hook_dupin

Recipes 

I've read a bit about homebrew's health benefits as compared to a larger brew: the lack of filtering increases the ammount of complex B-vitamins that you consume. However, now that my beer diet has turned to majority-homebrew, I am noticing that I fart alot more. Does anyone have anything beyond my foul annecdotal evidence to support the idea that homebrew causes ass-gas? Surely dumping live yeast into a vessel with lots of sugar (i.e...my stomach) will cause extra gas creation.

__________________
Planned: American Wit
Primary: None
Secondary: Abbeyish Ale
Conditioning: None

carnevoodoo

Recipes 

You got it. More yeast, more gas.

Bigbens6

Recipes 

DUDE i totally am there with you, 3 of my Brown ales and i friggin ROCKED the bathroom.. wife was no where NEAR as amused as I was haha

__________________
Coming up: IPA
Fermenting: NADA grrrrr....
Bottles: American Amber, ESB, Pilsner, Choc Stout, Boch

Boerderij_Kabouter

Recipes 

This is a fact. BUT, it is not just your homebrew. If you drink micros you will often have the same thing. It is because the beer has more in it than horse pee (your welcome Evan!). Seriously though, a quality beer has unfermented sugars, proteins, and other compounds that are all but missing from BMC. Also, because you have not filtered with a 0.5 micron filter or centrifuged your beer, it still has dead and living yeast cells in it that contribute to flatulence. Do not be afraid, after a while your body will acclimate to it and return to normal poots and toots.
For now just enjoy your stank and remember to set up your loved one with a dutch over at night.

__________________
2P-Twent-E Simple Brew DITCHES 1 DITCHES 2 Fermentolagertaporator side-by-side ferm Twelve Hopostles Labels

davesrose

Recipes 

I guess I already have my own optimal beer critter colony down in my tummy....didn't notice any flatulence difference when starting to drink home brew. Coffee though is a different matter!

Dave R

Recipes 

I consider a good fart as a job well done!

rico567

Recipes 

The chemistry involved in producing this gas is well known. The compounds responsible are a subset of the carbohydrate family, termed oligosaccharides. These hover between the longer-chain starches and the mono- and disaccharides that are digested by the yeast when we ferment our wort into beer. Given what they do, they would be classified by brewers as "unfermentables."

As is the subject of endless humor, going back to the literature of ancient times ("wind eggs" and whatnot), in the process of digestion some of these oligosaccharides, present in a variety of foods, produce methane in the process of being broken down. Some folks produce enzymes that can handle this digestion without nearly as much gas, others not so much, and it doesn't improve with age......as I can personally testify.

This is a situation analogous to the inability of some groups of humans (notably SW Asia) to digest raw milk without significant digestive upset. Thus, the wide development and use of yogurt in this part of the world, in which the milk is transformed by bacteria into a more digestible product.

The only answers I know of are to either avoid such foods (I don't know about you, but when it comes to beer, forget about it!), or resort to a commercial product like Beano, which simply attempts to replace an enzyme that will convert the oligosaccharides into something less likely to produce a re-enactment of the Hindenburg disaster.

__________________
“Malt does more than Milton can / To justify God’s ways to man”

-A. E. Housman (1859–1936). A Shropshire Lad , 1896.

Grinder12000

Recipes 

I think that while people blame the yeast it is more to do with the enzimes in the mash causing the problems. Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't the alpha-amylase breaks the long chains of starch into smaller chains while beta-amylase chews from both ends.

Are not the farts coming from too many long chains?

__________________
Grinders Island Brewery - Pipeline (Batch #)

Secondary Kentucky Common(83)
Primary #1 Scottish Ale 70(84)
Primary #2 The Black Pearl Porter(85)

IrregularPulse

Recipes 

Commercial breweries mash just like us. Just larger scale.

__________________
Tap Room Hobo

I should have stuck to four fingers in Vegas. :o - marubozo

CBBaron

Recipes 

Read the other posts guys.
Its the unfermentable sugars left in the beer that cause the problem. Most home brew has much more unfermentables than macro brews. I greatly doubt the yeast survive the stomach, and even if they did there isn't any sugar that lasts for long in the gut. The digestive track is very efficient in absorbing the same simple sugars that yeast eat.

Craig