Subject: Digest for the period 2/16/2006 - 2/17/2006 Date: Fri, 17 Feb 2006 01:03:34 -0500 Table of contents ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. CEP at the National Homebrewers Conference (Tumarkin) 2. head retention, aroma and alcohol content (George de Piro) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tumarkin Date: Thu, 16 Feb 2006 07:14:10 -0500 Subject: CEP at the National Homebrewers Conference Hey y'all, Gary Glass posted about the upcoming National Homebrewers Conference in Orlando, this June. He said the speaker list was the best ever. I'm the Speaker Coordinator this year so I've gotta say; Thanks Gary, but I'm not sure that's truly accurate. Still, I think there are a lot of presentations you'll find interesting. But that's not why I'm posting now. I wanted to let the cat out of the bag about something new for the AHA NHC, and for the BJCP. By now I'm sure you know about the new BJCP Continuing Education Program. I was on the original committee that explored forming the CEP program, so I'm pleased and excited to announce that CEP is coming to the NHC! If you haven't heard about the CEP, look at the website at http://www.bjcp.org/cep/index.html This will not be the very first CEP event offered. That honor goes to Todd Crockett out in Sacramento. Todd put on a Belgian presentation on Valentines Day. I've been in touch with Kris England, the CEP Director, and many of the presentations will qualify as CEP events, making the AHA NHC the first CEP Special Event. Now, not only is the NHC the country's best and biggest homebrew party, where you can judge at the 2nd Round of the National Homebrewers Competition, meet best friends you never knew you had while seeing a bunch of great talks and seminars; but you'll also be able to pick up some CEP points as well. So I hope to see you in Orlando in June. The Florida homebrewing community is working hard to make this the best NHC ever. Check out the Conference web site at www.beertown.org/events/hbc/index.html Come on down and have a beer with us. Mark Tumarkin Hogtown Brewers Gainesville, FL ______________ ______________ ______________ ______________ Webmail provided by InfoToGo.net ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: George de Piro Date: Thu, 16 Feb 2006 09:24:57 -0500 Subject: head retention, aroma and alcohol content HI all, A recent article in Brauwelt International by Graham Stewart (Dec. 2005) lead me to do a little experiment. The article is about yeast performance during high gravity fermentations (the kind practiced by large breweries to maximize production). It states that one of the consequences is that yeast excrete a large amount of an enzyme that degrades proteins and can thus adversely affect head retention. Knowing that common homebrew lore states that the high alcohol content of strong beers hurts the foam stand, I did a little experiment. I spiked a beer with enough ethanol to boost it's ABV from 5.2% to 10%. I measured its foam retention against an unadulterated control. The result was no effect on foam retention. My conclusion is that foam is not affected adversely by the ethanol content of beers up to 10% ABV. This may explain why some strong beers, particularly from Belgian brewers, exhibit great head retention: perhaps the yeast strains used do not release the offending protease. More work is needed. The beers were exactly the same (from serving tanks at the brewpub), the glasses were scrupulously clean, and equal amounts of foam were generated by sucking a measured amount of beer up into a syringe and injecting it back into the glass (the Jeff Renner beer engine). I then smelled and tasted the two beers. I was a bit surprised by what I found out: neither I, nor one other, could tell which beer was spiked by aroma alone. Alcohol could be discerned by both of us in the spiked beer's flavor, but even that was relatively weak (for a 10% beer). A Kölsch was the spiked beer, by the way. This has me thinking that most of what we describe as alcohol in strong beers, especially in the nose, is probably not ethanol, but rather fusels and/or esters that are in high enough quantity to be considered solventy. Also, many old beers have sherry-like aldehydes that may lend an impression of alcoholic strength (due to the association in our minds between sherry and alcohol). I hope some are inspired to try this out for themselves! Have fun! George de Piro Brewmaster, C.H. Evans Brewing Company at the Albany Pump Station 19 Quackenbush Square Albany, NY, USA 12207 (518)447-9000 www.EvansAle.com Brewers of Kick-Ass Brown: Twice declared the Best American Brown Ale in the USA at the Great American Beer Festival (2000 & 2002), and a World Beer Cup Bronze (2004)! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ***** Important Subscriber Information ***** To post a message to JudgeNet, send it to judge`at`synchro.com. Send plain text only, no HTML, MIME, encoded text or attachments. Make sure you use a meaningful subject. Quote only as much material as is needed for context. To manage your subscription, go to http://synchro.com/judge/subscriptions.html or send an email to judge-request`at`synchro.com with the subject: help judge. JudgeNet is also available as an NNTP newsgroup, go to news://news.synchro.com/synchro.judge