Does fermentation consume fluioride and other heavy elements found in water

[mckenneth]

Hello, this is my first post.

Thank you in advance for your responses.

Ive been increasingly concerned with the water quality in my drought stricken state, and after all the recent news of government mishaps of purposely contaminating drinking water, I wanted to ask some of the biochemists in this forum if they can give me a good answer.

I do some basic filtration of water for brewing but obviously this does not remove the elements that are dissolved in water, like fluoride.

I've long suspected that yeasts actually absorb a large amount of these elements in water and the majority of contaminants hopefully end up in the sediment and lees that, in turn, get dumped after the fermentation process.

I did some research on this, and I found that yeasts are in fact "Biosorbent".

Which means they are very efficient at filtering water, and work the same way as the bacteria used in water filtration plants.

This hopefully means the water in beer is much cleaner than filtered water from the tap. Is this correct? Does anyone know of any tests that have been performed on water chemistry before and after brewing? Is there any evidence to support this claim?

Obviously this has nothing to do with the "medieval beer is cleaner than drinking water" debate, because that subject is about viral and bacteria contaminated water, not water contaminated with fluoride or heavy elements (lead, mercury, etc), which is the topic of this post.

P.S. I did some searching on the forum already, but most of the topics were concerning how the chemistry of water affects the fermentation process, not about how the fermentation process affects the chemistry of beer. I hope I'm not stepping on some other post about the same subject.

Thank you
-Kenny


For reference, I found a research paper with a good abstract heading.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/14395068_Brewery_yeast_as_a_biosorbent_for_uranium

 

[NoIguanaForZ]

...fluoride really isn't a "heavy element" and despite the insistence of a few tinfoil-wearing communities is not associated with adverse health effects at doses found in potable water. Lumping it in with uranium is...strange. I'm not sure what "purposely contaminating drinking water" you're referring to.

 

[nDub]

...fluoride really isn't a "heavy element" and despite the insistence of a few tinfoil-wearing communities is not associated with adverse health effects at doses found in potable water. Lumping it in with uranium is...strange. I'm not sure what "purposely contaminating drinking water" you're referring to.

Isn't fluorine in the second row on the periodic table? That'd make it a "light" element, right?

I'm also curious about what "purposely contaminating drinking water" means.

But to get to the heart of your post, I agree it'd be interesting to know what yeast absorb/adsorb.

 

[wmcc75]

I assume the op is talking about the Flint water stuff with the "purposely contaminating drinking water" comment.

I'm interested to hear what yeast absorb, and if it could have any effect on future batches for those of us that reuse said yeast.

 

[NoIguanaForZ]

I assume the op is talking about the Flint water stuff with the "purposely contaminating drinking water" comment.

If so, then he's got it exactly backwards; "the government" - more precisely, local, partisan officials, changed water sources to try and save money and...the most charitable interpretation is that they "neglected" to arrange to have the water system add the chemicals (corrosion inhibitors) that would have allowed the (lower pH) water in question to flow safely through the city's old, lead-containing underground pipes...and then tried to cover the problem up to save their own butts. (Incidentally, I've read that the cost of proper treatment would have been about $100 per day for three months. I could have personally financed it, had I known).

Not sure how much yeast would have helped there, but I suppose it's worth looking at.

 

[Jim311]

I think we'd need to know more about which specific contaminants we're talking about here, and why you think they'd be in your filtered drinking water to begin with? Say what you will about the governments control of the water supply, but they regularly test the water, usually daily, for heavy metals and other dangerous chemicals. If you're ending up with dangerous things like lead in your water supply with any regularity, you should ask why your municipality isn't rectifying the situation.

 

[nDub]

If so, then he's got it exactly backwards; "the government" - more precisely, local, partisan officials, changed water sources to try and save money and...the most charitable interpretation is that they "neglected" to arrange to have the water system add the chemicals (corrosion inhibitors) that would have allowed the (lower pH) water in question to flow safely through the city's old, lead-containing underground pipes...and then tried to cover the problem up to save their own butts. (Incidentally, I've read that the cost of proper treatment would have been about $100 per day for three months. I could have personally financed it, had I known).

Not sure how much yeast would have helped there, but I suppose it's worth looking at.

To add to this: Michigan in the early 20th century REQUIRED lead service lines because lead didn't corrode like other materials. The lead has always been there unfortunately. Also this isn't unique to Flint or Michigan, there are lead lines all over the US. There is (and has been) a big push to replace them all but last I heard it'll cost something like (edit) $400 million to do so.

 

[Talgrath]

Long and short, yes yeast do absorb some heavy metals, but this generally isn't going to be significant enough to clean up your water if your water is dangerously contaminated. As the article you linked to notes, in the experiment they absorbed 1 mmol or millimol of uranium per 1 gram of dry yeast, which translates to roughly 0.24 grams of uranium/gram of dry yeast, but this was in a lab experiment deliberately designed to test the effects of beer yeast on uranium in the water, it was an ideal situation for absorbing the uranium. In a less than ideal situation it's likely that yeast would not absorb nearly so much uranium/heavy metals. At the end of fermentation of a 5 gallon beer you have maybe 1/8th of a pound of yeast once dried, or about 57 grams, that's not enough to clean up your water on its own if it's contaminated. If you're concerned about heavy metals in your drinking water, have it tested and/or switch to bottled water until you're satisfied it is safe.

 

[Jim311]

Even switching to bottled water is no guarantee of pure clean water. There is no regulatory agency that tests bottled water, believe it or not. Since it is neither food nor a drug, it is not controlled by the FDA. At least if you use municipal water there's an agency tasked with testing your water regularly. Not so with bottled water....

 

[NoIguanaForZ]

Even switching to bottled water is no guarantee of pure clean water. There is no regulatory agency that tests bottled water, believe it or not. Since it is neither food nor a drug, it is not controlled by the FDA. At least if you use municipal water there's an agency tasked with testing your water regularly. Not so with bottled water....

Well, to be fair, most suppliers just bottle the municipal water where their plant is and price it to pay for the advertising. So it is, at least indirectly, being tested.

 

[mckenneth]

Thanks for the info!

Yes, this post was concernign contamination in Flint Michigan. Yes I do believe the water quality will degrade to worse levels here in California due to a statewide drought. No there is not much that individuals can do to fight against it. San Diego has been fighting to keep fluoride out of water for decades, and they finally lost the battle in 2011.
Heavy elements I'm talking about are mostly mercury, lead, etc. Sorry I didn't make a distinction for them when talking about fluoride, I edited it to mention fluoride AND other elements
Also I was not intending to have a discussion of how dangerous or useless fluoride addition is to water. There is plenty of information out there. But what I do know is that water is fluoridated with cheap Chinese chemicals that include more than fluoride.
Anyways, I'm switching to reverse osmosis water regardless

 

[wmcc75]

I got a pretty decent under sink ro set up from amazon for like $100. Beginning with ro water is much easier when trying to recreate a certain h2o profile.

 

[nDub]

Thanks for the info!

Yes, this post was concernign contamination in Flint Michigan. Yes I do believe the water quality will degrade to worse levels here in California due to a statewide drought. No there is not much that individuals can do to fight against it. San Diego has been fighting to keep fluoride out of water for decades, and they finally lost the battle in 2011.

Doesn't San Diego get most of its water from the Colorado River? I'm not sure a drought in California is going to effect that source of water.

Also California state law requires fluoride additions to drinking water unless a water company can prove its an undue burden. So really the fight should be at that level.

I personally don't have a problem with fluoride in drinking water at the levels they add it (0.7 ppm or so) but I don't think the state should mandate it.

 

[mckenneth]

Fluoride may not be as detrimental in those quantities, but it's completely pointless. The only benefit of its addition is for what, tooth decay? It doesn't need to be consumed by the body. There is plenty of it in toothpaste, and nobody eats that stuff. The whole addition of it is an undue burden. And I believe that as water supply diminishes, more and more unsafe water will be used for tap water.
For example, Central Valley farmers have switched to using treated oil field wastewater to irrigate crops. How long will it be until the same stuff makes it into tap water.

Anyways, the question now is whether using Reverse Osmosis filtered water to brew will require any major chemical additives to sustain yeast. Is it better to have a mix of RO and filtered tap water perhaps?

 

[mckenneth]

http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-drought-oil-water-20150503-story.html

Here's a scary read

 

[wmcc75]

Anyways, the question now is whether using Reverse Osmosis filtered water to brew will require any major chemical additives to sustain yeast. Is it better to have a mix of RO and filtered tap water perhaps?

The malt provides enough nutrition for the yeast so ro water is no issue for that. I usually use a nutrient any way as it gives me a little better attenuation and happier ferment. The only issue with using ro water is mineral profile for some styles and getting the right ph for mashing.

 

[Talgrath]

The malt provides enough nutrition for the yeast so ro water is no issue for that. I usually use a nutrient any way as it gives me a little better attenuation and happier ferment. The only issue with using ro water is mineral profile for some styles and getting the right ph for mashing.

This is incorrect. For happy, healthy yeast they need more than just sugar and oxygen; they need minerals like potassium, iron, copper, zinc, phosphorous, magnesium, and calcium. Some yeast nutrients are probably a good idea if you're going to use RO water.

 

[thekraken]

I'll just leave this here:
http://howtobrew.com/book/section-1/yeast/yeast-nutritional-needs/nutrients

 

[wmcc75]

This is incorrect. For happy, healthy yeast they need more than just sugar and oxygen; they need minerals like potassium, iron, copper, zinc, phosphorous, magnesium, and calcium. Some yeast nutrients are probably a good idea if you're going to use RO water.

Yeah and malt provides those nutrients.

"An all-malt beer has all the nutrition that the yeast will need for a good fermentation"
From the above referenced article.

 

[Bradlo]

Foil hats or not this stuff is a real concern. We stopped drinking California wines as the wife gets rashes, switched to Aussie or Italian. And home brewing has ruined me for most conventional beers. Since I use cane sugar in my beers, when I drink anything with dextrose that's all I can taste no matter how good the brew. Not to mention the nazis used fluoride against their subjects. GMOs , roundup... My food tastes better without them.

 

[NoIguanaForZ]

Not to mention the nazis used fluoride against their subjects.

News to historians.

Don't believe everything you read.

 

[TheMadKing]

Foil hats or not this stuff is a real concern. We stopped drinking California wines as the wife gets rashes, switched to Aussie or Italian. And home brewing has ruined me for most conventional beers. Since I use cane sugar in my beers, when I drink anything with dextrose that's all I can taste no matter how good the brew. Not to mention the nazis used fluoride against their subjects. GMOs , roundup... My food tastes better without them.

barley is a GMO.. as is sugar cane. The Nazi thing just plain isn't true

Just sayin'

 

[Talgrath]

Yeah and malt provides those nutrients.

"An all-malt beer has all the nutrition that the yeast will need for a good fermentation"
From the above referenced article.

From the article in your link: "If you use ion-exchanged softened water for brewing, the water may not have adequate calcium, magnesium, and zinc for some of the yeast’s metabolic paths. "

It then goes on to explain what those minerals do for yeast. The quote you refer to is talking about regular tap water, which usually will have all the minerals your beer needs; if you use filtration, reverse osmosis, etc. many of those minerals will be removed and your beer may not have the proper amounts of minerals needed for happy, healthy yeast. Don't stop reading just because you found a quote you like.

 

[Bradlo]

barley is a GMO.. as is sugar cane. The Nazi thing just plain isn't true

Just sayin'

They are hybrids. There is a difference between cross breeding, which has been going on since the beginning of time, and changing dna, including splicing with animal and insect Dna, to withstand heavier doses of herbicides.

Nobody agrees on the nazi thing. I will err on the side of caution.

 

[Talgrath]

Foil hats or not this stuff is a real concern. We stopped drinking California wines as the wife gets rashes, switched to Aussie or Italian. And home brewing has ruined me for most conventional beers. Since I use cane sugar in my beers, when I drink anything with dextrose that's all I can taste no matter how good the brew. Not to mention the nazis used fluoride against their subjects. GMOs , roundup... My food tastes better without them.

As others have pointed out, the Nazi thing isn't true. If California wines give your wife a rash, it's probably because she has an allergy of some sort or it's some sort of mental thing, not due to fluoride; neither Napa nor Sonoma (where pretty much all California wine come from) put fluoride in their water. As for your beer, well if you're getting off flavors that's a whole different thread.

And I hate to break it to you, but GMO plants are really just speeding up and making more accurate a process humans have engaged in since we started farming. Previously it was simply using generational breeding, then we moved on to artificial insemination and then we started blasting vegetables with radiation to get genetic mutations; all of which, by the way, are NOT GMO crops, so even if you started labeling GMO's there's nothing that stops you from get radioactively edited mutant plants. Keep in mind, here's what some common foods used to look like before human intervention:

 

[TheMadKing]

there's nothing that stops you from get radioactive mutant plants.

There's the fact that bombarding something with radiation doesn't make it radioactive for starters... unless your using a neutron beam, in which case you have a host of other issues going on.

 

[thekraken]

Or you're Bruce Banner.

 

[Talgrath]

There's the fact that bombarding something with radiation doesn't make it radioactive for starters... unless your using a neutron beam, in which case you have a host of other issues going on.

Sorry, technically incorrect. Radioactively modified plants, I'll edit.

 

[TheMadKing]

Sorry, technically incorrect. Radioactively modified plants, I'll edit.

I was being a smarta$$ sorry lol

 

[NoIguanaForZ]

There are rational concerns about the use of modern genetic modification technology on organisms: abuse of intellectual property laws to remove consumer choice or undermine competitors (this has been documented), unexpected consequences of expression of new proteins such as proteins derived from one clade, expressed by a very different clade, unexpectedly triggering allergies to organisms in the former group (this has also been documented), further entrenching monoculture as a farming practice, and so on.

The OH MAH GAWERD IT R NAWT TEH NACHURALS IT R EET MAH BABBY stuff is actively harmful in that it distracts from, and stigmatizes by association, the rational concerns.

 

[Bradlo]

Please refrain from calling my wife mental. I didn't say the rashes are due to fluoride, but I didn't specify. I was leaning toward the issue of the water quality. As I said in my initial post, my beers taste fine. It's when I have a beer that has corn sugar (any brand) that it tastes like crap.

I'll take a pass on drinking the Kool aid and stick with organic.

 

[NoIguanaForZ]

Please refrain from calling my wife mental. I didn't say the rashes are due to fluoride, but I didn't specify.

....I believe the poster in question was referring to the placebo effect and similar phenomena (where expectations affect perception - this is well documented), which all humans are subject to, not implying mental illness.

I'll take a pass on drinking the Kool aid and stick with organic.

Glad we cleared that up.

Although you'll be pleased to know you don't have to choose. :]

 

[wmcc75]

From the article in your link: "If you use ion-exchanged softened water for brewing, the water may not have adequate calcium, magnesium, and zinc for some of the yeast’s metabolic paths. "

It then goes on to explain what those minerals do for yeast. The quote you refer to is talking about regular tap water, which usually will have all the minerals your beer needs; if you use filtration, reverse osmosis, etc. many of those minerals will be removed and your beer may not have the proper amounts of minerals needed for happy, healthy yeast. Don't stop reading just because you found a quote you like.

Wow really no need to be so rude. It's my understanding that malted barly would provide calcium and magnesium. How do you know the quote is talking about regular tap water? When I read the article it seemed to me it was talking more about extracts lacking minerals.

 

[Talgrath]

Wow really no need to be so rude. It's my understanding that malted barly would provide calcium and magnesium. How do you know the quote is talking about regular tap water? When I read the article it seemed to me it was talking more about extracts lacking minerals.

Sorry, but just tossing a link at me without reading it kind of set me off. So here's the deal, regular tap water contains a lot of different minerals and other solids, most of them are actually good for you, a few can be bad (like lead, for example). If you've ever noticed that the water tastes different in different cities dissolved minerals is the cause, you're used to the minerals in your water at home, so you don't really taste them. In the link, which is actually from an older homebrewing book, he's talking about using tap water; as he notes at the bottom, filtered water is different.

Certain minerals, in particular zinc, are found in tap water that are difficult for the yeast to get from elsewhere; zinc usually won't be on your water report because it's largely positive for humans too (though, like most minerals, in super high dosages causes health problems). Yeast need minerals like zinc, magnesium and others in order to make their cell walls, without them they flood with water and explode (called cytolysis). The problem is that while the malted and roasted grains do provide some of the necessary minerals, they don't provide enough of them; most of them come from trace minerals in your water. Reverse Osmosis removes approximately 90-95% of all solids from your water, so if you use RO water you've depleted a lot of the minerals needed for healthy yeast; that's why you need yeast nutrients.

 

[Yooper]

From the article in your link: "If you use ion-exchanged softened water for brewing, the water may not have adequate calcium, magnesium, and zinc for some of the yeast’s metabolic paths. "

It then goes on to explain what those minerals do for yeast. The quote you refer to is talking about regular tap water, which usually will have all the minerals your beer needs; if you use filtration, reverse osmosis, etc. many of those minerals will be removed and your beer may not have the proper amounts of minerals needed for happy, healthy yeast. Don't stop reading just because you found a quote you like.

But malt provides enough of all of the things it needs (especially magnesium) except for zinc (I believe).

You can brew with 100% RO water and do just fine. The thing is, many people like to add some calcium chloride or calcium sulfate, for flavor. Just like you can add salt to your food for flavor. It isn't for the yeast health; it's for flavor.

People like Martin Brungard, a water expert and National BJCP judge, have mentioned to me that some beers made without additions may be less flavorful than desired due to not adding salts.

 

[Talgrath]

Interesting, my understanding was that zinc was pretty much a requirement for healthy yeast and it's been a refrain that RO water takes out too many minerals. Personally, I'm not worried about my tap water, so I just use regular water.

 

[jerbrew]

Interesting, my understanding was that zinc was pretty much a requirement for healthy yeast and it's been a refrain that RO water takes out too many minerals. Personally, I'm not worried about my tap water, so I just use regular water.

https://sites.google.com/site/brunwater/water-knowledge

everything you ever want to know about brewing water

 

[wmcc75]

Sorry, but just tossing a link at me without reading it kind of set me off. So here's the deal, regular tap water contains a lot of different minerals and other solids, most of them are actually good for you, a few can be bad (like lead, for example). If you've ever noticed that the water tastes different in different cities dissolved minerals is the cause, you're used to the minerals in your water at home, so you don't really taste them. In the link, which is actually from an older homebrewing book, he's talking about using tap water; as he notes at the bottom, filtered water.

I appreciate your apology, however I did read the link which is how I formed my opinion that the author was talking about extracts lacking nutrients. I understand your confusion though as the author does bring up brewing with filtered water and it lacking minerals, but in my opinion it is in the context of using extract while brewing. Though you are correct that zinc may still need to be added if that's your thing, as to my knowledge the malt doesn't provide it.

However I will again state that in my experience you will need to add different brewing salts for styles and to adjust for ph. However the ph adjustment could be as simple as acid malt.

 

[5mooth0perator]

There are rational concerns about the use of modern genetic modification technology on organisms: abuse of intellectual property laws to remove consumer choice or undermine competitors (this has been documented), unexpected consequences of expression of new proteins such as proteins derived from one clade, expressed by a very different clade, unexpectedly triggering allergies to organisms in the former group (this has also been documented), further entrenching monoculture as a farming practice, and so on.

The OH MAH GAWERD IT R NAWT TEH NACHURALS IT R EET MAH BABBY stuff is actively harmful in that it distracts from, and stigmatizes by association, the rational concerns.

I'll concede that entrenching monoculture is a bad thing, though GMO is actually considered a way to broaden the gene pool which had been narrowing due to monoculture.

IMO GMO is a technique which has relatively little impact on the product. If instead of breeding two strains of barley to get a trait, scientists used the naturally occurring bacterium to transfer a plasmid from one strain to the other.

There are four points here A) transfection is a naturally occurring process B) the technique is dependent on bacteria no bacteria no "gene jumping" C) the important aspect is the traits not all traits do I want to eat, some are better than the pesticides they replace D) traditional breeding isn't all it's cracked up to be if missused, case in point trans-fats, didn't need GMO to optimize the dry weight of corn by driving up trans-fats.