what's sulfate for?

Recently had some blood work performed for some digestive issues I'm having and found out I have a sensitivity to sulfate. I know this is an ingredient in the mash of certain beers but what characteristic does it impart? Will these styles turn out fine without adding sulfate?

Sulfate (be it found as CaSO4 or MgSO4 in terms of brewing water additions) helps provide a sharper edge to hop bitterness. More crisp I guess you could call it? Unless your drinking water is very unique, you're ingesting it every day. Did your doctor say what amounts are allowable? I try to aim for around 300 ppm in my brewing water for hoppy beers, and even then, you're only ingesting ~100mg per 12 oz bottle.

She didn't say. It was basically stated that my body would react to it in a negative way so I shouldn't have it. But maybe ill play around with it cuz I've never really felt weird after drinking hoppy beers.

I'm not a doctor but I don't see how blood work would detect any problems with sulfate as the usual reported effect of sulfate on persons exposed to higher levels of it than that to which they are accustomed is the 'quick step'. EPA has a secondary MCL for it of 250 mg/L but that is based on taste and smell. They have studied the question of whether there are any adverse effects of it on certain populations and concluded that there aren't though there have been anecdotal reports of sulfate induced trots in infants given high sulfate water for the first time.

That aside, sulfate really has no role in brewing unless you happen to be addicted to the peculiar combination of British hop varieties and high sulfate water. Many people (including most on the continent) prefer that their beers be made with low sulfate water as the sharpness/harshness that sulfate lends to hops bitterness is not generally found desirable. It has a particularly unfortunate effect on noble hops destroying the 'fine' quality to those varieties' bitterness. There are those, however, who like the effects of sulfate and find that beers made without it are 'lifeless'.

The obvious thing for you to do is install an RO system and drink exclusively from that to see if your problem goes away. If it does then sulfate may indeed not agree with you and you can, henceforth, brew exclusively with RO water using only calcium chloride to set the mineral content at a reasonable level.

The test itself looks at how the white blood cells in blood react when introduced to certain chemicals/food. This then shows what your body "attacks" when consumed. A food sensitivity is different from an allergy. A sensitivity could be as moderate as a headache or tiredness when consumed or something a little more drastic like diarrhea.

Like I said, I haven't really had a noticeable problem with sulfate so ill probably continue to add it to my Brews, maybe just a reduced amount.

Are you sure she didn't say sulfites? There is a difference between sulfites and sulfates.

Hmmm, I'm not sure, ill have to go look at the paperwork. Isn't science fun!?

mrrshotshot said:

The test itself looks at how the white blood cells in blood react when introduced to certain chemicals/food.

Click to expand...

As I say I'm not a doc but I can't see a leukocyte 'attacking' a sulfate ion. A peptide fragment or protein - sure. Plus there is the question of how the sulfate would get into the blood stream. When diarrhoea is the problem it is thought to be because of osmotic pressure differences between the lumen of the intestine and the blood stream i.e. water moves into the intestine to dilute the sulfate - not the other way around.

And mrrshotshot has a good point. Lots of people are allergic to sulfites (frequently used in wine, sprayed on lettuce at salad bars etc.) but never heard of any problem with sulfates (other than diarrhoea). The only place you would likely find sulfites in brewing is if you use them (campden tablets) to clear chloramine from water or to sanitize a wooden barrel before aging beer.

Whoops! My bad. It was sodium metabisulfite. I guess I wrote a thread for Nuthin...