Return-Path: judge-owner at synchro.com Received: from srvr22.engin.umich.edu (root at srvr22.engin.umich.edu [141.212.2.35]) by srvr5.engin.umich.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id CAA24114 for ; Thu, 6 Aug 1998 02:38:39 -0400 (EDT) Received: from synchro.com (cccox.ne.mediaone.net [24.128.144.90]) by srvr22.engin.umich.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id CAA16609 for ; Thu, 6 Aug 1998 02:38:38 -0400 (EDT) From: "JudgeNet - the beer judge digest" To: "Digest Recipients" Reply-To: "JudgeNet - the beer judge digest" Subject: Digest for the period 8/5/98 - 8/6/98 Message-ID: Date: Thu, 06 Aug 1998 02:02:40 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Hops: 1 Table of contents ------------------------------------------------------ bottle inspection? (Spencer W Thomas) chlorophenols (Bryan L. Gros) CAP, Calibration vs Preparation (Charley Burns) Fill Levels / Posting Headers (Houseman, David L) Re: Bottle Inspection (CLSAXER at aol.com) my chlorophenolic beer (Russ Wigglesworth) Re: Digest for the period 8/4/98 - 8/5/98 (Gregory A. Lorton) Headspace/Fill Levels (Dan Sullivan) -------------------------------------------------------- From: Spencer W Thomas Date: Wed, 05 Aug 1998 09:18:01 -0400 Subject: bottle inspection? Scott Birdwell says "just give me a glass of beer with an entry number." One case that I have run into where the state of the bottle can affect the judging occurs in bottle conditioned beers. If the yeast is powdery, it is not unlikely that one or more of the glasses will come out cloudy. This is easily detected by inspecting the bottle after pouring. It's usually also the case that at least one of the beers will be clearer than the other(s), but looking at the bottle provides a specific determination. =Spencer Thomas in Ann Arbor, MI (spencer at umich.edu) -------------------------------------------------------- From: Bryan L. Gros Date: Wed, 05 Aug 1998 06:23:35 -0700 Subject: chlorophenols Jeremy spiked Bud with bleach and didn't get a chlorophenol smell. He wrote: >This may go a ways toward explaining why homebrews are rarely >chlorophenolic even with all the bleach being used? Or is there too >little reactive material in Bud? I wonder also why you rarely see (or smell or taste) chlorophenolic beers. Since it is so rare, I"m sure we miss many of the examples as well. With all the talk about high chlorine levels in many people's water supply, as well as the switch to chloramine now, I've heard how it will affect the taste of beers. In the last few months our local water company has been switching to chloramine and they warn of occasional spikes in chlorine level during the transition. I haven't seen this effect anyone's homebrew yet though, and I can't remember tasting chlorophenol in any beers up to now. (And I'm quite familiar with swimming pool smells) Are chlorophenols really that rare a problem? - Bryan Gros Oakland, CA -------------------------------------------------------- From: Charley Burns Date: Wed, 5 Aug 98 08:00 PDT Subject: CAP, Calibration vs Preparation Gregory A. Lorton says (about judging C.A.P.): I think one unmentioned, yet implicitly recognized, problem with the Classic American Pilsener is the lack of a commercial example to point to. It's the only style in the BJCP guidelines that doesn't have a commercial style as a reference. Therefore, you gotta brew one yourself to have an example (or find some friends who've already done it). It would be tough for me to judge this one without help. That's definitely a style I want to brew this fall! [me] As a neophyte judge myself, I always ask for help, with any style I judge. I've been fortunate to get assigned to panels with very experienced judges and for beer styles that I am familiar with. But - it just seems that we could all do a better job of "calibration", if just calibrated on the style we were about to judge. I know, it costs money to buy these commercial examples (we could in many cases and some times do, use homebrew). But when I sit down to judge a flight of German Lagers, why am I calibrating on Calif Common or Pale Ale or ... At one competition the organizer and/or cellarmaster actually mixed up a couple different beers of different styles and let us calibrate on it. Now, to calibrate on it was fine. But as a precursor to judging, why not get us started with an excellent example of what the style is SUPPOSED to taste, smell, look, feel like? The very first judging experience I had was Belgian Wit. I had not studied the style nor had I ever consumed one. Luckily I was on a panel with at least 4 outstanding judges and it was a preliminary round. For at least six months after that I didn't want to even look at a Belgian beer. Why, 'cause they were all poor examples that evening. The "experts" were shaking their collective heads, all disappointed in the brews. I learned nothing that evening, other than I knew I didn't like Belgian beers. How would that experience have been different if we'd started out with a good Wit (no pun intended)? My gut tells me that this subject has come up before, but I've never discussed it with other judges. I suspect there is a cost issue here if nothing else. Charley (enjoying Belgian dubbels and Tripel's) in N. Cal -------------------------------------------------------- From: Houseman, David L Date: Wed, 5 Aug 1998 10:33:28 -0400 Subject: Fill Levels / Posting Headers Scott Birdwell would just as soon not have the bottle information on the judging form. I disagree. We're judging entries in homebrew competitions, not just blindly judging beer. While I don't deduct anything for my observations on the bottle characteristics, I do believe it's appropriate to provide feedback to competition entrants on whether they followed the direction on having an appropriate bottle entered. The information about fill levels and whether there is a neck ring or yeast cake provides information to judges about how to provide feedback to the entrants, not on how to judge the flavor and aroma of the beer. Refering to very low fill levels as a possible source of oxidation when that is detected provides very specific feedback to the brewer rather than a less specific "watch sources of oxidation." Additionally I've had people comment back to the competition organizer that they didn't believe that it was their beer that was judged when they got the judge forms back. If some judge states, just as an observation, that the "green bottle has a large yeast cake and low fill" then the entrant will have to accept that, yep, that's his/her beer ok, or maybe in fact his/her CPBF'd beer in a brown bottle was in fact mixed up some place. It's part of providing feedback; a very important aspect of judging homebrews. If feedback weren't important, then we could do BOS type judging for the first round flights and forget the judging forms. ________________________________ I've noticed that the headers on the new JudgeNet do not include the email of the poster. Sometimes, the poster will place his/her email address at the end but not always. Sometimes private replies are more appropriate than public postings and I'd like to see Chuck, or whoever is currently managing the site, add the poster's email address back into the posting's headers. Dave Houseman -------------------------------------------------------- From: CLSAXER at aol.com Date: Wed, 5 Aug 1998 12:21:26 EDT Subject: Re: Bottle Inspection In Digest for the period 8/2/98 - 8/3/98 Scott Birdwell writes, >>Personally I would like to see this section on the score sheet disappear. As a judge, I would rather not even see the bottle. For a truly blind tasting, just give me a glass of beer with an entry number.<< I agree with Scott on this. Many times I have seen judges' objectivity of beer they were about to judge swayed by what they perceived to be an inapproprate fill level, or a neck ring. The beer was often scored much lower, because the judge had a preformed idea that the beer was bad because of an inapproprate fill level, or a neck ring. What might have been an award winning beer suffered because of visual bias. As I like to point out to student judges; notice how many points are awarded for bottle inspection. That should give you a indication as to how important bottle inspection should be to the judging. As an extreme example, I have seen a judge refuse to taste a beer because there was a neck ring (the beer was not infected). The only time I make more than "ok" as a comment for bottle inspection is when the bottle sticks to my hand because of leftover label goo/glue, or the bottle is underfilled by several ounces. I agree with Scott, for a truly blind tasting, just give me a glass of beer with an entry number. I believe this would allow the judges to approach each beer with more objectivity. Carl Saxer -------------------------------------------------------- From: Russ Wigglesworth Date: Wed, 5 Aug 1998 08:31:16 -0700 Subject: my chlorophenolic beer >When I took the BJCP exam ~2.5 years ago we were served a very stongly >chlorophenolic beer (brown ale?) that I believe was Russ Wigglesworth's. >Maybe Russ can confirm my memory that this resulted from a contaminated >keg? (Hope I'm not dragging out any dirty laundry for you Russ!) I knew that beer would come back to haunt me some day... Yes it happened in the keg. It was a 15 gallon batch and 2 of the 3 five gallon kegs were fine. The third was so bad... Byron asked for some "bad beer" for the exam and I said "boy do I have a beer for you!" I took him a sample in advance because I thought it was so bad that it wouldn't work for the exam but Byron wanted to use it. He wanted to know how I had done it? I don't know if it was a keg infection or if I just handled the rinse for that keg poorly. Generally I use an iodine sanitizer followed by a boiled water rinse (if any) in my kegs and fermentors. It hasn't come back so I must assume I corrected the problem. RW... Russ Wigglesworth UCSF-Stanford Health Care Department of Radiology 415-476-3668 -------------------------------------------------------- From: Gregory A. Lorton Date: Wed, 5 Aug 1998 10:49:39 -0700 Subject: Re: Digest for the period 8/4/98 - 8/5/98 About bottle inspection (Scott Birdwell's comments) I completely agree that bottle inspection should not be a factor in judging beers. Like Al and Gordon said, it can be a potential indicator of problems. My intent of posting questions about fill level and a ring in the neck was to discuss how those factors could subconsciously (or consciously) cause the judge to perceive (or imagine?) flaws in a beer. Scott Birdwell said he would prefer not to see the bottle, but rather judge only a poured glass of beer. While I agree that a blind tasting is good for judging a beer on its own merits, I think that having the bottle in front of me, and watching it being opened and poured, provides useful information to me that I wouldn't have if a steward opened and poured it out of sight (hopefully the steward knows how to pour the beer correctly). The bottle inspection may provide information that can be returned to the brewer to improve his beer, such as... If the beer was skunky and I saw the Heineken bottle, I might suggest using brown bottles and keeping the beer shielded from sunlight or fluorescent light. If the beer was oxidized and there was 4 inches of headspace in the bottle, I might suggest a higher fill level. (Admittedly, offering remedies can be like stepping into a minefield. Maybe the fill level wasn't the problem, maybe the beer was oxygenated before filling.) If the beer appears cloudy or undercarbonated in the glass, is that because that's how the beer was in the bottle, or did the steward pour it incorrectly. > I think quibbling over fill levels is especially assinine. As I mentioned it was a friendly, but rather spirited discussion. (This means that we kidded each other about it, but nobody took offense.) We "quibbled" over lots of things over the five-hours of judging (like whether the Padres are better than the Angels, like whether you can buy an unskunked Pilsner Urquell in Southern California). Maybe we should have focused 100% exclusively on judging beers for five hours (plus 1/2 hour for lunch), but maybe the stewards were a little slow so there was some idle time, and it was a nice day. And, of course, there would have been no quibbling if everyone else blindly accepted my opinions as fact.:-) Now quibbling over spelling... that's asinine! About chlorophenols (from Jeremy Bergsman comments (and George De Piro's)) (Recognize that organic chemistry was my least favorite chemistry class, and some of this information comes from 25-year old recollections of a graduate course in municipal water treatment processes, and I can't immediately get my hands on hard data.) For potable water supplies, phenolic contaminants should not be present because of their low taste threshold. I recall that a professor said that chlorophenols have taste thresholds that are several orders of magnitude lower than phenols. So that water with no perceptible levels of phenols can become an objectionable when the water is chlorinated. (I don't have kinetic rate info on the reactions, but I believe they are formed rather quickly.) This should apply to beer as well as drinking water, especially since beer can have appreciable levels of phenols. There have to be enough phenols in the beer to produce chlorophenols via reactions with bleach. I would guess (emphasis on the word "guess") that Bud would be very low in phenols, and probably not particularly susceptible to the formation of chlorophenols. Now if a German-style weizen or a Belgian abbey ale had been spiked with a little bleach, that might be different. (Russ W. recently judged a porter of mine that would also be a great candidate.) I believe that chlorophenols are produced by a reaction of hypochlorous acid (HOCl) or hypochlorite ion with phenols. (HOCl is produced when chlorine or bleach is added to water, and the water is acidic, otherwise it's hypochlorite ion) Chloride ions won't react with phenols (I think!). The only likely source of hypochlorous acid would be chlorinated tap water or bleach (or other hypochlorite sanitizer) added to water (i.e., residual sanitizing solution). Out of abject ignorance and humiliation... What is Star-San? Greg Lorton Carlsbad, CA -------------------------------------------------------- From: Dan Sullivan Date: Wed, 05 Aug 1998 09:48:13 -0700 Subject: Headspace/Fill Levels I love you guys. If a half-filled bottle contained beer which had no discernable defects, and in fact was a World-Class example of the style, would you have any qualms about scoring it a 45+? If that same bottle contained beer which was horribly oxidized, stale and flat, would you hesitate for a second to suggest to the brewer that he might want to correct an OBVIOUS starting point problem? (After calling for the second bottle to confirm that the first was not an anomaly, naturally.) Fill level should really only be an issue when there is a problem with the beer that can potentially be attributed to the fill level. Then it gives you a potential "cause-effect" description to include in your suggestions for improvement. As for me, I hold the just-pried cap up to the neck below the junction where the crown ring/moulding joins the neck itself. If the fill level falls within the area covered by the diameter of the cap, the fill level is OK. It may be crude, but it's effective, and you always have a measuring device at hand, for when you become visually impaired. Take your favorite long neck bottle, measure out 12 oz. of water, and pour it into the bottle. Put the cap on the side of the neck. The fill level will fall within the diameter of the cap. Bingo. Fill level OK. Now, I don't have a laser measuring device, but even with my eyes I notice that different types of bottles have different height crown ring mouldings. Anchor, for example, measures right at one-half inch (1/2 in., or 0.5 in). Your standard 12 oz. long necked brown glass bottle (I'm looking at Russian River Amber Ale right now) measures about eleven-sixteenths inch (11/16 in. or 0.6875 in.). If a guy fills into the crown ring moulding zone, he's less likely to have a satisfying PSSFFITTT when the cap somes off. It also suggests that he was perhaps somewhat less than fully concerned with the appearance of the bottle which he was presenting for evaluation. Little things. Esthetics. The diameter of a crown cap may be measured at roughly an inch and an eighth (1 1/8 in., or 1.125 in.). If you give the 1/2 or 11/16 at the top, and expect that the bottler get the fill somewhere within the next 1 1/8, that isn't too strict a standard. It also happens to be where most CP fillers leave the liquid level, and where anyone with a steady hand and semi-sober eye can roughly approximate during the process of filling. I've seen beers with fills as low as the shoulder, and as high as the bottom of the cap. All that means to me is that if there's a defect in the beer, I may have a source to point to. If there's no defect in the beer, well, then I'm pretty damn happy because I'm having a fine beer. As for points, fill level doesn't get points. Maybe it should. It's as much a part of the brewing process as bottle sanitization. If the bottle is too full, there's no room for hop/malt aromatics to congregate to be released with the opening of the cap, along with the swirly CO2 steam. Visual esthetics (appearance) are (is) scored as well. "Never trust an underfilled bottle." But that means there'd have to be a style guideline set out for fill level, and I don't believe that it is, or should be, a stylistic matter. "Noble hop aroma mild to moderate upon initial evacuation of headspace pressure." Wow. (Although I don't hesitate to stick my nose in a freshly opened bottle of commercial brew, just to catch the baby aromatics.) If there is a best time and place to officially deal with fill levels, it would have to be at the competition rules level, requiring bottles to be presented containing beer quantity of 12 oz. +/- some percentage, or "12 oz. minimum." Sheesh. That's way too complicated, and overkill for such a minor issue. DQ a beer because of an under- or over- fill? Although a valid argument could be made for that, much as it already has been made for bottles with raised lettering or other discernable marks. (Which, BTW, is an inane rule, because it never appears to be observed.) DQ it if it doesn't look right. Rules Violation. One more thing to do during prelims. It's just not that critical. I haven't done the research, but I suspect that there are probably standards set out somewhere which define acceptable limits of headspace, at least on a commercial scale. I'm guessing here, but there are probably good reasons for that beyond oxidation potential, like weights and measures. MBAA's The Practical Brewer (1977) mentions a fill-check unit at p. 260, and suggests that any container that has a low fill be rejected. Hardwick's Handbook of Brewing (1994) talks about short-fill rejections as well at pp. 392-394. Why? Because they're dealing with Commerical Breweries. 12 oz. fills. Tax Rates. Waste. Costs. Mislabeling and misrepresentation. Lawyers and Accountants. I'm just a lowly homebrewer. I don't have an accountant running my brewery, unless I include my spouse, and then I open up a different set of books. I'm not so concerned with fill levels, unless fill levels lead to problems with the beer in terms of sensory evaluation, be they metallic beer from high fill rusty caps or oxidation from low fills. Eyeball the bottle, note the fill, check the temperature, evaluate the beer objectively against its stylistic paradigm, be thorough in your commentary. Use all available clues; watch out for Red Herrings. Cheers. Dan (Whaddya mean I can't have yer Bud Lite?) Return-Path: judge-owner at synchro.com Received: from srvr22.engin.umich.edu (root at srvr22.engin.umich.edu [141.212.2.35]) by srvr5.engin.umich.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id CAA24114 for ; Thu, 6 Aug 1998 02:38:39 -0400 (EDT) Received: from synchro.com (cccox.ne.mediaone.net [24.128.144.90]) by srvr22.engin.umich.edu (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id CAA16609 for ; Thu, 6 Aug 1998 02:38:38 -0400 (EDT) From: "JudgeNet - the beer judge digest" To: "Digest Recipients" Reply-To: "JudgeNet - the beer judge digest" Subject: Digest for the period 8/5/98 - 8/6/98 Message-ID: Date: Thu, 06 Aug 1998 02:02:40 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Hops: 1 Table of contents ------------------------------------------------------ bottle inspection? (Spencer W Thomas) chlorophenols (Bryan L. Gros) CAP, Calibration vs Preparation (Charley Burns) Fill Levels / Posting Headers (Houseman, David L) Re: Bottle Inspection (CLSAXER at aol.com) my chlorophenolic beer (Russ Wigglesworth) Re: Digest for the period 8/4/98 - 8/5/98 (Gregory A. Lorton) Headspace/Fill Levels (Dan Sullivan) -------------------------------------------------------- From: Spencer W Thomas Date: Wed, 05 Aug 1998 09:18:01 -0400 Subject: bottle inspection? Scott Birdwell says "just give me a glass of beer with an entry number." One case that I have run into where the state of the bottle can affect the judging occurs in bottle conditioned beers. If the yeast is powdery, it is not unlikely that one or more of the glasses will come out cloudy. This is easily detected by inspecting the bottle after pouring. It's usually also the case that at least one of the beers will be clearer than the other(s), but looking at the bottle provides a specific determination. =Spencer Thomas in Ann Arbor, MI (spencer at umich.edu) -------------------------------------------------------- From: Bryan L. Gros Date: Wed, 05 Aug 1998 06:23:35 -0700 Subject: chlorophenols Jeremy spiked Bud with bleach and didn't get a chlorophenol smell. He wrote: >This may go a ways toward explaining why homebrews are rarely >chlorophenolic even with all the bleach being used? Or is there too >little reactive material in Bud? I wonder also why you rarely see (or smell or taste) chlorophenolic beers. Since it is so rare, I"m sure we miss many of the examples as well. With all the talk about high chlorine levels in many people's water supply, as well as the switch to chloramine now, I've heard how it will affect the taste of beers. In the last few months our local water company has been switching to chloramine and they warn of occasional spikes in chlorine level during the transition. I haven't seen this effect anyone's homebrew yet though, and I can't remember tasting chlorophenol in any beers up to now. (And I'm quite familiar with swimming pool smells) Are chlorophenols really that rare a problem? - Bryan Gros Oakland, CA -------------------------------------------------------- From: Charley Burns Date: Wed, 5 Aug 98 08:00 PDT Subject: CAP, Calibration vs Preparation Gregory A. Lorton says (about judging C.A.P.): I think one unmentioned, yet implicitly recognized, problem with the Classic American Pilsener is the lack of a commercial example to point to. It's the only style in the BJCP guidelines that doesn't have a commercial style as a reference. Therefore, you gotta brew one yourself to have an example (or find some friends who've already done it). It would be tough for me to judge this one without help. That's definitely a style I want to brew this fall! [me] As a neophyte judge myself, I always ask for help, with any style I judge. I've been fortunate to get assigned to panels with very experienced judges and for beer styles that I am familiar with. But - it just seems that we could all do a better job of "calibration", if just calibrated on the style we were about to judge. I know, it costs money to buy these commercial examples (we could in many cases and some times do, use homebrew). But when I sit down to judge a flight of German Lagers, why am I calibrating on Calif Common or Pale Ale or ... At one competition the organizer and/or cellarmaster actually mixed up a couple different beers of different styles and let us calibrate on it. Now, to calibrate on it was fine. But as a precursor to judging, why not get us started with an excellent example of what the style is SUPPOSED to taste, smell, look, feel like? The very first judging experience I had was Belgian Wit. I had not studied the style nor had I ever consumed one. Luckily I was on a panel with at least 4 outstanding judges and it was a preliminary round. For at least six months after that I didn't want to even look at a Belgian beer. Why, 'cause they were all poor examples that evening. The "experts" were shaking their collective heads, all disappointed in the brews. I learned nothing that evening, other than I knew I didn't like Belgian beers. How would that experience have been different if we'd started out with a good Wit (no pun intended)? My gut tells me that this subject has come up before, but I've never discussed it with other judges. I suspect there is a cost issue here if nothing else. Charley (enjoying Belgian dubbels and Tripel's) in N. Cal -------------------------------------------------------- From: Houseman, David L Date: Wed, 5 Aug 1998 10:33:28 -0400 Subject: Fill Levels / Posting Headers Scott Birdwell would just as soon not have the bottle information on the judging form. I disagree. We're judging entries in homebrew competitions, not just blindly judging beer. While I don't deduct anything for my observations on the bottle characteristics, I do believe it's appropriate to provide feedback to competition entrants on whether they followed the direction on having an appropriate bottle entered. The information about fill levels and whether there is a neck ring or yeast cake provides information to judges about how to provide feedback to the entrants, not on how to judge the flavor and aroma of the beer. Refering to very low fill levels as a possible source of oxidation when that is detected provides very specific feedback to the brewer rather than a less specific "watch sources of oxidation." Additionally I've had people comment back to the competition organizer that they didn't believe that it was their beer that was judged when they got the judge forms back. If some judge states, just as an observation, that the "green bottle has a large yeast cake and low fill" then the entrant will have to accept that, yep, that's his/her beer ok, or maybe in fact his/her CPBF'd beer in a brown bottle was in fact mixed up some place. It's part of providing feedback; a very important aspect of judging homebrews. If feedback weren't important, then we could do BOS type judging for the first round flights and forget the judging forms. ________________________________ I've noticed that the headers on the new JudgeNet do not include the email of the poster. Sometimes, the poster will place his/her email address at the end but not always. Sometimes private replies are more appropriate than public postings and I'd like to see Chuck, or whoever is currently managing the site, add the poster's email address back into the posting's headers. Dave Houseman -------------------------------------------------------- From: CLSAXER at aol.com Date: Wed, 5 Aug 1998 12:21:26 EDT Subject: Re: Bottle Inspection In Digest for the period 8/2/98 - 8/3/98 Scott Birdwell writes, >>Personally I would like to see this section on the score sheet disappear. As a judge, I would rather not even see the bottle. For a truly blind tasting, just give me a glass of beer with an entry number.<< I agree with Scott on this. Many times I have seen judges' objectivity of beer they were about to judge swayed by what they perceived to be an inapproprate fill level, or a neck ring. The beer was often scored much lower, because the judge had a preformed idea that the beer was bad because of an inapproprate fill level, or a neck ring. What might have been an award winning beer suffered because of visual bias. As I like to point out to student judges; notice how many points are awarded for bottle inspection. That should give you a indication as to how important bottle inspection should be to the judging. As an extreme example, I have seen a judge refuse to taste a beer because there was a neck ring (the beer was not infected). The only time I make more than "ok" as a comment for bottle inspection is when the bottle sticks to my hand because of leftover label goo/glue, or the bottle is underfilled by several ounces. I agree with Scott, for a truly blind tasting, just give me a glass of beer with an entry number. I believe this would allow the judges to approach each beer with more objectivity. Carl Saxer -------------------------------------------------------- From: Russ Wigglesworth Date: Wed, 5 Aug 1998 08:31:16 -0700 Subject: my chlorophenolic beer >When I took the BJCP exam ~2.5 years ago we were served a very stongly >chlorophenolic beer (brown ale?) that I believe was Russ Wigglesworth's. >Maybe Russ can confirm my memory that this resulted from a contaminated >keg? (Hope I'm not dragging out any dirty laundry for you Russ!) I knew that beer would come back to haunt me some day... Yes it happened in the keg. It was a 15 gallon batch and 2 of the 3 five gallon kegs were fine. The third was so bad... Byron asked for some "bad beer" for the exam and I said "boy do I have a beer for you!" I took him a sample in advance because I thought it was so bad that it wouldn't work for the exam but Byron wanted to use it. He wanted to know how I had done it? I don't know if it was a keg infection or if I just handled the rinse for that keg poorly. Generally I use an iodine sanitizer followed by a boiled water rinse (if any) in my kegs and fermentors. It hasn't come back so I must assume I corrected the problem. RW... Russ Wigglesworth UCSF-Stanford Health Care Department of Radiology 415-476-3668 -------------------------------------------------------- From: Gregory A. Lorton Date: Wed, 5 Aug 1998 10:49:39 -0700 Subject: Re: Digest for the period 8/4/98 - 8/5/98 About bottle inspection (Scott Birdwell's comments) I completely agree that bottle inspection should not be a factor in judging beers. Like Al and Gordon said, it can be a potential indicator of problems. My intent of posting questions about fill level and a ring in the neck was to discuss how those factors could subconsciously (or consciously) cause the judge to perceive (or imagine?) flaws in a beer. Scott Birdwell said he would prefer not to see the bottle, but rather judge only a poured glass of beer. While I agree that a blind tasting is good for judging a beer on its own merits, I think that having the bottle in front of me, and watching it being opened and poured, provides useful information to me that I wouldn't have if a steward opened and poured it out of sight (hopefully the steward knows how to pour the beer correctly). The bottle inspection may provide information that can be returned to the brewer to improve his beer, such as... If the beer was skunky and I saw the Heineken bottle, I might suggest using brown bottles and keeping the beer shielded from sunlight or fluorescent light. If the beer was oxidized and there was 4 inches of headspace in the bottle, I might suggest a higher fill level. (Admittedly, offering remedies can be like stepping into a minefield. Maybe the fill level wasn't the problem, maybe the beer was oxygenated before filling.) If the beer appears cloudy or undercarbonated in the glass, is that because that's how the beer was in the bottle, or did the steward pour it incorrectly. > I think quibbling over fill levels is especially assinine. As I mentioned it was a friendly, but rather spirited discussion. (This means that we kidded each other about it, but nobody took offense.) We "quibbled" over lots of things over the five-hours of judging (like whether the Padres are better than the Angels, like whether you can buy an unskunked Pilsner Urquell in Southern California). Maybe we should have focused 100% exclusively on judging beers for five hours (plus 1/2 hour for lunch), but maybe the stewards were a little slow so there was some idle time, and it was a nice day. And, of course, there would have been no quibbling if everyone else blindly accepted my opinions as fact.:-) Now quibbling over spelling... that's asinine! About chlorophenols (from Jeremy Bergsman comments (and George De Piro's)) (Recognize that organic chemistry was my least favorite chemistry class, and some of this information comes from 25-year old recollections of a graduate course in municipal water treatment processes, and I can't immediately get my hands on hard data.) For potable water supplies, phenolic contaminants should not be present because of their low taste threshold. I recall that a professor said that chlorophenols have taste thresholds that are several orders of magnitude lower than phenols. So that water with no perceptible levels of phenols can become an objectionable when the water is chlorinated. (I don't have kinetic rate info on the reactions, but I believe they are formed rather quickly.) This should apply to beer as well as drinking water, especially since beer can have appreciable levels of phenols. There have to be enough phenols in the beer to produce chlorophenols via reactions with bleach. I would guess (emphasis on the word "guess") that Bud would be very low in phenols, and probably not particularly susceptible to the formation of chlorophenols. Now if a German-style weizen or a Belgian abbey ale had been spiked with a little bleach, that might be different. (Russ W. recently judged a porter of mine that would also be a great candidate.) I believe that chlorophenols are produced by a reaction of hypochlorous acid (HOCl) or hypochlorite ion with phenols. (HOCl is produced when chlorine or bleach is added to water, and the water is acidic, otherwise it's hypochlorite ion) Chloride ions won't react with phenols (I think!). The only likely source of hypochlorous acid would be chlorinated tap water or bleach (or other hypochlorite sanitizer) added to water (i.e., residual sanitizing solution). Out of abject ignorance and humiliation... What is Star-San? Greg Lorton Carlsbad, CA -------------------------------------------------------- From: Dan Sullivan Date: Wed, 05 Aug 1998 09:48:13 -0700 Subject: Headspace/Fill Levels I love you guys. If a half-filled bottle contained beer which had no discernable defects, and in fact was a World-Class example of the style, would you have any qualms about scoring it a 45+? If that same bottle contained beer which was horribly oxidized, stale and flat, would you hesitate for a second to suggest to the brewer that he might want to correct an OBVIOUS starting point problem? (After calling for the second bottle to confirm that the first was not an anomaly, naturally.) Fill level should really only be an issue when there is a problem with the beer that can potentially be attributed to the fill level. Then it gives you a potential "cause-effect" description to include in your suggestions for improvement. As for me, I hold the just-pried cap up to the neck below the junction where the crown ring/moulding joins the neck itself. If the fill level falls within the area covered by the diameter of the cap, the fill level is OK. It may be crude, but it's effective, and you always have a measuring device at hand, for when you become visually impaired. Take your favorite long neck bottle, measure out 12 oz. of water, and pour it into the bottle. Put the cap on the side of the neck. The fill level will fall within the diameter of the cap. Bingo. Fill level OK. Now, I don't have a laser measuring device, but even with my eyes I notice that different types of bottles have different height crown ring mouldings. Anchor, for example, measures right at one-half inch (1/2 in., or 0.5 in). Your standard 12 oz. long necked brown glass bottle (I'm looking at Russian River Amber Ale right now) measures about eleven-sixteenths inch (11/16 in. or 0.6875 in.). If a guy fills into the crown ring moulding zone, he's less likely to have a satisfying PSSFFITTT when the cap somes off. It also suggests that he was perhaps somewhat less than fully concerned with the appearance of the bottle which he was presenting for evaluation. Little things. Esthetics. The diameter of a crown cap may be measured at roughly an inch and an eighth (1 1/8 in., or 1.125 in.). If you give the 1/2 or 11/16 at the top, and expect that the bottler get the fill somewhere within the next 1 1/8, that isn't too strict a standard. It also happens to be where most CP fillers leave the liquid level, and where anyone with a steady hand and semi-sober eye can roughly approximate during the process of filling. I've seen beers with fills as low as the shoulder, and as high as the bottom of the cap. All that means to me is that if there's a defect in the beer, I may have a source to point to. If there's no defect in the beer, well, then I'm pretty damn happy because I'm having a fine beer. As for points, fill level doesn't get points. Maybe it should. It's as much a part of the brewing process as bottle sanitization. If the bottle is too full, there's no room for hop/malt aromatics to congregate to be released with the opening of the cap, along with the swirly CO2 steam. Visual esthetics (appearance) are (is) scored as well. "Never trust an underfilled bottle." But that means there'd have to be a style guideline set out for fill level, and I don't believe that it is, or should be, a stylistic matter. "Noble hop aroma mild to moderate upon initial evacuation of headspace pressure." Wow. (Although I don't hesitate to stick my nose in a freshly opened bottle of commercial brew, just to catch the baby aromatics.) If there is a best time and place to officially deal with fill levels, it would have to be at the competition rules level, requiring bottles to be presented containing beer quantity of 12 oz. +/- some percentage, or "12 oz. minimum." Sheesh. That's way too complicated, and overkill for such a minor issue. DQ a beer because of an under- or over- fill? Although a valid argument could be made for that, much as it already has been made for bottles with raised lettering or other discernable marks. (Which, BTW, is an inane rule, because it never appears to be observed.) DQ it if it doesn't look right. Rules Violation. One more thing to do during prelims. It's just not that critical. I haven't done the research, but I suspect that there are probably standards set out somewhere which define acceptable limits of headspace, at least on a commercial scale. I'm guessing here, but there are probably good reasons for that beyond oxidation potential, like weights and measures. MBAA's The Practical Brewer (1977) mentions a fill-check unit at p. 260, and suggests that any container that has a low fill be rejected. Hardwick's Handbook of Brewing (1994) talks about short-fill rejections as well at pp. 392-394. Why? Because they're dealing with Commerical Breweries. 12 oz. fills. Tax Rates. Waste. Costs. Mislabeling and misrepresentation. Lawyers and Accountants. I'm just a lowly homebrewer. I don't have an accountant running my brewery, unless I include my spouse, and then I open up a different set of books. I'm not so concerned with fill levels, unless fill levels lead to problems with the beer in terms of sensory evaluation, be they metallic beer from high fill rusty caps or oxidation from low fills. Eyeball the bottle, note the fill, check the temperature, evaluate the beer objectively against its stylistic paradigm, be thorough in your commentary. Use all available clues; watch out for Red Herrings. Cheers. Dan (Whaddya mean I can't have yer Bud Lite?)