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Why does my homebrew make me fart so much?

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Its the residual sugars that reach your small and large intestines. Your GI tract cannot absorb oligosaccharides through your gut epithelium and it leaves sugars for your natural flora to ferment, E coli, enterococcus etc. They create gas from the fermentation and it is your resposibility to "relieve the pressure" so-to-speak.
Force carbing or filtering will not affect the sugars so my guess is that you will still have gas the next day.

I am not sure how the remaining yeast would contribute to your gas. Maybe when the yeast cells reach your gastric acid in your stomach or your pancreatic juices in your duodenum they release gas. Other than that, I would assume any yeast remaining in suspension would be completely killed by your stomach pH.
-Jefe-

How would you explain the difference between home brew & commercial brew in regards to oligosaccharides? I don't see where either process would favor or reduce them more than the other. And the OP (as well as many others) note that it's the home brew causing them excess gas... not commercial.

The difference I see is the yeast. Commercial is usually filtered & almost always pastuerized. Homebrew almost always not.
 
It's weird. My home brew gave me bad gas when I started brewing but not really anymore. Maybe my body just adapted. :D
 
When my brother-in-law and I drank my first batch it sounded like a monster truck jamboree! I hadn't gotten into HBT and had limited knowledge so I just thought this was a cool side effect :)
For me after about three batches the side effects pretty much went away. Now I'm back to my normal self... except when I eat a good ol' Wisconsin brat with sauerkraut! mmmmm
 
How would you explain the difference between home brew & commercial brew in regards to oligosaccharides? I don't see where either process would favor or reduce them more than the other. And the OP (as well as many others) note that it's the home brew causing them excess gas... not commercial.

The difference I see is the yeast. Commercial is usually filtered & almost always pastuerized. Homebrew almost always not.

Commercial filtering not only takes out the yeast, but also the long chains of complex sugars (oligosaccharides)
 
nothin like a homebrew fart while gettin a hummer! :D your body will adjust to the homebrew over time and the gas will subside, I kinda miss the homebrew farts, they made work soo fun!

LMFAO! thats great. Ya i put a few GREEN beers back (only bottled 1 week, i dont have a pipeline yet and couldnt resist) and ive been ripping em all morning :D
 
Commercial brewers use molecular-scale filtering systems?


No. I used to filter to about 1 micron. Occasionally I'd run to .5 pads if I got a good deal on filters but the world has pretty much gone to Diatomaceous Earth
filters after a centrifuge pre treat. With that your 1-3 microns as a rule. Just enough to get the yeast out. 6-8 days is a pretty typical cycle time on a mid 1.050's ale from kettle to bottle.


Its rare that I'm not drinking 7-8 day old home brewed beer. 4-5 days of ferment and a day or two of rest followed by a pass through the water filter and some force carbonation. The hops taste green but after a few days even thats subsided.
 
Seeing as how this topic keeps resurfacing, I would like to point out that science has got your back (well butt).

http://www.metronews.ca/ottawa/life...elling-farts-through-the-magic-of-exit-aromas

Not yet available in North America apparently, but I am all over the first shipment that comes in.

It'll be good at first before people catch on, but when you drop a "cotton candy" in the hunting blind you're buddies are going to call you names. Perhaps a "pepperoni pizza" would a better choice before going out with boys.
 
It'll be good at first before people catch on, but when you drop a "cotton candy" in the hunting blind you're buddies are going to call you names. Perhaps a "pepperoni pizza" would a better choice before going out with boys.

Hopefully they will come out with an "I've been living off of beer and moose pepperettes for three days" aroma. Oh wait, I've got that one nailed. I think I might lay off the CK Obsession variety prior to the hunting trip lest the local moose population get the wrong idea. :p
 
Hopefully they will come out with an "I've been living off of beer and moose pepperettes for three days" aroma. Oh wait, I've got that one nailed. I think I might lay off the CK Obsession variety prior to the hunting trip lest the local moose population get the wrong idea. :p

"Moose in Rut"

Why not put the skill to good use with "Male Phermone" scent........so how did you meet your wife.......
 
I’m drinking my first ( :rockin: ) homebrew as I type and, for the record, don’t mind the gas as I’m single and it’s a competition with my dog… actually dog is off dog food and eating homemade goodness for Labs and doesn’t fart as much, actually, doesn’t fart anymore and she now has a very shinny coat!

But… I on the other hand was introduced to a very nice Dunkelweizen (unpasteurized) from local brew pub and, not being a dark beer fan, I actually loved it! Drank 2 gal in 2 days but it messed me up! That was 2 days before my first homebrew was kegged so maybe I got used to it (my brew is a hefeweizen and honey ale). My brew is “mild” in comparison to the Dunkel…no complaints from the dog yet.
 
It's the complex dextrine chains that cause farts, which is why beano helps. Beano breaks down starches, it doesn't kill yeast. Commercial breweries have much more efficient mashes, hence the fewer residual starches in the beer.

Sure maybe yeast can survive your stomach acid, but it will not thrive. Downing a few thousand yeast cells will not cause adaptive and primary phases for fermentation. Consider this food for thought:

I have a Maibock that gives me righteous gas. This maibock has lagered at 34F for 14 weeks, it's crystal clear. I'm positive that if I tried to bottle condition this beer, it wouldn't work. There is not enough live yeast in the brew, and it's a common occurrence to add more yeast when bottling lagers.

However, this maibock recipe calls for 16 pounds of grain, and with my mediocre mashing skills, that leaves a ****load of complex starches in the wort. This is why my maibock gives me much more gas than say my hefeweisen, which is full of live yeast.

To reinforce these facts, I'd bet if you drank an all-extract brew, no steeping grains used, you'd have no flatulence. It's the mashing-at-home that causes our beer to contain the complex starches that our body can't break down. Can anyone attest to this?
 
I'm not so sure I got really bad gas out of my regular homebrews...but my second batch was an extract version of Bee Cave Brewery Porter (delicious recipe, EdWort!) with 16 ounces of Malto-Dextrine powder. That stuff is not fermentable...

My housemate / co-brewer, my girlfriend and I had brutal gas for the few weeks that the porter was around.
 
I'd forgotten how funny this thread was! Needed a 'pick-me-up' anyway.
-Experienced homebrewers can tell what the beer was by the tonal quality of the fart (grin).
 
I made this large beer, it's probably around 10 or 11% from an extract and some sucrose, my boil wasn't very active and now if I drink some of it the fauna in my GI tract have a field day with the stuff.

It is a young beer though so perhaps I will let it age and see.

I was wondering if a very active extract boil would break down these complex sugars? Like rolling carmelization for an hour?
 
Not only farts but I can set my watch to my bowel movements. It's like clockwork.
 
I'm glad I found this thread. Sort of. ;)

I'm about a month out from drinking my first home brew. It's a nice pilsner ale that I'm going to cold crash for a week to allow the dead yeasties to settle.

But I still think I better warn the Mrs. and set up the hunting cot in the garage. :mug:

The hummer crack made me guffaw. Don't know why, really. Wife's past menopause, so, well . . . :(
 
Haha My wife just said to me last night why my homebrews were making me stinky. Think I know why now. Don't worry have another brew It'll pass with time. I'll take the gas over a cheap alcohal headach. My 2 cents. :)
 
A college buddy of mine showed up once with his new wife and all I had to drink was a keg of green pale ale, far from being ready to drink. Those poor people farted all nightlong and the next day they were pale and exhausted. I learned that if the homebrew is not ready the best idea is to go and buy some.
 
Beers with a lot of unfermentables cause gas in the same way that beans do. Larger, more complex sugars aren't broken down until they reach the large intestines where they need the help of bacteria to break them down and in the process they release large amounts of gas in your bowel. Also, the same beers made with extracts as opposed to all grain tend to have more unfermentables, so it would be expected that extract beers give you more gas compared to the same beer made with all grain.
 
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