November 1999

[Greenblood]

Minutes of the October Meeting

Cleanup Crew: Bill Payne and Jeremy Miller

Treasurer's Report: $579.11 not including several checks that came in that night from new members and old members who finally got around to renewing.

Members in attendance: Joe, Jeff, Chuck, Rich, Robb, Bill, John, Pete, Barry, Jeremy, Steve, Chris, Rob, Xan, Dwight, Doug, Andrew, Sherry, Dale, Ellen

Guests: Jeremy Miller and Lori Janisch from San Francisco

Old Business
Library donations: equalling discount on membership - This was discussed at some length. I'm kind of fuzzy on how it turned out. I think that we were going to have a committee, but Joe is the only one on that committee, so I think each situation will be treated on a case-by-case basis at Joe's discretion.

Shocktoberfest: Details were taken care of; Cleanup: Jeff, Ellen and John.

Brewery Tour: Doug talked with Steve Bracht at Free State, and Steve said earlier in the week would be better. Doug was going to follow up. We decided that this tour/meeting would replace the usual Thursday night meeting.

New Business
Christmas Party Committee: Andrew and Liam

Band for Next Year's BrewFest:Joe talked with members of BlueStem, the band we had last year, and they were already booking up. In fact, they had already booked a couple of weekends in June. It was voted on to go ahead and have Joe book the band for whichever weekend in June they were still available. That day would be when we have the BrewFest.

Beer Contributors:

Pete: pale ale; Good Hefe & Bad Hefe
Robb: cider
Joe: Most Excellent Bitter, porter, stout
Dwight: Rainy Day Stout
John: four bottles of Ayinger Brauweisse
Jeff: four bottles of Ayinger Brauweisse
Bill: Blind Tiger Paradise Pale Ale

Thanks to all who brought beer to share!

Meeting Adjourned.


Commercial Tasting: Oktoberfest
The Third Going Blind tasting.

Beer #1: malty, nutty, malty caramel nose, clean - many guessed this was import - unanimous vote for import; 12 picked as favorite- Hacker-Pschorr

Beer #2: much less malty, not much body. Somebody guessed Sam Adams; Unanimous vote for domestic. It received no votes for favorite. Chris correctly guessed it was Pete's

Beer #3: not malty, roasty flavor, not particularly right for style. Somebody guessed Sam Adams. Received unanimous vote for domestic beer; nobody picked as favorite. Free State

Beer #4: lots of body, malty. unanimous vote for import. Four people voted it their favorite. Pete guessed it correctly as Spaten.

Ellen Jensen
Secretary


Kegging Kaveats
Part 3: Little Things Add Up

A couple of months back, the point was made that kegs in the long run aren't particularly cheaper or easier to use than bottles if you attempt to look through the delusional haze of gadgetry they induce. There are many other concerns about kegs that don't clearly fit into either a time or cost category. Bottles have a leg up on kegs in many places people usually don't think about.

Bottles are also subject to all of the fundamental advantages that go along with smaller sealed containers. No brewer ever had to go out on their lawn or driveway to clean out a bottle (unless the beer was really bad). The liquid amount in a bottle is more easily manageable. Each bottle is also an isolated, distinct sample of your whole batch. You can't drain a whole tank of C02 by having one or two or even three leaky bottles, but a bad seal on a single keg can cost you twenty dollars rather easily by draining a CO2 tank connected to it.

It's easier to keep smaller portions of and a larger variety of beers available in bottles. I have a choice of 4-5 different beers available in my kitchen frig. in bottles and 4-5 different beers available in my garage in kegs. A small space on one shelf is required for the former; an entire converted chest freezer is required for the latter. Bottled beer also takes up less space as you consume it. A five-gallon keg with twelve ounces of beer in it still occupies five gallons of space.

There are a large number of retail items unrelated to brewing that are readily available to manage beverages in bottles because lots of things come in bottles. Coolers are designed to hold bottles and cans. Openers are everywhere. Holders are readily available or free. Kwik Shop doesn't sell pin-lock quick-connects and C02 regulators attached to key chains at the checkout counter, but they sell bottle openers.

Kegs are extremely hard to transport. Whether it is in the car, shipping via a carrier, or just outside on the porch. Indeed, disabled persons or people with only a moderate amount of upper-body strength may not be able to transport full kegs or C02 bottles at all. Beer bottles pack up nicely into easily handled packages, whether they are six-pack carriers, boxes or the bottles themselves.

Bottles are always ready to drink with no extra work. No one ever grabbed a bottle and wondered if they had the proper equipment and gasses necessary to access the beer inside. If one of your friends at a party tugged on your shirt sleeve and asked how to get the beer out of a bottle, that would probably be their last beer for a while.

Bottled-conditioned beer tastes better. Some of the best beer I've tasted was filled from a keg to a bottle and let sit for several months and underwent accidental bottle conditioning. The same beer from the keg didn't taste as good. While you can prime kegs, the amount of yeast sediment generated in the bottom of the container makes the keg virtually untransportable. You also must have all of the C02 equipment on hand anyway to seal the keg initially and dispense the beer later, so there's just not much point to priming.

Kegs don't allow for the artistic outlet of bottle labels either, unless you do the triple-effort-bottling-thing discussed a few months back. In fact, most surplus kegs that homebrewers use are an eyesore - scratched up, grungy steel and rubber. New and nice gleaming, shiny kegs are readily available, for a hefty price.

Bottling encourages better sanitation. With no complex, hidden surfaces that contact the beer, there is less incentive to skimp on sanitation.

Finally, kegs have a bit of social stigma. Non-drinkers and non-brewers relate to bottle collections much better than they relate to refrigerators full of kegs. Kegs carry a connotation of excessiveness. It's mostly psychological (and brewers know it's nonsense), but the problem is there.

I started out bottling like most brewers. I now bottle and keg, depending on the beer and what I want to do with it. So why still keg at all? I have several good reasons that are unique to where and how I brew. First, I already had all of the equipment purchased before I realized most of the pitfalls of kegging, so the financial damage was basically done. Next, before I started brewing, I already owned a 1,500 PSI power sprayer, which makes short work of keg cleaning. I also have owned C02 equipment for several years and had a good rapport with Kirk Welding from helping run a paintball field. These things keep me kegging but still complaining and thinking there must be something simpler and cheaper.

If I had to do it all over again, I would probably prefer to tip a bottle rather than tap a keg.

Rob Dewhirst


Cider Q&A
What do you have to add to make cider?
The easiest way is to add yeast to apple juice. That will make an ordinary alcoholic cider. I prefer to use local apple cider because I can't get things like grapes, hops or grain locally to make "local homebrew/wine."

In a nutshell.. Obtain apple juice/cider. Mix in sanitized fermenter (glass or stainless, preferably). If it's unpasteurized, add some sulfites to kill off wild yeasts, then wait 48 hours. (amount escapes me). Add yeast. Wait. Wait some more. Continue to wait. When you think you've waited long enough, wait longer.

Finally, rack and carbonate.

Just like beer, there are an unlimited number of procedure and recipe variations. Additional fruits, spices, different varieties of apples, etc.

What yeast do you use?
It depends what type flavor you want from your cider. If you want a drier cider or closer to an apple wine, use a wine or champagne yeast. If you want a sweeter apple juice/cider taste, use an ale yeast.

I believe the three most popular yeasts for cider are:

* White Labs Yeast Sweat Mead yeast (a misnomer, great for wine too)
* any ale yeast, such as WYeast 1056
* Lalvin (Lallemand) EC 1118 champagne yeast - a dry yeast, but very good.

Another option is to use an alcohol-tolerant yeast such as the EC 1118 and monitor the specific gravity of the cider. Halt fermentation with sulfites at the desired level of alcohol content. (Which I wouldn't recommend).

How long before you bottle?
That depends on your tastes. Typically cider takes MUCH longer than beer to age. Young ciders are tart, especially. If you want cider for the summer, start thinking about it now.

Can you make it sparkling by bottling it like beer, or do you need to stop fermentation before bottling?
Either. Cider can be sparkling or still, just like wine. I prefer sparkling cider myself. I've never primed cider for bottling, but adding additional apple juice at bottling time is a recommended method.

Two things to remember coming from a beer background...

1. Don't get your "source cider" with preservatives, because it can hinder the performance of your yeast.
2. Cider fermentation can be explosive. Leave plenty of headspace in the fermenter.

Hope that helps. I am sure others will have comments and opinions about this topic.

Rob Dewhirst


A Little More Cider Q&A
Ellen, I thought people might be interested in this reply from Steve Bracht (Free State Brewery). Prompted by Robb Hensley, I asked Steve about the possibility and dangers of alcohols other than ethanol being formed from fermenting apple cider:

As to the question of "other alcohols" from a cider ferment, it depends on what you mean by alcohols and what kind of concerns you have. If there is concern about producing methanol or something like that instead of ethanol, don't worry. What you may find is that the formation of "higher" or "fusel" alcohols is increased or proportioned differently due to the change in sugar source. Brewers yeast is accustomed to feeding mostly on glucose (broken down from maltose and maltotriose as well as available in its simple form ), and fructose is a relatively small percentage of the sugar source. I assume that cider would contain more fructose since it's generally considered as fruit sugar, I believe. The results are beyond my ability to predict, but I certainly wouldn't have any health concerns about it.

answered by Steve Bracht
submitted by Doug Holub

Cooking With Beer
Chicken Breasts with Ale and Cumin

I haven't had a chance to cook this one yet. It came from the Web site of a homebrew club called CARBOY in North Carolina. Try slicing the cooked chicken and serving in warmed tortillas with sauteed vegetables, like fajitas.

Makes 4 servings

4 boneless chicken breast halves (two whole breasts)
1/2 teaspoon or more ground cumin
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/4 teaspoon minced garlic
1 teaspoon minced shallot
1/4 cup amber ale
1/4 cup half-and-half
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
Finely chopped fresh Italian parsley (optional garnish)

Sprinkle both sides of the chicken with the cumin. You may need a little more than 1/2 teaspoon. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Saute the chicken until golden brown and cooked thoroughly, 5 to 7 minutes per side. Remove the chicken to a serving platter and keep warm.

Add garlic and shallots to the pan drippings and saute briefly. Add the ale and cook to reduce slightly, about 5 minutes. Add half-and-half and Worcestershire sauce and cook until syrupy, about 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Spoon the sauce over the chicken, sprinkle with the parsley, and serve.

Per serving: 227 calories, 10 grams fat (40% of calories from fat), 75 milligrams cholesterol, 28 grams protein, 4 grams carbohydrate, 301 milligrams sodium.

Pete Clouston


Discount Days at Bacchus & Barleycorn
LBG members receive a 10% discount from Bacchus & Barleycorn, November 8-13 . Please show membership card or bring newsletter. Bacchus & Barleycorn is located at 6633 Nieman Rd. in Shawnee (913-962-2501).