Brewing Master » Homebrew Beer » HOMEBREW Digest #946
HOMEBREW Digest #946
Question:
I took a Junior College summer course on homebrewing, and they said.. 2 Tablespoons bleach for 5 gallons water. 10 minutes for the bleach to "activate", and 20 minutes contact time. If you have a big bleach bucket, and are sanitizing several items, the 10 minutes to activate occurs just once. More bleach means less contact time. At this concentration, they claim no rinsing is required, and if things dry, the bleach is gone anyway. Joeld
Response:
- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – In HB943, Jeff Frane writes: Jeff Change them both, why don’t you. If you’re sanitizing with the right Jeff concentration of chlorine you shouldn’t have to rinse at all, and you’re Jeff pretty much defeating the purpose by throwing that water onto your Jeff sanitized surfaces — try using boiled water if you feel a need to Jeff rinse. Jane OK, I’ll bite. What’s the "right" concentration of chlorine? I Jane thought you had to rinse until there wasn’t any more smell. Won’t any Jane chlorine left on the equipment kill all the good stuff? (I’m currently Jane using 1-2 Tbl. of chlorine bleach per 1 gal water.) This was covered a while ago on the HBD, I think Bob Jones and George Fix went back and forth on it a bit. I seem to remember the final outcome being that 1/2 c. of grocery store bleach per 5 gallons of water was sufficient to get the chlorine level to the 200 ppm or whatever concentration it was that will sanitize.
Depending on whom you listen to the appropriate amount is 50-200 ppm, depending on contact time. The catch is, household bleach loses some of the chlorine-ness (technical term for chlorine pooping out or escaping) with age. I recently saw some chlorine test strips (I don’t remember where, exactly) that measured the actual amount of active bug-killing chlorine in the range of (ta-da!) 50-200 ppm. These sold for about $6-7 per 100. If anyone’s interested I’ll find the source. Me, I use about 1 tbsp per gallon (with a splash more for good luck), 30 minutes contact, and I don’t rinse. -Rich — Rich Lenihan UUCP: mit-eddie!progress!rich
Response:
Don, simply put I think it makes a big difference what was in the keg before. Seven up, sprite, other light flavor beverages may indeed not have any effect. I have done nothing special, nor replaced O rings in any of my kegs. I never had flavor problems. I do know however that one of my kegs smelled a lot initially of root beer, it still smells a little, but I have really only had highly hopped ambers and stouts in that one. The other kegs with no odors got the lagers and lighter flavored beers. I’m not sure a taste off really tells anything. If the keg didn’t contain a strong flavored beverage then yeah maybe you’re right there’s no problem there. If it did and you put a light lager into it I suspect then there is a potential for a problem. Seems like for $1.50 it would be easy enough for someone to determine if their is a potential for a problem before hand, or if they want to try it determine if their is a problem after use, and then change the rings. This whole thiing seems really silly when you think about it… JaH — Hopfen und Malz, Gott erhalts
Response:
- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Hank Luer writes: Regarding fermentation of honey to make mead: About eleven years ago I bought five gallons of wild-flower honey, diluted it to a specific gravity of 1.1 (wine strength), added acid blend (tar- taric, citric, malic) to .9% and sprinkled in five sachets (5g ea) of dry montrachet wine yeast. This produced about 25 gallons of liquid. It was January and both the water and the fermentarium (New Jersey cellar) were cold. I waited. Nothing happened. [goes on to mention trying several other things, finally adding some grapes and being successful.] The thing that you were missing in the first trial was yeast nutrient. Normally, brewers don’t have to worry about this, because it is contained in the ingredients (malt or fruit). However, if you are making a straight mead (no fruit, only honey), then you need to add yeast nutrient yourself. Yeast nutrient can be as simple as ammonium chloride, but there are also various brand names available on the market that different people swear by. Any good book on making mead should have a discussion of this. Mike Hall
My meads ferment without problem, without yeast nutrient (I use started ale yeast though) My now fermenting batch included various spice, including wormwood, more about that later when it’s ready. Stefan Karlsson, Goteborg, Sweden –
Response:
HOMEBREW Digest #946 Wed 12 August 1992 FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES Rob Gardner, Digest Coordinator Contents: Re: Why mash-out? (Andy Phillips) heat transfer properties of wort (Vote Libertarian in ‘92!) Re: Ken Johnson, the lamest (JLIDDIL) Houston hotspots (Mary E. Hall) O-Rings (Chris Estes) c02 purity (card) O-Rings… (continued… SORRY!) (Chris Estes) softer gentler water (Frank Tutzauer) What’s the deal? (SSIEGLER) Yeast Temperatures and Amounts (GEOFF REEVES) 2 hour sparging (GEOFF REEVES) Hop Plugs and Pellets, What’s the difference (GEOFF REEVES) Brewing Science Vs. M & B Science (glenn raudins) Re: all malt vs. extracts (korz) yeast culturing (James Dipalma) Re: Cider (korz) Flurry of "break" material. (bryan) Re: mashtuns/chillers/lipids (korz) 2 pot boils (Glenn Anderson) Brewpub plans for Ann Arbor, MI (Arthur Delano) Cider (Jay Hersh) parallel chiller (Pierre.Jelenc) oring challenge (donald oconnor) Apologies for duplicate posting (Andy Phillips) Hop Vine Yields? (smc) truncated digests (PGRAHAME) Bleach and SS, holes, Minneapolis (Andy Leith) co2 purity (card) Fermenting mead (Michael L. Hall) Stainless Steel corrosion (Bob_Konigsberg) Bleach sanitation (Brian Smithey) truncated digests (Frank Tutzauer) Mash – Hot Water Heater (Scott James.) (Articles are published in the order they are received.) Send UNSUBSCRIBE and all other requests, ie, address change, etc., Archives are available via anonymous ftp from sierra.stanford.edu. (Those without ftp access may retrieve files via mail from message to that address to receive listserver instructions.) **Please do not send me requests for back issues!** There’s been a lot of correspondence on the HBD recently about the stability of enzymes at different temperatures (eg. on whether mash-out at 170F kills amylases), and the effect of mash thickness on the wort. I have access to a literature database that I periodically search for brewing references. One paper I pulled out and subsequently sent off a reprint request for was by Robert Muller (Brewing Research Foundation, Redhill, Surrey, England), entitled "The effects of mashing temperature and mash thickness on wort carbohydrate composition" (Journal of the Institute of Brewing (1991) Vol 97, pp85-92). The author is interested in producing normal gravity, but low fermentability worts for low alcohol beers. His results can be summarized as follows (I won’t attempt to reproduce his graphs in ASCII). At 65C [149F in old money], the half life of alpha amylase is 42 minutes; that of beta amylase is 15 minutes. Thus, after 30 min at 65C, there remains 62% of the alpha amylase activity and 25% of the beta amylase. At 80C [176F], both enzymes are less stable: the half life of alpha amylase is about 13 minutes, that of beta amylase about 6 minutes. The loss of beta amylase at both temperatures is exaggerated by the fact that there is much more alpha-amylase activity present to start with: the total potential activity of alpha amylase at 65C is 88g of starch hydrolysed per gram of [pale] malt; in contrast, the total potential activity of beta amylase is about 3.5g of maltose produced per gram of malt. The loss of beta amylase due to temperature denaturation will therefore be more significant than loss of alpha amylase. This loss of beta amylase results in a higher proportion of malto-dextrins, which are non-fermentable (at least with ale yeasts: modern super-attenuating strains, such as used for diet beers, are less choosy). A mash carried out continuously at 80C thus produces a wort which is only 20-30% fermentable, compared with the 65C wort which is about 80% fermentable. Using this data, it’s possible to draw the following conclusions about the consequences of a 30min "mash-out" at 170F [77C]: 1) Beta amylase may be almost completely destroyed, but 25% of the alpha amylase activity will survive (and will be more active at the higher temperature). 2) This alpha-amylase may break down any starch remaining in the mash, preventing starch haze in the final product (but increasing the malto-dextrin content, and so increasing the sweetness and body). 3) The main purpose of mash-out is probably to aid in the flow of the sugar solution from the husks (as suggested previously), due to the decreased viscosity of the wort at the higher temperature. And now I have a question: why do unmalted grains such as wheat and rye have to be gelatinized (cooked) before mashing? I just made a batch of bitter with 2 lbs of flaked rye, forgot to gelatinize it, but got a sensible yield: about 85% of the maximum possible. Any have a hard, scientific explanation for this? Sorry this went on so long. Andy hey– After checking my fluid-mechanics textbook (Intro. to Fluid Mechanics, Janna, 2nd ed.), it appears that beer wort’s viscosity is going to be within 1% of that of water at a given temperature. A good initial value to use is that of water at 100 degF, which is approximately 1.4 x10^-5 lbf*s/ft^2. Density is within 1% as well, but you can be exact with that since you have a hydrometer. I would expect specific heat to be about 1-5% higher than that of water, which is 1 Btu/lbm/degF. Since few heat transfer correlations are accurate to within 20%, I would not worry too much about the exactness of wort measurements. One thing to remember in wort-through-a-tube chillers is that the viscosity is going to increase as cold break forms, causing a reduction in flow rate. By how much? Good question. If people send me accurate measurements of flowrate, temperatures, tubing sizes/configurations etc., I will make a stab at producing an empirical calculation of The Wort Chiller, but no promises…. James Smith "Someone let the dogs out, they’ll show you where the truth is" p.s. Would you bickerers keep it in email? We don’t care if you count coup or not. Better yet, save the NSF some dough and chill out…. Obviously, Ken is full of "bullshit". Is he a master brewer? Has he won numerous awards for his fine beers? Has he won Homebrewer of the Year? Is he a certified Judge? If not then he is LAME I’m going to Houston on business next week (8/17-8/21). I know that brewpubs are illegal there (I grew up in Dallas), but can anyone recommend someplace that I just shouldn’t miss while I’m there? I’ll be near the I-10/Hwy 6 intersection. BTW, is there anything new in Dallas? Mary Hall Lost Almost, Near Mexico Just a comment here… It seems to me that for O-Rings have sparked a bit of a problem here. For $1.50 you can buy a new one – why argue about it? If you like coke-flavored beer, then en From New England Beer Club Digest – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – There have been some questions about CO2 purity. Although I am not aware of any contamination problems with CO2…I am aware that there are atleast 3 grades of it; industrial, beverage and analytical. Of course you can figure out what use beverage grade is rated for, with analytical being the purest for scientific purposes. Industrial is the lowest quality and used for fire extinguishers and other non-food grade needs. I personally fill my tank at a beverage supplier to insure getting a known good CO2 for dispensing beer. Not sure if the industrial is acceptable, but its seems like a gamble to me. Also, a beverage supplier also told me that CO2 tanks can build up with oil (that apparently occurs as part of the CO2 manufacturing process. He suggested that after many refills, you can purge the oil by standing the empty tank upside down overnight. The next day, open the valve (with no regulator attached) with the tank still inverted. The remaining CO2 will blow out any oil that has accumulated in the tank.
As I was saying… If you like coke flavored beer then by all means drink it. If a buck and a half won’t put you in the poor house and you’ll be happier with a new O-ring, then do that. But I don’t think O-rings are anything to warrant a signifigant philisophical discussion. Its interesting to hear everyone’s ideas and personal techniques, but sometimes I wonder about the contents of the HBD… Perhaps we need the "Homebrew Debate Digest"! -Chris Estes- Dont forget: Morton Thiokol O-Rings don’t hold pressure In HBD 944, Phillip Seitz asks how to get soft water. About 6 months ago, I picked up a great little book called, … read more »