# Brewbrite Misadventure



## krausenhaus (20/10/12)

So things were getting a little hectic nearing the end of the boil last night due to severe disorganisation. In the middle of setting up the chiller and weighing flameout hops I remembered I had forgotten to prepare some Brewbrite, so I grabbed the container and went to give it a quick sprinkle into the boil.

Through some sort of dexterity error I managed to tip about half the container in, which by my calculations is around 10 times the recommended dosage.

I decided to just push on anyway and chilled, filled up fermenters with some very cloudy wort and pitched the yeast.

This morning I was greeted by this hulking jelly beast:







It actually seems to be fermenting away pretty steadily, though the krausen is having a hard time getting through all the floating shit on the top.

I'm holding on to hope that if it manages to reach a decent gravity, I'll crash chill the crap out of it and see how much beer I can get off the top.

I doubt there's many others who have been retarded enough to have experience in this area, but is anyone able to offer any insight on to how it might turn out?

Besides crystal clear, of course.


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## Dazza88 (20/10/12)

I reckon it will drop out when you cc. That's what the active substances are supposed to do anyway isn't it?

Will be Interesting to see how much chill haze it doesn't have when drinking.


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## kixbooty (20/10/12)

that looks very unfortunate. hopefully it will be drinkable.


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## geneabovill (20/10/12)

kixbooty said:


> that looks very unfortunate. hopefully it will be drinkable.



Or taste like seaweed.


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## labels (20/10/12)

Next time, don't use it or any other additive. You Really don't need it, beer will clear by itself and be a more natural product. In My Opinion don't use them. Malt, Hops Water Yeast = that's enough


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## Brewman_ (20/10/12)

labels said:


> Next time, don't use it or any other additive. You Really don't need it, beer will clear by itself and be a more natural product. In My Opinion don't use them. Malt, Hops Water Yeast = that's enough



So you don't use a kettle fining at all? Do you still get a good whirlpool cone?

Fear.


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## bcp (21/10/12)

Personally I wouldn't touch that no matter what happens next. I think your increased risk of ingestion of NVP is much too high. Others will disagree with my over-caution, that's fine. 

I think PVPP is safe (it's used in stacks of things) provided the manufacturer meets stringent controls on the residues of NVP. NVP is produced as a residue in the manufacture of PVPP. I stand open to correction from those who read these kinds of reports better than me. NVP is more readily absorbed via inhalation, but also through the skin and stomach. The Scientific Committee on Food for the European Union aren't quite as glowing in their accounts as the reports from the manufacturers and those close to them. 

Short version - their conclusion:
"The use of PVP in dietary supplements and of PVPP as a processing aid for beer and wine remain acceptable, provided the existing specifications for
PVP and PVPP are amended to the currently proposed limit for NVP residues of 10 mg/kg PVP or PVPP. ...The Committee notes that the manufacturer
supplying the European Union market currently meets such a specification." Does the american supplier of Polyclar? I'm not sure. 

NVP residue is the principle risk. Overall they noted:
* It is a non-genotoxic carcinogen when inhaled by rats.
* It had other toxic effects on other species in intake through other forms of exposure.
* Acute oral, inhalational and dermal toxicities were determined in a variety of laboratory animals
* It releases acetaldehyde in the acidity of the stomach.
* It is absorbed by the body, mostly the liver, but most of it is excreted in urine.
* There is a gap in long-term studies of dermal and oral intake
* Intake via something like a 1g food supplemental tablet is minute


_"The maximum residue of NVP from the use of PVPP in the clarification of beer and wine is
estimated at 5 μg/l of beverage, based on experimental technological data (Madigan et al.,
2000; Chandra-Gopal et al., 2000; Gautier, 1995). Thus consumption of 2L of beer and
wine/day may contribute an intake of up to 0.17 μg/kg b.w/day of NVP for a 60 kg person.
The Committee understands, however, that the Community Code of Oenological Practice and
Processes limits the maximum content of free NVP in PVPP to 0.1%, which exceeds the
proposed specification limit for NVP in PVPP by about 100-fold and wishes to draw the
attention of the Commission to this discrepancy" (European Commission, 2000).
_
http://ec.europa.eu/food/fs/sc/scf/out87_en.pdf


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## Rob S (21/10/12)

Bugger. I'd take the risk and crash chill at -1 and hope for the best......

Next time make up a slurry of cold water/brewbrite in a cup, allowing it to activate, and them put in during the whirlpool.


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## krausenhaus (21/10/12)

> Personally I wouldn't touch that no matter what happens next. I think your increased risk of ingestion of NVP is much too high. Others will disagree with my over-caution, that's fine.



Thanks for the warning, but I would tend to disagree with your over-caution too.

Hepatotoxic effects in rats over 28-90 days at a dosage rate that I won't even come close to achieving, even if the manufacturers of Polyclar don't have as strict guidelines as EU manufacturers, is not really enough to put me off consuming a portion of one batch of over-fined beer over a few weeks.



> Bugger. I'd take the risk and crash chill at -1 and hope for the best......
> 
> Next time make up a slurry of cold water/brewbrite in a cup, allowing it to activate, and them put in during the whirlpool.



Cheers, brewed another batch last night with correct amount in slurry added at whirlpool, looking forward to seeing the final effects.

The jelly monster in the carboys is already starting to drop out, and the yeast are powering on like troopers, so I'm hoping this might work out okay.


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## tcc (21/10/12)

keen to see how it turns out, keep us posted!


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## krausenhaus (14/11/12)

To follow up on this:

If there's a taste threshold for Brewbrite, this has exceeded it.

Chemically, unstomachable shit.

Use caution.


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## kixbooty (14/11/12)

krausenhaus said:


> To follow up on this:
> 
> If there's a taste threshold for Brewbrite, this has exceeded it.
> 
> ...



I would like to add that it tastes like it has a distinct pine-o-clean chemically tangyness that makes me feel queasy just thinking about it.

Smells great! Looks super clear but has the colour and consistency of urine.

worst.


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## Malted (14/11/12)

krausenhaus said:


> I doubt there's many others who have been retarded enough to have experience in this area, but is anyone able to offer any insight on to how it might turn out?


Guess again or call me a retard too. 
I had pretty much the same looking thing when I did a 100% rye ale that seemed to have a large flour component to the crush. I used brewbrite AND Whirlfloc so only double dosed or quadruple dosed. It was so viscous I could not get it to drop out in the whirlpool so trub and every thing went into the fermenter. On crash chilling it dropped out (since post fermentation was less viscous?) to be about 50% trub layer. I siphoned off the top liquid which was still a little opaque instead of clear. After bottle conditioning it dropped out and settled even more. 
In my case I think I had too much flour in the grist.


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## Fourstar (14/11/12)

I midly overdosed my wort on the weekend, i typically do double bacthes and accidentally added a double batch dose to my kettle for a single batch size. 

I had the same kind of ploom as you describe/show although not as wild as yours. I was also brewing a pumpkin beer which had the worst stuck mash ive ever encountered becasue of the vegetable matter and a finer grind than usual so i ended up taking a lot of cloudy wort into the kettle. Lessons learnt.

Anyway, upon whirlpool and resting for 10-15 before taking to a cube i only got 1/2 way through the drain and the egg-drop soup was plooming up in the kettle. Obviously because of the extra starch/protein and the dose rate. Lucky for me i get to rest mine in the cube for a week before transferring to my fermenter. Hopefully it settles out but i doubt mine is anywhere near as bad as yours appears.


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## mark0 (14/11/12)

labels said:


> Next time, don't use it or any other additive. You Really don't need it, beer will clear by itself and be a more natural product. In My Opinion don't use them. Malt, Hops Water Yeast = that's enough




Only Malt, Hops Water Yeast in my beers too. What little trub does come through into the cube gets dropped out by cold crashing at the end of fermentation. 

Beer is clear after being in the keg for a few weeks (to let yeast settle out)


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## labels (14/11/12)

This is an interesting article from FSANZ on the use of processing aids in commercial beer.

http://www.foodstandards.gov.au/_srcfiles/...esins_FINAL.pdf

Steve


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## Nick JD (14/11/12)

labels said:


> This is an interesting article from FSANZ on the use of processing aids in commercial beer.
> 
> http://www.foodstandards.gov.au/_srcfiles/...esins_FINAL.pdf
> 
> Steve



So they want to ban the use of Polyclar? Does brewbrite have polyclar in it?


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## Bribie G (14/11/12)

kixbooty said:


> I would like to add that it tastes like it has a distinct pine-o-clean chemically tangyness that makes me feel queasy just thinking about it.
> 
> Smells great! Looks super clear but has the colour and consistency of urine.
> 
> worst.



So does it smell great or not? Your two sentences contradict each other. 
I've just tasted a wee pinch of BB, tastes completely neutral to me. 

I basically use it for its excellent kettle floccing abilities which come from the Caragheenan part of the mixture (derived from Irish Moss seaweed) and any chill haze reduction is a bonus. 
Several centuries of using kettle finings in small (by today's standards) breweries is ok by me.

Edit: BrewBrite / BrewBright is a mix of Caragheenan and Polyclar intended for kettle usage as opposed to Polyclar which is for addition to cold conditioning beer. I prefer BrewBright because what gets through into the fermenter will be well and truly flocced out into the yeast cake after a week at -1 (in fact kegging one today that's been there for ten days). Then when it does its final settling out in the keg it's crystal clear from then on. 

It amuses me the purist Nazis who won't allow anything other than malt, hops and water near their brews but probably use PBW, Starsan, Saniclean, Bleach, line Cleaner, etc with gay abandon or happily swig from bottles treated with no rinse sanitisers or out of glasses done in the dishwasher. I once read that the average Westerner drinks about ten litres equivalent of neat dishwashing detergent in a lifetime.


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## krausenhaus (14/11/12)

Bribie G said:


> So does it smell great or not? Your two sentences contradict each other.



No, they don't. _Smells_ great, _tastes_ shit.



> I've just tasted a wee pinch of BB, tastes completely neutral to me.



It's an overpowering, sharp chemical-like bitterness at the back of the tongue. The beer only had 8 IBU of Magnum up the back and another 12 from late hops.

The jelly monsters settled out a lot in the carboy. I siphoned what I could out into carboys and cold crashed at -1 for a week before kegging.

I'm fairly new to brewing but I can't think of anything else I've done differently that would be causing that taste.

Please note that I'm not bagging out Brewbrite or suggesting people don't use it. I'm suggesting people don't use 10 times the recommended amount.


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## Bribie G (14/11/12)

I would guess that the BrewBrite bonded to a lot of other stuff it wouldn't normally attach to, at those high concentrations. 
My last brew I was ready to add the BB, no water supply nearby so I thought "well, wort should do - it's a liquid" so I scooped a few big spoons of wort into my Pyrex bowl straight out of the kettle and added heaped teaspoon BB and stirred. 

It instantly congealed into a rubber blob :huh: - which I discarded of course. BB is obviously quite ferocious when it wants to be.


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## Malted (14/11/12)

krausenhaus said:


> I'm fairly new to brewing but I can't think of anything else I've done differently that would be causing that taste.



Might not be the BrewBrite, might be an infection?


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## stakka82 (14/11/12)

Malted said:


> Might not be the BrewBrite, might be an infection?



That's what I've been thinking since I first read this thread


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## Nick JD (14/11/12)

So Brewbright is Whirlfloc mixed with Polyclar? 

(just read the thread on it and couldn't find anything)

Anyone know the ratio?


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## Bribie G (14/11/12)

My tub from MHB doesn't list the ratio. Also is Whirlfloc pure Carrageenan or does it have fillers? The other thing is that PVPP comes in different granule sizes I believe, depending on the application (winemaking whatever) so by grinding Whirlfloc and Polyclar together you wouldn't necessarily produce a mix equivalent to BrewBright. Maybe Mark could elucidate.


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## stux (15/11/12)

Bribie G said:


> My tub from MHB doesn't list the ratio. Also is Whirlfloc pure Carrageenan or does it have fillers? The other thing is that PVPP comes in different granule sizes I believe, depending on the application (winemaking whatever) so by grinding Whirlfloc and Polyclar together you wouldn't necessarily produce a mix equivalent to BrewBright. Maybe Mark could elucidate.



IIRC its basically about 50/50 carrageenan (the floc) and binders/dispersants (the whirl). The point being, irish moss you don't have to measure or fiddle with.

Actual ingredients:
Refined and Semi-refined Carrageenan Powder 
Adipic Acid
Sodium Carbonate
Sodium Bicarbonate
Magnesium Silicate


View attachment Whirlfloc.pdf


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## Thirsty Boy (16/11/12)

Carageenan is a perfectly servicable gelling agent - put enough in your beer and you get beer jelly. Its a very common food additive used to thicken and give mouthfeel and is what they often use to make low/no fat things feel like they have oils and fats in them. No fat salad dressing being a typical example.

In beer it isn't doing that - in beer its there because in solution it carries an electrical charge, the opposite of the one carried by the proteins polyphenl/protein complexes that are cold break. It makes them come out of solution more readily and stick into bigger chunks.

Use too much - and you get left over charge on the break particles. And anyone who's rubbed a balloon on their head, knows that a lot of particles all with the same charge are going to repel eah other. The repulsive force opposes the gravity force and over-fined beers have break that does not settle compactly. The particles sit up all fuzzy, just like your hair after the balloon. They dont ever settle as well as they could, and they take a very long time to do it.

Use way too much and you start to see the gelling thing happen and instead of particles, you get a light almost fairfloss looking network that as near as I can tell, never settles. I've heavily over fined to see what happens, and after a month in the fridge, a 500ml sample still had only a cm or two of clear wort over a large mass of break material.

The PVPP - probably didn't have a hell of a lot to do with your jelly monster. Carageenan by itself would perhaps have been worse?? but would still have done essentially the same thing.

TB


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## pat86 (15/5/14)

Thread bump as I couldn't find any info on a food product which contains Carageenan: called "Jel-it-in"- The packet states "clear and unflavoured" . I'm wondering if anyone has used it in beer or whether this has too many other chemicals to use... 

Ingredients list is: Dried Glucose Syrup (from corn), Gelling Agents (Carrageenan, Locust Bean gum), Stabilisers: potassium choloride, calcium acetate

I'm mainly concerned about the extra glucose, which could be an extra fermentable, and also the stabilisers. I have NFI what they will do to a beer. any thoughts?


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## stux (16/5/14)

I would've used a new thread. This thread is about the consequences of overdosing on BrewBrite.


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## philmud (16/5/14)

I'd leave it alone, the glucose probably will ferment and the other stuff is unnecessary. Irish moss is carrageenan, so it's certainly a viable fining agent, but it's cheap as it is, so why use a product that had the additives?


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