Diabetic wife wants to drink fruited sours

[thejonesbox]

I live in VA and the fruited sours, or smoothie style, are big here (The Answer and The Veil in particular). My wife enjoy some of them and the pastry stouts, but she is a type 1 diabetic which means she has to calculate carbs to know how much insulin to inject to counteract them. Problem is, I can't find information to even guess the carbs. and her attempts to blindly pick an amount of insulin haven't been accurate. Does anyone have experience with this style of beer to help point me in a direction?

Thanks.

 

[Dgallo]

I live in VA and the fruited sours, or smoothie style, are big here (The Answer and The Veil in particular). My wife enjoy some of them and the pastry stouts, but she is a type 1 diabetic which means she has to calculate carbs to know how much insulin to inject to counteract them. Problem is, I can't find information to even guess the carbs. and her attempts to blindly pick an amount of insulin haven't been accurate. Does anyone have experience with this style of beer to help point me in a direction?

Thanks.

This is really tough. Both breweries mentioned add their fruit as purée in the keg or at canning in most of their fruited beers. They also add lactose. It would be really hard. I would email them directly to see if they could give you a rough estimate of the calories in their beers

 

[thejonesbox]

I've asked servers if they had any idea, but they never do. I'll reach out via email. Thanks!

 

[deuc224]

Type 1 diabetic here also. Its such a guessing game cuz homebrew finished fermentation is always different, trouble i have as well but ive been diabetic for 28 years so its damn near second nature to me now for guesstimations.

 

[thejonesbox]

She'll get there eventually, but right now I just get to finish all of her beers.

 

[Birrofilo]

Does she need to know only the total calories, or is it important to know the separate calories from alcohol, simple sugars and complex sugars?

Total calories are found in tables or can probably be found asking the producer.

An example: Birra: tabella calorie

For homebrewing, there must be an equation linking total calories to original and final density.

This might work: Beer Calories Calculator | Homebrew Academy

 

[thejonesbox]

Thanks for the links. No problem with calories, it's the carbohydrates that her body can't deal with unless inulin is injected. With estimated carbs she can estimate how much insulin to take to counter it.

 

[Birrofilo]

Thanks for the links. No problem with calories, it's the carbohydrates that her body can't deal with unless inulin is injected. With estimated carbs she can estimate how much insulin to take to counter it.

Carbohydrates give 4 kilocalories per gram.
If you divide the kilocalories from the carbohydrates by 4, you obtain the grams of the carbohydrates for the insulin calculation.

The left calculator from the second link should give the calories from the carbohydrates only (not sure, and not sure what to do with it, because it does not specify quantities).

The goal is to find a calculator like the one on the left of the second link, but clearly made, and obtaining the calories from carbohydrates, and dividing that by 4.

Maybe this is better:

http://www.mrgoodbeer.com/carb-cal.shtml
If I get it right, the "calories" are the total kilocalories including alcohol, but the "Carbs" value is a unit of weight which is only known to the page programmer. There is an email at the bottom of the page to ask clarifications about measures to the page owner.

Found this other resource from a link found by Google on this site.
This appears to be unambiguous, it gives you the calories from carbohydrates distinct from those from alcohol, and it also gives the datum in grams:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1mmVNfIizb3-jfSEj36prpTVnt_CCTxPd88OWVfDuEUE/edit#gid=0

 

[Tobor_8thMan]

Why not simply ferment near 1.000 (using amyloglucosidase) and back-sweeten with an artificial sugar?

Amyloglucosidase is used when making a Brut IPA.

http://www.morebeer.com/products/white-labs-ultra-ferm-10-ml.html

 

[Dgallo]

The op was wondering how he could calculate the carbs in the smoothly beers at the veil. Something that wouldn’t be possible since they add purée at packaging, unless they will offer that info to you

 

[Tobor_8thMan]

But if all sugars, aka carbs, are fermented out, then he should be OK (or his wife should be OK). A hydrometer will reveal the sugars (carbs) remaining.

 

[Dgallo]

But if all sugars, aka carbs, are fermented out, then he should be OK (or his wife should be OK). A hydrometer will reveal the sugars (carbs) remaining.

They aren’t fermented out they are literally added at packaging and stored cold after dropping as much yeast out of the beer as possible. The beer will literally have pulp in it so getting an accurate gravity reading will be difficult, especially when even trying to degas it to take the reading

 

[Tobor_8thMan]

What about the Amyloglucosidase? The "They aren’t fermented out they are literally added at packaging and stored cold after dropping as much yeast out of the beer as possible" contradicts an article I recently read on brewing a Brut IPA.

 

[bracconiere]

hate to be out on a limb, but look up a vitamin c titration, but do it in reverse? you could use iodine, an excese of vitamin c, and figure out the carbs?

edit: or should say a tangent, since the same amount of variables are involved....

so you keep adding iodine, but instead of waiting for it to turn blue, stop being blue...been awhile since i was titrating vitamin c though....

molar weight of the iodine added, would tell you how much carbs it had...

 

[Dgallo]

What about the Amyloglucosidase? The "They aren’t fermented out they are literally added at packaging and stored cold after dropping as much yeast out of the beer as possible" contradicts an article I recently read on brewing a Brut IPA.

We are talking about different things. The op is talking about heavily fruited sours or Ipas. The smoothy style specifically. The brewers are making a typical ipa or sour and the after fermentation is complete, right at time of packaging, they are adding fruit purées. They are not fermented out. Since they are added in the can, the pulp from the purée is also in the can so getting an accurate gravity reading would be difficult.

now if he brewed these himself, yes he could certainly calculate the carbs

 

[Tobor_8thMan]

OK. Thanks for clarifying. However, instead of puree use fruit flavoring. I know some scoff at fruit flavoring, but we're dealing with a certain issue here.

Perhaps, he should be brewing them for her.

 

[bracconiere]

disregard my post...just f'd around with sucrose in water with vitamin c, and iodine...aparently it only works with gel'd starch....

edit: but what about the trick of comparing a refractometer to a hydrometer with the final product?

 

[Fly_Guy]

Im a nurse and work on a cardiovascular unit.
Typically we will check a blood sugar right before a pt eats and give enough insulin to cover that sugar level.

How often does your wife check her blood sugar? 4 x a day? Would it be possible for her to add the beer in with the next blood sugar check and cover it then instead of immediately?