Bacchus E-Lines June 2004 6633 Nieman Rd. Shawnee, KS 66203 913 962 2501 bacchus@bacchus-barleycorn.com Summertime is just around the corner. Impress your friends and neighbors at your next gathering with your very own brews, wines and meads. Along with new products, product information and specials, this issue contains Introduce Friend to the Joy of Home Fermentation (earn 10% Off Coupons), Health Benefits of White Wine and Low Carb Beer Methodology. Read on for details. Remember Dad on June 20 with home fermentation supplies. Have a great summer. Wyeast's NEW ACTIVATOR Smack Pack Wyeast introduces a completely new look for an industry classic. Innovations at Wyeast have improved production and yeast stabilization enabling more cells to be packed in every pouch resulting in the Activator. This pure culture pack has an average of 100 billion cells ready to pitch plus nutrients. The Activator provides the pitching rate recommended by professionals; double the active yeast in the "XL" smack packs, and significantly more than any other product on the market. The Activator provides the fastest starts and delivers consistent fermentations which are true to style. The Activator Smack Pack is the only pitchable package design that allows you to activate the yeast prior to using. Although activation is optional, when activated, yeast metabolism begins, providing proof of viable active yeast. With the higher cell count, even aged packages will have more viable yeast than any product available. You'll also find the easy instructions on the reverse side a big improvement. We will continue to carry the regular Wyeast smack packs and will be transitioning from Wyeast Pitchable Tubes to the Activator Smack Packs. The cell count increases, but price will remain the same as the Tubes. We've just received our first shipment of beer yeast in the Activator Smack Packs. Wine, Mead and Cider yeast are not yet available in the Activator Smack Packs so we'll continue to carry them in either pitchable tubes or XL Smack Packs which are also pitchable. $6.80 Introducing Radical Brewing by Randy Mosher Veteran homebrewer, Randy Mosher, delivers an entertaining look at beer history and culture along with a no-nonsense approach to the art of innovative brewing. Radical Brewing is a celebration of 12,000 years of the art of brewing, with over 90 recipes which put you in touch with some of brewing's most exotic and delicious brews. Filled with an abundance of useful information, Radical Brewing is well organized from the basic to the complex, lavishly illustrated and filled with fascinating tidbits of brewing lore. 324 pages. $19.95 Mother's Day-Father's Day Special - Portuguese Floor Corker
Every winemaker should upgrade to a floor corker. They are especially nice for women. With higher quality corks such as Noracork Synthentic Corks, Altec Corks, and Premium Winery Grade Natural Corks becoming more popular, you need the proper equipment to do the job. Hand corkers can be somewhat hard to use unless you've been trained for the Ms./Mr. Universe Contest. The Portuguese Floor Corker can easily be used by 90 lb. weaklings. This would make a wonderful Father's Day gift. Regular price $58.00. Mother's Day-Father's Day Special $52.00 through June 18, 2004. Close Out Specials Party Pig The Party Pig is a self contained 2.25 gallon reusable beer dispenser that keeps beer fresh and carbonated. The package is easy to carry and fits into a standard refrigerator. The package requires no CO2 tanks or cartridges because it uses a self-inflating pressure pouch which expands as the beer is dispensed. Regularly $40.00, Close Out $34.00 Those of you who currently use Party Pigs can relax while having a homebrew. We will continue to carry pouches and replacement parts. Counter Phil So you're now into kegging and need a few bottles for competition or a party. Counterpressure bottling is the solution. The Counter Phil counter-pressure bottles filler uses the syphon method and a three-way valve requiring fewer steps than other counter-pressure bottle fillers. Regular price $52.50. Close Out $40.00. Introduce a Friend to the Joy of Home Fermentation In response to your requests for demonstrations, we scheduled three demonstration dates with rewards for both you and your friend(s). Here's how the rewards part works. Introduce a friend to the joys of the hobby by bringing him/her to the June 5. Your friend purchases a starter kit (beer, wine or mead) including their first set of ingredients and you will receive a coupon for 10% off your next purchase as our thank you for the referral and your friend will also receive a coupon for 10% off their next purchase. Introduce several friends to the hobby and you'll receive a coupon for each referral. Saturday, June 5 we will have a series of brewing demonstrations from extract to infusion mashing. Since the infusion mash takes several hours, we are staggering the starting times allowing you to observe each process. 10:00 - Infusion Mashing by Kenny Butler Noon - Mini Mashing by Paul Pilcher 2:00 - Extract with Specialty Grains by Bob Clark Product Spotlight - Wine on Tap A few weeks ago I bought a "Wine on Tap" from Bacchus & Barleycorn. I have tried it with three different white wines. I found it very good. It dispenses well and the bladder that holds the wine collapses as the wine is withdrawn. This keeps air from reaching the wine, which causes oxidation. The end is as fresh as the beginning. It takes about six hours in the refrigerator to cool your wine so one needs to plan ahead if having a dinner
party or something. The draw back I see is that it is too convenient to share a glass of wine with too many friends, where if one had to open a bottle he might not invite so many for a taste. I find it very convenient and the wine I have found is served adequately and the condition of the wine is the same at the beginning to the end. I have not tried it with reds. I prefer my red wines at room temperature. I do no know how long the wine will stay fresh in the container. My experience ranges from eight days to 2 1/2 weeks... Bob, Waverly, MO Editors Note - The Wine on Tap dispenser keep up to 9 bottles (1.8 gallons) of wine fresh for 6 months or more. It may be stored on a shelf for dispensing at room temperature or in the fridge. Health Benefits in White Wine Red wines may be best for your heart, but researchers have reported that white wine beats red at preserving aging lungs. "People who drank white wine had greater lung function than those who consumed red wine, but both groups of wine drinkers had greater lung function than non-wine drinkers," said Holger Schunemann of the State University of New York in Buffalo. Both red and white wines have high concentrations of flavor compounds called polyphenols and flavonoids. Some experts believe that these antioxidants may protect lung tissue from minute atomic particles called free radicals that, over time, damage tissue. The study, involving 1,555 adults, is the latest of several studies showing that moderate drinking may be good for your health. Red wine has been shown to guard against clogged arteries and to boost blood levels of HDL cholesterol, the good cholesterol that ushers fat out of the bloodstream. Another study showed that a few drinks a week, weather wine, beer or liquor, may help women avoid high blood pressure. In this study, white wine drinkers had 3% better lung function and red wine drinkers had 1.5% better lung function than non-drinkers. Peter Wagner of the University of California, San Diego, says the study suggests that moderate wine drinking is "equivalent to slowing the age-related deterioration of the lungs by one to three years." The study was sponsored by the American Lung Association and the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Tips & Tidbits Low-Carb Beer Methodology According to research published by Ipsos Public Affairs, over one-half of American adults believe that the carbohydrate count in vodka is high or medium and 55% believe this about tequila, even though neither vodka nor tequila contain any carbohydrates, nor
does gin, rum or whiskey. The survey also found over two-thirds of adults falsely believed that fruit juice and regular soda are lower in carbohydrates than distilled spirits. Carb dieters must understand that carbs are not the same as calories. Starches and sugars are carbohydrates, alcohol is not, but all three contain calories. Therefore, making a low gravity beer does not necessarily give you a low-carb beer. The carb count in beer is more determined by process variables than gravity. Let's first take a look at carbs: Carbs are essentially grain starches. In the mash tun, any starch absorbs increasing amounts of water (hydrates) and gradually expands as the ambient temperature increases from cold to warm to hot. Between 158 and 176 degrees F barley starch forms a viscous paste as it gelatinizes. This is important because starches are more susceptible to enzymatic conversion after they have gelatinized. Starches thin out above 176 degrees F. At this point they can leach unconverted into the wort causing a chill haze in the finished beer and contributing to the beer's carb count. That's why you should never let the mash temperature rise above 176 degrees F. Barley is about 60-65% starch by weight. Before these complex carbohydrates can be metabolized by yeast, they need to be broken down by enzymes in the mash into chunks of two molecules (maltose) or just one molecule (glucose). These sugars are then extracted into the wort. Maltose makes up about half of all wort sugars while glucose makes up no more than one-tenth of all sugar. The remaining 40% of sugars are too complex to be fermented by most yeast and tend to remain in the beer as residual sweetness and thus carbs. The objective for the low-carb brewer is to make a nonstandard wort. To do this requires conversion in the mash of as many starches as possible into fermentable sugars. To accomplish this, first note the connection between enzyme activity and temperature ranges: Starch converting enzymes are also called diastatic enzymes. There are two types of diastatic enzymes, alpha-amylase and beta-amylase. Alpha-amylase breaks starch molecules into complex, mostly unfermentable sugars. Beta-amylase breaks both starches and complex sugars into simple, fermentable sugars. Alpha-amylase, the complex sugar maker, starts to show activity around 140 degrees F, reaches its peak performance around 162 degrees F and virtually ceases all activity around 176 degrees F. Beta-amylase, the simple sugar maker, starts to show activity around 104 degrees F, reaches its peak performance around 149 degrees F and virtually ceases activity around 158 degrees F. From these temperature values follow three logical requirements for low-carb beer: 1. Keep the mash as close to the optimum beta-amylase temperature of 149 degrees F as possible. This will produce almost exclusively simple, fermentable sugars. As saccharification rest at this temperature of at least 45 minutes is recommended. 2. Because at a mash temperature of 149 degrees F, alpha-amylase is still 13 degrees F below its peak performance, but within its active range the amount of starch converted into simple sugars can be increased by adding alpha-amylase enzymes to the mash. Thus, decreasing the amount of carbs in the finished beer.
3. After the saccharification rest, move the mash as quickly as possible past 158 degrees F where beta-amylase enzymes stop working, to a mash out temperature of roughly 172 degrees F where alpha-amylase enzymes slow down. The eventual amount of carbs in finished beer is determined by yeast metabolism. Here's how that logic works for the carb-conscious: Ale yeast ferments monosaccharides (glucose) and disaccharides (mostly maltose and some melibiose) up to roughly 50% of the starches that are naturally in the grain. Lager yeast ferments monosaccharides and disaccharides as well as some trisaccharides (maltotriose and raffinose) for an additional roughly 5% of the original carbs in the grain. Conclusion: If you want to make a really low-carb beer, mash primarily for beta-amylase activity, rest thoroughly, raise the temperature to mash-out quickly past the peak alphaamylase temperature, sparge fast, make sure you leave the unconverted starches in the spent grain and use alpha-amylase in the mash. As always, we thank you for your patronage. Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. -- Benjamin Franklin