Brewing Master

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HOMEBREW Digest #2617                        Fri 23 January 1998         FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES                 Many thanks to the Observer & Eccentric Newspapers of                 Livonia, Michigan for sponsoring the Homebrew Digest.                                 URL: http://www.oeonline.com Contents:   Break Material/Oops! Forgot the Irish Moss (Jim Herter)   Upping Heating Efficiency ("Tkach, Christopher")   New Wort Boiling Method ("David R. Burley")   Southeast Homebrewer of the Year Results ("Bryan Cronk")   Fast starts / racking off t ("Andrew Avis")   Clink! Pop! Blam! And the eating of humble pie… (Some Guy)   decotion mashing (Michael Rasmussen)   How to clean and immersion chiller. ("John W. Carpenter")   Layers in carboy ("Dr. Dwight A Erickson")   Re: Optimum Mash Grain Depth (Kelly Jones)   2 liter heaven (Darrell)   Bridgeport IPA ("Eric Darrow")   Brewtek Saison (Keith Busby)   Dry Yeast Expired? (Michael Beatty)   Re: SOD ("Dr. Dwight A Erickson")   Lower efficiency for high-gravity beers? (Dan Cole)   Competition announcement ("Ralph Colaizzi")   RE: more about labels ("PARKER,Myles")   cornelius keg carbonation (antnee56)   Ion Exchange ("Raymond C. Steinhart")   GRISTBLASTER(tm) (The Holders)   Help with porter ("David Johnson")   In Defense of Step Mashing (GuyG4)   Re: Zima Brewing (Glenn Raudins) (Jeff McNeal)   labels (Heiner Lieth)   alcoholism thread (Heiner Lieth)   propane tanks (John_E_Schnupp)   Cheap CF chiller design (Richard Scholz)   Re: Zima (Mark Weaver) Apologies for missed delivery of Digest 1/22/98. You were not unsubscribed, the server did not crash, and the world did not end. Situation has been rectified. Be sure to enter the… The Best of Brooklyn Homebrew Competition Brooklyn Brewery, Brooklyn, NY Entries due by 1/31/98, competition 2/7/98 NOTE NEW HOMEBREW ADDRESS:  hbd.org   (Articles are published in the order they are received.) If your e-mail account is being deleted, please unsubscribe first!! To SUBSCRIBE or UNSUBSCRIBE send an e-mail message with the word **SUBSCRIBE AND UNSUBSCRIBE REQUESTS MUST BE SENT FROM THE E-MAIL **ACCOUNT YOU WISH TO HAVE SUBSCRIBED OR UNSUBSCRIBED!!! IF YOU HAVE SPAM-PROOFED your e-mail address, the autoresponder and   the SUBSCRIBE/UNSUBSCRIBE commands will fail! Homebrew Digest Information on the Web: http://hbd.org Requests for back issues will be ignored. Back issues are available via:   Anonymous ftp from…         ftp://hbd.org/pub/hbd/digests         ftp://ftp.stanford.edu/pub/clubs/homebrew/beer   AFS users can find it under…         /afs/ir.stanford.edu/ftp/pub/clubs/homebrew/beer I did my first decoction mash yesterday (Oktoberfest) following the steps outlined in the Zymurgy "Grains" issue from a year or so ago. Surprisingly, it went as planned, but did add an hour or so to the session. I try to lay out my brewing session the day before and usually I am very prepared. In the course of reading and brewing at the same time I managed to forget to add the Irish Moss. Even when using the moss I seem to end up with a good amount of protein in the fermenter. I know that this is not desirable, but I haven’t become overly concerned due to the fact that the beers turn out very well. Generally, when I do a lager (which is not often), I leave the beer in secondary for 4-6 weeks and get good clarity. Any reason to be concerned? Or any remedial steps to take after the fact to deal with potential problems that may occur as a result of having the excess protein in the primary? Any suggestions on how to leave the junk behind in the brew pot? I use a converted keg with a spigot at the bottom and the pipe running to the center of the bottom. (Unfortunately the person who cut and welded the keg thought he was doing me a favor by making the pipe one piece to the bottom). I’m always leery of leaving the beer set too long in the kettle after chilling – Or set in the carboy for extended periods before pitching.   Jim Herter St. Joe Valley Brewers Chairperson Ok, after having probably one of the worst brew sessions I’ve ever experienced on Saturday, I’m asking some advice on improving my boils. But first, let me give you a little history… This Christmas, to my dis-belief, I found a 10gal brew kettle under the tree.  Meaning that I could finally do all-grain, full boils (I’ve been stuck in partial mash/partial boil land for over 2 years now).  Needless to say, I was quite happy! But w/ this new toy, I’ve run into a bit of a problem w/ achieving a nice rolling boil because I’m now trying to boil 6-7 gallons instead of the 4-4.5 gallons that I was boiling previously.  To compensate for the lack of ‘power’ that my wimpy electric stove puts out, I’ve had to partially cover the kettle (I know, DMS…).  But this has created another problem, and that is the amount of boiled off wort has dropped (I’m assuming its due to the kettle being partially covered).  Which in turn has resulted in lower OGs and more wort than I know what to do with.  This was quite evident Saturday when I tried to make an Imperial Stout, but ended up w/ 7gal of wort (after a 90min boil), about 10 pts lower than expected.  My mash efficiency wasn’t off, which means that the lower OG is due to the fact that I had more wort than expected (7gal vs 5.5gal). Is there any way that I can improve the efficiency of the stove/boil so that I don’t have to keep the kettle partially covered.  Would insulating the kettle help much? Thanks,  - Chris Newmarket, NH Brewsters: One of my buddies attended the recent American Institute of = Chem Engineering National Meeting in LA  and brought back a reference to a paper given  by Gino Bacon from = Vrije Universitet Brussel. He described a "greener" wort boiling method.  Not that the wort is green, but the method is claimed to be more environmentally satisfactory.  The news article was titled "Making Better Brews, "Worts" and All"  Guess the author just couldn’t help her/himself. Anyway, Bacon and Sonck working with Interbrew NV describes the method as a two stage wort boiling system. 1) First the wort is kept at boiling temperature and no significant = evaporation occurs.  Volatile compounds formed through chemical reactions are accumulated in the wort. 2) In stage two, the volatile compounds are eliminated in a wort stripping column.  Boiling wort is passed through a column packed with materials that offer a large surface for contact with water vapor to effectively strip the liquid of VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds) which pass off with the steam. Bacon comments that the flavor profile of the beers produced in industrial trials matches that of conventionally boiled worts. He also comments that there is a significant reduction in the energy loss due to boiling. Frankly, I doubt this news description is entirely correct and I believe what happens is that the *vapors* from the boiling wort are passed over a packed column familiar to chemist and chemical = engineers alike. I would also suppose that it is a method of reducing or controlling the odor released to the outside world ( an increasing problem with food processors in the US.) during the long  boil, which needs to be carried out for an hour or longer to get the conversion of the hop resins.  This may also preserve some of the hop aroma oils as well or they could be collected in the effluent from the column. I would imagine the length of the = column and the number of theoretical plates would be important to this process. Interesting idea.  I can imagine a pressure cooker being used in some fashion to simulate this in which the wort is held at 212F and not boiled for an hour.  Perhaps some form of magnetically coupled agitation would be needed to get the extraction from the hops and then follow this with a brief boil.  This might minimize = the "this place smells like a brewery" comments from the SO , and provide more control over the hop aromas/bitterness ratio in the brew. The danger of course is that with pressure cookers, plugging of the vent can spell disaster. Can you say wort bomb of scalding water and flying chunks of metal?  The combo of hops and boilup foam sounds like a dangerous combo to me and certainly goes = against the recommendation of the cooker manufacturer of what kinds of things that can be safely processed in a pressure cooker. Maybe this could be done at atmospheric pressure with some kind = of automatic control on the heater at near boiling with agitation from inert gas – CO2 or nitrogen – or a mechanical stirring to get dispersion of hop resins so they can be converted and utilized. Keep on brewin’ Dave Burley Kinnelon, NJ 07405 Voice e-mail OK = Competition Results, Southeast Homebrewer of the Year Hosted by TRUB and CARBOY, Durham NC, January 17, 1998 Southeast Homebrewer of the Year winner Brian Travis, Lawrenceville GA Congratulations … read more »

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I don’t know how to comment the digest articles, but while I read them in the r.c.b group, I comment the same way. Collective, Here’s an Ascii drawing of an new gadget I made after researching all the possiblilities. Works great, easy to clean (lid unscrews),Cooled from 200+ to 68F in 18 mins for 5 gals. Any comments, suggestions welcome. (hope this drawing comes thru OK!)

No, it didn’t because of the long lines caused by your "column picture layout"… For this comment I recover the split long lines, but they probably get ruined again. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text –                    ||     ||  3/4" Garden hose  /     /  3/8" hose barb/FPT into                                    compression fitting/MPT for 3/8" copper                in  out               [  ][  ]                ||  ||     ||  ||           /               ||  ||     Here’s a cheap and simple counterflow          |                ||  ||   |  wort chiller. The parts can be bought          |                / / ||   |  for around $15. The cost of Phil fittings          |   | |       / /         |  2. two(2) garden hose fittings   $2.00          |   | |    / /            |  5. ~15ft 3/8" copper tube        $5.00          |   | | / /               |   Constuction:                |   |/ /                  |   into top of jar(~4" OD).          |   | |                   |   Drill four holes in top. Make sure          |                     |   They secure the connections on          |                         |          |                         |            / coil of 3/8" copper in 1 gallon            || polysomething jar with screw lid – — Later, Richard L Scholz Merrill_Lynch,_Pierce,_Fenner_&_Smith_Inc.     |///

As you must see, this really isn’t counterflow chiller. To achieve counterflow, the cold flow must propagate the opposite direction than the hot flow. That way the average temperature difference and thus the chilling effect will be biggest. Furthermore, both the flows must be turbulent to distribute the heat conduction. Copper is a good conductor, but for fluids (water and wort) the convection must be maximized for the best thermal transmission. CF maximizes the convection by turbulence. The chiller in the picture is more likely a cross-flow chiller, like a well shaken immersion chiller (but more expensive…). The water consumption The announced chilling effect 200 F to 68 F in 18 min for 5 gal, is close to good immersion chillers. For example my own CF chiller (16 feet 3/8" tube) cools the same effect in 10 minutes. Now, when we’re talking business, let’s discuss the construction of CF chiller anyhow… The picture <http://www.pressenter.com/~rcalley/misceqip.htm gives a good scheme to put the pieces together. There is a short hose between compression fitting and the plastic tee. However there exist a compression fitting with 3/4" or 1" outer screw and a compatible 3/4" or 1" copper T-piece with similar inner screw. Really neat: you can screw the "philchill piece" together without the short hose between. You can choose the suitable size for the fitting and tee for 3/8" or 1/2" copper tube, whatever you want. Now if the compression fittings in USA are as cheap as Richard told ($1 a piece), the CF construction is quite cheap. Unfortunately here in Finland the compression fittings are about $5 a piece. — Research Assistant                      fax +358 9 451 4738 Helsinki University of Technology       tel +358 9 451 2365 Laboratory of Telecommunication Software and Multimedia

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