Clarity-Ferm, Gluten Testing, and Gluten Sensitivity

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
For what it's worth, here's a recent blog entry I wrote based on some further research into the original topic of this thread: http://ghostfishbrewing.com/ghostfishblog/why-we-dont-de-glutenize/

Basically, studies are starting to come out that there are actually a variety of peptide sequences found in gluten-containing grains that can trigger reactions in celiacs (and presumably those with non-celiac gluten intolerance). So this is one possible explanation for why Omission could trigger reactions despite being able to pass the R5 competitive ELISA--the process may not degrade other potential triggering components, which also do not show up on the test.
 
Also, I have to say...I'm a bit disappointed that this thread has turned into a place where people share their Clarity-Ferm recipes.
 
Awesome blog entry on ghostfish.

...now send me a 6-pack!

Also, found out last night another member of the circle of friends has celiac. He had been GI discomfort since September, (and nearly lived off of Little Caesar's Hot-N-Ready) but the doc pinned down the diagnosis this week. The wife and I suspected, but kept quiet.

However, he doesn't drink, so I don't have to share my beer :p
 
I am going to the Doc on Tuesday, but I think I'm Celiac. When I drink regular beer, I wake up the next morning and all my muscles hurt and I have a headache that lasts for days, even if I just take a sip. Not to mention stomach problems. I made my first 5 gal batch of "wheat beer" with clarity ferm and I am 20 bottles in, no symptoms yet! So it did the trick for me, and I'll update if it turns out that I am Celiac.
 
Yeah. Wish we had a sub forum for all the deglutenized beer discussions. Clarity ferm may strive off short term side effects but, you may still be doing long term damage to your body. I can personally make it through 2 gluten reduced beers before I get any side effects. However, I feel off for a few days after them. You would be surprised the amount of breweries could pass the Elisa test. Pretty much any brewery that uses an enzymic clearing agent. Brewing barley is already "low gluten" but it is the broken down parts of gluten that do you in. That article about peptides is a great point on the matter.

I'm all about do what makes you feel good. It's just a warning that you may feel fine while still doing damage to your intestines. Who knows, maybe it will lead to a true barley based gluten free beer.

Sent from my SGH-M919 using Home Brew mobile app
 
Also, I have to say...I'm a bit disappointed that this thread has turned into a place where people share their Clarity-Ferm recipes.

I know it's the internet, so someone has to be angry about what someone else shared. Time to get off your soapbox and reread. If you read what I wrote you'll see I'm not suggesting to anyone that recipe for the beer is gluten free. I'm just relaying my personal experience with Clarity-Ferm. If that disappoints you, too bad.

BTW: the person I gave the beer to is a PHD level scientist working at a university. This person does have a very strong knowledge of chemistry. I full disclosed everything about the beer including giving her the documentation on Clarity-Ferm. I think she was able to make an informed choice.

Good Day Sir
 
I know it's the internet, so someone has to be angry about what someone else shared. Time to get off your soapbox and reread. If you read what I wrote you'll see I'm not suggesting to anyone that recipe for the beer is gluten free. I'm just relaying my personal experience with Clarity-Ferm. If that disappoints you, too bad.

BTW: the person I gave the beer to is a PHD level scientist working at a university. This person does have a very strong knowledge of chemistry. I full disclosed everything about the beer including giving her the documentation on Clarity-Ferm. I think she was able to make an informed choice.

Good Day Sir

And if you re-read the title of this post and the original post--which is a sticky, BTW--you would see that the whole point of this thread is to educate newcomers about what clarity-ferm is and does, and why gluten testing in beer is problematic. It's not an open call for people to share their favorite clarity-ferm recipes, or their personal experiences with it. This being an internet forum, of course, thread drift is to be expected. I can't expect to control it (since I'm not a mod), but I have a right to be disappointed about it.

I hope that people will take their discussion of clarity-ferm recipes to a different thread, that's all. Surely that is neither an insulting nor an inappropriate request?
 
I skimmed it. 11 pages is a lot to chew on right now. Seems TTB is intending to be more strict than FDA if I read correctly. SWMBO will probably read the whole thing tomorrow.

However, while it does have language pertaining to "gluten reduced" beers vs naturally GF, I don't see it covering those processes themselves and their labeling. Or, I don't think this covers clarity ferm specifically, just the final product.

Hopefully, restaurants will keep their menus up to date to reflect these changes. I saw Omission listed under "gluten free beers" in a restaurant menu once. It was also the only one listed... I didn't try it either, I was on lunch break at work.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
 
The TTB ruling, as well as the FDA, are both quite clear:
. In general, the rule provides that foods may be labeled
with the term “gluten-free” if they do not contain any one of the following:

(1) An ingredient that is a gluten-containing grain (e.g., spelt wheat);

(2) An ingredient that is derived from a gluten-containing grain and that has not
been processed to remove gluten (e.g., wheat flour); or

(3) An ingredient that is derived from a gluten-containing grain and that has been
processed to remove gluten (e.g., wheat starch), if the use of that ingredient results in
the presence of 20 parts per million (ppm) or more gluten in the food (i.e., 20 milligrams
(mg) or more gluten per kilogram (kg) of food). See 21 CFR 101.91(a)(3), 78 FR 47178.

Note carefully that the 20ppm standard applies to INGREDIENTS, NOT the finished product. The TTB in its most recent ruling points that out in the following passage:

Thus, foods that are made using an ingredient derived from a gluten-containing grain may be entitled to a “gluten-free” claim if the ingredient itself (not the food) has
been processed to remove gluten, and the use of the ingredient does not result in the presence of 20 ppm or more gluten in the food. TTB does not believe that this provision
will generally be relevant to malt beverages fermented from malted barley and other gluten-containing grains, or distilled spirits distilled from gluten-containing grains, as
these products are usually made from the grains themselves, not from ingredients such as wheat starch or barley starch.

So unless Omission's barley malt can pass the R5 competitive ELISA prior to brewing and prior to treatment with clarex, they cannot be labeled gluten-free under the above definition.

The big problem is that the FDA cannot and will not police individual establishments selling the beer. They will prevent Omission from labeling the product gluten-free, and they will prevent them from advertising it as gluten-free, but their distributors who are selling to restaurants and retailers? And the restaurants and retailers themselves? Let's just say the FDA probably has its hands a little too full to keep tabs on all that stuff.

In most cases the enforcement is left up to state liquor agencies, i.e. the folks granting the license to sell or serve alcohol. The TTB will enforce on the producers (breweries), and maaaaybe if enough people complain they'll try to crack down on point-of-sale misrepresentation. IF, that is, the FDA doesn't come back with a ruling that grants gluten-free label approval to beers where only the finished beer has to pass the 20ppm threshold test. I'm currently investigating whether I can get the ear of someone on the FDA who will have a say in the ruling, because I'm aware of a lot of factors that make the 20ppm standard non-applicable in the case of Clarex-treated beer.

In the meantime, the best thing we can all do is to complain when establishments promote Omission as "gluten-free" (or Daura, or Brunehaut, or Two Brothers, or any of the newer breweries opening up using the same Clarex-oriented model). If you see Omission on a menu as gluten-free, ask to speak with a manager and give them an education. If you see it on the shelf at a store with a "gluten-free" shelf tag or even merchandised with other gluten-free beers, ask to speak with the beer buyer or someone in a supervisor or manager position in the specialty department. Odds are the distributors are feeding these folks a lot of false information, and it's only by raising a ruckus ourselves on the small local scale that we can hope to do anything about it.

Also, it's probably worthwhile to complain to the FDA and the TTB and the State Liquor Control Board (or whatever the agency is called in your state). Snap a photo of the false advertising and submit it with your complaint. Oh, and post complaints to Omission's facebook page too. They'll just delete them, but Pedro at New Planet monitors the page daily and captures all the complaints posted for use as evidence against Omission's case in the FDA ruling.
 
Yeah well, I saw in one restaurant where they labeled redd's apple ale as gluten free. I nearly strangled a waiter. They did not seem to care.


Sent from space for your convenience
 
Unfortunately the "GF fad" has gotten a lot of people poorly informed, and with the band wagon situation there are a lot of people (including my brothers girlfriend) who seem to think we are faking it. Got in an argument with the manager of Genghis Grill in Waldorf md who refused to cook our orders on the allergen grill insisting that a 600 degree grill would burn off any possible allergen anyway.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

EDIT: I realize this post is off topic of the thread, and really, the entire forum.
 
This thread has some misinformation in it. The way it describes the immune response to gluten is off. If you change one amino acid in a peptide it might not fit into the problem receptor anymore, meaning no more immune response. You don't need to break down the amino acids that bind onto the receptor (i.e. glutamine), you just need to change the makeup or shape of the peptides. This is like a key and a lock. Your key can change a little and it will still work, you could change it a fair amount and it will still work, but if the wrong change happens then it won't open the lock. Some of the proteins in gliadin are resistant to our digestive enzymes that cut them up and that is part of the problem. If the peptides could be be chopped up by our bodies they wouldn't be able to cause the immune response.

The enzyme in question here breaks the bond on one side of the amino acid proline. Some enzymes go to the end of a sequence and chop off single pieces, these are what your cells can absorb. Clarex instead chops the big protein up into little chunks from the middle of the chain. So you get a bunch of pieces of the chain. The chains that are implicated in celiac disease happen to contain a bunch of proline so if you cut that chain up it won't fit the receptor anymore.

So that process works. No doubt about it. There may be some issues with it not breaking down all of the gluten or issues with too many false negatives with the tests that are available for testing beer, but the theory of the product is sound.

I came to the forum to find out about brewing with clarex and there seems to be a bit of a bias against it, can anyone explain the bias?

Also can anyone point me to some resources with information on home brewing with clarex and how well/not well it works?
 
This thread has some misinformation in it. The way it describes the immune response to gluten is off. If you change one amino acid in a peptide it might not fit into the problem receptor anymore, meaning no more immune response. You don't need to break down the amino acids that bind onto the receptor (i.e. glutamine), you just need to change the makeup or shape of the peptides. This is like a key and a lock. Your key can change a little and it will still work, you could change it a fair amount and it will still work, but if the wrong change happens then it won't open the lock. Some of the proteins in gliadin are resistant to our digestive enzymes that cut them up and that is part of the problem. If the peptides could be be chopped up by our bodies they wouldn't be able to cause the immune response.

The enzyme in question here breaks the bond on one side of the amino acid proline. Some enzymes go to the end of a sequence and chop off single pieces, these are what your cells can absorb. Clarex instead chops the big protein up into little chunks from the middle of the chain. So you get a bunch of pieces of the chain. The chains that are implicated in celiac disease happen to contain a bunch of proline so if you cut that chain up it won't fit the receptor anymore.

So that process works. No doubt about it. There may be some issues with it not breaking down all of the gluten or issues with too many false negatives with the tests that are available for testing beer, but the theory of the product is sound.

I came to the forum to find out about brewing with clarex and there seems to be a bit of a bias against it, can anyone explain the bias?

Also can anyone point me to some resources with information on home brewing with clarex and how well/not well it works?

It does a good job clearing beer. I've used it several times. If you want to discuss my experience as far as the gluten issues go with out the fear of being judged, message me.
 
I think you've got a few things wrong here, mate.

This thread has some misinformation in it. The way it describes the immune response to gluten is off. If you change one amino acid in a peptide it might not fit into the problem receptor anymore, meaning no more immune response.

That's an oversimplification. First of all, they have not produced an exhaustive list of peptides derived from grains that can trigger an immune response in Celiac disease. Second of all, the leading hypothesis about non-Celiac gluten intolerance is that it is an innate immune response, not an antigen-specific one, which will respond differently.

Some of the proteins in gliadin are resistant to our digestive enzymes that cut them up and that is part of the problem. If the peptides could be be chopped up by our bodies they wouldn't be able to cause the immune response.

Incorrect. It is not the gliadin itself that even causes the response, it is potentially a variety of peptide fragments (QQPFP being the most studied one) which must be acted upon by tissue transglutaminase (TTG) first before they/it are typically rendered response-provoking. So it is the very fact that they ARE digested which renders them harmful, at least in Celiac disease. The pathology in NCGI is not well understood at this point so it would be difficult to determine how much digestion plays a role.

The enzyme in question here breaks the bond on one side of the amino acid proline. Some enzymes go to the end of a sequence and chop off single pieces, these are what your cells can absorb. Clarex instead chops the big protein up into little chunks from the middle of the chain. So you get a bunch of pieces of the chain. The chains that are implicated in celiac disease happen to contain a bunch of proline so if you cut that chain up it won't fit the receptor anymore.

The FDA does not approve drugs based on hypotheses alone. The bottom line is that no in-vivo studies have been done to evaluate whether the hypothesis behind clarex is correct, in that it actually renders beer safe. You can talk about the chemistry till the cows come home, but Celiac and NCGI are both not sufficiently understood, to the point where without in-vivo trials, any chemistry-related theorizing counts as nothing more than an untested hypothesis. This is medicine, not just chemistry.

I came to the forum to find out about brewing with clarex and there seems to be a bit of a bias against it, can anyone explain the bias?

Yes: we've tried clarex beers and they make a lot of us sick. And we are angry about it, because the people who make these clarex beers are spreading misinformation about what's really "gluten-free" in beer, resulting in establishments marketing them as GF and causing more and more people to get sick. Because gluten-free beer is such a niche, many establishments opt only to serve one brand, and much of the time it's a clarex beer that is not truly safe for all those who cannot tolerate gluten.

It's the same reason people get angry about drug side-effects in a heavily-marketed drug for some rare disease. If you took a medication and it gave you hours of severe cramping and diarrhea, wouldn't you be a little bit biased against it (especially if it was marketed as an anti-nausea drug)?

Also can anyone point me to some resources with information on home brewing with clarex and how well/not well it works?

Plenty of people will give you some anecdotal info on it working great for them. Clarex comes with instructions, if you want to use it, go ahead and use it, and stick to the regular forums because your process will be identical to barley beer brewing...because that's what you're doing. There's nothing really to discuss about it that's particularly relevant to this forum...you follow the directions and you take your chances.

Would it even matter to you if someone told you they got sick off of clarex-treated beer? It sounds like you've already made up your mind that it's the way to go, so you'll probably ignore any anecdotes that don't support your conclusion anyway. If the answers to your questions on "how well it works" won't actually change your mind about anything, there's not really a point to asking, is there?
 
I think you've got a few things wrong here, mate.



That's an oversimplification. First of all, they have not produced an exhaustive list of peptides derived from grains that can trigger an immune response in Celiac disease. Second of all, the leading hypothesis about non-Celiac gluten intolerance is that it is an innate immune response, not an antigen-specific one, which will respond differently.



Incorrect. It is not the gliadin itself that even causes the response, it is potentially a variety of peptide fragments (QQPFP being the most studied one) which must be acted upon by tissue transglutaminase (TTG) first before they/it are typically rendered response-provoking. So it is the very fact that they ARE digested which renders them harmful, at least in Celiac disease. The pathology in NCGI is not well understood at this point so it would be difficult to determine how much digestion plays a role.



The FDA does not approve drugs based on hypotheses alone. The bottom line is that no in-vivo studies have been done to evaluate whether the hypothesis behind clarex is correct, in that it actually renders beer safe. You can talk about the chemistry till the cows come home, but Celiac and NCGI are both not sufficiently understood, to the point where without in-vivo trials, any chemistry-related theorizing counts as nothing more than an untested hypothesis. This is medicine, not just chemistry.



Yes: we've tried clarex beers and they make a lot of us sick. And we are angry about it, because the people who make these clarex beers are spreading misinformation about what's really "gluten-free" in beer, resulting in establishments marketing them as GF and causing more and more people to get sick. Because gluten-free beer is such a niche, many establishments opt only to serve one brand, and much of the time it's a clarex beer that is not truly safe for all those who cannot tolerate gluten.

It's the same reason people get angry about drug side-effects in a heavily-marketed drug for some rare disease. If you took a medication and it gave you hours of severe cramping and diarrhea, wouldn't you be a little bit biased against it (especially if it was marketed as an anti-nausea drug)?



Plenty of people will give you some anecdotal info on it working great for them. Clarex comes with instructions, if you want to use it, go ahead and use it, and stick to the regular forums because your process will be identical to barley beer brewing...because that's what you're doing. There's nothing really to discuss about it that's particularly relevant to this forum...you follow the directions and you take your chances.

Would it even matter to you if someone told you they got sick off of clarex-treated beer? It sounds like you've already made up your mind that it's the way to go, so you'll probably ignore any anecdotes that don't support your conclusion anyway. If the answers to your questions on "how well it works" won't actually change your mind about anything, there's not really a point to asking, is there?


That peptide sequence you referenced is exactly what this enzyme cuts up. That P in the sequence is proline. Not really sure what's going on in this forum so rather than continuing to argue point after point I think I will just bounce and find a new community.

Toodles
 
All I know for sure is that:

1.) I'm a celiac
2.) Commercial barley beer makes me sick
3.) Homebrew beer (that I brew) with clarity ferm does not make me sick
 
Robodeath, have you tried Corona? Because it passes the same tests that Omission does.

Celiacguy, I am well aware of how the enzyme works against that peptide sequence, as I think I made quite clear. Yes, the enzyme hydrolyzes the QQPFP peptide sequence such that an R5 competitive ELISA test cannot detect it. Does that mean the beer is harmless? Only a double-blind placebo-controlled experiment with a nice large sample size containing subjects who represent all forms of gluten intolerance can determine that. The FDA has very exacting standards for products that make medical claims, and for good reason: even the best hypotheses based on the best data are derived from a position of incomplete knowledge, and the gold standard is always "try it on people and see if it works". Multiphase clinical trials are the norm for every other product that has a claim of health effects, so why should beer treated with clarity-ferm be any different?

Some people get sick from these beers, period. I am one of them. If they don't make you sick, then more power to you. I'm not in favor of banning them, I'm simply in favor of people acknowledging that they are not universally safe, and adopting standards that allow for a way to distinguish them from beers which are universally safe for those with any form of gluten intolerance or wheat/barley allergy. Why is that so problematic? No one's saying "get rid of Clarity-Ferm" or "yank Omission off the shelves". All I want is for people to be educated about the differences between products and processes, and to call a spade a spade. A beer made from barley and treated with an enzyme, which has not been clinically validated *AT ALL*, is different from a beer made entirely from millet, or rice, or buckwheat, or sorghum. Why call them both gluten-free?
 
This is a great debate and I think it is one that will go on for some time. My 2-cents worth from experience:

I would caution everyone from simple one and done tests of products. Celiac is a spectrum disorder so not everyone has it in the same way. My brother and I have very different sensitivity levels. I apparently had problems as a child when I was first put on solid food and had major problems until I was 4 when a young doctor took me off of wheat as a test of “intolerance”. According to my mother, the transition was dramatic. My brother seemed to be able to process it until he was older.

My experience is that exposure is cumulative and rarely like a true allergic reaction where you get instant and dramatic sign of exposure. Sure, if you eat a bowl of shredded wheat you are going to get thrown under the bus right away, but most of the time, for those of us that are watching, exposure comes in small doses. Over my lifetime I have incorrectly implicated certain meals or types of food because I had them right before signs showed up. The “poisoning” could have happened several meals or even days before. A little soy sauce in a chicken marinade at a restaurant, cross contamination in fries cooked in oil that also saw breaded products, etc.

I have had Omission and thought that I did fine. Other times I had issues the next day and thought, “is it because I had two, or maybe my body was just more susceptible that day”.

I am in the camp that if it is made of ingredients that have no gluten, then it is good and everything else is to be feared. There are many poisons that your body can handle in very small amounts but once a threshold is reached the exposure signs immerge. For me, gluten is one of those “poisons” and I think the threshold level changes from day to day. I try to keep all gluten away so that when something gets through my screening, I have a good chance of being able to handle it.

I am glad that others experiment with gluten reducing agents, but for now I will just stay away from anything that has ever had gluten.
 
I'm going to leave this link here and let people decide if what has been said in this thread about clarity ferm and how it works is true or not.

http://m.ajpgi.physiology.org/content/291/4/G621

The prolyl endoprotease being discussed in that article is clarity ferm/brewers clarex.

Took me a while but I eventually found the information I was looking for when I first came to this forum. In case anyone is wondering what ranges the enzyme are active in it looks like pH down to 2 is okay 4-5 is optimal so wort in pH 5 range is okay because acidity is your main worry here. I got temperature from another source. 50c is the upper limit. Probably best to avoid getting close to that temperature though since wort wouldn't be uniform in temperature and it is better to have less active enzyme than denatured enzyme. White labs indicates 28-30 is optimal in their FAQ section on enzymes but I'm not sure where they get that range from. I would guess your main two worries with using the enzyme are getting it into the wort soon enough before gliadin starts to interact with the poly phenols present in the wort and making sure your temperature is warm enough for the enzyme to work (still haven't found data on activity at lower temperatures). Following white labs instructions of pitching yeast and clarity ferm at the same time is important.



http://www.foodstandards.gov.au/cod...ndo-Protease as a PA AppR SD1 Risk Assess.doc

This is a summary of the application by DSM to use the enzyme in Australia.
 
Homebrewer of a few years here. Not a scientist... Been having increasing trouble digesting my beer consumption. Too many (the quantity I like) beers and my tummy gets upset and I emit, all night, even when sleeping, so I wake up in a horrible fog, noxious gas.
I've been trying Omission Ales, and they seem to help, so I'm interested in trying some of my own batches with Whitelabs Clarex. My one question is, has it been proven safe for use with homebrew, specifically non-pasteurized beer? Just want to be relatively sure of that before ordering some.

Thank you!
 
Yup, it actually works really well at clearing beers. They even make a specific "homebrew size" vial. It doesn't do much for gluten but, you can read through the postings for all of that back and forth.
 
Doesn't do much for gluten? Have you read this thread at all?

I have read the thread, but found it a little hard to know what to think, in some ways. I've done A/B tests with normal beer and with Omission and my stomach does far better with Omission. Sometimes you gotta go w/ your gut...
 
There is a strong consensus that it get's gluten to safe levels. Lab tests consistently show this. The fact that people still have reactions to beers with gluten removed shows that we don't fully understand the problem. Gluten is not the only thing causing problems!

I only used the word "absolutely" to describe this product's safety in the context of it's use in homebrew. It is absolutely safe in that regard. It's safety hasn't really been questioned, only it's effectiveness as it relates to gluten intolerance.
 
That sounds like a far too reasonable response for this thread subject. Can you add some zingers for effect?


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
 
Can somebody post a link to a reasonably priced seller? My interwebs search reveals only sold out, discontinued sellers or Amazon wanting $9 for a quantity of 1...
 
Morebeer link lists the product as discontinued and I don't see a way to add any to a cart, so it might mean out of stock as well.
My LHBS is awesome, though they do not carry any White Labs. I can try to see if they'll order.
Will LD Carlson sell directly to a homebrewer?
 
If you are anywhere near the central PA area, my LHBS sells them. I think $2.95 a vial or something like that.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top