Getting hives from drinking homebrew?

[Quadrupled]

I don't want to be the Debbie downer, but I'd go very cautiously here if I were in your shoes. You really should investigate a root cause before applying a solution as you had a pretty bad reaction to something. How do you react to bottle conditioned beers? Maybe speak with your doctor or have a food allergy test performed. These are things to think about before going forward.

You may go through this whole filtering process and end up with the same concerning problem. Furthermore, this 1 micron filter will remove things around 5+ microns in size - my concern would be if a problem causing allergen was smaller than that.

Good luck.

 

[BGBC]

Have you tried another bottle since the first time you got the hives?

It may end up being an allergy to food or something else you were exposed to around that first time and not your cider at all.

 

[IdkAnything]

I've never had a reaction drinking Heineken, corona, or Adams ale. That's why I'm thinking I just need to filter it out like more commercial drinks

 

[IdkAnything]

My concern is that if I do intend on filtering it out, will it cost me more than like 50-60 dollars? I'd need to recarbonate it from what I figured

 

[BGBC]

I've never had a reaction drinking Heineken, corona, or Adams ale. That's why I'm thinking I just need to filter it out like more commercial drinks

Those are all beers.

You made cider.

beer <> cider.

 

[BGBC]

Also, what did your recipe look like? How much juice, sugar, and yeast did you use? Did anything else go in there?

 

[IdkAnything]

It was pretty simple, all I used was white sugar, great value Apple juice, and MO2 hard cider yeast.

I don't see how I could be allergic to anything but the yeast, I drink apple juice frequently do it's not that.

 

[Cheesy_Goodness]

This is probably super irrelevant, but a few years back I was having the same problem (except it was sub par lagers instead of homebrew). One or two beers would result in hives, but not every time.

It went away after a few weeks. I convinced myself that it had something to do with dehydration and drank more water during the day (at the time my intake was less than a glass of liquid a day other than beer). I wouldn't swear that was the problem but I haven't had an issue since.

 

[BGBC]

Based on your other thread, it sounds like your cider wasn't done fermenting when you bottled it (since your used corks are popping out). What amounts of juice and sugar did you use (ie, X gallons juice and y gallons sugar)?

No way you can pasteurize those as-is. All of the corks would pop out in the water bath.

How does this stuff taste? I would try another bottle to see if it was really something in the cider that caused the hives. If you're fine, I'd drink this batch quickly and move on to the next one, or try rebottling this one and capping them so you can pasteurize.

If you're interested in trying another batch, I would spend some time on this site or reading homebrewing books, etc to get more info on proper techniques (sanitization, gravity readings, bottling/capping, etc).

 

[IdkAnything]

Haha, I know my first batch is kind of thrown together mess. I did let it ferment for 3 weeks but I have a feeling I stopped to early even though 3 weeks might be awhile for fermentation, there was 10 pounds of sugar in my batch so it probably could've sat another week.

Though for something thrown together at home I was expecting an undrinkable poison. This simple home batch was surprising nice. Not exactly store quality but everything seems to taste better when you're the one who put work into it's creation.

I think I might just have some friends drink this at a campfire and try a new batch with a pressure filter kegging system.(if I can find a cheap one)

 

[joshesmusica]

so just to help summarize some things for you from what i'm reading:
1) you did not make beer, you made cider. you need malt and hops in there to make it beer.
2) it doesn't seem like you have ever tried a beer that has been bottle conditioned. where are you living? find something like boulevard wheat. basically look for a beer that has that small layer of yeast on the bottom. just drink like one since this is an allergy and you don't really want to get crazy when testing it.
or 3) just go get an allergy test done. then you will solve this whole issue and figure out whether you need to go buy that filtering system, or if it was just coincidence and it was something else completely you should be avoiding.

 

[DrunkleJon]

As someone who breaks out into hives maybe once a year while drinking, though there is no common element aside from there being alcohol involved (liquor and beer have both done it to me but never the same thing twice), I will say this.
Get an allergy test, its the best way to know.

otherwise
Try some more of your HB cider. Keep Benedryl on hand, it kills my reactions quickly. See if it happens again. Sometimes a reaction happens for no known reason, mine do.
I doubt it is yeast, it may be the apple juice, do/did you drink unfermented apple juice?
Try a commercial bottle conditioned beer to see if it is the yeast.
Has a friend or other person tried your cider?
Notice any weird flavors aside from apple and alcohol? How big was this batch? With 10 lbs of sugar this has the potential to be a very sweet high alcohol cider.

 

[azazel1024]

What size batch was it? 10lbs is a heck of a lot of sugar, even in a 5 gallon batch of cider. I'd normally only be using something like 1-2lbs of sugar in a 5 gallon batch.

Much more than that and you are asking for rocket fuel, not cider.

It is quite possible if you really did do 10lbs in 5 gallons (or worse, smaller volume with 10lbs), that you ended up producing a lot of fusel alcohol and other "bad" fermentation by products and that is what you are reacting to.

Even something like hard liquor is distilled from something that is generally only in the 6-10% ABV range. 10lbs of sugar in 5 gallons of cider/apple juice and fermented, supposing the yeast doesn't conk out first from too much alcohol, is likely to result in something around 15-18% ABV. Apple Juice and cider tend to have a sugar level sufficient to only produce about a 6% ABV cider if completely fermented out and without concentrating it first.

In general just straight juice/cider seems to take about 6-8wks to fully ferment out. It is slow going, in part because there aren't a whole ton of nuetrients for the yeast, but is also pretty much all simple sugars that the yeast is eating.

 

[IdkAnything]

6-8weeks to ferment? I didn't think the nutrient deficiency would slow the process that much. doesn't nutrient containing yeast packets have enough to speed the process? And I've been going off of 1 pound of sugar = 1% alcohol yield in a 5 gallon wash, therefore when I put 10 pounds of sugar in the 5 gallon batch I'm expecting around 12-14% ABV, the yeast I used can handle around 12-16%.

What's fusel alcohol? And other bi products of fermenting that much? Didn't think it could produce bad products

 

[DrunkleJon]

6-8weeks to ferment? I didn't think the nutrient deficiency would slow the process that much. doesn't nutrient containing yeast packets have enough to speed the process? And I've been going off of 1 pound of sugar = 1% alcohol yield in a 5 gallon wash, therefore when I put 10 pounds of sugar in the 5 gallon batch I'm expecting around 12-14% ABV, the yeast I used can handle around 12-16%.

What's fusel alcohol? And other bi products of fermenting that much? Didn't think it could produce bad products

Regarding Fusel Alcohol, from How to Brew on off flavors. The link has a lot of common off flavors and what causes them.

Alcoholic
A sharp flavor that can be mild and pleasant or hot and bothersome. When an alcohol taste detracts from a beer's flavor it can usually be traced to one of two causes. The first problem is often too high a fermentation temperature. At temperatures above 80°F, yeast can produce too much of the higher weight fusel alcohols which have lower taste thresholds than ethanol. These alcohols taste harsh to the tongue, not as bad as cheap tequila, but bad nonetheless.

Fusel alcohols can be produced by excessive amounts of yeast, or when the yeast sits too long on the trub. This is one reason to move the beer off of the hot and cold break when the beer is going to be spending a lot of time in the fermentor.

All I know is that Edwort's Apfelwein (the ciderish recipe I make) calls for 2# sugar and 5 gallons of apple juice and comes in at about 8.5-9.5%. Yeast that is stressed, and yeast gets stressed due to exteme temperatures, nutrition deficiency, high sugar/alcohol concentrations, and for several other reasons, can and will create compounds that are not always desireable in your finished process. Additionally it will slow down the speed in which yeast can consume sugar. High ABV ferments will start off rather speedily, but slow down towards the end of fermentation when the stress starts getting to them, so yes it can take 6-8 weeks for that high test of a brew to finish completely (and here is where I add in that the airlock is not a good indication of whether or not fermentation is occurring).

To answer your question, yes, it can ferment until it kills itself through the alcohol content and burns through its built up nutrient stores. Shooting for that high a ABV you are practically making a wine, and most wine/meadmakers will add nutrient throughout the ferment to keep the yeast happy and healthy. With beers, the malt does this for you by providing lots of nutrients.

Just my 2 cents though.

 

[BGBC]

Agreed with DrunkleJon, plus the juice alone probably had enough sugar to get to 6-7% ABV on its own.

 

[azazel1024]

Agreed with DrunkleJon, plus the juice alone probably had enough sugar to get to 6-7% ABV on its own.

Agreed. Most juice/cider tends to be in the 1.040-1.050 range all on it's own, but it is almost completely fermentable and a cider/beer yeast strain is going to be able to eat all of the simple sugars, so it'll likely ferment down to around .970-.980 range (because alcohol is lighter than water, it reduces the gravity to below that of water). A wine yeast strain would likely not be able to eat all of the sugar in apple juice as it can only eat the most simple of sugars (which is why it is used in wine, so that you have some residual sugar, instead of the yeast eating every last bit of sugar. 100% fermented apple juice or 100% fermented grape juice doesn't taste very good, which is why people back sweeten hard cider and then pasturize it. For wine, they use very low attenuating strains that cannot eat all of the sugars beyond the most simple of them).

It'll take weeks and weeks to eat something that high an ABV with low nutrients present. If you were dosing with nutrients at maybe 24hrs, 72hrs and 1 week, it might be able to ferment out in 3-4wks. Maybe.

Look at mead, it takes the better part of a year to ferment out mead that is in the same range as the hard cider you just made. If you do some heavy and regular dosing of yeast nutrients you can speed it up, but you are still talking at best 8-12 weeks for something that is mostly drinkable.

Hard cider without ANY sugar addition is generally 4-5 weeks, with sugar closer to 2 months. Some of it is the actual ethanol production, but some of it is the other bits of fermentation, like cleaning up fermentation by-products that can take the yeast weeks after initial fermentation.

A nice nutrient packed source like beer can take only a week or so to ferment and be cleaned up for a low alcohol 4-5% beer, maybe 2 weeks for something in the 5-8% range and around 3-4 months for something up to around 10%. Much above that and you are talking a few months.

A lot of that is yeast stress. Even on a 10% ABV beer, the yeast has probably converted 80% of the sugar that it ever will munch to ethanol within the first 48-72hrs, but then it slows way down. I might even be completely done within one week, but it takes WEEKS, many plural sometimes, to finish converting by products AND also to age properly. Even if it has converted all of the by products there are still other chemical processes going on that make it "cleaner".

A good barley wine is likely to have to age for 6-12 months before it is hitting its prime, and it still might be better out at 3-4 years than it was at 1 year. A good RIS might hit its peak at 6-12 months too, but could still be better years later.

My local homebrew club one of the founding members gets Brooklyn Chocolate Stout every year (cases and cases of it when they release it). Every year he has a tasting of the different year's batches. The batches themselves DO have the recipe tweaked a little, but minor. There is quite a bit of taste difference between each years batch and we've generally seemed to have settled on the 3 or 4 year old Chocolate Stout being the best (it is 10% ABV IIRC), and that has been over the last couple of years, so it is almost as much about age as it is slight changes to their recipe (because if one year it is the 4 year old stout and the next year it is the 4 year old stout, they were slightly tweaked recipes, but it is the age bringing out the best qualities).

That doesn't mean you can't have good beer or cider in just a couple of weeks, but the higher ABV you go, no matter WHAT you do, the longer it is going to take to get good beer/cider.

 

[ACbrewer]

6-8weeks to ferment? I didn't think the nutrient deficiency would slow the process that much. doesn't nutrient containing yeast packets have enough to speed the process? And I've been going off of 1 pound of sugar = 1% alcohol yield in a 5 gallon wash, therefore when I put 10 pounds of sugar in the 5 gallon batch I'm expecting around 12-14% ABV, the yeast I used can handle around 12-16%.

1lb of sugar in a 5 gallon batch will generally give you 1% abv (or .008 to .009 gravity). but juice starts with as noted 1.040 to 1.050 - or the equivalent of 5 to 6 lb of sugar in a 5 gallon batch. Juice is generally simple fructose, although there might be some glucose. Both of which are very easy for yeast to consume, certainly easier than the sucrose.

Anyhow, at 10lb, in 5 gallons you likely had a 1.120 to 1.130 starting gravity (OG) and probably ferment out down to 1.000, or possibly lower. This assume all is converted. If your yeast goes to down 16% you'd have about ~1.000 FG (about 128 gravity point change). And depending it could have the yeast producing off chemicals.

 

[IdkAnything]

I think I'm going to start over, I allready took it out of it's fermentation container and bottled it... One of my glass swingtop covered one exploded. But none of the corked ones did, they released the gas through the original used cork hole I assume.

Messy beginning to the start of a brewing hobby

 

[BGBC]

I think I'm going to start over, I allready took it out of it's fermentation container and bottled it... One of my glass swingtop covered one exploded. But none of the corked ones did, they released the gas through the original used cork hole I assume.

Messy beginning to the start of a brewing hobby

That is a definite sign that your batch was not done fermenting. If you have any others that are capped or in swing tops, vent them now if possible or get them in the fridge ASAP and drink quickly.

Or, you could open them all and get them back in the fermenter to finish fermenting, then rebottle.

For your next batch, if you want to try another cider, check out this thread:
Apfelwein

 

[DrunkleJon]

I think I'm going to start over, I allready took it out of it's fermentation container and bottled it... One of my glass swingtop covered one exploded. But none of the corked ones did, they released the gas through the original used cork hole I assume.

Messy beginning to the start of a brewing hobby

Hang in there. Just consider it a learning experience. You should see some of the mistakes that have been made in the first few batches.

 

[SmokeyMcBong]

If it were me, and I thought I was allergic to yeast...

Before buying filtration equipment and the like, I'd rehydrate a little yeast in some water and drink it to find out if it would give me hives or not. Pretty easy way to find out...