On a few yeast strains I have large krausens so I occasionally add a drop of fermcap so I don’t wake up to a mess. Could this be somehow detrimental to yeast health or propagation amount?
There are opposing views. Some think that the fermcap will help retain head retention because the compounds that cause foam can only be formed once, so my minimizing foam you will have better head retention. But the opposing thinking is that you will be minimizing the "braun-hefe_ which sticks to the sides of the fermentors and holds bitter and harsh flavors.
I forgot to say in my yeast starter. I have never put it in the wort of a fermenting beer.
I’ve seen no problems using a drop or two in a starter. I boil in my flask and use it to prevent a boil over. I also use it in my kettle for the same. No head retention issues or I’ll effects on the final product.
Edit: as far as propagation and I’m no expert, attenuation has never been an issue for me.
Yes, I use it in my starters, especially if boiling in my stove.
After cracking a flask I switched to boiling starter wort in a small pot. Wish I’d done that a long time ago. Boiling in the flask just turned out to be a PITA for me, even with fermcap. Now I get to put one less chemical in my beer (don’t need fermcap in the pot) which I’m very ok with.
That makes much more sense. I can’t picture 1 drop doing much of anything in a 5 gallon batch of beer. In my experience, it doesn’t negatively affect anything with the finished beer (and I use the 3 drops per gallon recommendation in my boil). I do 2 drops in my ~2.5L starters (with a 10 gallon batch).
I use a drop or 2 in my starters, but I try to avoid it after learning that the beer should be filtered to remove any remaining Fermcap. I don’t want to do that and I don’t need any more health problems, so I limit its use as much as I can. I no longer ever use it in the kettle.
I stopped worrying about it some time ago. Read this the other day, I am not worried.
“The dose makes the poison”
Fermcap-S Safe level is 13g/day, at 2 drops per carboy the per glass rate you would get is 0.009g/glass. I can’t drink that much beer! 1400 pints day.
Source the “Homebrew Toxicology” presentation by Paul Hanlon, NHC 2015.
Alcohol is the most toxic thing we are ingesting.
Two drops per carboy, or two drops per gallon? But yeah, I went to that toxicology seminar too. I wasn’t particularly worried before (Fermcap-S is effectively Gas-X and the stuff they recommend for babies with colic), and I’m certainly not any more worried afterwards. Sweet sweet ethanol is much worse for you than anything else used in the process.
He has 2 drops/5 gallon in his presentation. I didn’t go, but have been reading the ones I couldn’t go to.
I only use fermcap in my starter flask to prevent boil overs. I never use it in the kettle and have stopped adding it to the fermenter about 2 years ago when the head retention on some of the beers I used it on did not seem as full as usual. Not sure if that played a role or not…but why add extra chemicals to my beer if I can avoid it?
Agreed, but why not limit what you can? I’ve had no trouble living with drastically reduced of Fermcap.
Ah, yeah, now that you mention it, I do recall raising an eyebrow at that. However, it still would mean only a 5x increase, so it’s more like 280 pints per day.
So when you planning to stop using those plastic items that leach into your beer? ;) To me, it’s a question of risk vs. reward. Using Fermcap, I don’t worry or focus on boilovers or messy blowoffs. The 0.045g/glass just isn’t that big a risk in comparison.
Mostly I quit using it because saying “my beers are made with barley, hops, water, yeast and Fermcap-S” just sounds awkward. [emoji6]
If I had evidence that the plastic I used leached, I would. but since every indication is that it doesn’t, I’ve done my due diligence. I’ve found other, almost equally easy ways to deal with boilovers and blowoff, so those aren’t reasons for me. And I’m not trying to convince anyone else. I convinced myself and that’s all that I need.
+1. And reading the Toxicology presentation from this year’s NHC did nothing to change my mind about using coolers.
The whole point of the presentation was that all of the worry about chemicals (including plastics leaching or simethicone) was silly from a risk perspective. The only significant risk is sweet, sweet ethanol.
Agreed. That was my takeaway.
Incidentally, it appears that much of the concern about it comes from secondhand information. After doing some curious googling, I actually found a direct link to the FDA code on it. Note there is nothing mentioned about filtering, only a final presence of less than 10ppm generally.
http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfcfr/CFRSearch.cfm?fr=173.340