Dec. 1994 Fermental Order of Renaissance Draughtsman Vol. 2 No. 12

Last Meeting 1,2
Club Business 2,3
Next Meeting 3
Competitions 3

Fireside Chat 4
Habermanns Corner 5
More Recipes 6+
Fine Print 1

Last Months Meeting

Well, Novembers meeting was a great one to be sure! There were a total of 9 Fermentals there and 1 very special new member (more on that later!). We met at Traffic Jams again and had the whole back section to ourselves as we were expecting a big crowd, so our group of 10 didn't quite fill the area, but that area sure did work out nicely. Before we got the meeting started everyone that brought beers got them out including Mike Arend's Bud Lick Amber Ale (1st time with liquid yeast!), Neal Petty's California Steam Roller Maple sap beer, and his infamous curried ale( wow! that was great!), we also got a taste of the great Caramel Ale experiment brewed at the last Pico Brew at Tom Herrons house (in the rain I might add!). This was pretty much a straightforward English ale which had 4 lbs of caramels added to the boil (yes, individually wrapped caramels). You really couldn't pick out a distinct caramel presence, maybe next time we'll throw them in at the end of the boil and see if that makes a difference.

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,

vice-president: Tom Herron,

Treasurer: Sandy Bruce,

Secretary: Rich Byrnes,

Librarian: Doug Geiss,

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

Last Meeting Cont.......

Neal started out the meeting by talking about yeast starters. We have discussed in the past the procedure of using mason jar starters to increase the amount of pitched yeast. The procedure is quite simple and requires no special equipment. You merely prepare a low gravity wort (1.040), a small amount of hops and yeast nutrient may be thrown in to aid yeast growth but they are not necessary. You must prepare the mason jars and lids ahead of time by sanitizing them (bleach or iodophor) and then fill each jar (quart size!) with about 3 cups of hot wort, immediately cap and let cool, the resulting temperature drop in a sealed container will create a vacuum and seal the lid. Do not try and cool the wort by chilling it with water, the mason jars will explode (trust me on this one!) Store the starters in a dark place as sunlight will affect them. To use them, you just unscrew the lid of a mason jar and pitch your yeast, merely drop the lid back on top (do not screw the lid back on) the resulting co2 being formed will escape from the jar. The yeast should be at its peak in about 1 to 2 days, if you pitch this yeast starter into your wort, you can expect fermentation to start in 6-12 hours, as opposed to 1-3 days.

The rest of the meeting will be classified as club business.

CLUB BUSINESS

Well, the biggest piece of club business was the '94 elections. No one opted to run for the offices of President, Secretary, or Treasurer, the incumbents ran alone. The office of vice-president, currently held by Tom Herron, was contested by Tom Sieja and Ted Geftos. Out of 30 voting members, 24 voted, although 1 abstained from the Vice President vote. Tom Herron took 16 votes, Tom Sieja took 7 and Ted Geftos took 1, the incumbents retain their positions for another year. Some of the first things on our agenda will be to establish a set of club bylaws, set the competition schedule for the year, and further investigate becoming a non-profit club. Neal has all the info on being a non-profit club and Doug Geiss's brother, an attorney is reviewing the paperwork for us (will work for beer?)

FERA, remember that big discussion from last year? As Mike and I formed this club, we investigated going through FERA, we felt at the time however that the benefits didn't justify going through FERA. Well, they kept our club alive on the superhighway and a couple of months ago announced that a Beer Making club was forming, well, everyone that read the FERA BB on Profs saw that and told their homebrewing buddies and soon there was another 56 names on the list (sound familiar?) their elected spokesperson, Rob Dingwall from Ford Credit had never heard of the Fermentals and forged ahead to get a club started. As luck would have it, Neal was able to meet with Rob and some of the people interested in the FERA club and tell them about our club, Rob was interested enough to come to our last meeting at Traffic Jams and meet with everyone. Rob was pretty happy with what he saw and the direction our club is headed and the potential we have. He has urged everyone on the distribution list to contact the FORD club and attend a meeting, what this boils down to is we could have a lot of new members joining us in the near future, new blood always breathes life and ideas into any club, we welcome all new members and hope to meet many of you soon.

DUES!! Hey gang, this is the end of the fiscal year and it's time for dues again, as promised dues are $15 this year for all current members, $20 for a household membership. All new members still pay $25 or $40 per household. Please make checks out to Sandy Bruce and if you aren't going to be at the meeting, make arrangements to get your check to her.

NEXT MEETING

Our next meeting is back at the Berkley Front (on 12 mile between Coolidge and Greenfield) at 6:00, this is definitely a casual meeting so everyone should bring their significant other , we will take care of the club business and contests in the beginning and mingle and imbibe from that point on.

COMPETITIONS

Last month was the unique beer competition, an AHA contest for beers with special ingredients or brewing techniques (i.e. rye beer or stein beer) Tom Herron entered the Caramel bitter we made and Neal entered a curry beer, to be 100% honest I don't remember who won because it was a very casual contest, I think it was Neals Curry beer though.

Decembers competitions are holiday spiced ale AND the hail to the ale AHA competition for January (entries due by the 23rd) The holiday ale category is strictly a crowd pleaser category, no official guidelines. The Hail to Ale competition is for the following styles: Classic English Pale Ale, India Pale Ale, American Pale Ale.

I will devote the rest of the newsletter to holiday recipes from several sources. To those of you who won't be able to attend the last meeting of the year, have a great holiday and I hope Santa is good to you this year! I want to thank everyone who stuck with this club for our first year and make it what it is.

FIRESIDE CHAT

PRESIDENTIAL FIRESIDE CHAT

When I look back one year it's amazing to see the changes in my brewing career. Last New Year's Day I experienced my first All-Grain brewing on the 55 gallon Pico system, and used it to break in my Christmas gift of a kegging system. Early last year I was appointed President of the Fermentals. February 12, 1994 Neal Petty became a Registered Beer Judge with the AHA Last March's pilgrimage to the "Blessing of the Bock" in Milwaukee was definitely worth the trip. The July, Club, Pico brew in the backyard couldn't have been on a nicer day. "Oinkle Buck" sure tasted fine back in August, and again a beautiful day for a "Beer-B-Que". "The Brothers-In-The-Hood" entertained the Labor Day weekend crowd at the Renaissance Festival while brewing 20 gallons of Oktoberfest, and I have played the Brewmaster for several other 15 gallon All-Grain brews. Christmas came early this year when my Hunter fridge thermostat and my Malt Mill showed up at my door.

What is even more amazing than my own brewing progression is the advancement of the entire club. I still remember one of the first club meetings where we went around the room introducing ourselves and stating our brewing level and number of batches brewed. Lynn and Sandy Bruce had only just begun to think about brewing, Doug Geiss had brought his last several bottles of his first batch (an attempt to recreate Bass Ale), Tom Herron had only brewed kits and absolutely hated the flavor of hops. Lynn and Sandy took a prize this year with an excellent Brown Ale, Doug has brewed at least four batches of Bass (and has been reading and collecting beer literature with a passion), and Tom has begun to enjoyed some hoppy beers and even hosted an All-Grain brew at his home.

The Club has really been gaining strength and depth this year. The F.O.R.D. Brew club is ready to push out in new directions. First we need to gather more members. There are a lot of brewers somewhat interested in this club but for some reason we can't seem to get them to join. Thanks to Rob Dingwall for steering a bunch of prospective new members toward the Club. The larger our membership, the stronger our club, and the more money we have to work with. Secondly the we need to branch out a bit more including: establishing an AHA Beer Judge Certification training class, beer tastings and appreciation for the non-brewers, information on other fermentables (wine, mead, sake...), and even group trips to beer events or brewpubs. Lastly we as a club need to go through the tedious task of establishing a proper charter and mission statement.

In order to pull this off we need your participation, whether it be offering a home for a beer tasting/judging, organizing a Club function, soliciting new members, or using your gifts to help lay down the charter. My own brewing would have never advanced to this level if it weren't for volunteering to help run this Club, thanks for the incentive.

I wish you and your families the happiest of holidays, and I look forward to seeing you all at the December meeting.

Neal Petty, President

Have you ever wondered how to dilute a high gravity wort down to the level you were targeting? What about computing how much malt to add to raise a low gravity wort? It's not really all that hard, if you understand a high school mathematical method known as interpolation.

Listed below is a partial table from Noonan's "Brewing Lager Beer". The table is called a Density Chart. Reading down the left hand side is Balling degrees, which indicate percent of solids (fermentables) in solution. Balling is a typical measurement on a triple scale hydrometer. One degree Balling equals about four degrees of specific gravity (1 B = 1.0004). Down the right side is pounds per gallon. An example would be, at 10 B we have 0.867 pounds of extract per gallon. That's not to say mashing 0.867 pounds would achieve 10 B because your efficiency would most likely be less that 100%. At 60% efficiency I need 1.45 pounds of malt to achieve 0.867 pounds of extract (0.876 / 0.60)., the table reads as such:

B LB/gal B LB/gal

24 2.204 13 1.141

20 1.806 12 1. 049

18 1.613 10 0.867

15 1.328 8 0.688

14 1.234 6 0.512

As an example of interpolation, say I brewed 8 gallons of 22 Balling beer and really wanted an OG of 18. To find how many LB/gal I have a need to approximate a figure. The way it works is basically assuming that the LB/gal figure for 22 B is as far between 1.806 and 2.204 as 20 B is from 24 B, or:

24-20 = 2.204-1.806

24-22 2.204-X

where X is the pound per gallon figure for 22 Balling.

4 = 0.398 2 = 0.398

2 2.204-X 2.204-X

2(2.204-X) = 0.398

4.408-2X = 0.398

4.408 - 0.398 = 2X

4.010 = 2X

2.005 = X

So in 8 gallons of beer I have (8gal X 2.005 LB/gal) = 16.04 pounds of extract. Diluting this to 10 gallons by adding two gallons of water gives 1.604 LB/gal, or (16.04 LB/ 10gal). Looking back at the table (LB/gal side), and following left tells me I have 18 B.

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Last updated 11/14/96