Help. Sodium Metasilicate in beer

[Droopy Brew]

Depends how well established the "internet person's" credentials are I guess. Having read a lot of what LB, MHB and Smurto have written over the past few years, I will gladly put my faith in their wisdom regarding brewing and chemicals.

Peer reviewed and referenced literature such as presented above is also a fairly safe bet.

Good discussion to have and I'm thankful for those that chimed in. Perhaps no one in the future will be dumb enough to do what I've done (unlikely), but if they do then the info is all here with a search. At the very least it may have fellow brewers running out to the shed with a nikko to mark their containers.

 

[drsmurto]

Questioning, scepticism is a good thing. As long as you follow that through and spend time doing some decent research and reaching a conclusion. EDIT - this is the basic premise of good science, we question the results, we treat the data with some scepticism buy ultimately reach a conclusion. We are wrong far more often than we are right, all of my research last week in the lab blew my hypothesis out of the water and I've had to step back and think more about it. I've come up with a new hypothesis and am now testing that.

Questioning something because you don't like someone, have some inherent and baseless lack of trust in someone is not the way to go about it. Hopefully with time you get a feel for who on this forum has knowledge in which area, no one person knows it all although there have been many cases of people who thought they did.

Whilst the internet has an amazing amount of information, you still need to have the basic ability to distinguish fact from fiction. One of the keys to this is understanding your confirmation bias, something we all have but few too many understand this and can factor it in to their thinking. Then there is cognitive dissonance which is a closed mind.

EDIT - and if Droopy Brew's experience teaches other to label chemical containers, then it's been a very worthwhile discussion to have.

 

[Rocker1986]

I've been following this thread and my initial suspicion was that the concentration was so low that from a health perspective it's pretty much like it's not even there, which has been confirmed by the better brains than I when it comes to these sorts of things. Dad was an industrial chemist back in the day as well so I suppose I have picked up on some of that knowledge over the years. It's more interesting to me now that I've gone far down the rabbit hole of brewing and we often have discussions about chemistry.

Anyway, I think this thread is excellent and I've learned a couple of new things from reading through it too. B)

 

[Zorco]

There's "someone on the internet" and then there's you intelligent fuckers, I think I'd feel safe following this advice

That's me too.

It was worth pointing out though.

I'm grateful for the integrity this forum has and also thank the moderators for their time helping to keep out stupidity.

 

[niftinev]

Huh... are you still cranky with me Mark?


[emoji317]

probably for me, NFI

 

[Zorco]

I might not be centre of the fairway here Nev, but the 'just dump it' view might be clear as crystal when there are matters of higher priority occurring, such as poor health of someone or a recent serious event.

Dumping $10 of wort is absolutely trivial.... so why risk it.

When it comes to things within the context of people's lives, nearly everyone who is judgemental doesn't know what they're talking about.

For me I like how this thread has tested the concept of what is safe. And in that way the discussion of safe levels of chemicals in general. A whole area of food science

 

[good4whatAlesU]

And scientists live a lot longer nowadays.

Back in the 1800's it was a 'boom' time for chemistry... Huge discoveries that changed our world. But no WHS a lot of those guys died very young playing around with stuff and just figuring out the basics we take for granted now.

Anyway interesting thread..
chemistry is fun. Learning is good.

 

[Droopy Brew]

Dumping $10 of wort is absolutely trivial.... so why risk it.

Add another 0 mate - 12kg grain and 300g of hops, pack of yeast and a big starter.






Oh yeah and about 0.1g of sodium metasilicate :icon_drool2:

 

[niftinev]

i might not know whether it will have any affect or not. I would like hope not.

But i do not subscribe to the fact that just because you haven't reached LD it probably won't have any affect on you (edit without evidence to back it up) and further more just because you dilute something it makes it safer.

Don't listen to me as i know 3/5 of **** all

Add another 0 mate - 12kg grain and 300g of hops, pack of yeast and a big starter.






Oh yeah and about 0.1g of sodium metasilicate :icon_drool2:

sorry Droopy Brew, this is just the way i think of things

 

[manticle]

Dilution is very important. It's how homeopathy is merely ineffectual rather than deadly

 

[wide eyed and legless]

For me I like how this thread has tested the concept of what is safe. And in that way the discussion of safe levels of chemicals in general. A whole area of food science

Something none of us like to dwell on, how safe is the alcohol we are producing, once we consume it?

 

[manticle]

Really, really safe.

At least the stuff I make is

 

[wide eyed and legless]

Thats what I like to think

 

[MHB]

There are lots of chemicals which if inadvertently added to a brew, I would be saying "bump it" because I would regard it as hazardous.
If you know a bit of chemistry, know what the chemicals involved are and how they work, do a bit of basic research on the chemicals in question, it is possible to reach a reasoned decision, not just one based on reflex.

Concentration is very important, like Panadol, a little can be very beneficial too much will kill you in a very unpleasant way. Magnesium Sulphate, 5 time more toxic than Sodium Metasilicate and yet we use both.
In this case say a couple of grams in 70L of water, the amount that will survive through the mashing and boiling process is going to be very small if there is any at all. There is also a built in cross check, if the yeast will ferment the wort properly, it is a fair indication that there isn't enough in solution to cause problems.

To actually get enough into your system from the above scenario, well if you were an average 75kg man and drank the entire batch in one sitting, you wouldn't get enough to be an issue, the amount of alcohol would make you very sick and you would have way exceeded the fatal dose of water.
Mark

 

[GalBrew]

The only thing I would add is that there is a wide spectrum between 'safe' dose and LD50 of any compound. All sorts of stuff can happen along the way (or not).

 

[peteru]

Moving past the "It'll kill you. No, it won't. It'll make you sick. No it won't." stage...

Paraphrasing what LC mentioned, sodium metasilicate reacting with fats will produce soap. Once you get to the tasting stage, keep a lookout for any soapy off flavours.

 

[Lyrebird_Cycles]

I would be a lot more concerned about exposure to Ethanol, a widely used steriliser and neurotoxin with plenty of well identified both short and long term harmful effects.
Including, apparently a tendency to crap on about things you clearly don't understand.
Mark

Can we nominate this for post of the year?

 

[Zorco]

You drunk again LC?

 

[niftinev]

Paraphrasing what LC mentioned, sodium metasilicate reacting with fats will produce soap.

Are you sure about this?

It is used for other reasons but does not help saponify fats and oils for soap

you need sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide to make soap

don't believe everything you read

and yes i am a soap maker

lyrebird_cycles might want to join a soap forum and sprout off there

edit make to maker

 

[Lyrebird_Cycles]

Quote from performance chemical (supplier of metasilicate):

The high alkalinity of METSO (sodium metasilicate)* provides cleaning through saponification of fatty soil and emulsification of oily and greasy soil.

* added for clarity

reference: http://www.pqcorp.com/pc/EMEA/Products/Sodium-Metasilicates