Homebrew - headaches and gastro-intestinal disturbances

[Shamus O'Sean]

9 hours ago, BlackSands said:

Crikey... this is an old thread! 

CC'ing my beer made no difference to my 'gastronomical' experiences.   Clarityferm is pretty expensive and mostly targets the gluten-intolerant.  I'm not gluten intolerant. 

For now I've been blaming it on live yeast.  One thing I have intended to try was actually pastuerising the beer once conditioned.  I have a brew in 500ml glass flip-tops at the moment which I could dunk in 90ºC water for 5 or 10 mins.  Not sure it's the best thing to do to a beer, but for the purposes of determining if live yeast is the issue it's probably worth a shot. 

Just be mighty careful doing this.  I had the bottoms fall out of a couple of Grolsch flip-tops doing the above.  For the ones that did not break I found it cured the gut reactions.  However I felt I was loosing too many bottles (around two per batch) to make it a viable approach.

My guts has pretty much stabilised over time.  Also cold crash now so get less yeast in the bottles.  Pouring carefully to minimise disturbance to the yeast dusting on the bottom of the bottles helps too.

[James Lao]

It’s called Natures Goodness kefir powder.

I get it from the health food shop in Joondalup Lakeside shopping centre.

I think most of those health food supplement shops type of place will sell it.

I re-use one packet 5 times, 100ml of kefir milk is poured into a litre of fresh milk, like harvesting yeast  almost.

1st time just pour the sachet into a liter of milk , leave for a day or 2 at room temp , see it going kind of yoghurty but not too thick like feta then get it in the fridge.

its meant to have have loads more good bacteria than Greek yoghurt and Yakult etc.

The thing I Like is that it’s kind of like brewing / making yeast starters.

I have read that Gut health is super important for immune system, brain function etc etc 

Cheers

James

[BlackSands]

11 hours ago, Shamus O'Sean said:

Just be mighty careful doing this.  I had the bottoms fall out of a couple of Grolsch flip-tops doing the above.  For the ones that did not break I found it cured the gut reactions.  However I felt I was loosing too many bottles (around two per batch) to make it a viable approach.

My guts has pretty much stabilised over time.  Also cold crash now so get less yeast in the bottles.  Pouring carefully to minimise disturbance to the yeast dusting on the bottom of the bottles helps too.

Your experience does tend to suggest that it is indeed the live yeast that is the culprit.   Interestingly, I consumed around 1.5 litres last night, two different beers, both CC'd.  I just realised this morning that I haven't experienced any ill effects on this occasion.   

As for bottle safety I wonder if a lower pastuerisation temperature held for longer would solve the breakage problem?    

  

Edited October 11, 2019 by BlackSands

[Otto Von Blotto]

I wouldn't put beer bottles in 90 degree water. They aren't made from glass that can withstand temperature shocks like that. 

I can't say I've noticed a difference between bottled and kegged beers in this context, but I've been cold crashing every batch since I've had the brew fridge and the bottles had barely any yeast sediment in them, which I always left behind when pouring. In the kegs it's even less, and other than the first 100mL or whatever which gets tossed anyway, I don't pull any of it up into the glass. Just great tasting beer and no ill effects.

Sometimes I have a beer on tap where the yeast haven't quite dropped out yet, but given a few days it's usually all gone, well gone enough that it doesn't create a haze. There are always yeast cells in suspension, but just not enough to be visible.

Edited October 12, 2019 by Otto Von Blotto

[Shamus O'Sean]

4 hours ago, BlackSands said:

As for bottle safety I wonder if a lower pastuerisation temperature held for longer would solve the breakage problem?

Back then I did not have a way to properly measure the temperature of the water I heated.  I did not get it to boiling, but hotter than my tap water that comes out just over 60°C.

I read that a lower temperature for longer also kills the yeast.  There is a yeast killing temperature threshold.  Although I do not remember what it was. 

Part of the challenge is maintaining the preferred temperature.  The bottles go in cooler and so drop the temperature when dunked.  You either need to start with hotter water or reheat the water once the bottles are in.  Both risky propositions.

I tried a few different approaches.  Even putting the bottles into room temperature water and gently heating.  What a time waster.

Just now, thinking out loud, I wonder if putting the bottles into an oven that you can set lower temperatures on (60°C to 80°C) would do the trick without the hot water breakage risk?  Obviously no good for PET bottles.  The Grolsch fliptops with the rubber or silicon seals might not fare well either, but might be okay.

It would be good if there was a way to easily and safely kill the yeast after secondary fermentation in the bottle.  However, I have given up on such treatment.  Any gut issues I have are yeast related, but not debilitating.

[Otto Von Blotto]

Yeast dies at about 40 degrees or so. There shouldn't be any need to heat the beer up over 60 or whatever if you are only trying to kill the yeast off. Put it in 50-60 degree water for 10-20 minutes and it'd probably do it. 

[BlackSands]

Also, with a lower temperature I guess the technique could be applied to PET as well.  

[Shamus O'Sean]

The challenge is maintaining the necessary temperature for the necessary time. 

[BlackSands]

46 minutes ago, Shamus O'Sean said:

The challenge is maintaining the necessary temperature for the necessary time. 

I can probably achieve it the same way I do for my mashes...    I heat up my pot to the required temp, put a lid on it and then place it in a pre-warmed oven.  

But I don't think it's super critical... as long as it doesn't cool below yeast-death temps!