did a Kolsch yesterday and added 14 drops to a 6 gallon batch. this morning i had to put the blow off tube in as a precaution. seems like i have alot of kreusen for a 1.052 beer. is this from the 5% wheat in the grist? Should I have done a protein rest? would adding more fermcap to the primary help, or stick with the blowoff?
No harm in always using a blowoff. Better safe than sorry
+1
Fermcap should be added at two drops per gallon. The krausen layer varies by yeast strain, amount of yeast, yeast health, beer gravity and beer temp. The wheat is not a significant factor. Don’t add any more Fermcap and leave the blowoff hose on the fermenter.
I’ve still needed the blowoff tube with fermcap but I’m using a 6 gallon better bottle filled to 5.5 gallons. Still better with the fermcap though, same brew and same fermenter and the non-fermcap one spews everywhere. The fermcap one stays mostly contained.
-Sent from the future.
Slight tangent - if you use Fermcap in your boil, do you need to add any extra to your primary or is the pre-boil amount sufficient through fermentation as well?
I think you’re only supposed to use it either / or.
-Sent from the future.
we have needed it in both. it doesnt transfer from the boil kettle
Hmm, I just found this post from Denny:
http://hbd.org/discus/messages/50162/50540.html?1304008514
So we shouldn’t use fermcap-s without filtering?
-Sent from the future.
There’s already been a very thorough discussion regarding FermCap-S on this forum.
http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/index.php?topic=7419.0
I tend to use FermCap-S in the BK and in the wort starter (yeast starter).
It has not been necessary for me to add FermCap-S directly into the fermentor, nor has it been desirable to do so as I prefer the sterilization effect boiling has.
Thanks for the link.
So what are some alternatives?
-Sent from the future.
I just burned an hour reading these posts as well as other threads in other forums. What do the folks at Fermcap say about their product?
I had a similar question about whether or not dumping PBW in my septic would have adverse effects (the label says it’s “environmentally safe”) but PBW doesn’t list its active ingredients either.
Some natural gas companies dont want to disclose the chemicals they want to use for hydro-fracking calling it a trade secret. Do you think/trust these chemicals are environmentally safe? Who cares about clean drinking water, right now we need jobs! (sorry about that I slipped- we’re talking beer here not politics)
My take away from this is i am going to keep using Fermcap S at the dosage of 2 drops per gallon in my fermentor. I am leaving the blowoff on through high krausen. IMO there is not enough evidence to support it being a health risk. And if it were, in order for me to ingest enough to do harm, I would have to drink enough beer that i would be more wooried about what the alcohol is doing to my liver.
Sounds right to me. I’m still curious about alternatives but I’m not going to stop using it for now.
I listened to BS and JZ went on a bit about it. What I’m not clear on is- how “it collects in the liver”?
Sounds like it doesn’t work then.
Liver? I thought it was kidneys?
I only used it in the boil, I thought if you used it in the boil then you weren’t supposed to use it in the fermenter. So…
It doesn’t really collect anywhere. Dimethylpolysiloxane is in simethicone, which is in turn in Maalox/Mylanta/Gas-X/Mylicon/etc. Simethicone is about as innocuous as drugs go. It is largely excreted unchanged in the feces. None of my tox references even recommend any treatment at all for oral overdoses, and report that no significant toxicity is expected after ingestion. If we can give this drug chronically to our micro-preemies in the NICU, I have zero reservations about putting a few drops in my beer.
It doesn’t provide enough benefits for me to take a chance on it. Use large boil kettles and fermenters and you don’t need it.
Yeah, the only negatives I found were from quacks like Mercola. My rule is, is Mercola says it’s bad then he is probably selling a product that will “detox” you from its effects, therefor its ok to ingest. ;D
+1. This is a good philosophy in general. Even if something has a 0.00000001% chance of causing issues, that’s still more than the 0% you’d get with not using it at all.
My opinion of Fermcap has changed over time. While I don’t think it’s a major health risk, I have enough questions about it that I try to avoid using it whenever possible. I used to add it to the kettle to prevent boilovers. Now I stand there with a spray bottle. I just had to use it in a fermenter and while I would rather not have used it, I put it in.