October Club Meeting

The October SPHBC meeting will be held Tuesday October 4th 7pm upstairs at the Happy Gnome!  [NOTE: This date was corrected, previously was listed as 10/6]
If you want to bring a beer for consideration as an entry to the Specialty/Experimental/Historical Beers competition please do so.
If you want comments on your brews: Bring at least 2 12 ounce bottles to make it around the room, they should be labeled with Your Name, and Style (without labels it is chaos). Also, bring your recipe & brewing notes because you will be questioned about your ingredients and brewing process. You cannot expect recommendations for improvements on a beer if you don’t remember what’s in it!

Mead / Cider / Perry

Questions:
Back Sweetening a Cider
You don’t want to add the sorbate until the fermentation is very complete, i.e., clear and stable. Typically added AFTER the beverage has been sulfited. If there is any renewed fermentation with the sorbate present in the beverage you typically get an aroma and flavor of fresh cut geranium flowers (really the character of the broken stem) — very unpleasant.
So make sure your cider is clear, rack off any sediment, and then treat it with sulfites. Once it is obvious that fermentation is not restarting you can sweeten and add the sorbate at the same time.

Hops

by Joe Gerteis
Saint Paul Homebrewers Club
September 7, 2010

When you first start using a brewing software package, one of the first things the software asks you to do is to pick a formula for hop calculations. The common ones are Rager, Garetz, Tinseth, and Daniels. You may have heard people say that hop calculations are estimates only, and what really matters is consistency rather than absolute accuracy. In other words, what they are saying is pick one that works for you and stick with it. That’s true and it’s good advice. The problem is that brewers are often then forced to pick before they really know what’s involved in the choice. The simple practical advice is this: pick Tinseth and stick with it. But if you care about what’s going on and why, here’s the deal.
See Complete Article.

Base Malt

What is a good base malt?
Depending on what your looking for:

Optic is as malty as you can get.
Pearl is the UK equiv of Rahr pale.
Golden promise has a touch of biscuit but lots of apple.
Halcyon is a very clean UK lager malt w/o the DMS
Dingeman pale is like cross between MO and Optic and a little darker than the rest.

Barley is the fourth most important grain crop in the United States. Barley is one of the oldest cultivated grains. Grains found in pits and pyramids in Egypt indicate that barley was cultivated there more than 5000 years ago.
Half the barley grown in the US gets used for livestock feed. As feed it is nearly equal in nutritive value to kernel corn. It is especially valuable as hog feed, giving desirable portions of firm fat and lean meat. The entire kernel is used in feed, generally after grinding or steam rolling. Malt sprouts from malting as well as brewers grain–byproducts of brewing–are also valuable livestock feeds.
Around 25 percent of barley crops are malted in the US. Of the malted barley some 80 percent is used for beer, around 14 percent for distilled alcohol products, and 6 percent for malt syrup, malted milk and breakfast foods.

September Club Meeting

Fletty passed around some traditional mead from various varietals of honey for sample and discussion, including: raspberry, blackberry, tupelo,  a blend of the 3, and an ’09 fruit mix. Jeff follwed with mystery beers, where we had to guess if they were pro or homebrewed. Some of the comments included…
“This makes my beer taste better.”
– Richard
“Pliny is like Bud Lite compared to this shit.”
– Fletty