Taking the Mystery Out of Fermcap-S

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kiblerjd

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I had no idea until recently that there are a lot of people out there that are afraid of Fermcap-S. I did some searches and there seems to be a lot of mis-information out there. As a result of an article i recently posted on here i forced myself to do some research of my own and here is what i found. I posted the same information in the comments of the article but just wanted to make a dedicated thread so people could find it a lot quicker and easier in the future.

The active ingredient in fermcap-s is polydimethylsiloxane which is commonly referred to as dimethicone. Dimethicone is used in a ton of food and non-food stuff, however medical companies mix dimethicone with silica gel which makes simethicone. Simethicone is in just about every stomach illness or digestive related medicine you can think of such as rolaids, mylanta, infant gas drops, etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simethicone

If i had to guess, the company that makes fermcap-s probably puts silica gel in this product to make it simethicone but either way it doesn't matter because its all the same stuff.

So i will never argue with anyone who doesn't put extra chemicals in their beer, that is just a no brainer. But as far as this product goes the reality is that everyone reading this post has at some point in their lives eaten this stuff whether it be in a rolaid or a McDonalds french fry. If its good enough to stick in my baby's bottle it's good enough to stick in my beer. So if you want to take some stress out of your brew day because your pot is a little on the small side, I think fermcap-s is a pretty safe product to use.

I have never put it directly in my fermenter but i think the same logic applies. I don't know why you would have to filter the product out because once fermentation dies down it would settle out to the bottom and you probably wouldn't get anything into your bottling bucket or keg anyway.

Feel free to shoot holes in this. If I'm wrong i definitely want to know.
 
I use it in all my batches and starters. They also talked about it's safety on the Basic Brewing podcast toxicology shows. They are a good listen if you are worried about some of the things we do.
 
I've used it while boiling starter wort in an Erlenmeyer as well as in my boil kettle. Never had any adverse effects.
 
Interesting that it's the same stuff as simethicone, since that's the main ingredient in Mylicon baby anti-gas drops. Heck, the dosage for babies is 20mg up to 12x per day, which is 240mg per day. And that's for a 10 lb baby! I'm curious why some folks say there are some sort of FDA or health concerns with adding a few drops in 5-gal of beer when the stuff is clearly perfectly safe.

http://www.mylicon.com/about
 
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