September 1994 Fermental Order of Renaissance Draughtsman Vol. 2 No. 9

Last Months Meeting 1
Club news 3
Finances 3

Upcoming Events 3
Next Meeting 4
What's New 4
Brew Travels 4
Habermann's Corner 5
Competition News 6
Swap/Sell/Trade 6
Brew News 6

Last Months Meeting

Well, last month's meeting was one of the more productive meetings we've had in a real long time. There were a total of 11 people that showed up, and the meeting got started right at a quarter after 6:00. Neal started the meeting by reveiwing the pig roast, and bestowing a special than you once again to Tom & Tammy Herron.

Next up was the Renaissance Festival notice. Frankenmuth has set up a nice outdoor brewing demo using the Pico system, in a booth called the Old Friars Brewery. Brewers dress up in monk's robes and do a complete all grain brew, answering questions from the general public the whole day ("no you can't sample any wort, but here, munch on these hops!"). We didn;t get notified about this until pretty late in the game so we only had 1 day available to us, but next year we will find out sooner, and hopefully get a whole weekend at least. Our day this year was Sunday Sept. 4th and we will get a report from Neal next meeting.

Brewers Profile 7

The Ye Olde Brew News is the monthly publication of the Fermental Order of Renaissance Draughtsman, otherwise known as the Fermentals. The club meets once a month on the 4th Wednesday at 6:00 at the Traffic Jam & Snug brewpub in Detroit, unless a special meeting is to be held elsewhere. Our fiscal year begins Jan 1st and dues are set at $25 a year for new members, and $15 a year there after, members joining after July 1st pay $17.50 for the 1st year. Joint memberships (same household only) are $40 the first year, and $20 there after.

President: Neal Petty, 84-50491 (work), 382-1166 (home)

Vice-President: Tom Herron, 33-79993 (work), 558-6825 (home)

Treasurer: Sandy Bruce, 32-25367 (work), 563-1881 (home)

Secretary: Rich Byrnes, 32-32613 (work), 558-9844 (home), 390-4520 (fax)

Librarian: Doug Geiss, 33-73791 (work)

Special Events Coordinator: Doug Lecureaux, 32-38385 (work), 757-6329 (Home)

Neal then gave a review of the Pico brewola at his house a month or so ago. 10 people were there to help and learn and 2 full batches were made. The first batch was an English summer ale, to which Neal promptly added curry powder to (his portion only I assume). Neal wishes to thank Chad McDaniels & Detroit Mackinac brewery for donating the pre-crushed grains and yeast, and to Dennis for donating some authentic English ale yeast. The event was a success and will probably be repeated.

I thought I would have a nice show and tell piece, but all the components weren't in yet. It is possible to start all grain mashing/lautering/sparging all in a 5 gallon igloo cooler with some minor modifications and upgrades. The coolers are available at Sam's club and Sports Authority for about $20, I modified the lid by filling it with expanding foam to keep the heat in, the spigot should be removed and replaced with a valve you can turn on and off. Listermann manufacturing (a.k.a. "Phil") makes a perforated false bottom and sparge arm specifically designed for 5 gallon coolers, these run about $10 each and are available most anywhere. About 3 days after last meeting my false bottom and sparger came in, so I will have them for this meeting.

Doug Geiss held another 50/50 raffle at the meeting and raised another $22 for the library, I believe that Doug will be purchasing the entire "Classic Beer" series, this includes specialty books on the following beer styles: German Wheat, Porter, Continental Pilsner, Pale Ale, Bock, Belgium ale, Octoberfest, Lambics, & Scotch ale.

Well, the big piece of news that came up at the meeting was the possibility of buying a Pico system for the club. There is an early prototype Pico system available to buy for $600 direct from the Pico People, this includes 3 converted kegs, 3 Cajun cookers (burners), a wort chiller, and 2 sets of screens. This set up would normally cost about $900 so this really is a bargain. The proposal was made for the club to purchase this system, now we don't have a spare $600 laying around in the treasury, I can guarantee that, but we do have some options available to us. The first and most direct approach would be to have everyone donate $20, this obviously wouldn't be mandatory but really appreciated nonetheless, and if not $20, then maybe a special donation of whatever you can afford or deem appropriate. From there we could hold a 50/50 to make up the balance, this would be a legally sanctioned big money 50/50 raffle where everyone would get tickets to sell to the outside world, we would have to file papers with the state and have tickets printed up, but it could work! There is an outside chance that we would even have to incorporate into a non-profit organization to do this, we're looking into all the details as we speak. Now another possibility that has come up recently is making our own system. Many people in the club recently have converted their own kegs with a minimum expense, some people have even fabricated their own screens. If we could do that for 3 kegs, then the only real investment would be a couple of burners, a pump, a wort chiller (50' of ½" tubing=$30), and a grain mill. This is a serious proposal and something we should work towards, in the interest of strengthening our club and the expertise of all our members.

The big picture is that once we bought this equipment, everyone in the club would be able to check it out, there would be a fee levied on each gallon brewed plus you would have to top off the propane tanks. The fee would go to equipment upkeep and future upgrades. For those people that make a donation to the Pico fund, you would get one free brewing session on it, where as each member that joins the club after the system is bought, would have to pay right off the bat. The system would be a tremendous asset for our club to have, it would allow more brewers to experiment with all graining and all grain equipment, and would be a great advertisement for our club. Dale Pleszclo and Bob Rotay joined our club after the Pico brewola at Neals house, more will follow. Neal swears he keeps hearing this voice in his head....."if you buy it, they will come!" (ha ha). Obviously a purchase of this magnitude warrants further discussion, please plan on voicing your opinion at the next meeting, as we will undoubtedly continue this conversation until a decision can be made.

TREASURERS REPORT

Sandy reports that we have about $250 in the account, the pig roast bit into our profits (sorry, couldn't help myself, I'm a swine) by about $175. We obviously don't have enough at this point to do T-shirts, but we don't have a logo either so it's a moot point. As far as logo's go, Neal has sketched out a couple of ideas, all based on the renaissance theme, I will try to have them blown up for the meeting.

UPCOMING EVENTS

The next Pico Brew will be at Tom Herrons house on Saturday October 1st, we will get started at around 9:00 and try to make two batches again. For those of you that are interested, please contact Tom Herron at 810-558-6825, directions are the same for the pig roast, or you can get new ones from Tom. After the Pico brew is done and everything is cleaned up, there will be a bonfire and Neal Petty will continue his world tour one man show guitar bonanza! Plan on bringing some money for lunch & dinner, there is every fast food joint you could think of close by, and pizza's of every make and model.

CLUB NEWS

I'm still trying to figure this one out, Neal nominated Lynn Bruce for a "thank you" position in the club, I think this amounts to a special member liaison in charge of recognition, we'll work in this. Anyway, Lynn accepted.

Merchant of Vino Warehouse in Dearborn is now officially open, Chris Hoggarth is the Homebrew and Beer manager and most of the stock should be in by the time you read this. We do get a 10% discount with them and I will be printing up a member id discount card (temporary), once we get a logo, we can do business cards. The discount is 10%. Chris told me that the initial order he placed with G.W. Kent is so large that Kent is sending someone down to help him unload and stock the shelves, can't wait to see that!

THIS MEETING

At this meeting, Neal will talk about getting into all grain brewing and I will bring my converted igloo cooler to help demonstrate mashing, lautering and sparging. I will also bring a grain mill that has been motorized to further the discussion.

BREW TRAVELS

David Peters, a Ford employee currently stationed in Germany is now my unofficial foreign correspondent, I asked him about homebrewing in Germany and laughed, albeit a bitter despondent laugh. There are no clubs that he can find, and no homebrew supply shops in Duetchland. When he asks around or calls around he gets the same answer wherever ho turns, "you are in the heart of the beer capital of the world, why would you waste time making your own, and not as good!" He did verify that weizen beers are the hottest item right now, he says that every brewery makes a weizen, a pilsner, and a koelsch. The koelsch is similar to a pilsner, but with a very unique character all of its own. It is not pasteurized and therefore does not store very long. The better pubs usually have a 5 gallon wooden barrel of koelsch on the bartop, served fresh! The barrels are chilled slightly more than a pilsner, and the taste can vary widely depending on the serving temp, but is better cold. There approximately 43 breweries in Cologne that brew koelsch, and David is getting pretty tired of it(take heart David, it is a summer beer). Many breweries are now also making alcohol free beer (in Germany? Sacrilege!!). Anyway, the point of this story is that Homebrewing is tough to do in Germany, supplies must be mail ordered and you are on your own. If anyone has questions for David about Germany, contact him via profs dpeters3, if that doesn't work, do the employee search and change cds (or whatever search location you use) to EAO.

WHAT'S NEW

I have included a couple of pages Xeroxed from the new Randy Mosher book, the brewers companion. In my opinion this is an excellent book for many reasons. The book is a great technical reference, without being too dry, Their are detailed charts (29 total) for such things as attenuation, mashing schedules, brewing enzymes, grain roasting, fruit for brewing, hop utilization, water minerals, etc...

The book will be of more use for the intermediate to advanced brewer, but the information alone will help a beginner advance easily. Also out (after much advance notice!) is Using Hops by Mark Garetz, the owner of Hoptech, a premier hop supplier. This book is fast becoming the bible of hops, there is more in-depth knowledge of hops than you could ever imagine existed. Covering everything from a complete dossier of every hop available, to a complete guide to growing hops. This book also explains in great detail the biological and chemical reactions that hops undergo as they are utilized.

Have you started to all grain mash yet? I've received questions from people who want to

understand more about malt types and how to combine them in the mash. Let me start with a description of malt and what effects mashing has on them.

Malting develops enzymes, fermentable sugar, and unfermentable dextrin. Enzymes are

protein based biological catalysts that induce reactions between substances. Starches are also made soluble through the malting process. The enzymes that are developed during malting degrade proteins and soluble starches at various temperatures.

Two kinds of enzymes are important in brewing: protease's that degrade protein, and diastase's that degrade starch. The diastatic enzymes (alpha amylase and beta amylase) become active during mashing. Alpha amylase creates unfermentable dextrin's between 149 and 153 degrees Fahrenheit (dextrification), and beta amylase creates fermentable sugar between 126 and 144 degrees F (saccharification). Papazian notes that both work well together between 145 and 158 degrees F.

What becomes important now is understanding that the diastic power (ability of alpha amylase to liquefy starch and beta amylase to convert starch to sugar) is dependent on the protein content of the malt. Six row American malt is very high in proteins, whereas two row American malt is slightly less.

A few pointers in mashing:

1) A general rule of thumb states that 70% of your malt should contain enzyme activity. I stick with 2 row or 6 row American malt.

2) When using adjuncts with a 6 row mash, the adjuncts benefit from the malt enzymes in conversion of their starch to sugar, but keep them to 5-30% of total fermentables.

3) Use less than 5% crystal malt in the mash, more can be used if only extracting color by creating a 'tea' for use as sparge water.

4) Use 30-60% wheat in wheat beers, but add at least 25% of 6 row malt to aid in conversion.

5) High kilned malts like Munich, Vienna, and mild ale are low in enzyme activity and should be used with other high enzyme malts.

6) Dextrine malts like Cara Pils aid in body and mouth-feel because of

unfermentable dextrin's. This can be used in 6 row mash to improve mash time.

7) Sparging at 170 degrees inactivates enzymes, stopping the process of conversion.

To summarize, when beginning to mash keep in mind your choices: 2 row or 6 row, full or undermodified, high and low enzyme content. I generally start with a solid base, like 60% or more 2 row American malt and add to it from there. Base your recipe development on desired style and color, then keep hops balanced depending on your gravity. Most home brewers can achieve about 60% conversion on a consistent basis, but if your unsure merely add a few pounds of malt until you understand the process better

COMPETITIONS

Competition Schedule for the rest of the year

This Month is the Octoberfest/ Märzen/ Vienna. These are German amber lagers. Vienna is similar in gravity to the standard Pils, Märzen is slightly stronger. Originally the last beers of the season, when Germans were forbidden to brew in the summer. Its strength allowed it to last until fall. Spaten Bräu is the originator of the Märzen style. Once the primary style of the city of Vienna, authentic versions are brewed in Mexico, from breweries which had Austrian brewmasters.

Vienna's have OG of 1048-1053, 4.5% to 5.5% alcohol. Oktoberfest & Marzens have 1052-1061 OG and 5-6% alcohol.

October is Pumpkin Beer or Fruit beer

November is specialty (this is an AHA competition for unusual beers or brewing methods)

December is Holiday spiced beer and Porters

SWAP/SELL/TRADE

Tom Herron has several cases of Grolsch bottles for sale, call him at 810-558-6825 for more info or at work, 79993.

Chris Gerou has petri dishes and agar for anyone interested in yeast culturing, prices really cheap.

I have a 20lb CO2 cylinder for sale (test good for 4½ more years) only $70.

BREW NEWS

The Kirin Brewery of Japan has released a new high carbonated beer called Shout, Shout has approximately 15% more carbonation than regular beers.

Strohs is test marketing a new product called Clash. Clash is a clear malt beverage (not beer!) for people that don't want beer, wine coolers or gin & tonics. (zounds like zomething elze!!)

Stroh's is also coming back out with their Augsberger Weiss, hoping to double their sales from '93

Bell's brewery will be introducing two new beers soon, batch 1500 and Harvest Ale, Harvest Ale is a hoppy beer made from many different wild hops.

Grizzly Peaks Brewing Co in Ann Arbor is now open!

the Berkley Front should be open October 1st (30 taps plus 30 bottled beers, no cheap USA beer!)

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© 1995, 1996 by Pat Babcock

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Last updated 11/14/96