# Potassium Levels In Beer And Stout



## Zapp Brannigan (11/7/10)

A big thanks to all the posters on this site. I am now brewing much better beer than 12 months ago. 
I have a question that I can not find much info on, and I wonder if anyone here knows how to help. Both me and my dad like stout but it has a much higher potassium level than beer [according to a list given to my dad by his doctor] and my dad has to have a low potassium diet because he has a medical condition. 
Does anyone know anything about potassium levels in beer or stout? 
Is there a test I can do for potassium levels?

I have looked at quite a few web-sites that deal with potassium levels but they just give a figure for beer, without making any distinction between different beers.


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## tavas (11/7/10)

Do you brew K&K or use grains? If you do kits, you may be able to contact the manufacturer who may be able to give you some figures based on their recommended brewing instructions.

If you use grains I would still contact the kit manufacturers anyway. If you poll a few you may be able to get a trend or ballpark figure. Find a 

Otherwise contact some microbreweries/commercial breweries and see if they have some info. I think if you sell a food commercially you are legally required to display the nutritional info, although I may be wrong. I am sure if you ask though people would be happy to provide that info.

Alternatively look at commercial beers similar to your style and guess from theirs.

Try this site 
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/food/search

good luck.


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## ~MikE (11/7/10)

Zapp Brannigan said:


> Is there a test I can do for potassium levels?



photoelectric flame photometer, i don't think too many people would have one though


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## Zapp Brannigan (11/7/10)

tavas said:


> Do you brew K&K or use grains? If you do kits, you may be able to contact the manufacturer who may be able to give you some figures based on their recommended brewing instructions.
> 
> If you use grains I would still contact the kit manufacturers anyway. If you poll a few you may be able to get a trend or ballpark figure. Find a
> 
> ...



Thanks for your responses Tavas and Mike. I mostly do K&K, and occasionally I have done extract brews, and I doubt that I will go to grain brewing. K&K is easy and produces beer that I really enjoy. I will pursue this with this with Coopers because most of the kits I use are Coopers. Thanks again. I will also try to find out about the gizmo that Mike suggested, but it sounds a bit beyond me.


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## newguy (11/7/10)

I think that there is a bit of a misnomer/misunderstanding on the part of your doctor. I've consulted all the brewing literature I own ( because this question really piqued my curiosity), but the only references to sodium or potassium I can find relate to water, not malt. Some regions, such as Dublin or Burton-on-Trent, or Dortmund, have naturally hard water which is rich in minerals...K and Na amongst them. Naturally hard water tends to be suited to darker/roastier beers such as stout or porter. The malts have nothing to do with the sodium or potassium content. The only difference between the malts used in dark beers and light beers is the amount of heat/temperature/time in the kilning procedure. Heat doesn't produce sodium or potassium if it isn't already there, and since according to the doctor light beers are low in potassium, then water must be the culprit.

Get a water analysis done if you're on well water or request a water analysis from your municipal supplier. If your brewing water is low in potassium, brew as many stouts as you wish - they'll be low in potassium too. If you crave that "bite" found in stouts, add some sulfate to your brewing water.


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## Zapp Brannigan (11/7/10)

newguy said:


> I think that there is a bit of a misnomer/misunderstanding on the part of your doctor. I've consulted all the brewing literature I own ( because this question really piqued my curiosity), but the only references to sodium or potassium I can find relate to water, not malt. Some regions, such as Dublin or Burton-on-Trent, or Dortmund, have naturally hard water which is rich in minerals...K and Na amongst them. Naturally hard water tends to be suited to darker/roastier beers such as stout or porter. The malts have nothing to do with the sodium or potassium content. The only difference between the malts used in dark beers and light beers is the amount of heat/temperature/time in the kilning procedure. Heat doesn't produce sodium or potassium if it isn't already there, and since according to the doctor light beers are low in potassium, then water must be the culprit.
> 
> Get a water analysis done if you're on well water or request a water analysis from your municipal supplier. If your brewing water is low in potassium, brew as many stouts as you wish - they'll be low in potassium too. If you crave that "bite" found in stouts, add some sulfate to your brewing water.



Thanks Newguy, I live in Melbourne Australia and use the tap water for brewing, it seems to work fine but I have no idea how much potassium is in the water I use, I will try to find out. I really don't know enough about this topic to explain / understand all the issues [I need to learn more]. As I understand it potassium occurs naturally in many foods, and I dont even know if the potassium in food is the same as the potassium in the water......? I will try to educate myself about potassium a bit more. Thanks again


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## Thirsty Boy (11/7/10)

newguy said:


> I think that there is a bit of a misnomer/misunderstanding on the part of your doctor. I've consulted all the brewing literature I own ( because this question really piqued my curiosity), but the only references to sodium or potassium I can find relate to water, not malt. Some regions, such as Dublin or Burton-on-Trent, or Dortmund, have naturally hard water which is rich in minerals...K and Na amongst them. Naturally hard water tends to be suited to darker/roastier beers such as stout or porter. The malts have nothing to do with the sodium or potassium content. The only difference between the malts used in dark beers and light beers is the amount of heat/temperature/time in the kilning procedure. Heat doesn't produce sodium or potassium if it isn't already there, and since according to the doctor light beers are low in potassium, then water must be the culprit.
> 
> Get a water analysis done if you're on well water or request a water analysis from your municipal supplier. If your brewing water is low in potassium, brew as many stouts as you wish - they'll be low in potassium too. If you crave that "bite" found in stouts, add some sulfate to your brewing water.



I think Newguy has it - but rather than be uncertain about it, I suggest you write a letter to one of the universities that runs brewing courses and research programs.

Perhaps you could try writing to - 

(Ballarat Universty)
Dr Peter Aldred
Senior Lecturer, Coordinator Food Science and Technology (Including Brewing)
School of Science and Engineering
P.O. Box 663
Ballarat
Victoria 3353

or maybe

Hugh Dunn
Head Lecturer Brewing
School of Natural Sciences
Edith Cowan University
Joondalup Campus
Joondalup
WA
6027

I think I have those contacts right but if not - hopefully someone here who has been to the courses can help put it right.

Thirsty


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## hopcycle (11/7/10)

Hmm. The potassium will come from the malt and hops and not water. Water has bugger all potassium...perhaps 50ppm or 50mg per litre. The average diet has between 2500mg and 5000mg of potassium per day. This depends primarily on fruit and veg intake and not the mineral content of the water.

I would imagine that the potassium in the hops and malt remain in the beer because all of the water that is in contact with the malt and hops stays in the beer. 

The hoppier and maltier the beer the more potassium it will have. A beer made with adjuncts (k & K) that is not particularly hoppy will give the best 'value' in terms of having a beer and not getting much potassium. 


Hope that makes sense

Good luck.

p.s I'm sure that with careful dietary management that your dad can enjoy a beer or two without increasing his dietary potassium 
too high. If you base your calcs on raw barley and hops (or any other herb) you should get an accurate idea of what is in beer

e.g 4 kg barley and 50g hops equals X mg potassium / number of beers in batch = potassium levels in beer. 

I just calculated the amount that would be in a hypothetical batch (assuming 5kg pale malt and 50g hops): 18000mg. If the batch contains 62 beers (2.5 ctns....approx. average 23L batch) the potassium in each beer would be 300mg. This could be fine depending on what his allowance is. You should run this by his doctor

Cheers


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## hopcycle (11/7/10)

Not sure if it was clear in my post but the potassium or K+ level in beer is almost totally dependent on the malt and hop bill. If a beer has 3kg malt versus 6kg malt and the same amount of hops it will have half the content of potassium and visa versa


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## seravitae (11/7/10)

It may be possible to sequester the ions from your beer chemically. I am unsure if products exist for this for medical purposes but there may be some additive you can buy for people who require extremely low potassium levels in food that sequesters the potassium.

Alternatively, there is the possibility of using ion-exchange resins to remove metal ions from aqueous solutions, but this seems a pretty expensive and laborious way to remove it.

What might be a more fortuitious test would be to send some of your stout/beer to a wine analysis place and ask for the ion concentrations. Then, you can backcalculate based on your dad's daily beer consumption, how much potassium he is ingesting from the beer. You may find that the amount of potassium from the beer is an inconsequential amount with his levels, and thus it could suggest that he needs to watch his other food and drinks instead of the beer... Or he may have to take a break from drinking if it turns out the beer is the largest contributor..

Also apparently calcium has a countereffect towards potassium levels, so he may need to include more calcium in his diet to regulate potassium levels.


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## Zwickel (11/7/10)

People on Potassium diet/dialysis have to count as follows:

German Lager and Pilsener beers with an average alc. content of 4.8 to 5%vol., containing 55mg Potassium in 100ml beer.
Light beers, with an av. alc. content of ~2%, containing 35mg Potassium per 100ml beer.
Standard-Weizen beers: 35mg per 100ml beer
Alt-beer: 49mg per 100ml
Klsch: 48mg/100ml
Dunkel beer: 50mg/100ml
Bock: 40mg/100ml
Doppelbock: 79mg/100ml
Eisbock: 76mg/100ml
Stout (Porter): 45mg/100ml
Stout extra: 86mg/100ml


hope could help you a little bit :icon_cheers:


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## matho (11/7/10)

This is what i have found in regards to potassium in beer





thats in ppm or mg/L

also this about how potassium phosphate acidifies the wort.

"Another major contributor to wort pH is sodium or potassium phosphate
derived also from malt. Phosphoric acid is a weak acid the dissociation of
which gives rise to the following equilibrium:




In practice there is very little H3PO4 or K3PO4 present in wort; the acid salt
KH2PO4 dominates in equilibrium with some K2HO4."

So malt does provide potassium how much i don't know but we do know that the darker malts help lower the ph of the wort so maybe during the kilning process more potassium phosphate is produced thru some reaction.

I couldn't find the potassium levels in the water in ireland but seawater's potassium levels is 300 ppm and usual river water is 2 to 3 ppm. I doubt that the highest level of potassium in the english beers of 1100 ppm is coming just from the water, so it would be safe to say that alot of the potassium is derived from the roasted malts.
That's what i could find and it probably be best to do what thirsty says and ask someone who would know more.
Hope this helps

cheer's matho


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## Zapp Brannigan (11/7/10)

A big thanks to _all_ posters on this thread [Tavas, Mike, Matho, Sera, Hopcycle, Thirsty Boy and Zwickel].
I have sent an email to Coopers, and I will also follow up on the contacts provided [Dr Peter Aldred & Hugh Dunn]. The list provided by Zwickel seems to reflect the information that my dad has, i.e. stout has more potassium than beer, and I really appreciate the detail [Thanks Zwickel] I couldn't find that on the internet anywhere.

Anyhoo, I will update this thread as information comes to light. The equation is more complex because I use a "kit improver" for most of my K&Ks and these come from the LHBS [Greensborough Home Brew shop] which no doubt changes any info provided from Coopers. Thanks again.


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## ekul (12/7/10)

1 cup of cooked pearly barley has 146mg of potassium from here http://www.barleyfoods.org/nutrition.html there source is the USDA National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference.

After a quich search on google it seems that drinking alcohol can actually increase potassium. i don't know how it does this but quite a few sites say that it does. However there are quite a few websites saying that it decrease potassium levels, mind you they are also selling vitamins. :blink:

Hope that helps


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