drj

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	1,442 reputation	bio	website		visits	member for	2 years, 2 months
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Nov 1	comment	How best to clarify when wheat beer yeast used Hey Denny, since I don't do many beers, would gelatin effect the taste? I know it doesn't for meads and ciders (I've used gelatin on these with no effect other than reduced cloudiness). I hate to suggest something that I don't know from personal experience to be acceptable.
Nov 1	comment	Which sweeteners are good Sadly, this season wasn't good for cactus pears. They are an unusual fruit that has blood red pulp and are similar to taste to a kiwi. I'm told that they have been used to make something similar to tequila and mesqual.
Nov 1	comment	How can tobacco be used in beer? We routinely cook salmon on cedar planks on the grill here in the NW, so I don't think that you have anything to worry about. But, I'd look for non-cedar boxes (most are basswood, but not that common) to focus on the cigar smell.
Oct 29	answered	Which sweeteners are good
Oct 29	comment	How can tobacco be used in beer? I don't read Italian, so can you say where you bought it, hopefully in the US?
Oct 29	answered	How can tobacco be used in beer?
Oct 29	revised	Home method to measure sugar profile added 35 characters in body
Oct 29	answered	Home method to measure sugar profile
Oct 29	comment	Should I upgrade my thermometer or just re-calibrate it? The best way is to get some dry ice and cool it until all of the alcohol is in the bulb. We only heated them when we didn't have some dry ice or liquid nitrogen around. The trick is to stop cooling just as the alcohol goes into the bulb.
Oct 28	answered	What Can I use to replace 0.2 pounds of Extract in a Recipe?
Oct 28	comment	Should I upgrade my thermometer or just re-calibrate it? We just heat them until the alcohol forms a continuous line from bulb to top, to remove "bubbles". But you want to heat them slowly, as pj warns.
Oct 27	comment	Is it necessary to heat honey when using it in cider? Pasteurization is done in commercial honey to remove small crystals that will accelerate the solidification of the honey if not removed. Crystallized honey is more likely to spoil (ferment). Unless Dale is getting his honey from a farmer's market, it has most likely been pasteurized, but not to remove yeast and bacteria, though most (except the Clostridium botulinum spores) are killed during the process. see forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/bees/msg052259046537.html for example.
Oct 27	comment	Is it necessary to heat honey when using it in cider? This is what I do with both honey and sorghum when adjusting the OG.
Oct 27	answered	What exactly should I measure while brewing?
Oct 13	comment	Lots of trub affecting specific gravity readings? Suspended particles do (what I wrote) and non-suspended particles don't (what Denny wrote). The key is the use of the word trub that normally refers to unsuspended particles. Adding matter to a volume of a liquid increases its density and therefore its specific gravity. So the issue as I thought you were asking is not if the trub effected your FG (what Denny is referring to) but would what becomes trub effect your SG. If this is what you were indeed asking, the answer is yes it can.
Oct 13	comment	My mead is too sweet and stopped bubbling. Recommendations? Thanks for the link, Atom. Since I teach chemistry, I'm always looking for cheaper sources of equipment.
Oct 13	comment	My mead is too sweet and stopped bubbling. Recommendations? Or another potential method (based on what I know as a chemist and a decent chef) would be to melt the chocolate and slowly add everclear or good vodka until "soupy" at room temp, then add this to your mead. Two advantages: choco won't settle out and you up the ABV in the process :-). But I haven't tried this one yet in mead :-) (have used it to make a bittersweet spiked choco eggnog).
Oct 13	comment	My mead is too sweet and stopped bubbling. Recommendations? chocolate is soluble in alcohol to some extent (you've probably seen chocowine before). The choco mead that I had was warmed and blended while warm with melted choco (start the mead in the blender at high speed, then very slowly add the liquid chocolate as a thin stream to insure mixing, until the mixture is at the desired balance of sweetness and choco flavor, doesn't take much using high cacao choco). The other method uses choco nibs (These are bitter with intense choco flavor) in a secondary and letting the mead age over the nibs for several weeks (was on a tour of a meadery in CO).
Oct 13	revised	How do you blend your meads/wines? added 544 characters in body
Oct 13	comment	How do you blend your meads/wines? Not really (threshold). I'm a chemistry prof and what I wrote above is the science. Brewchez is correct in the comment about layering. Layering shots is a prime example of the effect of spec grav, but in what you are asking doesn't apply. Elevated temps increase the ability of the molecules to mix and stay in solution.