May 1999

Monthly Meeting Minutes will be posted here.

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Greenblood
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Joined: Tue Feb 14, 2006 2:22 pm
Location: Lawrence

May 1999

#1 Post by Greenblood » Thu Jul 20, 2006 9:09 am

Minutes of the April Meeting

Clean-Up Volunteers: Chuck & Robb, Thanks Guys!

Seminar: by Tim - Beer chemistry 101

Old Business
BrewFest Report:

Tickets - $15 both in advance and at the door.

Location - Clinton Outlet Park, Shelter #8.

Beer Committee - Derek, as head of the beer committee, now has THE LIST. If everybody who signed up comes through, we should have around 60 gallons, but we need as much as we can get, so BREW, BREW, BREW!

Food Committee - Dale offered to head the food committee, and Ken has agreed to help out.

Promotions - Dale has agreed to let the Topeka Hall of Foamers, ZZ Hops and KC Biermeisters know.

Big Brew - May 1 at Dwight's

Commercial Tasting: Hefe Weizens
Pyramid Hefe Weizen-Washington (2 votes)
"Doesn't have fruity and banana characteristics like others." - Jeff
"Fruity but not banana-y" - Andrew
"Not enough clove and banana." - Dale
"I'm underwhelmed." - Barry
"Didn't find it that impressive." - Tim

Bert Grant's Hefe Weizen-Washington, (0 votes)
"Clove presence but thinner." - Barry
"Boy, Hey, this is different." - Robb
"Doesn't have banana and cloves, but definitely has bandaids." - Jeff

Weihenstephaner Heffe Weissbier-Germany (11 votes, Winner!)
"This is the real deal." - Pete
"Balanced and smooth; it's got some of that clove and banana background on it." - Dale
"Bananas and bandaids, yum." - Andrew

Schneider Weisse-Germany (2 votes,)
"Seems to have more bananas than clove." - Anonymous
"Drying on the tongue, tart." - Anonymous
"I don't think it's as good as Weinstephaner."- Andrew
"The carbonation is out of kilter." - Jeff
"Feels like I'm back in Germany." - Dale

Ellen Jensen
Secretary


The Right Chemistry
How to use that stuff I learned in chemistry class, which I thought was completely useless until someone told me I could make really good beer. Tim gave those in attendance at the April meeting a great crash course in beer chemistry. His presentation was both insightful and informative, and it generated much discussion and many questions. He talked about food flavor theory; the importance in checking the pH in your water; the different types of sugars and how they are broken down in the mashing process; yeast; hops and the different compounds that contribute to bittering and aroma; and other important compounds that affect the flavor of your beer. If you missed out, contact Tim, and he might be able to set you up with a handout... for a slight fee.
Kegging

Jeff will give us a tutorial on kegging - right in time for the BrewFest. BE THERE, or you will be banished to the Dark Side! 7:30 Ecumenical Christian Ministries


Big Brew '99
National Homebrew Day, May 1, 1999
The LBG was Site #153

The weather was gorgeous for Big Brew '99, which took place under Dwight's car port (and in Dwight's brewery). Various people showed up throughout the day to watch and chat with the five brewers and to help make the event a success. Here's some Big Brew fast facts:

Total Number of Participants: 14
Batches of Collaborator Milk Stout: 2
(20 gallons of the milk stout, the official Big Brew beer, were brewed at the LBG site.)

Five batches of homebrew were brewed on National Homebrew Day at the LBG site. This made a total of 39 gallons brewed.

The following Big Brew options were used: #3 Big Brew Toast and #4 Teach Someone to Brew.

Here's a rundown of who brewed what: Dwight brewed 10 gallons of the milk stout; Dale and Chris brewed 10 gallons of a hefe weizen and Dale brewed 5 gallons of barleywine; Jeff brewed 5 gallons of pale ale; and Joe brewed 9 gallons of the milk stout.

Atendees The following people attended:
Brewers: Dale Wheeler, Joe Yoder, Jeff Jensen, Dwight Burnham, Chris Lounsbury.
Helpers: Chris Oxford, Ellen Jensen, Lisa Boden, Xan Stevens, Ken Godwin, Richard Branham, Crispin Burnham, Lillian Burnham, Barry Fitzgerald.
Big Brew Spans the Globe

Some interesting facts from the recent Big Brew '99.

Countries outside the USA

Japan: Japanese Homebrewers Association, 5 participants, 1 batch of milk stout - total of five gallons.

Ottawa, ON.: No data.

Hahndorf, SA.: 50 participants, 1 batch of milk stout - total of 5.55 gallons.

Sydney, NSW, Australia: 11 participants, 1 batch of milk stout, 3 batches total - total of 15 gallons.

Heidelberg, Germany: 1 participant, 1 batch of milk stout - 5 gallons total.

Warszawa, Poland: 6 participants, 1 batch of milk stout- 6 gallons total.

Toronto, ON: No data.

Nunawading, Victoria, Australia: 1 participant, 1 batch of milk stout - total of 5 gallons.

Salzburg, Austria: 2 participants, 2 batches brewed - total of 25 gallons.

Pretoria, South Africa: 17 participants, 3 batches brewed - 16 total gallons.

Sheffield, Yorks, England: 1 participant, 1 batch - 10 total gallons.

Derby, England: No data.

Bryanston, South Africa: 7 participants, 3 batches brewed - 24 total gallons.

1999 Totals
Totals: 1,735 participants; 224 batches of milk stout; 1,991.3 gallons of milk stout; 501 total batches; 5,286.3 total gallons brewed.

1998 Totals
Big Brew '98 (Big Barley Wine). 1,196 participants, 226 batches of Barley Wine, 1,547.4 gallons of Barley Wine brewed, 336 Total batches, 2,729.9 Total gallons brewed.

I have a printout of all 271 sites with the data as of 5/5/99, 8:26 p.m., if anyone is interested.

Dwight Burnham

BrewFest '99
When: June 12, Official hours for the fest: noon to 8 p.m. But we will need people at 10 a.m. for setup and people to stay to help clean up. We have the site from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Where: Clinton Outlook Park (below dam), Shelter #8. This is one down from where we were the last two years.

Cost: $15 both in advance and at the door for adults and $5 for children 5-11. For their $15, guests receive a 4th Annual BrewFest commemorative glass, lots o' great homebrew, food and entertainment (not to mention a free beer-making tutorial if somebody volunteers to brew on site), so talk it up to your friends now! Lisa will have tickets and fliers at the meeting.

Beer: YES! We need people to brew and contribute. Those of you who volunteered, no weasling out. We need ALL members (even those of you who never show up to meetings - you know who you are - to contribute, after all we are a homeBREW club.

Beer Contributors: See Derek! He will be more than happy to sign you up. He will help with kegging arrangements, as well. Beer contributors receive a free ticket for every 5 gallons brewed!

On-Site Brewing: So far, nobody has volunteered (that I know of). The on-site brewing adds flavor to the event, so if anybody wants to volunteer, that would be great!

Food: Dale is in charge of the food committee. He's going to bring out his smoker and smoke a hog. We will also have offerings for the vegetarians in the crowd, as well as side dishes. The menu isn't completely set yet, but some possibilities include baked beans, potato salad and fruit, and possibly sweet corn, depending on price and availability.

Entertainment: Joe has secured a bluegrass band. Bluestem has agreed to play for a couple of hours later in the afternoon, probably around 4:30 - 6:30. They have played down at the Winfield bluegrass festival and are quite good. Also, bring Frisbees, softball equipment, volleyball, etc.


Polo Shirts
Xan has researched prices for polo shirts. As always, the greater the quantity, the lower the price. She checked out two places, Cintas and Midwest Graphics (a local company). The Cintas shirts are a 50% cotton/50% polyester combo, and she thinks the Midwest Graphics shirts would be the same. They would have our LBG logo embroidered on the front. We could choose one color (Xan thought green, navy or maroon would be good - something dark to hide the beer stains.) for the shirt and another color for the logo. Here are the prices:

Cintas: for an order of
12 - $32.95 each
20 - $23.70 each
30 - $21.78 each

Midwest Graphics:
12 - $29.25 each
20 - $24.75 each
30 - $22.50 each

XXL and XXXL shirts have a surcharge of $2 and $3, respectively.

Gas Solubility
A number of people have posted on gas bubbles and bubble coalescence (little bubbles joining to become big bubbles) and N2 solubility in water/beer. I went back to my old physical chemistry book and a few handbooks, and here is what I came up with. (I am glad that I can actually use those two semesters of p-chem every once in a while, especially when its brew related.)

CO2 solubility: at 45?F, 1.33; at 55?F, 1.083
N2 solubility: at 45?F, 0.0199; at 55?F, 0.0175

Units of solubility for the above are on a volume basis and are mL gas dissolved measured at standard conditions when dissolved in 1mL water at the above given temps when gas pressure is 14.7 psi. I do have the solubilities over a full range of useful temps and will post them or a data fit if people are interested in the temp dependence. Data was taken from Lange's Handbook of Chemistry 14th edition.

Onto bubbles, someone posted a surface tension relationship for bubble diameter. Yes, there is a pressure difference between the bubble and the bulk fluid. It is essentially what keeps the bubble from collapsing on itself due to the liquid surface tension constantly pulling on itself. However, for small bubbles, this pressure difference is pretty tiny. for example, in a "beer" solution, which I approximated as 95% water and 5% ethanol and at 45?F, a bubble with a diameter of 2mm yielded a pressure difference of 0.02psi between the inside of the bubble and the outside of the bubble.

Just for everybody's info: the surface tension of my "beer" at 45?F is about 71dyne/cm and decreases with increasing temperature. The eqn is called the Laplace eqn and is correctly given as: pressure inside bubble - pressure outside bubble = 2 surface tension / bubble radius.

From this you can see that smaller bubbles have a higher difference in pressure at a fixed liquid surface tension. Also to note, if you want to decrease bubble size (ie. make a nice, fine head), you need to either lower your surface tension or increase the pressure difference. Perhaps malted wheat causes surface tension to lower. Maybe someone could measure the differece in surface tensions for equal-gravity worts, one made with wheat and one with normal barley. Also, perhaps the high-serve pressure of pilsners, etc. helps makes the fine head.

The driving force behind bubble coalescence is really thermodynamics. Bubbles have a certain surface free energy that always is minimized. This is how one actually can derive the above given equation from thermodynamic principles. Anyway, when two bubbles collide and stick, the total surface free energy is not at a minimum. From the above always heading toward minimum total free surface energy idea, the surface area shrinks by the bubbles' walls merging to a new, larger single bubble, and the total surface free energy is minimized.

About nitrogen use in Guinness and the like: I have discussed this with some co-workers, and we have thought that they chill the beer and pressurize the beer at high gas pressures using the mixed gases to get more of the N2 in solution. Then the temperature is raised slightly and the pressure let up so that the beer is supersaturated with N2 in solution. This is probably similar to a liquid having more that a soluble amount of solid dissolved in it where the temp is raised - more is dissolved, and the temperature is lowered again without the excess dissolved solid material crashing out of solution. However, usually for supersaturated liquids, adding just a bit more solid material in a supersaturated solution will cause large amounts of solids precipitation. I hope all who wonder now feel enlightened, and, boy, do I really feel like a chemical engineering geek spewing forth all that useful knowledge. I thought I would rarely use. Feel free to debate or comment.

Brew on,
Pete Czerpak


Clearly Weizen
It is a common misconception that Hefe Weizenbier *must* be cloudy to be true to style. I lived in Germany for about 2 years and consumed many different commercial Weizenbiers, some brewed in the very town where I lived, others brewed elsewhere in Germany. All bottled versions were clear if poured carefully from the bottle into the glass; in other words, there is no evident protein haze or yeast haze. However, it is common practice to pour a bottle of Weizenbier into the glass with great flourish so that the yeast at the bottom is suspended, giving the beer a very evident yeast haze.

Cheers!
Peter A. Ensminger
Syracuse, NY



Discount Days at Bacchus & Barleycorn

LBG members receive a 10% discount from Bacchus & Barleycorn, May 10-15. Please show membership card or bring newsletter. Bacchus & Barleycorn is located at 6633 Nieman Rd. in Shawnee (913-962-2501).
Cheers!

John Monaghan

"If your feelings were grapes I would crush them. And then, after fermentation, drink them down. And quite possibly later, throw them up again."

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