My dad and his bud made a few batches of beer a few years ago. Around that time, the bud's wife got ill. Turns out their water (taken from a well) had arsenic poisoning. Though it was likely in trace amounts in the beer, all batches were poured down the drain. Better safe than sorry!
Can homebrew be toxic?
- Thread starter Eckythump
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moonshine blindness is caused by people putting methanol (usually antifreeze) or lye in the moonshine to make the fermentation bubbles bigger. bigger bubbles in fermenting moonshine is a sign it's stronger, so it looks better. not that i'd know
Can you source that? The information I've found seems to indicate otherwise.
Is this just one of those legal disclaimers with no real risk (like the "cell phones can cause fires at gas stations" one)? http://***********/stories/article/indices/58-yeast/437-canning-yeast-starters
And I've been browsing through various scientific journals on studies involving the toxin and S Cerevisiae, and my non-biologist non-chemist reading seems to say that the toxin won't kill the yeast, but I could be understanding wrong.
Not getting the joke - priceless.
I think it's safe to say that we've all gotten sick a time or two as a result of drinking beer.
homebrewdad
Well-Known Member
I have resisted this thread for some time, but my resistance is gone.
You keep coming back with these specific, "perfect scenario" situations that don't occur in real life, yet you want to act as if there is still some reason to worry. You keep looking for citations to back up the viewpoint that you oppose, and when people don't post ones that exactly meet your infinitely narrow criteria, you act as if you are "right".
So I'll give you a very specific challenge. Give us a single citation of a single person actually becoming sick from beer due to spoilage type toxins (botulism, etc). Arsenic-laced water does not count, antifreeze in the beer does not count, hangover/vomiting from overindulgence does not count. A lab study with botulism inserted into wort that is never fermented does not count.
Give us one, solitary, scientific citation of someone actually made sick in the spirit of the original question (i.e. beer actually being toxic). If the risk truly is greater than zero, you can find some scientific journal somewhere that references a real case. If you can find it, crow all you like.
If not, admit that you are being a stubborn so and so who continues to argue for the sake of argument. We'll ignore you, and the question will be settled... at least for the purposes of this thread.
One citation. And.... go.
zeg
Well-Known Member
The risk being truly, mathematically zero is different from "don't worry about it."
Toxic: n. - Capable of causing injury or death, especially by chemical means; poisonous.
Beer can absolutely be toxic. I guess no one's heard of alcohol poisoning from drinking.. you know.. too much alcohol?
Beer itself can absolutely harm you. However, no organism that poses a threat to humans can survive in beer.
Beer can absolutely be toxic. I guess no one's heard of alcohol poisoning from drinking.. you know.. too much alcohol?
Beer itself can absolutely harm you. However, no organism that poses a threat to humans can survive in beer.
Beer can definitely be toxic. Drink to much, make a pass at that good looking thing and SWMBO might make it very toxic for you.
bernerbrau
Well-Known Member
This being the case, are people who recommend pressure canning RWSs just being overcautious?
EDIT: Not trolling, I promise. I am genuinely curious.
I dug and dug but am unable to locate the thread w/ the study that was sited in it. I am sorry but it must have an odd title or something. So, I will not site that thread and that discussion further as I can not seem to find it.
I make and use RWS. I keep them on TOP of my fridge because there is no room inside the fridge for them. This being the case I HAVE to pressure cook them or I would get a wild fermentation/infection.
I am not blind or ill from my RWS. I do not have any sort of beer related issues other than what would be "the norm". I would NOT use a RWS if the lid was bulging, this is just being logical.
IMO if I did use a "super infected poisonous" jar of RWS I would really not be worried BECAUSE the starter will get "decanted" and the trace toxins would be near nothing anyway.
Revvy has once again pointed out the REAL danger of drinking (not just beer).
I make and use RWS. I keep them on TOP of my fridge because there is no room inside the fridge for them. This being the case I HAVE to pressure cook them or I would get a wild fermentation/infection.
I am not blind or ill from my RWS. I do not have any sort of beer related issues other than what would be "the norm". I would NOT use a RWS if the lid was bulging, this is just being logical.
IMO if I did use a "super infected poisonous" jar of RWS I would really not be worried BECAUSE the starter will get "decanted" and the trace toxins would be near nothing anyway.
Revvy has once again pointed out the REAL danger of drinking (not just beer).
broadbill
Well-Known Member
I'll take a stab at this. From everything I've read about CB, a RWS starter that was not pressure canned (i.e. "simple" canned") would be susceptible to CB infection, from the standpoint of it being a hospitable environment (AW, Lack of oxygen, etc.).
One wildcard would be the anti-microbial properties of the hops.
The other how you'd have innoculation of the bacteria into the resulting wort. Since grain is a agricultural product I guess this could be a possibility?
Since extracts have a much lower AW (and other processing), perhaps the chances of having CB infections would be less?
Thinking out loud here...
broadbill
Well-Known Member
I'm thinking bernerbrau was asking if simple canning of RWS was sufficient.
bernerbrau
Well-Known Member
See the whole discussion. The indication in this thread has been that spontaneous infection by CB in boiled wort sealed in sanitized mason jars is very hard to do, which is contrary to what I have previously been led to believe. That's what prompted the question.
broadbill
Well-Known Member
I did read the whole discussion, and your question was vague which is why you probably didn't get any answers to it.
What do you want to know exactly?
bernerbrau
Well-Known Member
See this question:
The answer from Zamial seemed to be that the botulism risk from improperly stored starters is highly overestimated.
My question then is whether pressure canning is necessary at all - or whether there might be some other reason to pressure can.
mlyday
Well-Known Member
A good rule of thumb is:
" If its slimy, chunky or furry, dont drink it. "
" If its slimy, chunky or furry, dont drink it. "
broadbill
Well-Known Member
Its possible in this situation that CB infection/toxin could develop IF CB spores made it into the jar.
Yes.
The questions you are asking however, is the occurance of such situations. That I don't know. Which is why people err on the cautious side and pressure can.
broadbill
Well-Known Member
I guess you don't eat to many fermented foods then! I agree with the furry though (mold).
homebrewdad
Well-Known Member
I agree with you in principle, really, I do. Let me use the "drop side crib deaths epidemic" as an illustration.
From the period of 2000-2011, the vast majority of all US babies who slept in cribs (i.e. many millions per year) used drop side cribs. In this same time period, there were 32 deaths of babies blamed on said cribs.
This is a mortality rate so far below 1% that, scientifically, it deserves no more than a footnote at the bottom of a study, if that. However, WE GOTS TO POTECT THA CHILRENS, especially those of people who don't use common sense (read details of those deaths, and in almost all cases, the root cause was parental negligence).
Again, from a purely scientific perspective, I would state that drop side cribs are safe if used with even a drop of common sense. The risk is greater than zero, but far, far less than, say, riding in a car.
All I am asking the "OMG HOMEBREW CAN KILL YOU I CANNOT BE CONVINCED OTHERWISE, FACTS BE DAMNED" contrarians is to show me one real world case. Not 32 over ten plus years, just one.
If you find one such case, I'll roll my eyes at you and ignore you for the sensationalist that you are, but I will freely admit that the "homebrew CANNOT hurt you" argument falls into the realm of "don't worry about it", not "the chance is zero."
So again, one real world case. Just one.
zeg
Well-Known Member
I'm not invested enough in the actual discussion to be on either side here, so don't bother rolling your eyes at me.
However, you have the sense of how the evidence works backwards. If a possible mechanism can be identified whereby toxin could survive into the finished product, then the chance is not zero.
The evidence is already clear that it's in the "don't worry about it" category.
Just like the drop-side crib case, the point is that one needs to be aware of failure modes. Sure, there are risks inherent in life and many things we worry about are negligible compared to getting in a car. However, if a simple, low-cost procedure can eliminate a nonzero risk, then why not do it?
homebrewdad
Well-Known Member
For the record, I wasn't singling you out as the contrarian, though I can see how my post may have read that way.
The crib example does show a nonzero risk, although such a negligible one that it still astounds me the sort of reaction that has come from it.
However, I'm asking for someone to show an example of a person who truly became ill from an organism that grew in their beer. Not a lab possibility that something might gorw that might make you sick if the circumstanes were perfect AND you injected it with toxins AND the alcohol content that is in actual beer wasn't there.
Show me one. single. case. in the real world of someone ever getting sick from beer toxins. Just one. As stated previously, I'll still utterly discount the "risk", as one example versus billions upon billons of safely consumed beers equals no realistic risk... but a person could at least argue the position IF they had some real world example.
I have yet to see one.
Honestly, with how rabid a few people are about insisting that no, really, nobody can say FOR SURE that beer won't make them sick... I could see some moron somewhere taking unfermented wort, letting it sit out until it grew something, then trying to make beer out of something they knew was bad - just to proove a point.
Ha! Those people on the internet were WRONG!
This is my point. I have a problem with the "nothing in homebrew can ever harm you whatsoever under any circumstances" claim that's been stated ad nauseam on this thread. That's an absolute that isn't true.
The botulism risk is EXTREMELY remote, only applicable in a very few select circumstances, and even in those circumstances you're more likely to win the lottery than to contract botulism poisoning (if there's ever been a case at all, reported or not). It's still FAR safer than eating most any other food product (or safer than tap water). I've never denied this. But it's dishonest to say it's not possible.
However slim the possibility, given the chance of death with poisoning, if you're dealing with anything canned follow food safety rules and if it's suspect, you toss it. That's all I'm saying.
I'll hunt for an example, but given that amongst all the home canning that happens, that average of only 110 cases of CB poisoning are reported annually at all, and then assuming the percentage of home canning that is home canned wort is small, I probably won't find a reported one. Yet all the available scientific data suggests it is possible (hence the warnings). A .00000000000001% chance of poisoning is not a 0% chance. Not a realistic risk? Fine. But I see no point in calling me stubborn because you can't prove it's not possible. Either way, I've said my piece and I'm dropping it.
homebrewdad
Well-Known Member
I will agree that one should be careful when canning, no matter what. That's the drop of common sense I alluded to earlier.
But do note that, by your logic, I can claim literally anything that I want to claim, and using the above logic, no one can prove me wrong. Example:
"People can sprout wings and fly." True, it has never been documented to have happened, but just because I haven't yet found a reported case doesn't mean that there isn't one.
An extreme, laughable example? Sure.
Is it dangerous to deal in absolute statements? Typically (note my lack of an absolute response, hehe).
However, until somebody can point to a single, solitary, real world example of a toxin in beer, the absolute is correct. One example - even a hundred examples - would make the odds laughably small that anyone would be at risk, but they would place your risk at greater than zero.
Your contention requires so many ifs and maybes that it just doesn't hold water. This is not meant to be a personal attack, all of my snarkiness aside - until you have some actual example of a situation's existence, you can't really defend the viewpoint that supports said situation.
Now, I will also step away from the thread.
zeg
Well-Known Member
Again, your application of logic is backwards with respect to the absolute. We do not have a reported example of poisoning (or wing-sprouting), but we do have plausible processes by which a poisoning could occur through improper canning. The existence of these processes prevents us from reasonably saying that poisoning is impossible.
Wing-sprouting is different because all of our knowledge of biology says that this won't happen. This is quite the opposite of the botulism toxin situation, so it doesn't provide a reductio ad absurdum type argument. It's not the same logic at all.
We can probably say that, using reasonable basic precautions, there is no chance of a toxic infection in beer. This is consistent both with experience with beer (based on the anecdotal evidence) and with extrapolation from infection in canning of other products. It's simply not supported to say there's no way that a canned wort starter can possibly poison you otherwise.
So, personally, I'm not going to get into canning, and I believe the standard beer process is pretty bulletproof. Still, if something comes out clearly off, I'm not going to drink it. Like pressure canning a low-acid product, trusting one's senses is common sense. (That, and I'd rather waste $30 on a batch than drink stanky-ass infected beer!)
I read that excessive exposure to lead can cause a person to chronically misspell three letter pronouns. Weird, huh?
Alcohol can be toxic if ingested in large enough quantities. For goodness sake, water in excess can be toxic. I have seen people on this site solder with lead, use a radiator from God-knows-where to chill their beer, use well water that hasn't been tested, use water from their roof, use non-food grade fermenters, all kinds of crazy stuff. Toxic, possibly. Did they end up in the hospital, probably not.
So yes, if you are dumb to all risks, home brewing can be toxic.
But following established and recommended procedures, and not trying crazy things without running them by those more experienced with them, homebrewing is very safe, and other than hangovers, obesity from excess calories, or I suppose drunk driving incidents, highly unlikely to seriously harm or kill you.
So yes, if you are dumb to all risks, home brewing can be toxic.
But following established and recommended procedures, and not trying crazy things without running them by those more experienced with them, homebrewing is very safe, and other than hangovers, obesity from excess calories, or I suppose drunk driving incidents, highly unlikely to seriously harm or kill you.
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