would recommend is in Tempe. I
think they might even have a location in Scottsdale now, but
i cant remember for sure. Its called "Four
Peaks." They have a good selection of beer, and there
is nothing wrong with the food either. I can recommend
the "Kilt Lifter Scotch Ale"(very tasty) and the
"Hop Knot IPA." Both excellent brews, just
depends on what you are in the mood for.
One last place i would check out is called "San Tan
Brewing Company." They are located in Chandler, so it
may be a little bit of a drive depending in where you are
is Scottsdale. I lived in Chandler and worked in
Scottsdale and the drive never killed me. Back to beer.
They have quality beer and food. Although you may find it
similar to Four Peaks since the man who opened San Tan was
the brew master there.
Hope this helps. They all have web sites that you can
find through google. I put links in the first time I
wrote this not knowing that, that was a "no no."
Slainte
Zac Boak
Gristulin Brewing
Brookfield, WI

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 31 Mar 2009 16:18:30 -0400
From: "A.J deLange" <ajdel at cox.net>
Subject: StarSan 5.2

In yesterday's digest I supposed (as did Calvin) that StarSan 5.2 must
be a phosphate buffer and indeed several websites/catalogues describes
it as "A proprietary blend of food-grade phosphate buffers...". I
also noted in my post of yesterday that phosphate would be a poor
choice of buffer at pH 5.2 because 5.2 is 2 pH units from the second
pK of phosphoric acid and buffering capacity is low if this difference
is greater than 1 unit. I spent some time doing some calculations and
was so surprised at how poor buffering performance of the traditional
phosphate buffer is that I felt I had to experiment to see if my model
(in the spreadsheet I use) was valid. It appears it is. The following
are some results from the calculations. I can do lots more 'gedenken'
experiments in an hour with a spreadsheet than I can real experiments
with a balance, a pH meter and glassware (and I don't have to clean up
afterwards).

At a rate of 11 grams per 5 gallons a traditional phosphate buffer
designed for pH 5.2 will show in increase in pH to 6.11 (shift of
0.91) in water, not mash, in response to a challenge of 40 mg/L
bicarbonate (this corresponds to an alkalinity of 34 ppm as CaCO3 in a
pH 7 water). The way this might be interpreted in a mash is that if
your water has alkalinity of 80 with effective (calcium plus half
magnesium) hardness of 40*3.5 = 140 then the residual alkalinity would
be 40 mg/L (80 mg/L minus the 40 mg/L acid released when the calcium
reacts with malt phosphate) which the buffer (or another source of
acid) would have to neutralize to get to a pH in the right range. It
certainly would appear that 11 grams/L of a traditional phosphate
buffer isn't going to do this. We'd expect the mash pH to be over 6 in
this example. So perhaps StarSan 5.2 isn't a phosphate buffer. It is
interesting that a citrate buffer of the same strength (4.5 mmol/L)
would hold pH to 5.37 against the same 40 mg/L bicarbonate challenge.
This is to be expected as the difference between 5.2 and the second pK
of citric acid is only 0.43. Another thing which seems a little
strange is the concept of buffering a solution with a phosphate buffer
when the solution itself already contains a lot of one of phosphate
(Calvin mentioned this). I'm not suggesting that Star San in really
citrate as I would expect that to have noticeable flavor effects on
beer made with it. Maybe the word "proprietary" bears significance
which escapes me. I guess the next step is to actually go buy some of
this stuff, hit it with bicarb and see where the pH goes. I'll report
what I find.

A.J.

------------------------------
End of HOMEBREW Digest #5534, 03/31/09
*************************************
-------

Sunday, March 29, 2009

Homebrew Digest #5533 (March 29, 2009)

HOMEBREW Digest #5533 Sun 29 March 2009

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

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TODAY'S HOME BREW DIGEST BROUGHT TO YOU BY:

HBD Server Fund
PO Box 871309
Canton Township, MI 48187-6309

Contents:
sparge arm ("Darrell G. Leavitt")
RE: Sparge Arms ("David Houseman")
Starsan 5.2 ("A.J deLange")
Re: Scottsdale AZ brewpubs? (John Stewart)
Using Five Star 5.2 pH stabilizer with other water treatment (Craig Agnor)
Re: Five Star pH Stabilizer (Calvin Perilloux)

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and Spencer Thomas

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sat, 28 Mar 2009 07:12:54 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Darrell G. Leavitt" <leavitdg at plattsburgh.edu>
Subject: sparge arm

Rowan;
You have most likely considered this, but how much space is under your
false bottom, and could that be a factor in your efficiency? I am not
sure what a B3 is, but I use a Polarware 10 gallon pot, and there is
nearly a gallon under the false bottom. I regularly get around 78%
efficiency, but at times when I drain the bottom, the efficiency goes up
a bit. But then I wonder if it is better to not get all the little crap
that sometimes comes with the last runnings when I do this?

Good morning.
Darrell

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 28 Mar 2009 08:02:59 -0400
From: "David Houseman" <david.houseman at verizon.net>
Subject: RE: Sparge Arms

Rowan,

I did start out using a sparge are, the one from Listermann I believe. But
then came to two realizations. One was that I wanted to keep about an inch
of water on top of the grain bed to (1) maintain uniform flow and (2) float
the entire grain bed. The second was that I wanted to minimize oxidation
and spraying water is certainly more likely to absorb O2 than a simple flow.
So I stopped using a sparge arm in favor of simply placing a perforated
pizza pan on the grain bed and then laying a hose on the and just running
sparge water onto it. The pizza pan with holes keeps the water from
channeling into the grain bed. I keep 1 to 2 inches of water on the grain
bed throughout the sparge. When I new sculpture from MoreBeer it came with
a copper ring that drips sparge water, or recirculated wort, onto the grain
bed in a circular pattern. Again no spraying, but more gently laying the
wort/water onto the bed across the entire top of the bed. So I think you
were on the right track to start with. Maybe instead of aluminum foil, make
a ring to drip onto the grain bed more gently. BTW, put the holes in the
ring on the top, not the bottom and keep it level and the wort/water will be
uniform.

David Houseman

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 28 Mar 2009 11:48:22 -0400
From: "A.J deLange" <ajdel at cox.net>
Subject: Starsan 5.2

Starsan 5.2 is, apparently, a classic phosphate buffer. A bufffer is a
mixture of salts representing different levels of deprotonation of a
polyprotic acid and the acid itself. Phosphoric acid, H3(PO4) is an
example with 3 protons i.e. hydrogen ions to give up. The Law of Mass
Action demands that the ratios of the concentrations of the ions in
the solution be (ideally dilute solution approximation)
r1 = 10^(pH - pK1) for the ratio of monobasic phosphate (H2(PO4)-) to
phosphoric acid (H3(PO4)), r2 = 10^(pH-pK2) for the ratio of dibasic
(H(PO4)--) to monobasic and r3 = 10^ (pH-pK3) for the ratio of
tribasic (PO4)---) to dibasic where the pK's are minus the logs of the
dissociation constants for the three dissociation steps: H3(PO4) ---> H
+ + H2(PO4)- and so on. pK1 = 2.1; pK2 = 7.2 and pK3 = 12.44 for
phosphoric acid. When pH = pK the corresponding r = 1 and the two
species are present in equal concentration. Now if you have x moles/L
phosphoric acid in a solution at a given pH there must be r1*x of
monobasic phosphate, r2*r1*x of dibasic and r3*r2*r1 of tribasic for a
total of P=x*(1 + r1 + r1*r2 + r1*r2*r3). The fraction of the total
which is phosphoric is thus clearly f1 = 1/(1 + r1 + r1*r2 +
r1*r2*r3), the fraction which is monbasic f2 = r1*f1, the fraction
which is dibasic f3 = r2*f2 = r1*r2*f1 and the fraction which is
tribasic f4 = r3*f2 = r1*r2*r3*f1. At pH 5.2 phosphoric acid accounts
for 0.08% of the total (PO4), mononbasic phosphate for 98.93%, dibasic
phosphate for 1% and tribasic phosphate for so little as to be
unappreciable (which is a good thing in this case because if it
weren't it would strip all the calcium out of your water).

To make a buffer at pH 5.2 we would set up the ratios by dissolving
phosphoric acid in sufficient quantity to provide 0.08% of the total
moles of phosphate, monobasic sodium or potassium phosphate in
sufficient quantity to provide 98.93% of the moles of phosphate and
dibasic sodium or potassium phosphate in sufficient quantity to
provide 1 % of the moles of phosphate in distilled water and expect
the pH of the mix to be pretty close to 5.2. In practice we'd probably
skip the phosphoric acid and just use the salts (as I believe 5.2 is a
powder I'm sure there is no acid in it). The total amount of salts
required depends on the required "buffering capacity" i.e. how much
acid or base needs to be absorbed. As mash pH is generally in the 5's
anyway the buffer doesn't have to pull pH very far but if the
alkalinity of the liquor is high more buffer may be needed - it is
acting as a source of protons to reduce pH. A point of interest WRT
this is that the buffering capacity of salt mixtures is highest near
their pKs and worst half way in between them. pH 4.66 is half way
between pK1 and pK2 thus this phosphate buffer (which I'm only
assuming is what it is because that's what it says it is in the
WIlliams catalogue) is working fairly close to the least effective pH
for phosphate. From this point of view citrate, with pK2 = 4.77 might
be a better choice but phosphate is more flavor neutral.

The second part of your question is as to how one does mineral content
adjustments. If one is willing to make a lot of simplifying
assumptions about water chemistry this can be done with a relatively
simple Excel spreadsheet of which there are several out there. In
general you specify the parameters of the available water (you must
have an analysis) in one part of the spreadsheet and amounts of salts
to be added in another. The spreadsheet effectively adds the ions you
add as salts to the ions present in the source water and presents you
with the results which you then compare to the desired ion content
profile. This works well when neither calcium carbonate, sodium
bicarbonate or carbon dioxide are part of your formulation process and
if you do not acidify with lactic, citric, phosphoric etc acids. i.e.
it is fine for gypsum, calcium chloride, sodium chloride additions
and dilutions. To synthesize waters with high temporary hardness it is
usually necessary to add calcium and/or sodium carbonate which
requires addition of acid in some form (carbonic, i.e. carbon dioxide,
is mother nature's and my own preferred form). The simple spreadsheets
ignore this important aspect of brewing water chemistry. I offer my
own spreadsheet at www.wetnewf.org as an example of a spreadsheet
that takes acid/base requirements into account, allows the use of any
acid (not, I hope, that someone would contemplate using, for example,
Prussic acid) for pH adjustment, recognizes that brewing waters are
not "ideally dilute" solutions, considers temperature and will even
design the phosphate buffer of the first part of your question. The
downside is, of course, that it makes more demands on the user than
the simpler spreadsheets. It comes with extensive instructions and you
may want to have a look.

A.J.

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 28 Mar 2009 16:07:16 -0500
From: John Stewart <john at johnstewart.com>
Subject: Re: Scottsdale AZ brewpubs?

> I may be travelling to Scottsdale AZ in May/June this year and was
> hoping somebody may be able to recommend local brewpubs for a
> thirsty traveller!!

I've been to the area a few times. I'd be interested to know the answer, too.

I'm from Madison, WI, and we have a fine assortment of brewers in the
neighborhood. Lake Louie is what I was drinking tonight, their Kiss
the Lips IPA. My favorite IPA, however, is the other side of Lake
Mendota from them (and me), Hopalicious from Ale Asylum. Of course the
Great Dane provides an assortment of decent brews in 4 locations in
town, too (and sponsors the ultimate frisbee league in Madison - 2
free pitchers per team after every game!).

Anyway, I visited Tempe, AZ for work last year and I was sorely
disappointed with the local brew selections at dinnertime. Fat Tire if
I was lucky. Often not.

I complained to a colleague, who lives in the valley (a vast, vast
valley of suburbia). He said "oh, no, we've got a great local brew
pub."

On my last night there, we went, and I had the sampler of their beer.
I admit, it wasn't terrible... but only a minority of beers were
anything above "okay".

I don't remember the name of the brew pub, but I'll tell you what I do
remember: On my layover in the Minneapolis airport, as I was humping
my bag from one end of the airport to the other, covered in sweat
trying to make my connection, I whizzed by... the same brew pub.

Like everything else in the Valley of the Phoenix, it was a chain.

Good luck and let me know. I have to go back next weekend.

johnS

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 29 Mar 2009 16:08:03 +0100
From: Craig Agnor <cragnor at gmail.com>
Subject: Using Five Star 5.2 pH stabilizer with other water treatment

Hello,

I'm an all grain homebrewer of many years that has recently moved to an area
with high alkalinity water (see below for the report) and have a question
about using Five Star 5.2 in conjunction with other water treatments.

I've recently started using Five Star 5.2 product and been immediately
impressed with how it locks in the pH and has raised my efficiency.

However, I've found the bitterness in my time tested IPA recipe to be quite
harsh, when brewed at the new house (and with the new water supply).
I suspect that this has nothing to do with using 5.2 and in doing some
reading, the homebrewing literature (Daniels, Palmer) suggests that high
alkalinity water can lead to a harshness in beers with a lot of hop flavor
and bitterness.

Other literature suggests adding various water salts (epsom salts, gypsum,
table salt) to the dry grains, both to adjust the residual alkalinity and to
achieve a desired flavor balance in the beer (Palmer). So, it appears that
I may need to do additional water treatment to improve the quality of the
beers I'm making with this water supply.

Finally, my question. If I've decided to adjust my water using a
combination of water salts and carbonate reduction (either by acid addition
or adding distilled water) when and how should 5.2 be added? Note that most
literature I've found on adding salts suggest adding the dry salts to the
dry grain, then mixing the water for mashing into the grain/water salts.

Any suggestions or advice on how to use 5.2 in conjunction with more
conventional water treatment/adjustment would be appreciated.

Thanks for your help.

Best,
Craig
Loughton, Essex, UK

PS Here's my water profile.

Water for IG10 4BS 23/01/2009

Cations: mean (min - max)

Chloride (Cl): 55.3 mg/l (51 - 61)
Alkalinity CaCO3: 212 mg/l (200 - 229)
Alkalinity HCO3: 258.5 mg/l (244 - 279)
Hardness CaCO3: 285.8 mg/l (281 - 290)
Sulphate (SO4): 55.2 (53.1 - 58.2)

Anions:

Calcium (Ca): 106.9 mg/l (102 - 111)
Magnesium (Mg): 5.4 mg/l (5.0 - 5.9)
Sodium (Na): 36.3 mg/l (34.3 - 40.9)

pH: 7.8 (7.5 - 8.2)

PPS I sent a similar inquiry to Five Star a week or so ago, but have not
heard back from them yet.

PPPS In the UK, there is a nice product available for reducing carbonate in
the brewing water from Brupaks. I believe it is a mixture of acids that
reduces bicarbonate while not throwing the water profile off terribly with
other ions. See the link below for more details (not sure if this is also
available in the states).
http://www.brupaks.com/water%20treatment.htm

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 29 Mar 2009 10:36:52 -0700 (PDT)
From: Calvin Perilloux <calvinperilloux at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Five Star pH Stabilizer

My educated guess is that 5.2 Stabilizer is a phosphate buffer,
perhaps a specific mix of food grade (mono- and di-) sodium
and/or potassium phosphates. I see that A.J has a post pending,
and he probably has better information from memory than I can
do with an hour of research, perhaps including exactly how the
pK values of phosphate affect the mix of the salts in 5.2.

Now when you hear phosphate buffers, you might, if you're
not chemistry-literate, worry about "chemicals" in your beer,
but phosphates are common food additives and are actually
already present in food and needed for nutrition. (Malt
itself is about 1% phosphate.)

A tablespoon of 5.2 Stabilizer weighs 11 grams by my scale;
that's enough for a 5 gallon mix, as specified by Five Star
(the vendor). That's very roughly 0.6 grams of product per
liter of beer. I'll let someone else do the chemistry and
subsequent simple arithmetic to estimate the phosphorous
content, but a quick back-of-the-envelope calculations shows
it would be well within current dietary norms for phosphorous.
(Unless you drink several liters per day, every day, and then
you're obviously have total disregard for dietary norms anyway.)

There's a reasonably good book called "Phosphates in Food"
that shows some relevant information about phosphates, but
I don't have the $380+ for my own copy, so I can only read
snippets. Google can help a lot, though, if you want to
pursue this further and are of a technical bent.

Given enough research, you could probably in the end be able
to make your own buffer salts that are customised for your
own water and desired pH, so that you use only enough buffer
to prevent pH drift, and no more. Me, I find it easier to
just spend a few pennies and dump in the recommended tablespoon
of 5.2 Stabilizer if I feel concerned about mash pH.

Calvin Perilloux
Middletown, Maryland, USA

------------------------------
End of HOMEBREW Digest #5533, 03/29/09
*************************************
-------

Friday, March 27, 2009

Homebrew Digest #5532 (March 27, 2009)

HOMEBREW Digest #5532 Fri 27 March 2009

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

***************************************************************
TODAY'S HOME BREW DIGEST BROUGHT TO YOU BY:

HBD Server Fund
PO Box 871309
Canton Township, MI 48187-6309

Contents:
Scottsdale AZ brewpubs? [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED] ("Williams, Rowan")
Sparge Arms [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED] ("Williams, Rowan")
Five Star pH Stabilizer (Jeff Hewit)

As always, donors and donations are publicly acknowledged
and accounted for on the HBD web page. THank you

Send articles for __publication_only__ to post@hbd.org

If your e-mail account is being deleted, please unsubscribe first!!

HAVING TROUBLE posting, subscribing or unsusubscribing? See the HBD FAQ at
http://hbd.org.

LOOKING TO BUY OR SELL USED EQUIPMENT? Please do not post about it here. Go
instead to http://homebrewfleamarket.com and post a free ad there.

More information is available by sending the word "info" to
req@hbd.org or read the HBD FAQ at http://hbd.org.

JANITORs on duty: Pat Babcock (pbabcock at hbd dot org), Jason Henning,
and Spencer Thomas

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Thu, 26 Mar 2009 16:56:23 +1100
From: "Williams, Rowan" <Rowan.Williams at ag.gov.au>
Subject: Scottsdale AZ brewpubs? [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]

Hi Folks,
I may be travelling to Scottsdale AZ in May/June this year and was hoping somebody may be able to recommend local brewpubs for a thirsty traveller!!

Cheers,
Rowan

Canberra Brewers Club, Australia
[9588.6, 261.5] AR (statute miles)

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 27 Mar 2009 13:33:15 +1100
From: "Williams, Rowan" <Rowan.Williams at ag.gov.au>
Subject: Sparge Arms [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]

Hi all,
I'm planning on picking up a sparge arm for my 10 Gal Rubbermaid Cooler, under the flimsy excuse that it's my birthday soon!

So, I would like to know from those of you who use sparge arms whether I should ensure that an inch or so of sparge water sits over the grainbed during the sparge or does it make no difference if I gently sprinkle the sparge water over an exposed grainbed?

I've been batch sparging for I don't know how many years and I rarely get better than 75 percent extraction efficiency - I want to do better than that and besides, I've tried all sorts of methods to improve the flow of the sparge liquor including aluminum foil with fork holes in it to holed plastic plates to doing a jig during the sparge - all to no avail. I've tweaked the water chemistry and messed around with my mill and I still get a consistently mediocre extraction efficiency. I get clear steady runoff through the stainless false bottom from B3 so I can't blame the mashtun itself.

So, any tips on using a sparge arm during the fly sparge would be appreciated. And please, don't bother telling me that I don't need one - I've had a gutful of inefficient batch sparging and I want to see how things go, on the fly!

Cheers,
Rowan Williams
Canberra Brewers Club, Australia

[9588.6, 261.5] AR (statute miles)

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 27 Mar 2009 20:32:00 -0400
From: Jeff Hewit <bippoj at gmail.com>
Subject: Five Star pH Stabilizer

I have been reading some great things about Five Star's pH Stabilizer.
Seems like a magic bullet that will adjust any water to 5.2. However, I
haven't been able to determine -

1 - How does it work? (I did take Freshman Chemistry, but that was in
1968, and I've forgotten a lot)

2 - How do I modify the addition of gypsum, Epsom salts, etc. to get the
water profile I am looking for? Do I really need to add anything at all?

Thanks for any feedback.

Brew On!

------------------------------
End of HOMEBREW Digest #5532, 03/27/09
*************************************
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Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Homebrew Digest #5531 (March 25, 2009)

HOMEBREW Digest #5531 Wed 25 March 2009

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

***************************************************************
TODAY'S HOME BREW DIGEST BROUGHT TO YOU BY:

HBD Server Fund
PO Box 871309
Canton Township, MI 48187-6309

Contents:
Kolsch ("Darrell G. Leavitt")
Diesel's Brewing Spreadsheet ("Diesel's Brewing Spreadsheet")

As always, donors and donations are publicly acknowledged
and accounted for on the HBD web page. THank you

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and Spencer Thomas

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Wed, 25 Mar 2009 06:58:17 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Darrell G. Leavitt" <leavitdg at plattsburgh.edu>
Subject: Kolsch

Rowan;
Thankyou for the response, and I will search to see what others have done
for the Kolsch style. I had received a couple of other responses, both
suggesting that I drop the Vienna malt in that this would make the final
product too malty for the style. I have brewed it already, but in the
next few times using this yeast (I re-use 3-5 times) I will experiment
with using no Vienna (nor Munich) then I will put it back in and see what
the differences are.
Greetings to brewers down under!

Darrell
Plattsburgh,NY 44 42 32 N Latitude
73 24 16 W Longitude

[544.9 miles, 68.9]Apparent Rennerian

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 25 Mar 2009 23:07:38 -0400
From: "Diesel's Brewing Spreadsheet" <spreadsheet at dieseldrafts.com>
Subject: Diesel's Brewing Spreadsheet

The brewing spreadsheet that I've been building for quite some time is now
available for public download and use.

See the link below for an overview of the feature set and a link to the
guide & download page.

http://dieseldrafts.com/journal/2009/03/diesels-brewing-spreadsheet/

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End of HOMEBREW Digest #5531, 03/25/09
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Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Homebrew Digest #5530 (March 24, 2009)

HOMEBREW Digest #5530 Tue 24 March 2009

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

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TODAY'S HOME BREW DIGEST BROUGHT TO YOU BY:

HBD Server Fund
PO Box 871309
Canton Township, MI 48187-6309

Contents:
Re: Kolsch [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED] ("Williams, Rowan")

As always, donors and donations are publicly acknowledged
and accounted for on the HBD web page. THank you

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JANITORs on duty: Pat Babcock (pbabcock at hbd dot org), Jason Henning,
and Spencer Thomas

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Wed, 25 Mar 2009 10:12:02 +1100
From: "Williams, Rowan" <Rowan.Williams at ag.gov.au>
Subject: Re: Kolsch [SEC=UNCLASSIFIED]

G'day Darrell,
Regarding Kolschbier, I kept a lot of the old HBD content on making this wonderful beer, so a search is worth doing if you haven't already done so. I have a keg and 4 bottles of a kolsch that I made with Weyermann Pils, Munich I and Tettnanger hops. It turned out really well IMO.

I used US-05 to ferment this beer and it turned out crisp and very fresh - highly recommended if you find it hard to get your hands on German Ale yeast or prefer the relative simplicity of using commonly available dry yeast.

Cheers,
Rowan
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------------------------------
End of HOMEBREW Digest #5530, 03/24/09
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Monday, March 23, 2009

Homebrew Digest #5529 (March 23, 2009)

HOMEBREW Digest #5529 Mon 23 March 2009

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

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TODAY'S HOME BREW DIGEST BROUGHT TO YOU BY:

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PO Box 871309
Canton Township, MI 48187-6309

Contents:
O2 diffusion (mabrooks)
Re: stir plate oxygen limit (Fred L Johnson)

As always, donors and donations are publicly acknowledged
and accounted for on the HBD web page. THank you

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JANITORs on duty: Pat Babcock (pbabcock at hbd dot org), Jason Henning,
and Spencer Thomas

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Mon, 23 Mar 2009 09:31:52 -0400
From: mabrooks at vt.edu
Subject: O2 diffusion

When it comes to "oxygenation" of most liquids, there are numerous way to go
about it. The simplest way to get to O2 saturation level in a room temperature
yeast starter, assuming you have a stir plate and proper size container (large
surface/vol area) and proper size stir bar, is to simply cover the flask
loosely with foil and turn on the stir plate. The O2 transfer from air will
work wonderfully and you can assume saturation levels will be maintained fairly
well. Diffusion and transfer laws will provide all the exchange needed for this
task. I really cant see the need to go through the trouble of putting in an air
diffuser stone and using a stir plate unless for some reason the yeast O2 demand
was
really excessive? or if the container was "sealed" tight, which I don't see the
need for? If the starter is at fermentation temps the issue is even
less of a concern as O2 has a higher sat level at lower temps.

Typical situations which would necessitate the use of a diffuser stone, is if
you have a
very large yeast starter (> 3 gallons) and the surface area (volume exposed to
air) is very small and the yeast O2 demand is very high (very thick yeast
starter). Typically one would
use pure O2 for this type application. Otherwise, the natural transfer of
O2 from air into a dilute wort/yeast starter (or other liquid) being stirred is
very
efficient, especially below 60 degrees F. Its all about the "demand" for O2 in
the starter, and for starters of less then 2 quarts or so, you don't need to
use a diffusion stone, especially if you have a stir plate.

Matt B.
Northern VA.

BTW: I have an extra stir plate I bought and didn't use (still new) if anyone is
interested I would be willing to sell. Stir bars are included.

Date: Sat, 21 Mar 2009 10:09:43 -0500
From: "Devonna Dieterle" <djdieterle at hughes.net>
Subject: Subject: Re: stir plate oxygen limit

Matt stated he didn't want to pump filtered air directly into the starter do
to the infection risk. Fred stated he pumps air into the starter headspace.
With a good quality inline air filter which is rated to filter to .023
micron is infection a risk and which way is more effective, pump into the
liquid or the headspace(if there is a difference in oxygen absorption)
I ask because I pump air directly into the liquid using 2 filters in series
through a stainless bubbler wand on a stir plate, with the starter vessel
sealed from the outside air and generally follow Mr. Maltys starter volume
calculator for quantities of 1.040 canned wort for stepping up.

Jeff Dieterle

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 23 Mar 2009 22:19:17 -0400
From: Fred L Johnson <FLJohnson52 at nc.rr.com>
Subject: Re: stir plate oxygen limit

Jeff asks if pumping air directly into the wort is more effective or
less effective than pumping into the head space of a stirring
starter. Undoubtedly, pumping air into the wort directly is more
effective at dissolving oxygen in the wort than pumping into the head
space, but it probably isn't much more effective if the air supply is
continuous and the starter is stirred. One only needs to dissolve
oxygen in at the rate it is used by the growing culture. When the
yeast are at their peak rate of daughter cell production, one might
see a benefit of pumping directly into the medium, but I have no data
to support this. Pumping air directly into the wort leads to lots of
foam, so one would have to turn down the air flow rate and/or add an
agent to break the surface tension to minimize foaming--something I
prefer to avoid.

Fred L Johnson
Apex, North Carolina, USA

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End of HOMEBREW Digest #5529, 03/23/09
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Sunday, March 22, 2009

Homebrew Digest #5528 (March 22, 2009)

HOMEBREW Digest #5528 Sun 22 March 2009

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

***************************************************************
TODAY'S HOME BREW DIGEST BROUGHT TO YOU BY:

HBD Server Fund
PO Box 871309
Canton Township, MI 48187-6309

Contents:
Subject: Re: stir plate oxygen limit ("Devonna Dieterle")
Kolsch ("Darrell G. Leavitt")

As always, donors and donations are publicly acknowledged
and accounted for on the HBD web page. THank you

Send articles for __publication_only__ to post@hbd.org

If your e-mail account is being deleted, please unsubscribe first!!

HAVING TROUBLE posting, subscribing or unsusubscribing? See the HBD FAQ at
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More information is available by sending the word "info" to
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JANITORs on duty: Pat Babcock (pbabcock at hbd dot org), Jason Henning,
and Spencer Thomas

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sat, 21 Mar 2009 10:09:43 -0500
From: "Devonna Dieterle" <djdieterle at hughes.net>
Subject: Subject: Re: stir plate oxygen limit

Jeff Dieterle

E-mail message checked by Spyware Doctor (6.0.0.386)
Database version: 5.12010
http://www.pctools.com/en/spyware-doctor-antivirus/

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 22 Mar 2009 11:32:16 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Darrell G. Leavitt" <leavitdg at plattsburgh.edu>
Subject: Kolsch

Hey;
Any of you guys make a Kolsch lately? I am basing my brew today on Dave
Miller recipe. I find that his are rather straight forward: 6lb lager
malt, 1 lb Vienna, Saaz hops.

I am boosting the base malt from 6 to 8 lb, but otherwise it is the same
as Miller's.

I plan on re-using this yeast several times, so if anyone has a recipe
that they feel is really good, and in this style, please send.

Happy Brewing!
Darrell

------------------------------
End of HOMEBREW Digest #5528, 03/22/09
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Friday, March 20, 2009

Homebrew Digest #5527 (March 20, 2009)

HOMEBREW Digest #5527 Fri 20 March 2009

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

***************************************************************
TODAY'S HOME BREW DIGEST BROUGHT TO YOU BY:

HBD Server Fund
PO Box 871309
Canton Township, MI 48187-6309

Contents:
FlavorActiV vs. Siebel sensory kits ("Stephen Johnson")
RE: Siebel Sensory Training Kit vs. the FlavorActiv Enthusiast Kit ("David Houseman")
Re: stir plate oxygen limit (Fred L Johnson)

As always, donors and donations are publicly acknowledged
and accounted for on the HBD web page. THank you

Send articles for __publication_only__ to post@hbd.org

If your e-mail account is being deleted, please unsubscribe first!!

HAVING TROUBLE posting, subscribing or unsusubscribing? See the HBD FAQ at
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More information is available by sending the word "info" to
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JANITORs on duty: Pat Babcock (pbabcock at hbd dot org), Jason Henning,
and Spencer Thomas

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 20 Mar 2009 01:10:12 -0500
From: "Stephen Johnson" <sjohnson3 at comcast.net>
Subject: FlavorActiV vs. Siebel sensory kits

Brian questions the price/value of the Siebel kit described by Keith Lemcke
in HBD #5525 and Doug wonders if anyone has compared that kit with the ones
that the AHA has been providing homebrew clubs through the FlavorActiV
company.

Over the years that the Music City Brewers have been in existence (since
1996), some of us in our club have been able to have some experiences with
both kits, or at least some one or more versions of them. Early on, one of
our local brewing community members had gone through the pro brewers
training short course at Siebel and brought back the partially depleted
sensory evaluation kit that was part of the course at the time. He felt that
we might benefit from conducting some of our own training, since several of
us were preparing for the BJCP exam at the time. One of our members was
doing post doctoral medical research at Vanderbilt, and had access to some
very finely calibrated titration pipettes and borrowed them for our own beer
evaluation research. We were able to spike several cases of beer with some
of these sensory evaluation compounds, and did them in a way that we were
able to use each compound at different levels in 3 beers, so that one beer
was at the low threshold level, one at a medium level, and a third beer at a
high level. We were able to do this with about 12 different compounds, if I
recall, and we learned quite a bit about our own unique sensitivities to
various off-flavors commonly found in beers. I learned about my own overly
sensitive awareness to DMS, and could detect it at the very lowest levels,
whereas my friends could not pick it up at all at that same level. At the
same time, I also discovered that it is hard for me to detect the aroma of
diacetyl, even at the highest of levels, but that I can detect it more from
the mouthfeel (slickness). Both of these facts helped me to be a better
judge in terms of knowing my own sensitivities and/or limitations. I also
learned that I hope I never have to judge a beer that has high levels of
isovaleric acid in it. That one just about made me throw up on the spot.

It sounds like the current kit available from the Siebel training has 24
different compounds which run the gamut in terms of flavors found in typical
beers as well as problematic off-flavors that are not very desirable,
especially at higher levels. I think there are some definite benefits to
these compounds being in liquid form in how easily they can be stirred into
a sample of beer and at different levels, which was how we used them back in
the late 90's.

More recently, our club has purchased the FlavorActiV kit through the AHA,
and while helpful, we found the kits to be somewhat limited in the scope of
the flavor compounds being sampled and the amounts of each, which limited
the number of participants we could include in our tasting session to about
12 individuals, because we opted to use them in a two-fold training process
where each sample was used during an education and orientation phase, and
then a second round was done "blind" at a lower threshold level to see how
well individuals could evaluate each of the compounds in a random order. The
kits themselves were put together well, but were limited in that only 8
flavor profiles were provided, and they apparently have been chosen as
representative if typical problem conditions in beer production (metallic,
acetic acid, bacterial growth in the mash, spoilage by wild yeasts,
bacterial growth in the fermentation, insufficient boiling of wort, poor
yeast health, and use of old or degraded hops). They are also hard to use in
that the compounds are powdered, and are "loaded" in pre-filled capsules
that basically have to be discharged into a beer pitcher and then beer
poured over the powder, and then stirred for some time to thoroughly
dissolve the granules. Thorough rinsing of equipment is required in between
each sample to prevent cross-contamination. Extra costs to these sessions
involves large quantities of sampling cups, several cases of "light"
commercial beers, and enough pitchers to be able to handle the various
samples. We also printed up color copies of handouts and other documentation
that came with the kit so that every participant came away with very helpful
information about the process and a place to write notes to refer back to in
the future. We did this as part of our club's ongoing judge training in our
efforts to provide our region with more viable and well-trained BJCP judges.

Now, as for debating the costs, I suspect there are some highly trained
chemists out there in beer digest cyberspace who can probably provide a more
informed response for Brian, but my understanding of the whole process of
isolating these chemical compounds is that it is a very complicated and
exacting process that is well beyond the means of the ordinary homebrewer. I
recall looking through some of the information from the FlavorActiV site,
and was amazed at the complexity and detail that they were involved in. Not
just beer, but all levels of food service and beverage industry evaluation
and training worldwide. These compounds are isolated and processed and
packaged in levels of purity that I suspect are similar to the precision
that is provided by the pharmaceutical industry.

Granted, it is a high price to pay, and there are certainly other ways to do
sensory evaluation training that are a lot less expensive, and some of them
have been documented by various individuals involved in the BJCP and I
believe are posted on their website. I haven't tried them myself, but I
think some in our club have done a few of those over the years.

But, like a lot of things in life, each to his own. Some may want to drive
to work in the latest model BMW sedan, while another may feel completely
satisfied getting to work reliably in a Toyota Yaris.

I think the acronym is "YMMV".

Steve Johnson
Music City Brewers
Nashville, TN

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 20 Mar 2009 07:39:01 -0400
From: "David Houseman" <david.houseman at verizon.net>
Subject: RE: Siebel Sensory Training Kit vs. the FlavorActiv Enthusiast Kit

Doug,

I've used both kits. They were very similar. Both easy to use. Most
recently we used the kit provided by the BJCP (this is free to those giving
the BJCP exam and conducting a training class). This kit had 10 different
flavor/aroma capsules. This was well received by those taking the class.
Of course some characteristics were easier to pick out than others for some
people. The BJCP will be making an announcement about its program shortly.
My recommendation would be to wait and see if you want to participate in
that. Otherwise the new Siebel kit with 24 different samples is the most
extensive sensory evaluation kit and it would be my choice were I to pay for
one. However with 24 samples you'd probably want to use these in more than
one sitting.

David Houseman

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 20 Mar 2009 07:40:37 -0400
From: Fred L Johnson <FLJohnson52 at nc.rr.com>
Subject: Re: stir plate oxygen limit

Matt wants to increase the concentration of cells in his starters and
the total number of cells in the product. He is using a stir plate
and loose foil over the top of the culture vessel. Matt is comparing
his starters to others who report getting about twice the
concentration of cells in their starters.

In the system Matt is using, the concentration of cells will heavily
depend on the concentration of the nutrients in the wort used in the
starter (sugar, etc.). The total number of cells he gets will depend
on the concentration of the nutrients and the volume of the starter.
The cells simply stop growing when they run out of nutrients. If you
want to increase the concentration of cells in your starter, increase
the nutrient supply. If you want to increase the total number of
cells, increase the total amount of nutrient you provide the cells. I
really think it is that simple.

I typically use wort from a previous batch as the medium to which I
add Fermax at about 2 g/L. (If I brew a very large beer, I'll dilute
the wort down to a specific gravity of about 1.05 for use as a
starter.) I start from a slant and get the yeast going in about 50 mL
of dilute wort (S.G. about 1.02). As soon as I see good activity, I
transfer this to a spinner flask an add about 300 mL of wort and step
up from there twice for a 2 L starter. I pump filtered air into the
head space, so I probably do get more air into the wort than one
would get by convection in a loosly covered Erlenmeyer flask, but I
don't expect there to be a lot of difference.

For the last seven starters the gravity of my worts ranged from
1.04-1.06 and they produced 153-347 million cell per mL. The volumes
of the starters ranged from 500 mL to 1900 mL, and the total number
of cells produced was 124-470 billion cells. Of course the 500 mL
starter produced fewer total cells than did the 1900 mL starter.
There is a rough relationship between the gravity of the starter and
the concentration of cells when finished. I expect that relationship
will tighten up as I get more data points.

Please don't get me started again on the olive oil myth. If you are
willing to experiment by adding a small amount of soap (or
nonesterified fatty acids), then let's talk.

Fred L Johnson
Apex, North Carolina, USA

------------------------------
End of HOMEBREW Digest #5527, 03/20/09
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Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Homebrew Digest #5525 (March 18, 2009)

HOMEBREW Digest #5525 Wed 18 March 2009

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

***************************************************************
TODAY'S HOME BREW DIGEST BROUGHT TO YOU BY:

HBD Server Fund
PO Box 871309
Canton Township, MI 48187-6309

Contents:
Siebel Sensory Training Kit ("Lemcke Keith")

As always, donors and donations are publicly acknowledged
and accounted for on the HBD web page. THank you

Send articles for __publication_only__ to post@hbd.org

If your e-mail account is being deleted, please unsubscribe first!!

HAVING TROUBLE posting, subscribing or unsusubscribing? See the HBD FAQ at
http://hbd.org.

LOOKING TO BUY OR SELL USED EQUIPMENT? Please do not post about it here. Go
instead to http://homebrewfleamarket.com and post a free ad there.

More information is available by sending the word "info" to
req@hbd.org or read the HBD FAQ at http://hbd.org.

JANITORs on duty: Pat Babcock (pbabcock at hbd dot org), Jason Henning,
and Spencer Thomas

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Wed, 18 Mar 2009 11:51:41 -0400
From: "Lemcke Keith" <klemcke at siebelinstitute.com>
Subject: Siebel Sensory Training Kit

Over the last few years, the demand for sensory training has grown
dramatically. To help meet this important need, the Siebel Institute of
Technology is pleased to introduce the Siebel Institute Sensory Training
Kit.

The Siebel Institute Sensory Training Kit contains 24 pre-measured
"standards" representing some of the most important flavors and
aromatics found in beer. The standards are shipped in ready-to-use
liquid form, making them as easy to use as possible. Just open the small
vial of the sensory standard into a pitcher or measuring cup, add 1
liter of beer selected for light, neutral characteristics, and you are
ready to sample! Each kit is designed to serve up to 20 tasters,
allowing them to build their skills towards understanding beer flavor at
a truly professional level. This is a great way for homebrewers and beer
judges to learn to spot positive and negative characteristics common to
beers of all types, allowing them to more effectively assess beer from a
technical standpoint.

You can get more technical data and order information by downloading our
Product catalog in PDF format at
http://www.siebelinstitute.com/pdf/mail_order_form.pdf, and for
information on using the Siebel Institute Sensory Training Kit in your
brewery training program, contact Lyn Kruger at
lkruger at siebelinstitute.com

------------------------------
End of HOMEBREW Digest #5525, 03/18/09
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Friday, March 13, 2009

Homebrew Digest #5524 (March 13, 2009)

HOMEBREW Digest #5524 Fri 13 March 2009

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

***************************************************************
TODAY'S HOME BREW DIGEST BROUGHT TO YOU BY:

HBD Server Fund
PO Box 871309
Canton Township, MI 48187-6309

Contents:
American Homebrewers Association 10th Annual Lallemand Scholarship! ("rob moline")
Re: Mill Gap Setting (Denny Conn)

As always, donors and donations are publicly acknowledged
and accounted for on the HBD web page. THank you

Send articles for __publication_only__ to post@hbd.org

If your e-mail account is being deleted, please unsubscribe first!!

HAVING TROUBLE posting, subscribing or unsusubscribing? See the HBD FAQ at
http://hbd.org.

LOOKING TO BUY OR SELL USED EQUIPMENT? Please do not post about it here. Go
instead to http://homebrewfleamarket.com and post a free ad there.

More information is available by sending the word "info" to
req@hbd.org or read the HBD FAQ at http://hbd.org.

JANITORs on duty: Pat Babcock (pbabcock at hbd dot org), Jason Henning,
and Spencer Thomas

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 13 Mar 2009 11:37:35 -0500
From: "rob moline" <jethrogump at suddenlink.net>
Subject: American Homebrewers Association 10th Annual Lallemand Scholarship!

American Homebrewers Association 10th Annual Lallemand Scholarship!

Lallemand, the makers of Danstar dry yeasts and Servomyces yeast nutrient,
is proud to sponsor the Tenth Annual Lallemand Scholarship for the World
Brewing Academy's Concise Course in Brewing Technology. The partnership of
Lallemand and the American Homebrewers Association has provided nine
previous winners with what can best be described as a trip to 'Beer Heaven,'
the Siebel Institute! The fact that the scholarship is now ready to award
it's 10th recipient only underscores the value of the AHA/Lallemand
partnership, as both organizations continue to demonstrate leadership in
their common mission, ongoing brewer education, resulting in better beers!.

The scholarship is awarded to a member of the American Homebrewers
Association, and provides full tuition to the World Brewing Academy's
Concise Course in Brewing Technology, held at the Siebel Institute in
Chicago, Illinois, November 2 - 13, 2009, and is valued at USD $3,350. The
winner also receives a USD $1000 stipend to assist with travel and
accommodation while in Chicago, one of America's most exciting and vibrant
cities. .

The famous two-week WBA Concise Course in Brewing Technology will provide
students with a comprehensive knowledge of the brewing process, the dynamics
of brewery operations, and socioeconomic issues affecting the industry.

How to Enter
AHA members may enter the contest by filling out the online form at
http://www.beertown.org/apps/scholarship/form.aspx. You will need to know
your AHA membership number, which appears on your AHA membership card and on
the address label of your Zymurgy magazine. If you do not know your
membership number or would like to join, e-mail info at brewersassociation.org,
call 888-822-6273, or visit the membership page at
http://www.beertown.org/homebrewing/membership.html .

The contest entry forms must be submitted by June 9, 2009. Only one entry
per AHA Member will be accepted. Entries will also be accepted in
registration at the AHA National Homebrewers Conference in Oakland, CA, June
18-20, 2009.

AHA members can get an additional entry in the contest by submitting a
ballot for the AHA Governing Committee election, visit
http://www.beertown.org/homebrewing/election.html. All ballots must be
submitted no later than 11:59 pm Pacific Time, March 31, 2009.

Winner Announced
The drawing for the Lallemand Scholarship will take place at the AHA
National Homebrewers Conference in Oakland, CA during the Grand Banquet on
June 20, 2009. The winner must have a current AHA membership at the time of
the drawing to be eligible.

Scholarship Rules
Members of the AHA Governing Committee, Brewers Association Board of
Directors, staff of the Brewers Association, Siebel, Lallemand, and anyone
who has previously been awarded any scholarship to the Siebel Institute are
ineligible. Awarded courses must be completed within one year. Winners must
provide a written statement on their Siebel experiences to the AHA/Brewers
Association/Lallemand/Siebel. Rights to publication of report and
photographs of the winner are granted to the AHA/Brewers Association, Siebel
and Lallemand.

For more information on the Lallemand Scholarship, visit
American Homebrewers Association Lallemand Scholarship and Danstar, or
contact Rob Moline at danstar at mchsi.com .

More information on the WBA Concise Course may be found at
http://www.siebelinstitute.com/course_desc/concise_tech.html , and a
detailed course catalog of all offerings of the WBA is at
http://www.siebelinstitute.com/catalogs/pdfs/2009_wba_catalog.pdf .

Good Luck!
Rob Moline
Danstar/Lallemand

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 13 Mar 2009 15:07:19 -0700
From: Denny Conn <denny at projectoneaudio.com>
Subject: Re: Mill Gap Setting

I have no idea what the gap is on my mill, but I've been using the same
gap for 10 years with great results. What I care about is the grist it
makes and the beer made from that. Learn what a good crush looks like
and how it acts on your system and go from there. Even if someone can
tell you what their gap is set to, it's no guarantee that the same
setting will work for you. As Dan Listermann said "you're making grist,
not gaps"!

---------------->Denny

------------------------------
End of HOMEBREW Digest #5524, 03/13/09
*************************************
-------

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Homebrew Digest #5523 (March 10, 2009)

HOMEBREW Digest #5523 Tue 10 March 2009

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

***************************************************************
TODAY'S HOME BREW DIGEST BROUGHT TO YOU BY:

HBD Server Fund
PO Box 871309
Canton Township, MI 48187-6309

Contents:
Water Report ("A.J deLange")
re: Mill Gap Setting (stencil)

As always, donors and donations are publicly acknowledged
and accounted for on the HBD web page. THank you

Send articles for __publication_only__ to post@hbd.org

If your e-mail account is being deleted, please unsubscribe first!!

HAVING TROUBLE posting, subscribing or unsusubscribing? See the HBD FAQ at
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More information is available by sending the word "info" to
req@hbd.org or read the HBD FAQ at http://hbd.org.

JANITORs on duty: Pat Babcock (pbabcock at hbd dot org), Jason Henning,
and Spencer Thomas

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2009 13:20:49 -0400
From: "A.J deLange" <ajdel at cox.net>
Subject: Water Report

The advice I usually give in these cases (Jeff McNally's question his
water report) is to grab a copy of the spreadsheet at
http://www.wetnewf.org/Brewing_articles/BURP_OCT08

and plug in the numbers. I've done that and attached it here (not for
HBD Cc).

At the left side of the spreadsheet you'll see two red fields. The
first indicates that this water report has a serious anion/cation
imbalance of 12.6%. To put this in perspective you would need 0.825
mEq/L more anion (or less cation) to have a physically realizeable
water. Doubling of the alkalinity or an increase in sulfate to 47 mg/L
would be required. OTOH it is very suspicious that changing the
reported sodium from 42.3 mg/L to 24.3 gives a well balanced (0.7%)
profile. Is it possible that you (or the lab) fat-fingered the sodium
report? But then sodium is hard to measure and because it has a low
atomic weight sodium errors contribute a lot to imbalance. This is a
lot of ifs and so its a bit hard to draw solid conclusions from such a
report. As alkalinity and hardness are easy to measure let's assume
those numbers are good (because they are the ones responsible for
setting mash pH) and go forward but I'd contact the lab, tell them
that their report is imbalanced and ask for an explanation.

The other red field at the left of the spreadsheet is informing you
that the water is over saturated with CO2 (which you already know from
the pH of 6). This means that allowed to stand the water will lose CO2
and its pH increase. This is typical of well water in climates where
the soil contains enough moisture to support bacteria (i.e. most
everywhere except deserts).

You will note that I entered your calcium and magnesium values as
negative numbers. This tells the spreadsheet to interpret them as mg/L
values and in response to this input it calculates hardness of 88.55
ppm as CaCO3. This confirms that the total hardness value on your
report is "as CaCO3" but then again the only other units it could
reasonably be in the US is mEq/L and the number given is outlandishly
high for that. The same reasoning applies to the alkalinity number. In
the US it is almost always in ppm as CaCO3 unless it is in mEq/L and
37.5 mEq/L is outlandishly high alkalinity. Alkalinity is actually
calculated by measuring the mEq/L and multiplying by 50. People
sometimes get confused and multiply by 100. I only mention this here
because doubling the reported alkalinity would better balance the
report (though if the lab made the usual mistake the reported
alkalinity would be twice, not half).

You will see that you have a modest residual alkalinity of 14.7 ppm as
CaCO3 and that this will give you an expected mash pH 0.02 higher than
a distilled water mash IOW if your grist composition gives you a
distilled water pH of 5.7 (typical for base malt only) this water
would be expected to give you 5.72. You can now check that the pH in
cell w3 is the same as in C3 and start experimenting with calcium salt
additions in cells J22 and L22 to see what their effect is on pH shift
(cell T61). For example 200 mg/L gypsum changes the pH shift from +.02
to -.03 so that if your distilled water mash pH were 5.7 as before
your pH with this water supplemented with 200 mg/L gypsum would be
expected to be 5.67 i.e. it takes a lot of calcium to pull pH a few
hundredths of a point and you are also increasing your sulfate. Darker
malts or acids are a much better way to set mash pH (though forbidden
by Reinheitsgebot but then again so is adding gypsum).

There's obviously lots more stuff you can do with this spreadsheet
once loaded with your source water parameters. See the included
instructions (Sheet 2) for details.

As a final comment - you probably would not need supplemental
carbonate or bicarbonate in a stout if you used roast barley to a
reasonable extent. The real deciding factor should, of course, be your
test mash or what you actually measure in the mash tun. If roast malt/
barley is being used you can forget residual alkalinity. It takes 3.5
mEq of calcium to neutralize 1 mEq of alkalinity. The acid in roast
barley/malt should overwhelm this.

A.J.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2009 20:12:43 -0400
From: stencil <etcs.ret at verizon.net>
Subject: re: Mill Gap Setting

On Fri, 06 Mar 2009 23:21:14 -0500,
in Homebrew Digest #5520 (March 06, 2009)
Josh Knarr wrote:

>
>What's everyone using for their mill gap setting?
>
>Seems like .039" seems popular (or the default).

0.080" and 0.064", in that order, in a Valley Mill. Not too
coincidentally these dimensions correspond to AWG12 and
AWG14 solid copper wire. I always mill and dough-in the
night before, usually using around half the computed
dough-in volume of water. It's my belief that the long soak
of coarse grist wets more starch than a short dip of finer
grist, and sparging is easier. Yields are satisfactory.

If I wanted to go down to 0.039" I'd use AWG18 solid bell
wire as a gage.

gds, stencil

------------------------------
End of HOMEBREW Digest #5523, 03/10/09
*************************************
-------

Monday, March 9, 2009

Homebrew Digest #5522 (March 09, 2009)

HOMEBREW Digest #5522 Mon 09 March 2009

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

***************************************************************
TODAY'S HOME BREW DIGEST BROUGHT TO YOU BY:

HBD Server Fund
PO Box 871309
Canton Township, MI 48187-6309

Contents:
Wort chiller design... (Aaron Gallaway)
Re: CO2 (steve alexander)
Re: CO2 (Joe Walts)

As always, donors and donations are publicly acknowledged
and accounted for on the HBD web page. THank you

Send articles for __publication_only__ to post@hbd.org

If your e-mail account is being deleted, please unsubscribe first!!

HAVING TROUBLE posting, subscribing or unsusubscribing? See the HBD FAQ at
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More information is available by sending the word "info" to
req@hbd.org or read the HBD FAQ at http://hbd.org.

JANITORs on duty: Pat Babcock (pbabcock at hbd dot org), Jason Henning,
and Spencer Thomas

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sun, 8 Mar 2009 22:36:13 -0700
From: Aaron Gallaway <baseball_junkie at hotmail.com>
Subject: Wort chiller design...

To one, to All...

I am at the tail end of rebuilding my brewery(finally got the
engineer on my Tug weld my stand for me) and am planning a new
chiller...would like some input from those with a PVC CF design.
Planning 50' of 3/8" ID copper coiled to 5" coils fitted into a 2'
section of 6" PVC with end caps and 5/8" hose barbs for cold water in
and outs with a capped 4" length of PVC fixed in the middle of the
coils to force the water to flow across the coils rather than pass
through the center decreasing the heat exchange values. Any thoughts,
ideas, suggestions and pictures would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Aaron the Tugboater

PS, my tug engineer turned fledgling home brewer seeks a quality honey
brown recipe...anybody have one??

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 09 Mar 2009 07:05:14 -0400
From: steve alexander <steve-alexander at roadrunner.com>
Subject: Re: CO2

AJ, as usual, produces a clear concise descriptive example; this time
of CO2 at brewery scale.

One aspect of carbonation and decarbonation that receives little
attention is the rate at which equilibrium is approached. We all know
that in addition to CO2 pressure we must apply agitation and/or, or in
introduce CO2 via a stone to approach equilibrium rapidly ... but
that's not quantitative. Then the opposite problem occurs when you
open a bottle the rate at which it decarbonates varies wildly from a
minor fizz to a gusher that will almost match a "mentos gusher". So
what exactly is going on here ?

I'm sure there is a diffusion eqn for the CO2 in solution/gas phase
and the rate is probably related to surface areas and
concentrations(pressures). That one I'm sure I can lookup and
recognize. The decarbonation seems to often be more closely related
to nucleation sites. It's easy to imagine that any beer, even the
filtered stuff has enough particulate that shaking can cause an
"upset". OTOH when we take pure seltzer water and shake it .... what
happens ? Apparently the (at equilibrium) CO2 bubbles mixed into the
water are sufficient to cause nucleation. That last one is a bit
strange, but I'm not a physical chemist. I think there should be an
entropy increase and a temperature decrease as beer decarbonates, so
with enough carbonation perhaps we could dispense with fridges and
chillers (joke).

I think there are some pieces that perhaps AJ can explain wrt beer
carbonation/decarbonation process. The usual sources ignore the
transition and just suggest you add a certain amount of CO2 and dismiss
the details of how this addition takes place with a handwaving mention
of stones and pumps. Then there is an implicit assumption that CO2 is
released at the appropriate rate when the bottle cap is popped or the
beer is pushed past a tap. Obviously this is not always the case.

> The obvious message here is that 6 kg of CO2 which do not end up in
> the beer, are nevertheless paid for ($12) and (for those who worship
> at the church of Al Gore) released to the atmosphere.

In AJs example we are discussing 1000gal(3785L) of beer and quibbling
about 17 kg of CO2 retained and perhaps another 6kg lost for
carbonation. If this is a conventional strength and attenuation beer
then it starts with ~476kg of extract, perhaps ~300kg is fermentables
and fermentation release a bit under 150kg of CO2! IOW we only need
about 15% of the CO2 for carbonation. Even in a brewery where
fermentation CO2 is retained for use in carbonation there is a very
large CO2 release. Twice as much CO2 is released as the beer drinker
exhales, so this 1000gal of beer results in ~450kg of CO2
release. This might anger the AlGorites, except we can associate this
CO2 release with the magical words (for those who with magical
thinking processes) "renewable", or "recyclable" or "green" or some
other claptrap. The carbon ultimately came from the atmosphere as the
barley grew in fields and this makes it acceptable to some sects of
AlGorism. Somehow the fact that petrol and coal carbon also originated
in the atmosphere, tho' less recently, doesn't create any acceptance
by that cult. BTW I'd like to introduce anyone who uses the phrase
"renewable energy" to the first & second laws of thermodynamics -
muddled thinking reflected in muddled terminology.

Anyone interested in the energy problem should examine this free book,
downloadable book from U.Cambridge Press.

http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/sustainable/book/tex/sewtha.pdf

The author, a Cambridge Physicist examines the energy issues in a
highly readable and informative way. He dispels a lot of popular and
political lunacy wrt grain ethanol, photovoltaics and the realistic role
of wind, tidal and nuclear in any realistic future. His primary example
is the highly populous UK, with a rather different resource mix, tho'
he examines other places and the general issue in detail.

His graphs of the EU carbon trade value shows a disastrous trend
that we US'ers should examine closely given the new carbon
cap&trade plans that Geithner estimates will cost over
$800Bn.

-S

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 9 Mar 2009 10:25:46 -0500
From: Joe Walts <jwalts at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: CO2

A.J. - I checked my calculations against yours and they all agree. I
wasn't talking about atmospheric CO2 breakout. What I was trying to
say is if you have a half-full keg of beer in equilibrium, the mass of
CO2 in the beer is greater than the mass of CO2 in the headspace. At
least, that's what the calculations claim. Are you saying that's true
based on the reduction of gas pressure in solution? If so, it's
pretty counter-intuitive (to me) and I'm glad that you can explain it.

I changed the formulas in my spreadsheet to compute the headspace CO2
mass with the Redlich-Kwong equation instead of the Ideal Gas Law.
Both methods gave similar answers and suggest that, at serving
temperatures, the beer in a half-full keg holds a larger mass of CO2
than the headspace.

Back to the original question. Joe K - are you referring to the
common commercial brewing practice of adding CO2 through a carbonation
stone (at around 30 psig) while slowly bleeding CO2 from the headspace
to avoid overpressurizing the tank? It's wasteful of CO2, but it uses
less energy than a pump and it's fast. I don't think there's any way
to calculate the volume ahead of time unless you know the mass
flowrate out of your bleed/relief valve. The basic procedure is to
add CO2 for a set amount of time, check the beer's carbonation level
with a Zahm & Nagel CO2 tester and repeat. With practice, you'll
develop a sense of how much time it'll take to reach a desired
carbonation level on your system.

Joe

------------------------------
End of HOMEBREW Digest #5522, 03/09/09
*************************************
-------

Sunday, March 8, 2009

Homebrew Digest #5521 (March 08, 2009)

HOMEBREW Digest #5521 Sun 08 March 2009

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

***************************************************************
TODAY'S HOME BREW DIGEST BROUGHT TO YOU BY:

HBD Server Fund
PO Box 871309
Canton Township, MI 48187-6309

Contents:
FW: RE: Mill Gap Setting ("Michael D. Noah")
Fwd: Carbonation saturation (Fred L Johnson)
German Brewing ("Darrell G. Leavitt")
RE: Mill Gap Setting ("David Houseman")
CO2 ("A.J deLange")
water analysis questions (RI_homebrewer)
RE: Malt Analysis ("Mike Bennett")

As always, donors and donations are publicly acknowledged
and accounted for on the HBD web page. THank you

Send articles for __publication_only__ to post@hbd.org

If your e-mail account is being deleted, please unsubscribe first!!

HAVING TROUBLE posting, subscribing or unsusubscribing? See the HBD FAQ at
http://hbd.org.

LOOKING TO BUY OR SELL USED EQUIPMENT? Please do not post about it here. Go
instead to http://homebrewfleamarket.com and post a free ad there.

More information is available by sending the word "info" to
req@hbd.org or read the HBD FAQ at http://hbd.org.

JANITORs on duty: Pat Babcock (pbabcock at hbd dot org), Jason Henning,
and Spencer Thomas

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sat, 7 Mar 2009 10:13:04 +0100
From: "Michael D. Noah" <michael.noah at physaliaos.com>
Subject: FW: RE: Mill Gap Setting

Josh,

You're not going to like this response, but in my experience, the gap
"depends." Not all grains of malt are the same size; some are fat and plump,
and some are thin and scrawny, though 99.99% of the grains are the same size
within a particular bag of malt. They just change from variety to variety,
and from year to year.

I have a Valley Mill, and I'm often resetting the variable roller adjustment
from "wide open" to about "half open" (I've never set it to the narrowest
setting). Sometimes, I forget to make a change, and after about a lb. or two
has passed through the mill, I'll take a look and see what it looks like -
e'g, has the husk only been cracked open (preferable), or is the mill it
turning into dust (not preferable). I know when the latter is happening when
I start sneezing!!!

Good luck with your project!!!

On-On!
Michael Noah
Heidelberg, Germany

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 7 Mar 2009 06:25:43 -0500
From: Fred L Johnson <FLJohnson52 at nc.rr.com>
Subject: Fwd: Carbonation saturation

I should clarify that my last post regarding Joe Katchever's desire
to carbonate his beer using a single dose of CO2 at the beginning
used calculations of pressure that were peculiar to Joe's tank that
had a wetting pressure of somewhere on the order of 4 psi, so the
pressures I was quoting were peculiar to Joe's tank and the pressures
at his regulator. They would not apply to a tank in which on
pressurizes from the top with zero wetting pressure.

My calculations also did not consider that the beer already had some
CO2 dissolved in it--a big mistake. Thanks to Joe Walts for
correcting this one. I'm sorry for confusing what was already a
challenging (for me) scenario.

Thanks, Joe, for the corrections. This is what I love about the HBD.
I knew if I made a feeble attempt at Joe's question in public,
someone who really knows this stuff would set the record straight.

I also agree with Joe Walts that the easier way to actually add the
gas would be on a mass basis.

Fred L Johnson
Apex, North Carolina, USA

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 7 Mar 2009 06:34:30 -0500 (EST)
From: "Darrell G. Leavitt" <leavitdg at plattsburgh.edu>
Subject: German Brewing

Kai;
Thankyou for the efforts to put this German Brew material together. It
is very interesting, and another resource to help those of us whom are
more artist than scientist in the hobby, to better understand the
process.

Darrell

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 07 Mar 2009 07:42:39 -0500
From: "David Houseman" <david.houseman at verizon.net>
Subject: RE: Mill Gap Setting

Josh,

My mill is adjustable but I will admit I usually "set it and forget it."
There have been times when I did use the adjustability. One is when
milling wheat. The wheat kernel are not the same size as barley and they
are harder. So I've put them through 2 or 3 times a progressively smaller
gaps; it make the work much easier. And I did experiment with a similar
method with barley malt. Commercial roller mills have 3, 4, 5 or more
rollers. So to emulate those I would put the malt through twice, one at a
slightly wider setting then at a slightly narrower setting. I got a finer
crush without tearing up the husks. I also wetted the malt a bit as well;
again often done commercially, if for nothing else than to keep dust down.
Bottom line is that 90+% of the time I'm using one fixed setting but I have
enjoyed the flexibility that adjustability provides.

David Houseman

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 7 Mar 2009 10:43:01 -0500
From: "A.J deLange" <ajdel at cox.net>
Subject: CO2

Additional perspective on the path Fred started us down: At
equilibrium at 34F with 2.5 vols the headspace pressure will be 9 psig
(23.7 psia). For 1000 gal of beer which is 3785 litres you would have
2.5*3785= 9462.5 litres (as released at STP) of dissolved CO2 which
has density (at STP) of 1.87214 g/L for 9462*1.87214 = 17.714 kg of
CO2 which is a lot but then remember that the beer weighs over 3785
kg. The simplest way to get this into the beer is to apply 9 psig to a
carbonating stone and recirculate the beer in the tank either by
running the chill bands (thermal recirculation) or by use of a pump.
The question of the day, though I am actually unclear on this, seems
to be what pressure would need to be applied to the headspace as a
bolus. To determine this you would first have to know how much CO2 is
already dissolved in the beer. You would estimate this from the ASBC
table or fit to it. Assuming that the tank is at atmospheric pressure
(0 psig, 14.7 psia) the dissolved CO2 volumes would be (released to
the atmosphere) 1.57 for a total of 3785*1.57 = 5942 litres equal to
5942*1.87214 = 11.125 kg dissolved gas i.e. over half the total
requirement. If you were able to retain enough CO2 to keep the
pressure at 4 psig you would have retained 1.977 volumes which amounts
to 7483 litres weighing 14 kg. Let's be optimistic and assume this
was the case. You would now need to add the remaining 3.7 kg plus an
extra 100*3.18807/1000 = 0.318 kg which is the mass of CO2 in 100L at
9 psig and 34F (density 3.19 g/L). The total mass required is thus
about 4 kg which, compressed initially into 100 litres has density of
40 g/L requiring pressure of 286 psig if you treat CO2 as an ideal gas
(which it is definitely not at such pressures ) or 249 psig if you try
to model it using the first virial coefficient (which model is only
good out to perhaps a couple of atmospheres). Deviations from the gas
law aside, the practical concerns should be apparent.

OTOH if the head room were 50 percent (typical of small
cylindroconicals) you would require 1892*3.18807/1000 = 6 kg CO2 to
fill the headspace plus the 3.7 kg to top up the beer giving a total
of 9.7 kg which, stuffed into 1892 liters would be at a density of 5.1
g/L corresponding to a pressure of 23 psig (B coefficient model -
probably valid at this pressure) or 23.7 psig (ideal gas model). The
obvious message here is that 6 kg of CO2 which do not end up in the
beer, are nevertheless paid for ($12) and (for those who worship at
the church of Al Gore) released to the atmosphere.

So now I better understand why brewers use carbonating stones. The
best way (other than retaining what the yeast gave you) seems to be to
carbonate a large mass of beer in a tank with small headspace using a
stone. For large volumes it's also clear that it might be a fine idea
to do the calculations as above and put the gas bottle on a scale. In
this way you could determine how close to equilibrium you are as the
carbonation progresses.

* * * * * * *

On the same subject, Joe says " That suggest beer can hold more CO2
than an equivalent volume of empty space at cool temperatures." Was
there ever any question about this? It's why a beer fizzes when you
open the bottle or pour it into a glass. Or perhaps I don't understand
the comment. When CO2 dissolves it get solvated i.e. surrounded by
water molecules so it doesn't have the same access to the boundaries
of the container that it did as a gas and exerts less pressure per
molecule. Thus some gasses are very soluble in water (ammonia, sulfur
trioxide) others quite soluble (CO2) and others not very soluble at
all (N2) depending on the size and configuration of the molecule. Only
very little dissolved CO2 actually enters/leaves the carbonic/
bicarbonate/carbonate system (except where carbonic anhydrase in
present as in a respiring creature).

A.J.

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 7 Mar 2009 15:32:26 -0800 (PST)
From: RI_homebrewer <ri_homebrewer at yahoo.com>
Subject: water analysis questions

Hi All,

I moved to a new house a while ago, and had a water analysis done for my
well when I moved in.

The numbers are as follows:

sodium 42.3 mg/L
potassium 1.9 mg/L
copper 0.84 mg/L
iron 0.04 mg/L
magnesium 4.3 mg/L
calcium 28.4 mg/L
pH 6.00 SU
turbidity 0.40 NTU
conductivity 471.0 umhos
TDS 282.6 mg/L
alkalinity 37.5 mg/L
chloride 70.6 mg/L
hardness 88.6 mg/L
nitrate 2.0 mg/L
sulfate 7.5 mg/L

Everything else tested was listed as "not detected".

I'm not sure if the alkalinity and hardness numbers are "as CaCO3". Is
there some way to tell?

From discussions of residual alkalinity (RA) and mash pH in the HBD
(#4232-13 and others) and John Palmer's RA article in BYO (pg 58, Oct 2008
issue), the mash pH should work out to 5.72 to 5.82 (assuming the alkalinity
and hardness numbers are "as CaCO3" ).

My view of the water is that I may need to add some gypsum (calcium
sulfate) to get the calcium level up to 50 to 100 mg/L in the mash, and
possibly some baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) for roasty beers like stouts
and porters.

Is that about it? Am I overlooking anything else? Other suggestions?

Jeff McNally
Tiverton, RI
(652.2 miles, 90.0 deg) A.R.
www.southshorebrewclub.org

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 8 Mar 2009 15:25:01 -0700
From: "Mike Bennett" <mjb at efn.org>
Subject: RE: Malt Analysis

Thomas Rohner <t.rohner at bluewin.ch> wrote some time ago
Subject: Malt Analysis

> I think it would be a good idea for a maltster to put the lot data
> of the products on their Website. This way the ones interested in
> the data could get it without the maltster having to reply phone
> calls or emails.

I read your post when it first came out, but couldn't remember the which
website I saw that did this, so I kept quiet. I just stumbled upon it
again. It's the Cargill website that has an online lot analysis portal.
They have listings for Cargill, Dingemans, Gambrinus, Gilbertson & Page OIO
Brand Brewer's Grains, Meussdoerffer, Pauls Malt and Warminster.

http://www.specialtymalts.com/tech_center/lot_analysis.html

- --
Mike Bennett
Professional Brewer (retired)
St. Barts Brewing
mjbennett69<at>gmail.com

------------------------------
End of HOMEBREW Digest #5521, 03/08/09
*************************************
-------

Friday, March 6, 2009

Homebrew Digest #5520 (March 06, 2009)

HOMEBREW Digest #5520 Fri 06 March 2009

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

***************************************************************
TODAY'S HOME BREW DIGEST BROUGHT TO YOU BY:

HBD Server Fund
PO Box 871309
Canton Township, MI 48187-6309

Contents:
Mill Gap Setting (Josh Knarr)
2009 Saint Louis Microfest Homebrew Competition (August Altenbaumer)
Re: Carbonation saturation (Joe Walts)

As always, donors and donations are publicly acknowledged
and accounted for on the HBD web page. THank you

Send articles for __publication_only__ to post@hbd.org

If your e-mail account is being deleted, please unsubscribe first!!

HAVING TROUBLE posting, subscribing or unsusubscribing? See the HBD FAQ at
http://hbd.org.

LOOKING TO BUY OR SELL USED EQUIPMENT? Please do not post about it here. Go
instead to http://homebrewfleamarket.com and post a free ad there.

More information is available by sending the word "info" to
req@hbd.org or read the HBD FAQ at http://hbd.org.

JANITORs on duty: Pat Babcock (pbabcock at hbd dot org), Jason Henning,
and Spencer Thomas

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 6 Mar 2009 08:46:16 -0500
From: Josh Knarr <josh.knarr at gmail.com>
Subject: Mill Gap Setting

What's everyone using for their mill gap setting?

Seems like .039" seems popular (or the default). I am thinking about
building a mill and if there's one clear "winner" of a number, I don't
see any reason to make it adjustable.

Thanks
Josh

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 6 Mar 2009 08:20:36 -0600
From: August Altenbaumer <afalten at gmail.com>
Subject: 2009 Saint Louis Microfest Homebrew Competition

The Saint Louis Brews are pleased to announce the 2009 Saint Louis
Microfest Homebrew Competition. All entries from this competition
benefit the Lift for Life Gym (http://www.liftforlife.org).

This competition is an AHA/BJCP sanctioned event. Judging is scheduled
for Saturday, April 25, 2009 and will be held in the Elliot Room at
the Schlafly Taproom in Saint Louis, MO. Judging will begin promptly
at 12:00PM (Noon). Those wishing to judge or steward, please contact
me at organizer at stlbrews.org. Winners will be announced during the
Saint Louis Microfest on Saturday, May 2, 2009.

Entries will be accepted until Friday, April 17, 2009. Only beer
entries will be accepted (no meads or ciders). Entry fee is $10 per
entry, and 2 bottles (with no identifying marks) per entry are needed.
Please enter using the appropriate BJCP category
(http://www.bjcp.org/stylecenter.html). The BJCP categories will be
grouped into five larger categories by the organizers (Light Lager,
Dark Lager, Light Ale, Dark Ale, and Microfest Summer Brew).

1st Place in each category wins a $25 Cash Prize. There will also be
prizes awarded to the top ranked beginner (less than two years
brewing).

Judges and stewards can walk-in entries the day of the competition.
Please arrive by 11:00AM to allow time to register and organize the
walk-ins.

Further details and the entry form can found at:
http://www.stlbrews.org/competition/lift_for_life/09Homebrew%20flier_v2.pdf
Please include one entry form with each entry. Also, please attach a
bottle label (rubber band, no tape or glue) to each bottle to avoid
any chance of confusing the organizers.

Any questions about entering or judging can be sent to organizer at stlbrews.org.

Remember that this competition is a benefit for the Lift for Life Gym.
Please enter generously!

Cheers!
Augie Altenbaumer
2009 Saint Louis Microfest Homebrew Competition Organizer

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 6 Mar 2009 10:58:47 -0600
From: Joe Walts <jwalts at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: Carbonation saturation

I think Fred is on the right track, but his language is confusing. At
first, I thought he meant the equilibrium pressure at 34 degf and 2.5
volumes of CO2 is 14.7 psig (it's actually about 9.3 psig). Fred: did
you mean that a tank open to the atmosphere would be 14.7 psia? Ok,
moving on.

The easiest way to calculate the required CO2 is to assume the
headspace will hold the same mass of CO2 as an equivalent volume of
beer. In other words, you would eliminate needing to calculate the
beer and headspace CO2 levels separately by treating the entire tank
as a batch of beer. A volume of CO2 is defined as [volume of
dissolved CO2]/[volume of beer] if the gas were at STP (Standard
Temperature and Pressure, which the ASBC defines as 273.15 K and
101,325 Pa). The first thing you would need to do is figure out how
much CO2 is already in the tank. Let's use Fred's example of 900
gallons of beer in a 1,000 gallon (3.79 m^3) tank with a desired
carbonation of 2.5 volumes. The resulting headspace, used later on,
is 0.38 m^3. Let's also assume that 15 psi (204,747 Pa) of CO2 was
captured in the beer during fermentation at 68 degf (293.15 K). Using
the ASBC table or a curve-fit calculation, you can determine that the
initial carbonation would be 1.7 volumes of CO2. Multiplying by 1,000
gallons will tell you that the CO2 would occupy 1,700 gallons (6.44
m^3) at STP. You can then use the Ideal Gas Law (pV=nRT -> pV=mRT/MM
where R is the universal gas constant 8.314 Pa*m^3/K/mol and MM is
molar mass of CO2, which equals 44.01 g/mol) to figure out that the
mass of CO2 in the tank = 101325*6.44*44.01/(8.314*273.15) = 12,646 g.
You can use the same procedure to determine that the final volume of
CO2 at STP = 2.5*1000 = 2,500 gallons (9.46 m^3) and that the final
mass of CO2 in the tank = 101325*9.46*44.01/(8.314*273.15) = 18,576 g.
The required mass of CO2 to add to the tank = 18576 - 12646 = 5,930
g. Assuming that none of the added CO2 dissolves right away, and that
the beer had been chilled to 34 degf (274.26 K) before carbonating,
you can use the Ideal Gas Law one more time to figure out that the
initial perssure after adding CO2 = 5930*8.314*274.26/(44.01*0.38) =
102.6 psig. Figuring out the volume to add is more complicated
because it will depend on the temperature and pressure of the gas
moving through your flowmeter. If you know what those values are, say
68 degf and 30 psig (308168 Pa), you can use the Ideal Gas Law to
figure out that the required CO2 volume to pass through the flowmeter
= 5930*8.314*274.26/(44.01*308168) = 0.996 m^3 = 996 L.

If you want to be a bigger geek, you can use the Ideal Gas Law to
figure out the initial and final masses of CO2 in the headspace
separately. Instead of going through all of the calculations here,
you can download a spreadsheet titled "CO2 Volume Calculator" at this
website:

http://jwalts.googlepages.com/math

Interestingly, using the ASBC table results in a greater CO2 mass than
the Ideal Gas Law (for a fixed volume and pressure) at temperatures
below 60ish degf. That suggests beer can hold more CO2 than an
equivalent volume of empty space at cool temperatures, which I'm very
skeptical of. I was baffled by this a couple of years ago, but I
couldn't explain it and I forgot about it until now. Could it be due
to CO2 entering the water's carbonate system? Is the Ideal Gas Law
invalid for modeling the headspace of a tank?

Joe

------------------------------
End of HOMEBREW Digest #5520, 03/06/09
*************************************
-------

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Homebrew Digest #5519 (March 05, 2009)

HOMEBREW Digest #5519 Thu 05 March 2009

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

***************************************************************
TODAY'S HOME BREW DIGEST BROUGHT TO YOU BY:

HBD Server Fund
PO Box 871309
Canton Township, MI 48187-6309

Contents:
Re: Carbonation saturation (Fred L Johnson)
Carbonation ("A.J deLange")
German Brewing between 1850 and 1900 (Kai Troester)

As always, donors and donations are publicly acknowledged
and accounted for on the HBD web page. THank you

Send articles for __publication_only__ to post@hbd.org

If your e-mail account is being deleted, please unsubscribe first!!

HAVING TROUBLE posting, subscribing or unsusubscribing? See the HBD FAQ at
http://hbd.org.

LOOKING TO BUY OR SELL USED EQUIPMENT? Please do not post about it here. Go
instead to http://homebrewfleamarket.com and post a free ad there.

More information is available by sending the word "info" to
req@hbd.org or read the HBD FAQ at http://hbd.org.

JANITORs on duty: Pat Babcock (pbabcock at hbd dot org), Jason Henning,
and Spencer Thomas

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Thu, 5 Mar 2009 07:30:04 -0500
From: Fred L Johnson <FLJohnson52 at nc.rr.com>
Subject: Re: Carbonation saturation

I think Joe wants to carbonate his beer by pumping in a known VOLUME
of CO2 into his tank and waiting for it to dissolve into the beer so
that at equilibrium he has achieved the desired amount of CO2 in his
beer at the storage temperature. I love this idea and would like to
give it a shot on paper.

I hesitate to post this to the Digest, as I don't quite trust my
reasoning and knowledge. But here goes anyway. I just remember that
God loves me even if I'm dead wrong.

Joe: I think you meant to say that you wanted to achieve 2.5 volumes
(not atmospheres) of CO2 in your beer. That means for every gallon of
beer you want to achieve 2.5 gallons of CO2 dissolved in the beer. So
if you can measure the volume of CO2 you push into the tank, then the
volume you need to put in will depend on the volume of beer in the
tank and the amount of headspace in the tank. It would be a simple
answer if the tank were completely filled with beer, but then you
wouldn't be able to quickly push the volume of CO2 you need into the
beer, as it takes time for the CO2 to dissolve in the beer. So you
are stuck with pushing CO2 into the headspace and waiting for it to
dissolve into the beer. If you can actually measure the volume of CO2
that you push into the tank, then the total volume needed will depend
on the volume of beer, the volume of headspace, and the temperature.

I think I know where you are going with this. You would like to put
all the CO2 you need into the tank at the end of the day so that when
it has equilibrated between the headspace and the beer the next
morning, the beer will have the 2.5 volumes of CO2 dissolved in it. I
love this idea, but as you said, you are limited to 15 psi of
pressure, which precludes you from putting enough CO2 into the
headspace to fully carbonate the beer, assuming most of the tank is
filled with beer rather than headspace. I haven't done the math, but
I think you could do this with a tank that has much more headspace.

The final pressure at equilibrium at 34 degrees F will be about 14.7
psi using the calculator I made for you for your tank (depending on
the volume of beer you put in the tank), so I think that means the
volume of CO2 you would need to put in (after purging the headspace)
is on the order of 14.7 x the volume of the headspace plus 2.5 times
the volume of the beer. For example (not your specific tank), for a
tank of 1000 gallons of beer and 100 gallons of headspace that would
be (100 gal * 14.7) + (1000 gal * 2.5) = 3970 gallons (15,026 liters)
of CO2. That much volume of CO2 confined to the head space initially
would produce a pressure of 39.7 psi if my reasoning and math are
correct. That pressure would gradually drop until equilibrium is
achieved at 14.7 psi at 34 degrees F and your beer would have 2.5
volumes of CO2 in it.

I'm sure many will correct me if I've missed something.

Fred L Johnson
Apex, North Carolina, USA

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 5 Mar 2009 09:01:10 -0500
From: "A.J deLange" <ajdel at cox.net>
Subject: Carbonation

I think you probably mean you want 2.5 volumes of CO2 as that's a sort
of nominal number but it depends on the style - Irish stouts, for
example, should be closer to 1.2 volumes and wheat beers 3 or more. If
you really do mean atmospheres then it is a simple matter of
subtracting 1, multiplying by 14.7 (i.e. (2.5 - 1)*14.7 = 22.05),
setting your CO2 regulator to that value and either waiting or
shaking. When everything equilibrates the partial pressure of CO2 in
the beer will be 2.5 atmospheres absolute (1.5 gauge). The amount of
CO2 dissolved under these conditions will depend on the temperature.
The formula V=3.2694 + .076221*P - 0.042274*T gives the number of
volumes (as released to the atmosphere at sea level on a standard day)
dissolved as a function of the gauge pressure (in psi) and Fahrenheit
temperature. V = 3.4821 + 0.14562*P - 0.07437*T - 6.6194e-05 *P*P -
0.0012952*P*T + 0.00053484*T*T gives a more accurate result but given
the accuracy of most CO2 gauges it probably isn't necessary to do the
extra math. Of course, if you put it in a spreadsheet, the spreadsheet
does the math, not you, and you might as well have the better result.
These formulas represent fits to the ASBC table (from the MOAs) and
you can, of course, also consult those (there's a copy attached to my
cooler door). The approximations are valid from 32 to 60F and 5 to 30
psig.

In the more usual approach the brewer would decide that he wants, e.g.
2.5 volumes and wants to serve the beer at say 40 F. He then goes to
the ASBC table or plugs numbers into the formula until he finds the
pressure (about 12 psig) that gives 2.5 volumes at 40 F. To illustrate
a little further suppose this same brewer plans to lager/condition
this beer at 34 F. He will then want to know what pressure to set for
2.5 volumes at the lower temperature. The tables or formula show this
to be 9 psig so his plan would be to put it in ruh storage at 34 with
the regulator set to 9 and then when he moves it to his serving fridge
at 40F raise the pressure to 12.

A.J.

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 05 Mar 2009 10:39:44 -0500
From: Kai Troester <kai at braukaiser.com>
Subject: German Brewing between 1850 and 1900

Last year, when browsing Google Books I came across a number of old
German books that contained a surprisingly detailed description of the
brewing process and I was fascinated reading about how they brewed
beer in the latter half of the 19th century and what they knew about
it and what they didn't. Earlier that year I also visited Germany and
took a number of pictures in two brewing museums in Bavaria.

I then realized that a commented translation of excerpts from one of
the books augmented with these pictures and various diagrams and
tables from other book would make a great article for braukaiser.com.
After working on it for a few weeks I'm finally done:

German Brewing between 1850 and 1900
* Part I: Malting and Wort Production [1]
* Part II: Fermentation and Beer [2]

Grab a beer and get ready to learn about brewing back then, get amused
by what they didn't know and how much different these beers must have
been (especially when they had cats in the malthouse).

Kai

Links (remove the line breaks in the links. HBD doesn't like lines
longer than 80 characters):
- ------
[1]
http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?
title=German_Brewing_between_1850_and_1900_:_Malting_and_Wort_Production
[2]
http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?
title=German_Brewing_between_1850_and_1900:_Fermentation_and_Beer

------------------------------
End of HOMEBREW Digest #5519, 03/05/09
*************************************
-------

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Homebrew Digest #5518 (March 04, 2009)

HOMEBREW Digest #5518 Wed 04 March 2009

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

***************************************************************
TODAY'S HOME BREW DIGEST BROUGHT TO YOU BY:

HBD Server Fund
PO Box 871309
Canton Township, MI 48187-6309

Contents:
Re: maintaining mash heat (bill keiser)
carbonation saturation (Joe Katchever)

As always, donors and donations are publicly acknowledged
and accounted for on the HBD web page. THank you

Send articles for __publication_only__ to post@hbd.org

If your e-mail account is being deleted, please unsubscribe first!!

HAVING TROUBLE posting, subscribing or unsusubscribing? See the HBD FAQ at
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More information is available by sending the word "info" to
req@hbd.org or read the HBD FAQ at http://hbd.org.

JANITORs on duty: Pat Babcock (pbabcock at hbd dot org), Jason Henning,
and Spencer Thomas

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Wed, 04 Mar 2009 07:25:44 -0500
From: bill keiser <bk2 at sharpstick.org>
Subject: Re: maintaining mash heat

i guess i should have made a new subject line.
if the small maount is carefully raised only to strike temp, would
denaturing still be a problem?
bill keiser

> Bill:
>
> I'm not sure I understand your question because slaking heat causes
> the mash to rise in temperature initially at mash-in.
>
> To your question: if you are trying to keep the temperature of your
> mash up in the face of its losing heat to the surroundings, you can
> certainly take a portion of the wort at times and raise the
> temperature of this portion and then add it back. You will likely
> denature most of the enzymes in this portion, so you will be reducing
> your diastatic power somewhat each time you do this. However, this is
> essentially what is done with decoction mashing, except that one boils
> a portion of wort-poor grist and adds this back to the mash.
>
> Incidentally, I'm not one of those who have a fancy brew sculpture. My
> brewery is certainly a hack job, but not using a cooler.
>
> Fred L Johnson
> Apex, North Carolina, USA
>
>

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 04 Mar 2009 08:26:23 -0600
From: Joe Katchever <joe at pearlstreetbrewery.com>
Subject: carbonation saturation

First off, I'm looking to pinpoint CO2 quantity in beer. I want to
achieve 2.5 atmospheres saturation by means of flowing so many liters of
CO2 into the beer. My question is: how many liters of C02/gallon will
acheive 2.5 atmospheres? As c02 is injected via carbstone, pressure in
the vessel will rise from say2-3 pounds to 15, where the prv will open
and release unsafe pressure.

- --
Joe

------------------------------
End of HOMEBREW Digest #5518, 03/04/09
*************************************
-------

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Homebrew Digest #5517 (March 03, 2009)

HOMEBREW Digest #5517 Tue 03 March 2009

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

***************************************************************
TODAY'S HOME BREW DIGEST BROUGHT TO YOU BY:

HBD Server Fund
PO Box 871309
Canton Township, MI 48187-6309

Contents:
Re: Slaking heat (bill keiser)
simple(ish) way to account for slake heat (Matt)

As always, donors and donations are publicly acknowledged
and accounted for on the HBD web page. THank you

Send articles for __publication_only__ to post@hbd.org

If your e-mail account is being deleted, please unsubscribe first!!

HAVING TROUBLE posting, subscribing or unsusubscribing? See the HBD FAQ at
http://hbd.org.

LOOKING TO BUY OR SELL USED EQUIPMENT? Please do not post about it here. Go
instead to http://homebrewfleamarket.com and post a free ad there.

More information is available by sending the word "info" to
req@hbd.org or read the HBD FAQ at http://hbd.org.

JANITORs on duty: Pat Babcock (pbabcock at hbd dot org), Jason Henning,
and Spencer Thomas

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 03 Mar 2009 07:26:27 -0500
From: bill keiser <bk2 at sharpstick.org>
Subject: Re: Slaking heat

i've never seen this done, but can you pour out a couple quarts every
few minutes, reheat with a double boiler or microwave to strike temp and
pour back in to keep the temp flat during mash?
this would be doable for those of us primitive brewers who are using an
old hacked up cooler instead of a fancy brew sculpture.
bill keiser

> . . . if heat is generated during the mash, then
> we should somehow be taking this into account in our calculations of
> strike water temperature.
>
> Fred L Johnson
> Apex, North Carolina, USA
>

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 3 Mar 2009 08:59:50 -0800 (PST)
From: Matt <baumssl27 at yahoo.com>
Subject: simple(ish) way to account for slake heat

I think the following may be the simplest way to include slake
heat in mash temp equations. (BTW I haven't been academically
precise with physical definitions and units. Note also that slaking
heat of course only applies to the first infusion, in which dry malt
is hydrated.)

Any decent existing mash temp equation already has a term (we'll
call it "A") that accounts for initial heat that the dry grain brings
to the table. This'll look something like

A = grain_mass * grain_heat_capacity * temp_of_grain.

(In Bill's version this is the term Tg*0.4*Wg.) However, the grain
also brings extra "slaking heat" to the table as it gets hydrated.
The total heat the grain brings is then

B = ( grain_mass * grain_heat_capacity * temp_of_grain )
+
( grain_mass * grain_heat_of_hydration )

To account for slaking heat we might just replace A with B in our
equations, but it may be more simple/practical if we re-arrange B:

B2 = grain_mass * grain_heat_capacity *
( temp_of_grain + bonus_slake_temp)

where we've invented a "bonus_slake_temp" with units of temperature.
This technically equals grain_heat_of_hydration divided by
grain_heat_capacity -- the amount by which the slaking heat
would increase the temp of the dry grain itself. An approach to
finding the value of bonus_slake_temp on a given system is below.

THE POINT IS THAT THE EFFECT OF SLAKE HEAT CAN BE ACCOUNTED FOR BY
JUST ADDING A LITTLE "BONUS" TO THE INITIAL DRY GRAIN TEMP. One
could do this even with existing computer implementations
(spreadsheets, promash) that don't explicitly address slaking heat.

Thus we have two "fudge factors": mash tun thermal load and "bonus
slake temp". These can BOTH be calculated for a given system, based
on a single mash that includes two infusions (such as a single
infusion to 150F, plus a mashout infusion) as long as we carefully
record the volume and temp of water, and initial and final mash
temp, for each infusion.

To calculate the fudge factors we'd start with the second infusion:
slaking heat is not a factor there so the "mash tun thermal load"
can be found on its own. Then, with knowledge of the mash tun
thermal load, we'd tackle the first infusion and find the value of
bonus_slake_temp that makes the calculation match reality. I won't
go into the math--if you've bothered to read this far you're surely
geeky enough to do it on your own.

Simple methods with a single fudge factor are certainly good enough
to work well in a narrow operating range (say, for single infusions
near 150F). That's what I do and I'm happy with it. But they
don't work as well for step mashes with protein rests and I'd wager
this two-fudge-factor method would work a lot better. I haven't
tried it but I will.

Matt

------------------------------
End of HOMEBREW Digest #5517, 03/03/09
*************************************
-------

Monday, March 2, 2009

Homebrew Digest #5516 (March 02, 2009)

HOMEBREW Digest #5516 Mon 02 March 2009

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

***************************************************************
TODAY'S HOME BREW DIGEST BROUGHT TO YOU BY:

HBD Server Fund
PO Box 871309
Canton Township, MI 48187-6309

Contents:
Re: Slaking heat (Fred L Johnson)
re: Slake Heat (Matt)

As always, donors and donations are publicly acknowledged
and accounted for on the HBD web page. THank you

Send articles for __publication_only__ to post@hbd.org

If your e-mail account is being deleted, please unsubscribe first!!

HAVING TROUBLE posting, subscribing or unsusubscribing? See the HBD FAQ at
http://hbd.org.

LOOKING TO BUY OR SELL USED EQUIPMENT? Please do not post about it here. Go
instead to http://homebrewfleamarket.com and post a free ad there.

More information is available by sending the word "info" to
req@hbd.org or read the HBD FAQ at http://hbd.org.

JANITORs on duty: Pat Babcock (pbabcock at hbd dot org), Jason Henning,
and Spencer Thomas

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Mon, 2 Mar 2009 07:49:35 -0500
From: Fred L Johnson <FLJohnson52 at nc.rr.com>
Subject: Re: Slaking heat

This discussion slaking heat appeals to my analytical bent, so I
apologize for those who find this stuff a waste of time, which it
probably is.

I must say that I don't understand why the full amount of slaking
heat is not considered in the formula, i.e., why the formula includes
only "0.5 h". Do I understand correctly that this is simply
someone's attempt to enter a fudge factor into the formula for heat
losses, or is A. J. saying that there is a thermodynamic principal
being captured by this factor?

It seems that all of the heat would be distributed among the grain,
the water, and the tun, (or to the surroundings if it all of these
are perfectly insulated, which , of course, they are not) and that
all of the mass and specific heat of all of these must be considered
in calculating the temperature rise of the mash. Others have pointed
out that the entire mash tun is not heated uniformly during the mash-
in process and that there should be adjustment for the portion of the
tun that gets heated and to what degree--a very complicated
calculation. Nevertheless, if heat is generated during the mash, then
we should somehow be taking this into account in our calculations of
strike water temperature.

Fred L Johnson
Apex, North Carolina, USA

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 2 Mar 2009 07:56:54 -0800 (PST)
From: Matt <baumssl27 at yahoo.com>
Subject: re: Slake Heat

AJ says "For small (5 gallon batch) mashes the ratio is
quite high and the slaking heat is likely to be lost
through the larger surface before its effects are noticed."

Well, heat is heat. But anyway I think (?) you're really
suggesting that since slaking heat will generally be less
that what's lost to the thermal load of a low-volume mash
setup, we can assume on the whole the temperature will
still "drop" compared to an ideal calculation with just
water and grain.

Slaking heat will cause it to drop less than it otherwise
would--but one might suspect we could deal with that by
including an "effective thermal mass" in the calculation,
which accounts not for the actual thermal mass but for the
practical difference between the effects of thermal mass
and slaking heat.

As I mentioned earlier, this is just what I do for single
infusions near my usual temperature, mash thickness, with
my grind, etc. At this operating point, slaking heat seems
to cancel surrounding heat loss to within 1F so my "effective
thermal mass" happens to be zero.

Where the problem arises, in my experience, is if you try to
use that same "effective thermal mass" for step infusions at
a different operating point (lower temp, thicker mash, etc).
For the first infusion in the schedule, you get about the same
total slaking heat, but with less water the associated temp
increase is much *higher*, plus heat loss to surroundings is
*smaller*. If I try to calculate an infusion to 113F, using
my normal "effective thermal mass," I end up at 119F!

Then I add water to make my step infusion, and of course there
will be no slaking heat at all this time. It therefore
requires *much* more boiling water to hit my next rest temp,
than I would predict using my normal "effective thermal mass."

So for me, slaking heat effects and thermal load effects CAN
be lumped into one fudge factor (which happens to be near zero)
for single infusion mashes near 150F and 1.5 qt/bl.
BUT this approximation does NOT work (in theory or in practice
on my system) over the wider range of temps and thicknesses
associated with step mashing. YMMV.

I do agree that coming up with something that DOES work well
(say within 2F) is a rather formidable challenge for the reasons
AJ mentions. Coming up with something that just works *better*
than the single fudge factor approach is less formidable--but
also may not be worth the effort for a lot of folks versus trial
and error and quick additions of hot/cold water.

Matt

------------------------------
End of HOMEBREW Digest #5516, 03/02/09
*************************************
-------

Sunday, March 1, 2009

Homebrew Digest #5515 (March 01, 2009)

HOMEBREW Digest #5515 Sun 01 March 2009

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

***************************************************************
TODAY'S HOME BREW DIGEST BROUGHT TO YOU BY:

HBD Server Fund
PO Box 871309
Canton Township, MI 48187-6309

Contents:
Weyermans/Slake Heat ("A.J deLange")
1st Round NHC Judging - NE Region ("David Houseman")
Listing of dermatologists and dozens more specialties ("brickbat")

As always, donors and donations are publicly acknowledged
and accounted for on the HBD web page. THank you

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Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 08:08:53 -0500
From: "A.J deLange" <ajdel at cox.net>
Subject: Weyermans/Slake Heat

Weyermans does post representative malt analyses on their website.
Though this is not, I'm sure, what Kai is looking for it does give one
a rough idea of what to expect from each of their products.

* * * * * * * * * * *
When thinking about slake heat start by considering that the ratio of
surface area to volume is inversely proportional to the linear size of
the mash. For small (5 gallon batch) mashes the ratio is quite high
and the slaking heat is likely to be lost through the larger surface
before its effects are noticed. Since the heat released is from the
hydration reaction the amount is going to depend on how hydrated the
malt already is i.e. its moisture content. This can vary appreciably
depending on how long the malt has been stored and under what
conditions. The rate of heat release will depend on how rapidly
hydration takes place and this in turn must depend on the fineness of
the grind and the method of hydration (grain into water, water into
grain, Steele's masher etc). Finally, the manifestation of the
released heat, a rise in temperature, will depend on the thermal mass
of the mash which is a function of the grist to water ratio and the
specific heat of the malt which is quite variable. Given all this it
is going to be pretty hard to come up with a formula which accurately
models temperature rise from slaking heat.

The formula F = (St+RT+0.5h)/(S+R) is simply a rearrangement of a
statement of the first law for a unit mass of malt with its specific
heat in units of the specific heat of water (i.e. water is 1 degree F
per BTU): (F-t)S +(F-T)R - 0.5h = 0 which simply says that an
energy conservation tally must include half of h for each unit mass of
malt. Thus 0.5h is the amount of energy released when malt is slaked.
Why the 0.5? It may relate to the differences between laboratory
measurements of slaking heat made on a dried basis (t may be worth
noting that the ASBC does not have an MOA (Method of Analysis) for
determining slaking heat potential) or be a fudge factor related to
some of the other considerations I mentioned.

When I was helping Jeffrey on this for ProMash there was a lot of
discussion as to how to handle slaking heat. I argued that just
sticking this formula into the program wasn't adequate and we were
talking about doing some measurements to see if we could come up with
a better one but this involved springing for a moisture balance which
I wasn't ready to do and then Jeffry's life got complicated so it
never happened. I had some notes by I can't seem to turn them up so
it's all a little hazy and I don't remember whether he actually stuck
this formula in as an interim thing or not.

Practically speaking I never noticed slaking heat until I started
doing mashes involving 70 - 100 lbs of grain. Even then I see it
sometimes and sometimes I don't (though I am never particularly
looking for it). What I am calling slaking heat is a rise in mash tun
temperature that occurs after all the grain has been added to the mash
water absent any addition of heat. The largest rise that I have seen
that I might attribute to slaking heat has been a little less than 1 C.

A.J.

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 01 Mar 2009 20:18:47 -0500
From: "David Houseman" <david.houseman at verizon.net>
Subject: 1st Round NHC Judging - NE Region

The Northeast Regional judging for the 1st Round of the National Homebrew
Competition will be held the weekend of April 17-19 at the Yards Brewery
(www.yardsbrewing.com) in Philadelphia. Yards is located at 901 N.
Delaware Avenue in Philly. Check out MapQuest or Yahoo! Maps for location
and directions.

For those of you have judged this competition before expect this location to
be even better than last year there as Yards is now in production and the
facility is completed and open for business. For those of you who haven't
this is a great opportunity judge in the largest home brew competition in
the world. We expect to be judging on Saturday and Sunday, although the
number of flights and time needed to judge will depend on the number of
entries we receive and the number of judges who commit to judging. We may
do some judging on Friday night if needed depending on the number of entries
and judges who are available on Saturday and Sunday. While the
details haven't been fully worked out expect to start judging on Saturday AM
at 9am, on Sunday at 10:00 and IF we judge on Friday night, it will be about
7:30pm. Friday night might be a great time for pub crawl for those coming
from out of town. Details will be provided closer to the date of the
competition.

Again, we will be judging Cider in addition to the Mead and Beer categories.
This will be a chance to try some of the best ciders made in the US. Those
of you who attended last year's cider training session will want to put
their training to practice.

Just reply to me to be put on the list to judge. Let me know which day(s)
you will be available, what categories you want to judge, do not want to
judge and can't judge because you plan to enter those categories. We will
make an attempt to honor your requests if at all possible but someone has to
judge the least favorable categories and not everyone can judge the most
popular ones.

So reserve the weekend of April 17-19 and plan to judge in Philadelphia.
If you have not done so already, let me know that you can judge. If you
know someone who'd like to steward,
let me know as well; we can use several.

Site Director: Nancy Rigberg
NRigberg at comcast.net
http://www.homesweethomebrew.com/

Judge Coordinator: David Houseman
david.houseman at verizon.net

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 12:19:27 +0600
From: "brickbat" <eardrum at amazingmachines.com>
Subject: Listing of dermatologists and dozens more specialties

Licensed MDs in the United States

788,635 in total <> 17,606 emails

Many different medical specialties

Sort by over a dozen different fields

Price for this week only = $393

()()() Take all 4 items below for F REE when you order ()()()

<> Directory of US Pharma Companies
Personal email addresses (47,000 in total) and names for top level executives

<> Hospitals in the United States
23,000 Admins in more than 7,000 hospitals {a $399 value]

<> Directory of American Dentists
597,000 dentists and dental services ( a $350 value!)

<> Chiropractors in the USA
100,000 Chiropractors in the USA (worth $250 alone)

Email us at: Leslie at qualitymedlists.com

good until February 28

By emailing nomail at qualitymedlists.com you will have your email taken off

------------------------------
End of HOMEBREW Digest #5515, 03/01/09
*************************************
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