Brewing Master

Question:

Across the lake is Abita Springs brewpub which sits next to a 30 mile rails to trails path so you can bike or hike (it’s DAMN hot in LA now) and then have a drink …Zea’s  brewpub in the Clearview Shopping center has great brew and food-most of the members of the Crescent City Homebrewers consider this to be the best microbrew in town…Crescent City Brewhouse is right in the center of the French Quarter-average beer,mediocre food,nice place.Beer in the bottle to take home -Day’s, or any of the Abita products-turbodog,Amber, purple haze (if you like flavored beer)

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HOMEBREW Digest #3963                        Fri 14 June 2002         FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES        THIS YEAR’S HOME BREW DIGEST BROUGHT TO YOU BY:           Northern  Brewer, Ltd. Home Brew Supplies         http://www.northernbrewer.com  1-800-681-2739     Support those who support you! Visit our sponsor’s site! Contents:   Re: Adding Water After Fermentation ("Steve Alexander")   NHC 2002 (blutick)   beer descriptions ("Dave Sapsis")   * * * HBD SLAMDOWN! is ON For NHC Dallas! * * * (mohrstrom)   Change in hotels again ("Jim")   Conical Height Woes (Richard Foote)   RE:  Adding water after fermentation (KC Sare)   Re: beer descriptions (Pat Babcock)   AHA National Homebrewers Conference ("AOB Moderator")   C?CA ("Drew Avis")   Hop growing question (Bill Wible)   RE: NHC Hotel Change ("Sweeney, David")   Re: AHA in Dallas-moving again but still no need to worry!!! ("Dan Dewberry")   Good brew in the Big Easy ("Ed Dorn")   blue rhino propane exchange ("Laura Barrowman")   Weihenstephan & Wissenschaftliche (Jeff Renner)   Orlando Beer Scene – the Real Story (Don Lake)   Blow off (John Maylone) * * Show your HBD pride! Wear an HBD Badge! * http://hbd.org/cgi-bin/shopping * * Beer is our obsession and we’re late for therapy! * If your e-mail account is being deleted, please unsubscribe first!! To SUBSCRIBE or UNSUBSCRIBE send an e-mail message with the word   ACCOUNT YOU WISH TO HAVE SUBSCRIBED OR UNSUBSCRIBED!!!** IF YOU HAVE SPAM-PROOFED your e-mail address, you cannot subscribe to   the digest as we cannot reach you. We will not correct your address   for the automation – that’s your job. The HBD is a copyrighted document. The compilation is copyright   HBD.ORG. Individual postings are copyright by their authors. ASK   before reproducing and you’ll rarely have trouble. Digest content   cannot be reproduced by any means for sale or profit. More information is available by sending the word "info" to I’m with JeffR re the dilution of beer post fermentation, but KC Sare (Jones?) from Heriot-Watt posted all the practical information re diluting water.   The water should be soft (distilled is great) O2 free and carbonated.  pH should also be observed. Producing the hi-grav wort may involve either an extract addition or mashing more grist and sparging less.  Of course you have to calculate IBUs needed in the final beer, multiply to figure IBUs in the concentrated beer, then chose a formula to get those. The hardest part of high gravity brewing is (I think) fermenting a brew with a flavor profile that will withstand dilution.    Fermenting hi-grav beers is likely to show up as increased fusels and esters.  You absolutely should pitch more yeast (proportional to the gravity increase) and also add proportionally more oxygen early in the fermentation to support the larger pitching. There are a long list of other things that you might try to hold the fusels and esters in check.  Narziss has suggested reducing hi-grav wort pH to 4.9 to assist the yeast and also add around 0.15ppm of zinc.  I agree with Jeff’s suggestion to keep the fermentation cool, high temps always increase fusels & esters.  [I understand Dean Fikar is presenting at the AHA NHC in Texas this month on the topic of controlling these despite high temps - should be interesting].  Yeast selection may be the most effective means of control – selecting a yeast with a profile of lower fusels & esters. There are also a lot more exotic techniques that are probably unnecessary when making a 16P wort for dilution to 12P, but your tongue will tell you. One other catch – fermenting 15+P wort takes a toll on the yeast so you really shouldn’t reuse yeast after the ordeal without regrowing these. I think I’d find $16 for an additional carboy fermenter rather than deal with the more difficult fermentation, the careful dilution and the loss of the resulting yeast – but that’s me.  -S There have been several posts in the digest regarding the hotel accommodations for the upcoming AHA National Homebrew Conference in Irving, Texas. Unfortunately, the situation has been fluid and has changed again. The event is now planned to take place at the Dallas Marriot in Las Colinas. I hope that this plan sticks. You can read about it for yourself at http://66.166.164.98/nhc2002/index.htm Please accept our apologies for the confusion. Jim Layton Judge Coordinator, NHC 2002 Here’s an excerpt from a piece I wrote on some beers I had in Barcelona last fall: Dark Lager – Purkmistr.  This was somewhat different than any beer I have previously encountered.  It was very rich and toasty in the nose – some toasted light cereal-like graininess mixed with strong, faintly burnt caramel tones above a backdrop of sweet, dark candy.  The toastiness was not like the typical Munich malt toastiness of Fests and Bocks, but somewhat lighter yet richer, with a toffee-like sweet angle.  The rich malt-toast carried into the early palate flavor, followed by a rich, sweet, light-brown molasses flavor.  There were only  traces (and significantly less presence than the Damm negra) of chocolate tones, and the mid-palate was round, fat, and syrupy.   The maltiness was somewhat unlike anything I had ever had before, in that the toastiness and sugary-molasses notes combined to make a very rich caramel middle, not unlike Bract’s dark caramel chews, but with the two combining features still as easily distinct elements.  Overall the beer finished well past the off-dry point on the sweetness spectrum, coating the mouth with a medium-brown, rummy and toasty sweetness with a caramel back.  This beer was eminently rich.  It was a bit too much sweetness for me given the mood I was in, but was a beer of strong, intriguing complexity. It seems to me to form just one of many vertices of beer hyperspace that one could view as black lagerdome. – –dave sapsis, sacramento Troy Hager laments: Just yesterday I wrote a note Jeff Renner lamenting that the HBD seems to have lost some of its spark for me. It seems that many of the old voices are not around much any more, most topics have been discussed and rediscussed ad nausea, and then with all the fighting, name calling, "I said this, no you said that" that has been going on, I feel our little community needs something to bring it all together again. <<< Troy, we have a means of settling this.  The HBD SLAMDOWN! is just the place to settle these long-term, on-going debates.  Originally conceived as a fund-raiser for the HBD server fund, we have been forced to repeatedly cancel the event, as the rancor always seems to die off before the NHC.  Let’s see if we can keep it stoked and hot this time, OK? Now is the time to nominate the contenders.  Seating will be limited, and ring-side boxes will be sold at a premium.  After all, it’s for a great cause! Mark in Kalamazoo (alright, it’s Indy, but I can dream …) Oops! The AHA National Conference has changed hotels once again.  No longer at the Wilson World, no longer at the Holiday Inn Select, but now at the Dallas Marriott Las Colinas.  Getting to sound more and more like a Texas Chili Cook-off.  Bring your motor homes, campers and tents and we will set up in a Wall-Mart parking lot.  No mater where we will be on the 20th of June hope to see you there. Jim Bermingham Millsap, TX Don writes: I would really like to have a conical fermentator.  Unfortunately, this one is too tall for my needs in a chest freezer.  I need something 29inches or less which I have yet to find.

A member of our club got one of the cc’s from Beer, Beer and More Beer. He contacted them by phone in advance of placing an order to see if they’d be willing to do a custon cc for him.  He went with the 12.2 gal. model and had them make the support legs in two sections (one fitting inside the other).  This gives him the option of removing the bottom section so that he is able to get it to fit in his fridge.  Not sure of the height, but you could call B3 to see what they might be able to do for you. http://www.morebeer.com/ Hope this helps. Rick ("I’m Going to Disney World!") Foote Whistle Pig Brewing Murrayville, GA Besides the ingress of O2 into your beer, you may notice an increase of esters (namely ethyl acetate and iso-amyl acetate). Research suggests that by altering the maltose:glucose ratio of the wort, the ester levels can be somewhat controlled in high gravity situations.  This is especially evident with the use of syrups, … read more »

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