Monday, February 28, 2011

Homebrew Digest #5796 (February 28, 2011)

HOMEBREW Digest #5796 Mon 28 February 2011


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


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Contents:
Bru'n Water and cation/anion balance ("Jeff Dieterle")
RE: using commercial kegs to serve homebrew? (Darrin Smith)
HBD Status ("Pat Babcock")


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Financial Projection As of 19 Jan 2011
*** Condition: TERMINAL ***
Projected 2011 Budget $3271.04
Expended against projection $ 599.70
Projected Excess/(Shortfall) ($2197.49)

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Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2011 10:25:20 -0500
From: "Jeff Dieterle" <jddieterle at hughes.net>
Subject: Bru'n Water and cation/anion balance

I've been paying around with Martin's spreadsheet and find it very helpful,
I'm going to follow it on my next brew session. The Wards lab report for my
RO water has a cation/anion ratio of .46, I talked to Ward labs about this
and never got a satisfactory answer, however my raw water analysis is
balanced. I've done a titration alkalinity test on my raw and RO water. The
raw water alkalinity matches the Ward report at 349ppm but for the RO I get
a value near 50ppm, where Ward reports it at 113ppm. If I accept Wards
values for the cations which for the most part are proportionate to the RO
reduction I expect from my raw water analysis and play with the bicarbonate
on the anion side I can get a balance profile using the alkalinity I
measured. Because I'm on a well I send in yearly samples and I'll be doing
that soon so I can compare results. Is this a reasonable approach to
getting balance water and using the spreadsheet considering the conflict
between my alkalinity test results and Wards?

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Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2011 11:14:38 -0500
From: Darrin Smith <hbd at aperature.org>
Subject: RE: using commercial kegs to serve homebrew?

Aaron Hermes asked about using sankey kegs a while ago and I just
got around to catching up on my HBD reading.

I've done this for the past couple of years, but cleaning is the one
major issue. I typically use a short soak of PBW, but NaOH may be
better, if you can find someplace that sells it.

I usually just fill the keg until it comes out the gas port, give it
a good shake(1/6 kegs), drain, and rinse.

Don't allow yourself to be tempted to take the keg apart. It's fairly
dangerous to remove the snap ring if the keg happens to still be
pressurized. Most kegs will have a set of ears on the spear that
should prevent the spear from shooting out of the keg, but I wouldn't
depend on it.


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Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2011 13:03:34 -0500 (EST)
From: "Pat Babcock" <pbabcock at hbd.org>
Subject: HBD Status

Folks,

The HBD funding status is currently terminal.

Donations in this economy have been few and far between. On top of that,
my wife has injured herself, and is out of work for the next several
weeks. Unfortunately, her disability pays about half of what she would
normally bring in.

So, brothers and sisters, as the song says: can you spare a dime? If
you've been comtemplating a donation to the HBD, I can think of no better
time.

Thanks.

- --

Pat Babcock in SE Michigan
Chief of HBD Janitorial Services
http://hbd.org
pbabcock at hbd.org

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End of HOMEBREW Digest #5796, 02/28/11
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