Let's talk about Foam Control drops (aka Fermcap)

[Alemental]

I have 5 gallons of Belgian Dubble in 2 each of 6.5-gallon carboys that I brewed on Thursday. Today, the foam started to blow out of the airlocks. I have previously only used this stuff in the boil, but I added about 3 or 4 drops to each carboy. Problem solved. The foam started to drop immediately. Very convenient, as I cannot use my thermowells with a blowoff tube.

 

[ScubaSteve]

It says it's perishable...I'm not sure how because it's pretty much inert silicone. I think it's probably just because it goes into food items. Just make sure you swirl it around and resuspend the ingredients. Some people are paranoid about putting it directly into the fermenter...don't be. It won't be a deal breaker if your fermentation is already off to a start.

 

[TexLaw]

Should I put it in the fridge?

It's not absolutely necessary to keep it refrigerated, but it will keep much longer (i.e., forever), if you do. If you don't, it may still last several months, but you may see some reduced efficacy.


TL

 

[the_bird]

I'm buying some of this stuff. Just brewed a smallish beer (1.043), only got a bit less than five gallons out of the keg and fermenting in a 7 gallon Ale Pail. Still had gunk in the airlock this morning.

 

[HomerT]

Used it for the first time last night. Seemed to work well.....nasty, foul smelling stuff though....and creamy.

-Todd

 

[jpsloan]

I've used it in two batches thusfar, and I still had some ruthless boilovers from my Bayou Classic pot. I'd prefer a larger kettle, but until I can justify another purchase, I'm pretty much stuck with it.

Then again, this isn't Fermcap, per se, as much as the Foam Control drops from AHS. They might not be the same thing. But the stuff I'm using isn't really doing much good that I can tell.

 

[sirsloop]

A spray bottle with some water in it works very nicely. A 40Qt stock pot works damn nicely too on a 6 gallon boil. A 7.9 gallon bucket works very nicely for a 5 gallon batch of wort.

 

[EdWort]

The foam control powder AHS sells also works great.

I did too. I used a pipette to put a drop in my starter flasks and voila, no boil overs it rocks!.

It's basically 5 Star Kettle Kettle Defoamer 105 in a 2 oz. bottle for $5.99.

The only problem I see with it, is that it states it has a shelf life of 6 months and AHS repackaged it and did not put a date on it. It could already be out of date.

For starters, you only need a teensy amount, hence using a pipette instead of the dropper.

 

[ipscman]

I just started using Fermcap. Awesome. One question: Does the beer need to be filtered after being used in the fermenter? Does it clog up the spigot in a keg? THANKS. you can email me directly at [email protected]

 

[pjj2ba]

No need to filter. It will settle out and mix with all of the crap in the bottom of the fermenter so it won't tranfer to your secondary (or kegs/bottles if doing primary only).

 

[seawort]

If anyone around the Seattle area knows of a LHBS that carries this please let me know. Otherwise... i'll be putting an order in to Northern brewer as I really gotta try this.

 

[TeleTwanger]

I've never tried it but I'm sure it works. I voted Rheinheitsghabut or however the hell you spell it...I do like the Rheinheitsghabutters do and add hops during lautering (FWH) which helps with initial hot break/boil over. Once the boil over knocks down there isn't really a problem and I do crazy hard boils, and I almost never get blow offs. (wish I did, I like the blow offs)
YMMV

 

[TeleTwanger]

Haven't had a problem yet!

Wait, they give awards for foam control? That's awesome!





j/k I'm jealous.

 

[anderj]

Side note

I used it for the first time this weekend on a 13 gal boil (in a keggle). It worked as I expected it to to prevent a boilover, but a great side-effect was that i didn't have to keep scraping the hops off the side of the kettle back into the wort! I'm convinced. I'll be using it on all of my batches.

I have a good buddy who is a brewer for Bighorn Brewing, he comes by to sit in for brew sessions from time to time. While I was scraping hops back into the kettle he said that as soon as those things hit the wort, they pretty much do their thing so scraping them back in was not really that important.

$.02

ander

 

[seawort]

Side note



I have a good buddy who is a brewer for Bighorn Brewing, he comes by to sit in for brew sessions from time to time. While I was scraping hops back into the kettle he said that as soon as those things hit the wort, they pretty much do their thing so scraping them back in was not really that important.

$.02

ander

I find that very hard to believe or we'd have alot of "tea bagging" brewers out there taking their hops out of the kettle as soon as they had done "their thing". While it may be true that once the alpha acids are out of the hops and into the wort you could take out the hops, it seems unlikely that the hops give up their alpha acids right away or you wouldn't have to dry hop for more than a few minutes to impart the hop goodness. Even with hop pellets I would expect a significant period of time would be necessary to extract the acids into the wort and you can loose a ton of hop material (especially using pellets) to that initial boil over. While I wouldn't get bunged up about scraping hop material back in I also wouldn't say it won't help your hop utilization and avoiding having to deal with it at all is pretty attractive.

 

[anderj]

I find that very hard to believe or we'd have alot of "tea bagging" brewers out there taking their hops out of the kettle as soon as they had done "their thing". While it may be true that once the alpha acids are out of the hops and into the wort you could take out the hops, it seems unlikely that the hops give up their alpha acids right away or you wouldn't have to dry hop for more than a few minutes to impart the hop goodness. Even with hop pellets I would expect a significant period of time would be necessary to extract the acids into the wort and you can loose a ton of hop material (especially using pellets) to that initial boil over. While I wouldn't get bunged up about scraping hop material back in I also wouldn't say it won't help your hop utilization and avoiding having to deal with it at all is pretty attractive.

Key words here, "not that important" and also maybe if you were "dry hopping" at 212 you would only need a minute or so (hops at flame out)
-ander

 

[njnear76]

I bought some Fermcap-S from Midwest this week. I took it out of the box and stuck it with my other ingredients on the counter. So yesterday I am going to brew up an American-ish Honey wheat and I finally get around to taking the bubble wrap off the bottle of Fermcap and it says "keep refridgerated"...Doh! So I am 1 inch from a big boil over and I put a few drop into the boil and instantly the foam goes totally away. Amazing. So now I have it in the fridge, but not having mine chilled for 5 days did nothing to harm it apparently.

You do not need to refrigerate fermcap. Just keep it below 85F. It probably is not a bad idea to refrigerate it though. Check this out for more info.

 

[p4ck37p1mp]

Anyone know if AB Vickers FoamSol is the same stuff?

 

[Edcculus]

I lost my brand new bottle when I moved, so I still have not been able to try it out...

 

[carl spakler]

What, if any, downsides are there to using fermcap?

 

[Boerderij_Kabouter]

You loose that wonderful fear of the unknown that your boil could explode everywhere if you stop staring at it for even a second.

Seriously, there is no down side.

 

[Revvy]

You loose that wonderful fear of the unknown that your boil could explode everywhere if you stop staring at it for even a second.

Seriously, there is no down side.

I agree wholeheartedly, there are NO downsides to this...

I have a five gallon kettle that is really about 4.5 gallons that I do stove top brewing and I have a turkey fryer pot for all-grain. And I can fill both those bad boys to about 3/4 of an inch from the top and get a rolling boil going....and walk away.

I have actually taken a half hour nap between hop additions, on a stovetop brew, with no worries, whatsoever.

 

[Bokonon]

What, if any, downsides are there to using fermcap?

The downside is the first few times you use them you still waste time standing over your kettle convinced it's going to boilover at any minute. When it doesn't happen you feel like an idiot for standing over your kettle that whole time

Just an amazing product. I wish I had started using them sooner

 

[SpanishCastleAle]

I know is an old thread but...I haven't even heard of this product before. I don't have boil overs and actually like blow-offs so at this point I'm not sure if I will try it.

I don't condsider blow-offs a pain at all. It's just a 1" hose and a qt. cup to clean. The cup is easy enough to clean. For the hose I have a semi-soft bristled bottle brush and I tied a string to the loop at the handle end. Just run water through the hose and feed the string in and the water will carry the string to the other end of the hose...pull the brush through. Takes a couple of minutes and you're done. Squeaky clean and clear.

 

[Austinhomebrew]

Beano is actually Alpha-Galactosidase Enzyme.

This place has liquid Five Star Foam Control as well:
Defoamer 105

 

[FlyGuy]

Foam control drops should not be confused with Beano. Totally different products that work by totally different mechanisms.

And as far as blow-offs go, they should always be avoided when possible because large blow-offs tend to eject the compounds that aid in head retention, which you really want to keep in your beer.

 

[Revvy]

Foam control drops should not be confused with Beano. Totally different products that work by totally different mechanisms.

And as far as blow-offs go, they should always be avoided when possible because large blow-offs tend to eject the compounds that aid in head retention, which you really want to keep in your beer.

There was some discussion about beeno, gass x, and fermcap in the letters from listener section of one of the last 2 Basic Brewing Podcasts...prettty weird discussion....

 

[SpanishCastleAle]

And as far as blow-offs go, they should always be avoided when possible because large blow-offs tend to eject the compounds that aid in head retention, which you really want to keep in your beer.

Yeah...in my 10 year sabbatical from homebrewing a few myths of mine have been debunked. Here I thought I was 'naturally' getting trub out of the fermenter and always TRIED to get a good blowoff. I guess it explains the almost obligatory use of either Wheat or Carapils in all my old recipes. Old habits die hard as they say.

 

[conpewter]

... On the down side, the MSDS states that at temps above 150F, the compund can release formaldehyde vapors. ...

Actually the MSDS says 150C so I'm not worried about putting it into boiling wort at all.

I have the stuff from William's Brewing, but it does not come with an eye dropper, If i ever need to buy more I'll get it from someplace (like AHS) that has a dropper.

 

[CnnmnSchnpps]

this sounds like great stuff.. will definitely try it with my next batch