Whats with beano?

I've read a few posts that talk about adding beano to a brew. One post said that it will help bring your SG down....What does beano do exactly in a brew?

Ive got two brews that are around 1.020. One of them is a stout, im not too worried about getting lower, the other one is an ale....I thought maybe this would be a chance to try this.....

Whats with beano?

IIRC it breaks down long sugar chains (starches) into fermentable sugars so it allows the yeasties to eat it thus bringing your FG down...

Tophe96 said:

I've read a few posts that talk about adding beano to a brew. One post said that it will help bring your SG down....What does beano do exactly in a brew?

Ive got two brews that are around 1.020. One of them is a stout, im not too worried about getting lower, the other one is an ale....I thought maybe this would be a chance to try this.....

Whats with beano?

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I tried it with an APA that got stuck at 1020.

I wish I'd have left it alone. The fermentation picked up again but very slowly. It delayed my bottling by about 10 days cuz the stuff wouldn't stop fermenting. I did pick up an additonal 5 points but the beer is so overcarbed now, it wasn't worth it.

Some have had better luck, but when something sounds a little unusual, there's a reason.

I wouldnt use beano to restart a fermentation but if I was making a HUGE (ala Holy Hell) I would use it to help break down some of the unfermentables that the yeast can turn into CO2 and ETOH, and as an end result giving me a dry higher ABV beer.

The problems Biermuncher had was as a result for the fermentation not being finished and not waiting it out. IF YOU DO USE BEANO (make this on your calaender cuz I rarely say it) use a hydrometer to make sure your fermentation is complete befor ya bottle

Pumbaa said:

I wouldnt use beano to restart a fermentation but if I was making a HUGE (ala Holy Hell) I would use it to help break down some of the unfermentables that the yeast can turn into CO2 and ETOH, and as an end result giving me a dry higher ABV beer.

The problems Biermuncher had was as a result for the fermentation not being finished and not waiting it out. IF YOU DO USE BEANO (make this on your calaender cuz I rarely say it) use a hydrometer to make sure your fermentation is complete befor ya bottle

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Yeah, I don't do waiting very well.

But hell, this stuff was fermenting so slowly yet so persistently, that my hdro readings were static for 3 straight.

hmm...interesting...keep the stories coming if you've used it. Unsure if I want to try it yet. If I did use it, how much would you recommend using?

I used 3 pills like Muncher, fermentation stopped eventually, but the beer (A Dunkelweizen) ended up very very dry and way overcarbed, it is hard to pour even, fortunately, there are only about 4 bombers left.

Tophe96 said:

hmm...interesting...keep the stories coming if you've used it. Unsure if I want to try it yet. If I did use it, how much would you recommend using?

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I plan on using about 1 tablet per gallon when I (if I) make Holly Hell

I used three tablets and knocked the SG from 1.016 to 1.006. It took about a month, but it was in a keg, so no big deal. it was very dry, but it worked out.

Tophe96 said:

I've read a few posts that talk about adding beano to a brew. One post said that it will help bring your SG down....What does beano do exactly in a brew?

Ive got two brews that are around 1.020. One of them is a stout, im not too worried about getting lower, the other one is an ale....I thought maybe this would be a chance to try this.....

Whats with beano?

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If you're willing, you can be our experiment. Bottle half as is, beano the other half and bottle in 3 weeks (or however long it takes the stuff to stall).

Check back with us in May and give us your comparison report.

Hmm....I dunno. Dont have any beer stocked up right now so Im tryin to get some stocked asap. Maybe in a few brews if I get another one at this SG.

omniscientomar said:

IIRC it breaks down long sugar chains (starches) into fermentable sugars so it allows the yeasties to eat it thus bringing your FG down...

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Sorry but I ain't so smart. What is IIRC?

knipknup said:

Sorry but I ain't so smart. What is IIRC?

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if i recall correctly

Used Beano once. I dropped four tabs in a five-gallon batch. Several weeks later when fermentation stopped I had something that tasted more like a dry wine than anything else.

If there were a situation where one needed to use it, I'd go 1-2 tabs max, but I learned my lesson and make starters now.

Allllllll I want to know is how the heck did someone figure out that brewing with beano would be a good idea. There had to be some guy who thought "gosh damn i could make a lot of money if I could make a beer that didn't make people so gassy."

Jokes aside, I read that someone DID do an experiment with two batches of beer and beano. Adding a few tabs of beano was the only difference between the two. One batch had 4.7%abv while the beano batch had 5.2%. ALSO, the calories were reduced by 10%, while the carbohydrates were reduced by half. Pretty nifty idea if you want to make a "light" beer, I suppose.

San Jose State University said:

Allllllll I want to know is how the heck did someone figure out that brewing with beano would be a good idea. There had to be some guy who thought "gosh damn i could make a lot of money if I could make a beer that didn't make people so gassy."

Jokes aside, I read that someone DID do an experiment with two batches of beer and beano. Adding a few tabs of beano was the only difference between the two. One batch had 4.7%abv while the beano batch had 5.2%. ALSO, the calories were reduced by 10%, while the carbohydrates were reduced by half. Pretty nifty idea if you want to make a "light" beer, I suppose.

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Not that unusual of an addition. Beano is a readily available product that uses enzymes to break down long chain sugars into simpler sugars. When you make a really big beer you are left with alot more unfermentable long chain sugars. Hey beano breaks down those sugars, lets try adding someto see if it dries out beer.

Now the question becomes how to regulate the break down of sugars so that the fermentation completes but is not too dry. I think the best solution would be to use several tablets in the mash or in wort before the boil. The boil will then break down the enzymes stopping any further reaction with the sugars. However this doesn't help if you are already fermenting.

Craig

Sorry to revive an old thread, but I'm in this "waiting for Beano to stop working" phase right now. I added it at the recommendation of my LHBS to get out of a stuck fermentation.
Would adding gelatin or any other fining agent work to drop the Beano enzyme out of action as it does other particles? I would like to avoid bottle bombs and gushers from this never ending Beano induced fermentation.

Thoughts?

You're in it for the long haul.

You could add some potassium sorbate. I've used it to kill the yeast when I want to hold a beer at a higher gravity.

Now you can do a favor for others and warn them to keep beano out of thier beer.

You are pretty much SOL. You can kill the yeast as Biermuncher suggested, but in order to bottle carbonate you are going to have to add more sugar and yeast which will in turn revive the Beano.

Maybe it's time to invest in some kegging equipment.

i've heard beano used to success in homebrewing, but not in the way it's described here.

yeah, beano breaks long dextrins and starches down to fermentable sugars but it's really unpredictable as to how far it will go. in my opinion, putting beano into a 1.020+ beer and then bottling immediately is running a risk of bottle bombs. you can't accurately calculate how much co2 is going to be produced.

on the other hand, if you're an extract brewer who wants to brew a big beer with a ton of extract but wants it to ferment dry (like a belgian strong golden) you can mix up your extract and put beano in for a little while BEFORE the boil. this makes your extract somewhat more fermentable, but then the beano is denatured during the boil and your fermentability is locked in, rather than changing slowly over who knows how long.

instead of the beano method most extract brewers just replace some of their extract with sugar for big dry beers, as this produces more consistent results.

edit: looks like CBBaron beat me to it by about a year and eight months. that's what i get for skimming the thread.

Well bummer.....

Kegging is in my future but not for this batch. Will filtering remove the Beano?

Kill the yeast and keg it.... maybe I should just go get a keg, i have a CO2 tank already....

Thanks for the suggestions. I wish I had not done this....

Cooked two pounds of quick oatmeal and let it cool. Threw in 3 ground up bean-zyme pills and waiting for a start-negative iodine test. Planning on denaturing the enzymes during the mash, and adding some oat polysaccharides for body and head;maybe a splash of honey. See what I get.

Brewster2256 said:

Cooked two pounds of quick oatmeal and let it cool. Threw in 3 ground up bean-zyme pills and waiting for a start-negative iodine test. Planning on denaturing the enzymes during the mash, and adding some oat polysaccharides for body and head;maybe a splash of honey. See what I get.

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I just have to ask........why? Is the beer going to be gluten free, so you couldn't use barley or wheat in the mash?

I know that in the past, oat ales were fairly common. Thought I would attempt to bring them back to life.

Brewster2256 said:

I know that in the past, oat ales were fairly common. Thought I would attempt to bring them back to life.

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You might want to look at this thread. There are malted oats, which might be hard to come by or not.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/75-100-oat-beer-96795/

close to 5 hours later, still starch positive. Added a couple more pills.

Question. I've read about the beano thing before. Why not just mash at a lower temperature (145F), for a longer time? It sounds like people are having problems with fermentation going on too long, with overcarbination problems. This makes sense, since your doing starch conversion during the fermentation. Normal the boil would destroy the enzymes. But if you don't stop this process, you will have some enzymes finding fewer and fewer starches to convert and working slower and slower.

If you've added beano already, have you considered pasteurizing your beer? If you brought the temp up to around 185F that should be enough to destroy the enzymes without cooking off too much flavor / alcohol.

17 hours later, still starch positive. It might be my imagination but, the iodophor reaction to starch seems lessened with less intensity. Its been sitting at room temperature, how long do you suppose it would take?

The sorbate idea is a great one for stopping the yeast. I assume the LHBS has this. Nice.

passedpawn said:

The sorbate idea is a great one for stopping the yeast. I assume the LHBS has this. Nice.

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I'm sure this was mentioned, but this will only work for kegging. If you use sorbate, the yeast cannot reproduce and you can't bottle carbonate.

Also, sorbate does have a bit of a taste to it. In small quantities, it's not too noticeable, but it can be bad in large quantities.

YooperBrew said:

I'm sure this was mentioned, but this will only work for kegging. If you use sorbate, the yeast cannot reproduce and you can't bottle carbonate.

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OMG. That would have been a disaster. Thanks!

Does Beano even hydrolyze starch? It is alpha-galactosidase and not an amylases. Hasn't been working very well in hydrolyzing my oat starch.

Brewster2256 said:

Does Beano even hydrolyze starch? It is alpha-galactosidase and not an amylases. Hasn't been working very well in hydrolyzing my oat starch.

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To answer my own question, Beano or alpha-galactosidase does not in fact hydrolyze starch. In most beers, all the conversion of starch is done by alpha and beta-amylase. The addition of beano will break up raffinose, stachyose and verbascose, and is mostly effective when galactose is part of the chain of sugars. So much for my Oat ale via beano.

passedpawn said:

The sorbate idea is a great one for stopping the yeast. I assume the LHBS has this. Nice.

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Yes it'll stop the yeast, but it won't stop the beano. The body of your beer will continue to turn into sweetness until there are no long starch chains left.

Only way to stop the beano is with heat. 185* I think someone said, which sounds about right to me.

Beano should NOT go into a beer post-boil, at any point. It can be used to speed up a mash and produce the results of mashing lower for longer while mashing higher for less time.