Funny things you've overheard about beer

[Bosh]

Someone needs to brew some of these recipes and report back.

My father did back when I was a kid. He'll be visiting in two weeks so I can get some information about how they worked out from him and which recipe he used. We had a saison once together and he said his old homebrew tasted a lot like that, which seems to indicate that he fermented hot and that the yeast esters drowned out the oh my god, you used THAT much sugar booziness.

 

[unionrdr]

Oh my Lord, why? whywhywhywhywhywhywhywhy??????? Those recipes look like swill where you hold your nose & gulp quickly.

 

[hunter_le five]

Oh my Lord, why? whywhywhywhywhywhywhywhy??????? Those recipes look like swill where you hold your nose & gulp quickly.

 

[unionrdr]

:sigh: it's only saving grace...

 

[Bosh]

Well 6 oz of "hops" in a 4 gallon batch are going to give you enough flavor to cover up some of the rest of the horror, even if you only have a one minute boil

 

[slym2none]

And more adventures in Homebrew Without Failure: cutting edge brewing in 1965...

<snip>

These are great posts. Someone on the HBT team needs to collect these and showcase them in their own permanent thread, like a weird sort of museum exhibit.

Please, keep them coming, when you can!

 

[Trippel-A]

Nominated for the Best Hemmingway-style Post in a Beer Forum Competition.

More Raymond Carver, imho.

 

[mark7347]

These are great posts. Someone on the HBT team needs to collect these and showcase them in their own permanent thread, like a weird sort of museum exhibit.

Please, keep them coming, when you can!

Yes!!! I second this

 

[Kirkwooder]

I was worried enough about contracting chicken herpes or an unidentified lip fungus just picking them up. Didn't even think about trying to clean, sanitize and then *shudder* drink homebrew that had been in them. I'm a little nauseous thinking about it now, days later.

I once saw Les Shroud squeeze water right from a pile of elephant crap into his mouth. If that doesn't kill a person, cleaning and sanitizing a blue bottle found under a tree, behind a convenient store, really doesn't scare me, even with the chicken herpes! However, having to explain to someone why I have Bud Platinum bottles in my possession does. Oh, the horror!

What does that say about my character? Have I become a beer snob? Oh, the horror!

 

[kombat]

One interesting thing about this book (aside from me learning that a dessertspoon is an actual unit of measurement) is his hop simmering. He uses a plenty of hops (6 oz for 4 gallons of pale ale) but mostly just simmers them instead of boiling them

Isn't a "simmer" just a gentle boil anyway? From a temperature point of view, the liquid is still at 212° F (100° C) in both cases, the only difference is the rate at which the liquid is being converted to steam. As far as hop utilization goes, wouldn't there be no difference?

I mean, there are other reasons you want a vigorous boil (I guess... the only one I can think of is to increase boil-off rate and concentrate the wort), but anything dependent on temperature (alpha acid isomerization, protein coagulation, etc.) shouldn't care whether it's a rolling boil or a gentle simmer, right?

 

[unionrdr]

Well, in theory & my own experiences, boling light wort gives better hop utilization than a mere simmer, which seems to me would be a bit below 212F. I gotta measure that someday to get some numbers.

 

[kombat]

Well, in theory & my own experiences, boling light wort gives better hop utilization than a mere simmer, which seems to me would be a bit below 212F.

At sea-level pressure, water boils at 212° F, no matter how much heat you're applying. You could put a jet engine under your kettle and light the afterburners, and the water in the pot would still only be exactly 212° F. All that would change would be the rate that the water is converted to steam.

A "simmer", to me, means there is still some bubbling action on the surface, which means that water is being converted to steam, which is technically a boil. That means the water must be 212° F. If it were even a degree less, then none of the water would convert to steam, and the surface of the water would be still.

 

[unionrdr]

Yeah, maybe. A simmer being lightly bubbling with the heat turned down for less boiling seemed to me to be below 212F. That's why I think I'll measure this just to see for myself...

 

[kombat]

Yeah, maybe. A simmer being lightly bubbling with the heat turned down for less boiling seemed to me to be below 212F. That's why I think I'll measure this just to see for myself...

Go for it, now you've got me interested. I could be mis-remembering my high-school physics, but as I recall, at standard atmospheric pressure, water converts to steam at 100° C (212° F). You cannot have water at standard atmospheric pressure at a temperature higher than 212° F. It will turn into steam. The only way to get water hotter than 212° and remain in a liquid state is to increase the pressure. This is how pressure cookers and pressure canners work. By increasing the pressure to 15 psi, you can heat water up above 250° F without it turning into steam. But if you popped the lid off of that pressure cooker (DO NOT do this, by the way), all of that water would instantly (and quite explosively) turn into steam.

Conversely (and we did this in chemistry class), if you decrease the pressure, you can get water to boil at considerably less than 100° C. In a lab experiment, we actually got water to boil at room temperature by simply removing air from the vessel.

 

[soccerdad]

yes - test it. Kombat is talking about a Canadian boil - not an American boil

 

[DrunkleJon]

Isn't a "simmer" just a gentle boil anyway? From a temperature point of view, the liquid is still at 212° F (100° C) in both cases, the only difference is the rate at which the liquid is being converted to steam. As far as hop utilization goes, wouldn't there be no difference?

I mean, there are other reasons you want a vigorous boil (I guess... the only one I can think of is to increase boil-off rate and concentrate the wort), but anything dependent on temperature (alpha acid isomerization, protein coagulation, etc.) shouldn't care whether it's a rolling boil or a gentle simmer, right?

Well, I like to get a good strong boil going at first to ensure a good hot break, but after that I pretty much bring it down to a simmer. I dont see anything wrong with it.

 

[JonM]

Mmmm mmmmm, bitch!

 

[unionrdr]

Next time I'm simmering something, I'll toss a floating thermometer in it to check the temp on an average simmer. I just think it'd be a couple degrees below a boil? It'll be interesting to find out.

 

[uatuba]

A simmer is still boiling. In terms of heat, water is boiling or it isn't. There's no such thing as an in between state.

 

[Hamaki]

I'd venture a guess that there may be some stratification. At the heat source water could be 212 (or less, depending on altitude) but depending on evaporative cooling near the surface could be a degree or two cooler. Sometimes in clear water before a good boil gets going I can see small bubbles form, lift off the heating element, then disappear before breaking the surface. I haven't checked surface water temp but maybe I'll think of it next time.

 

[beergolf]

Next time I'm simmering something, I'll toss a floating thermometer in it to check the temp on an average simmer. I just think it'd be a couple degrees below a boil? It'll be interesting to find out.

What? A boil is a boil. Hard boil or simmer. Does not matter. That is not that hard to understand.

A simmer is still boiling. In terms of heat, water is boiling or it isn't. There's no such thing as an in between state.

This^^^^^^

 

[Brad2287]

The increased physical movement of the wort may effect the rate of extraction but the temp would be the same from simmer to vigorous boil. It is most likely the reason some report a small loss of utilization using a hop spider vs. free floating the hops. Whether this really makes a measurable difference is up for debate.

There is a reason that most extraction methods use a wrist shaker or some other similar method instead of just allowing your solvent to sit stagnant.

 

[unionrdr]

What I'm saying is if something is on a low simmer, it can't be the same temp as something on a hard rolling boil. If it was, then you couldn't just "simmer".

 

[kombat]

What I'm saying is if something is on a low simmer, it can't be the same temp as something on a hard rolling boil. If it was, then you couldn't just "simmer".

And what we're saying is, "yes, it is exactly the same temperature." The only difference is the rate at which water is being converted to steam. The water itself is still exactly 212° F in both cases (at least, according to physics).

 

[DrunkleJon]

Simple Simmering

A cooking method gentler than boiling, simmering refers to cooking food in liquid (or cooking just the liquid itself) at a temperature slightly below the boiling point&#8213;around 180 to 190 degrees. It's trickier than boiling because it requires careful regulation of the temperature so that the surface of the liquid shimmers with a bubble coming up every few seconds.

Looks like we are confused with the definition of simmering. A simmer is preboil where its just hot. I think what we are referring to has been the difference between a gentle boil and a rolling boil.

 

[TheCADJockey]

Simmer down now.

 

[kombat]

Simmer down now.

Schwimmer Dow knaw!

(I loved that SNL sketch)

 

[Kee]

Looks like we are confused with the definition of simmering. A simmer is preboil where its just hot. I think what we are referring to has been the difference between a gentle boil and a rolling boil.

Yes. I finally looked up the definition and a simmer is preboil. But I had always thought that a simmer was a very low boil. Learn something every day.

 

[hunter_le five]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simmering

Simmering is a food preparation technique in which foods are cooked in hot liquids kept just below the boiling point of water[1] (which is 100 °C or 212 °F at average sea level air pressure), but higher than poaching temperature. To keep a pot simmering, one brings it to a boil and then reduces the heat to a point where the formation of bubbles has almost ceased, typically a water temperature of about 94 °C (200 °F).

Apparently I have been using the term wrong as well. I too thought "simmer" was just "low boil".

 

[Kirkwooder]

Epic derail once again!