From: ulick@gershwin.helios.nd.edu (Ulick Stafford)
Subject: Re: Full mashing Re: The Rice-Brau Challenge (Recipe + Notes)
Organization: OUC, University of Notre Dame
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 15:24:52 GMT

In article <01050166.f2jc7b@joebloe.maple-shade.nj.us> joseph@joebloe.maple-shade.nj.us writes:
>
>Pretty soon now I am going to add a 100g x 0.1g scale to my collection
>for weighing out mead ingredients, etc.  I am fortunate to have a
>friend who has a whole houseful of labware, equipment and chemicals
>(no, no, no, he teaches homeschool science ... what were you thinking?)
>and it's been great being able to get stuff like USP phosphoric acid,
>which poor peon citizens like you and me just can't order from normal
>chemical suppliers.
>
>Have any of you ever tried to find USP gypsum/plaster of paris/calcium
>sulfate in bulk?  Even by the pound?  You just can't do it!  I'd like
>to have the stuff for making tofu (it's a coagulant) as well as for
>making beer.  I am sure that it costs about 5 cents per pound in some
>quantity, and it pisses me off that I can no more order it from a
>chemical supplier than I can order malonic acid, ether, 300 mesh
>magnesium, fuming nitric acid and/or sodium cyanide. 

Working in chemical labs I have no trouble getting most chemicals in
small quantities.  For the amount of phosphoric I use I couldn`t 
give a fiddler's if it is USP or not.  Gypsum - I just chip some off
some hardwall, grind it with a mortar and pestle...

 I inquired at
>some university stockrooms and got answers like, "well, a while ago
>I would have just filled up a paper bag with it for you, but these
>days the lawyers...."  Of course, drugstores once upon a time would
>order chemicals for you, but they don't do that now, either ....
>

The good old days.  We always call pharmacies chemists, cause they 
used to sell chemicals, and some of them were interesting, like 
explosives or drug precursors... back in the days when people were
responsible for their actions and didn't need `protection` from
the FDA, DEA, FAA, and all those other big brothers.  Shit, how right
Orwell was, except Big Brother doesn't have a name or face, but an
acronym.

>Well, I know, but he admits to overkill in his times.  I personally
>don't think it's necessary to take reasonable conversion times and
>double them.  A little extra, OK.  Perhaps a 2 hr 150F mash will in 
>some cases improve extract efficiency.  I'm not so sure.  I think that
>going to a decoction mash would get you those 36 points much more
>reliably.  Of course it makes brewing an all-day process, but, heck,
>it lets everyone know how devoted you are.
>
I am waiting for someone to buy me Nonnans book!  I dont know what is
supposed to be so time consuming about decoction, but maybe when I've
done it I've done 'light decoction' - only 2 raises - to hell with
the acid rest.



+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 
+ 'There was a  master come unto the earth, + Ulick Stafford, PP-ASEL       +
+    born in the holy land of Indiana,      + Dept of Chemical Engineering, +
+ in the mystical hills east of Fort Wayne'.+ Notre Dame, IN 46556          +
+      B'fhearr liom bheith ag eitilt.      +    ulick@bach.helios.nd.edu   +
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++