Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Homebrew Digest #5671 (March 17, 2010)

HOMEBREW Digest #5671 Wed 17 March 2010


FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
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Contents:
Re: 2010 BJCP Board Elections: North, Northeast, Mountain/Northwest (Mike Dixon)
Growler Filling from kegs ("Steve Johnson")
Berliner Weisse ("T. Rohner")
Re: Kegging and Growler Fill Advice (Calvin Perilloux)


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Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2010 07:35:09 -0400
From: Mike Dixon <mpdixon at ipass.net>
Subject: Re: 2010 BJCP Board Elections: North, Northeast, Mountain/Northwest

Three of the seven BJCP Board of Directors positions are up for
election.If you live in one of these regions and are a member of the
BJCP, please consider becoming active in the process.

Whether your interest is in being a candidate, supporting your favorite
candidate, or simply making your vote count, we need your involvement.

Nominations are being accepted through the end of March, and all the
details can be found on the website:
http://www.bjcp.org/electioncenter.php

Please Note: We currently do not have any candidates from the North region.

Cheers,
Mike Dixon
Wake Forest, NC
BJCP Communication Director


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Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2010 09:44:07 -0500
From: "Steve Johnson" <sjohnson3 at comcast.net>
Subject: Growler Filling from kegs

Kevin asks for advice on filling growlers from his kegs. I had similar
problems early on when I first started kegging. However, through
trial and error, I have found the following system works best for
me, but may be counter to what Kevin is trying to accomplish by
natural carbonation to get the best carbonation levels at the
beginning of his filled keg.

After my beer has been kegged through force carbontation and
is at the desired carbonation level (about 10 to 12 PSI for my
system for most of my beers), when I want to fill a growler or
some swing top bottles for sharing with friends, I get the
containers as cold as possible by placing in the fridge for some
time before filling. Then, I have a dedicated beer line about 2
feet in length with a quick disconnect on one end and rather
than a cobra tap on the other end, I leave the other end free
of any fitting or dispensing device. I place that free end in the
bottom of the container I am filling, and then bleed off any
excess gas from my keg, but leaving enough to be sure that
the seal on the keg o-ring will maintain a tight seal. Then I
hook the quick disconnect to the beer out line on the keg
and pull off enough beer to fill the container. I usually place
the bottle or growler in a clean short sided bucket to capture
any spillage or allow for a slight bit of foam over, but with
the reduced pressure in the keg, there is usually not too
much of this. If I am filling several containers, I may have
to give the keg a brief shot of CO2 to get the beer moving
out of the keg again.

When I am done, I just run more CO2 into the keg at the
right PSI that I originally had in the keg to get the overall
pressure in the keg back up to normal dispense levels. I also
make sure that that bottle or growler filling line is kept
clean and sanitized before and after each use by doing a
final soak in Star San.

Again, this method may end up working against your main
objective of getting and maintaining a good carbonation
level in your kegs through natural carbonation, but if you
are careful about adding more gas at the right PSI to begin
with, then you should be ok in maintaining that level in
much the same way you are doing it now.

Steve Johnson
Music City Brewers
Nashville, TN


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Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2010 15:58:16 +0100
From: "T. Rohner" <t.rohner at bluewin.ch>
Subject: Berliner Weisse

Hey all

I was wondering, if anyone is making Berliner Weisse regularly.
I was trying to find recipes and procedures for it.
I found 2 ways for souring the beer in my internet searches. Either
souring the mash, or let the lactos do their work during fermentation.
I found souring the mash interesting, since it would keep living lactos
out of my fermenters.(HDPE)
But as far as i have seen, the way the brewerys do it, seems to be
souring in the fermenter.
What yeast is suggested here? A clean wheat or a alt?

Cheers Thomas


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Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2010 09:03:18 -0700 (PDT)
From: Calvin Perilloux <calvinperilloux at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Kegging and Growler Fill Advice

> I've tried to fill a few growlers to bring to friends and
> I get so much foam in the growler that I have to let it rest
> before I can complete the fill.

Kevin,

Assuming your carbonation in the beer is set right, this is easy:

(1) Make sure your growler is as close as you can get it to 32 F.

(2) Reduce pressure on the serving keg to about 2 or 3 psi,
just enough to push the beer; any higher, and you'll create
foam. You'll need to vent the keg to do this, which is easy
on a pin-lock, harder on others.

(3) Optionally, use a piece of tubing that inserts in the tap
and reaches to the bottom of the growler. This helps reduce
oxidation. (Make sure you have enough flow to fill it with beer
instead of splashing beer through air inside the tube.)

(4) Optionally, purge the growler with a slow fill of CO2 before
you start this; this will reduce oxidation.

Our local brewpubs only do part 1 and 3, but you can get better
results by doing all of these.

Some of this depends on the tap geometry as well, and I'm not
sure how well it works with picnic taps. I sometimes fill using
the method above and other times use the Blichmann Beer Gun,
both with reasonable results (Blichmann's being better for fillibng
lots of bottles).

Calvin Perilloux
Middletown, Maryland, USA

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End of HOMEBREW Digest #5671, 03/17/10
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