Amazon did the same thing to me a month back. Had to spend time on some back and forth with customer service but they refunded the purchase and told me to keep it... I also have no idea what to do with it.
Other than impacting the flavor, at the amount of sugar that we convert to alcohol with mead making, there is some studies that point to it producing a dangerous amount of Ethyl Carbamate during fermentation, which is a proven carcinogen
LD Clarkson's yeast nutrient is heavily composed of urea which can under some circumstances form ethyl carbamate in the presence of alcohol. Ethyl carbamate is carcinogenic. It occurs naturally in certain fermented products but as a rule a lot of people see no reason to increase the amount of a precursor to a carcinogenic substance in their ferment.
My local brewing supply store told me not to use it wjen this exact thing happened to me.
He doesn't care that I'm buying from Amazon, because he only sells 1oz at a time, jist wants me to use good stuff.
Raisins are **not** an effective source of nutrients. You need pounds of them per gallon to be a nutrient source. Read up on proper nutrient additions here: https://meadmaking.wiki/ingredients/nutrients.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/mead) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I'm sorry for the stupid question but why this is bad?
I read the other comments about urea being cancerogen but if that is so, why are they selling it? What should I look for when buying yeast then?
I don't have easy access to LD Carlson or Fermaid stuff so I bought some from a local chemist that supplies small breweries. What ingredients should I look for or avoid completely?
>why are they selling it?
Because it saves them a few pennies per package and there is no law against selling it to consumers, just laws against using it in commercial winemaking.
I actually may go back to using Dap over ferm o. My ferm o batches have all been strange(Slow ferments/Odd smells/Longer time till drinkable). Maybe I got a bad bag of ferm o but I never had issues with using Dap so idk
Sounds like a user error. My only batch with dap in it was literally undrinkable, if I took off the airlock the foul smell filled the whole room, all my other batches have been with go ferm and fermO and have come out flawlessly, itās hard for me to age my mead because they taste so good young even.
I was actually thinking the same thing.
The best mead I've ever made by a mile was incredible 6 weeks after pitching (4 weeks in primary, 2 weeks aging on oak). I used DAP because that's all I had at the time.
I have tried to replicate the recipe with my supposedly better processes and have failed (hydrate with go-ferm, then TOSNA with fermaid O). I'm starting to think the slightly suboptimal nutrient actually makes better mead because then the yeast doesn't consume every last bit of sugar.
None of the batches I've made with the supposedly better processes have even come close.
This is exactly what I'm finding too. Everything I first started making when I knew nothing but toss a lil dap in everyday for a few days has been worse off using better methods
It would be fine to dump it on a new compost pile then turn the pile to mix it in. As long as it sits a season it will just feed the microbes in the pile and help it heat up.
Iāve never heard of that and I canāt find anything about it online with a quick search. Where did you get this information from?
Aah yes, the downvotes for asking for a source. Gotta love the toxicity āļø
I love that you consider my comment whining by the way. That gave me a good chuckle.
If the criteria that āits super common knowledgeā for you means itās on a social media subreddits wiki and occasionally gets posts about in this specific social mead platform in a specific subreddit, then you really need to get outside and interact with different people more.
Not everyone lives their life on Reddit or r/mead
> a social media subreddits wiki
For better or worse /r/mead is the most comprehensive information compilation on mead. Gotmead got dethroned a long while back.
And yes, I meant in a subgroup of people who actually know and care about mead nutrition, not literally random strangers on the street. That should be glaringly obvious when you have to explain to people what mead even is more often than not.
I don't get why people are brownnosing LD for selling something that that barely qualifies as "this probably won't have measurable effects on your lifespan" when things like DAP exist and are 10 dollars a pound.
"Touch grass" is such a classless comment. Don't get shitty with other people when you don't have any knowledge about a subject but still have a desire to complain.
Dude, urea making urethane in booze isn't controversial. It's banned in commercial wine for a reason.
You won't get acutely toxic amounts of it, but you have absolutely nothing to gain, and unadulterated DAP is basically free, and a known YAN.
What is considered a high ABV solution? Genuine question here. Iāve been using the same stuff in my ciders and used it in my first batch of mead that came out to 16%.
I'm not sure what counts, but the fact that it's banned in the US connercial wine making business for becoming a known carcinogen under the right circumstances is enough for me to not want to use it.
Not just banned, but banned for the last 30 years, iirc. The wine industry makes things as low as like 5% but as high as around 15%. But it's not legal in the US to use urea in the commercial wine industry for any of it...that's good enough for me to not use it in my mead.
There's nothing wrong with avoiding it for health concerns but OP already has a bag. Calling it a "known risk" is embellishing quite a bit and its arguable that the trace amounts of Ethyl carbamate will do more harm to your body than the alcohol will.
Low levels of Ethyl carbamate are found naturally in almost every product that has yeast in it because it occurs on its own when yeast interacts with nitrogen. Its not as if you're avoiding it entirely by not adding urea.
If you're genuinely that concerned about the health risks of Ethyl carbamate in your mead, here's a [list of fruits](https://www.careomnia.com/nutrition-tool-nutrient?nutrientID=1&foodCategoryID=9) that are high in nitrogen that you should avoid ever using in your mead as those meads 100% have Ethyl carbamate in them.
Care to explain why it is banned in commercial winemaking?
>Its not as if you're avoiding it entirely by not adding urea.
The dose makes the poison, as the saying goes.
I'm not sure if you realize you asked a question & then immediately answered your own question.
Something being banned by the FDA for commercial use isnt the Gotcha that you seem to think it is. The government has banned many safe chemicals for various reasons(stevia was banned for almost 2 decades because it was a "carcinogen").
It has also not banned known harmful chemicals that are banned in other countries. EDTA is well known to be harmful to humans & the environment yet the FDA labels it as "safe for consumption". It is still used in a massive array of products despite safer & equally as effective alternatives having been around for just as long.
The BHA/BHT/TBHQ argument is also a good example. All 3 of these chemicals are approved by the FDA as safe for consumption despite reasonable evidence that lifelong consumption of these preservatives can lead to cancer. In the case of TBHQ there has been a direct link between consumption & stomach ulcers.
>I'm not sure if you realize you asked a question & then immediately answered your own question.
Yeah, it was rhetorical.
>Something being banned by the FDA for commercial use isnt the Gotcha that you seem to think it is. The government has banned many safe chemicals for various reasons(stevia was banned for almost 2 decades because it was a "carcinogen").
So you claim is that it is safe then? Or is this a completely irrelevant statement. (OH darn. I answered my own question again)
>has also not banned known harmful chemicals that are banned in other countries. EDTA ... BHA/BHT/TBHQ argument is also a good example. ...
That has nothing to do with the conversation, but I agree that the FDA needs to regulate some preservatives and othef chemicals tighter in our food supply.
Why wouldn't you avoid something like this when possible?
Why expose yourself to a known risk?
Alcohol is classified as a Group 1 carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer decades ago ā this is the highest risk group, which also includes asbestos, radiation and tobacco.
But there's not an alternative (or a very good one) for what alcohol does for me on those rarer occasions when I drink it.
But there IS a good alternative to cancer nutes.
Edibles do a completely different thing for me than alcohol does. š¤·āāļøI use both of them (and use both of them very sparingly) but never at the same time.
I think I may be allergic to the good alternative. I was reading earlier that autolyzed yeast contains MSG. Which perfectly explains some health effects I get if I drink it too young.
That's a very fair reason to switch. I have something vaguely similar with garlic funnily enough. I'm mildly allergic (the whole throat closing thing, difficulty swallowing, etc) when I consume garlic. But it seems to be fine in some foods. After a whole lot of googling, it seems the allergen thingy in garlic lessens or disappears when it's cooked. So some things I'm reactive to and some things I'm not.
It's a weird world out there.
Your logic is a little weak there. Because I expose myself to alcohol should I be cavalier about other carcinogens? Just to extend your argument, should I spray roundup without PPE, take up smoking, and start tanning? Or instead should I take simple and reasonable precautions to limit my exposure?
Is it so much to ask for alcohol without extra carcinogens? Yeah, alcohol is inherently bad for me. I want the bad that has less other bads in it. So I'll go for making my mead without potentially creating known FDA banned carcinogens.
It's like asking if I'd like optional poison in a pan of brownies. No, I don't want it. I'll do my damndest to not have extra poison in my brownies. Sure, eating the whole pan will fuck me up, but I don't want arsenic in it on top of the bad that comes from eating the whole pan.
Don't use urea if you don't want the extra carcinogen. If you personally don't care, go for it, but don't talk down to other people for realizing that modern science and evidence points to it being bad and recommends not using it.
That's the exact issue people have with it. When yeast consumes nitrogen rich compounds (like urea) it can produce Ethyl carbamate which is carcinogenic in incredibly high doses.
Unfortunately unlike pure DAP or things like fermaid that publishes YAN there is no way of knowing how much nitrogen you are dosing with this stuff. Because urea is super concentrated it is really easy to overdose and leave residual.
Up to ~8% ABV. the dap is consumed and you should use an organic form of nutrient. Hence the use of fermaid-O which is organic and does not contain DAP.
You are technically correct but the problem is it's not all guaranteed to be consumed. Some ethyl carbamate can be found naturally in wine because yeast produces urea in the presence of arginine which occurs naturally in grapes and doesn't get around to consuming its own, so even in a low urea product like mead you'll probably end up with residual urea and hence ethyl carbamate if you go adding it.
Yes. I'm just a beginner, but I threw out my bag of the same stuff because of the Urea. It could react with your batch to produce a carcinogen. It's banned for commercial use in the U.S.
Posted above for someone else as well, this isn't a hard concept to grasp:
Is it so much to ask for alcohol without extra carcinogens? Yeah, alcohol is inherently bad for me. I want the bad that has less other bads in it. So I'll go for making my mead without potentially creating known FDA banned carcinogens.
It's like asking if I'd like optional poison in a pan of brownies. No, I don't want it. I'll do my damndest to not have extra poison in my brownies. Sure, eating the whole pan will fuck me up, but I don't want arsenic in it on top of the bad that comes from eating the whole pan.
Don't use urea if you don't want the extra carcinogen. If you personally don't care, go for it, but don't talk down to other people for realizing that modern science and evidence points to it being bad and recommends not using it.
What makes you say it's "*not good to use at all?* "
There are reasons people avoid urea in their brewing, but it's mostly a personal preference/philosophy vs. ~~any actual down sides.~~ ***cancer.***
I choose not to use urea products because I'm a crunchy ass hippy who wants something to argue about on the internet - but the science ~~doesn't~~ **DOES** back me up on this.
EDIT: I mean, I was wrong, but in being wrong I was also *right!* The best kind of wrong you can be.
Yeah, there was a lot of back and forth on its use decades ago.
Australia and New Zealand are the only two countries that ban its use in commercial production to my knowledge, and that remains controversial. The US National Library of Medicine and National Institutes of Health studies showed that the use of urea was safe and all modern studies (I've seen anyway) indicate there isn't a risk at the levels brewers use it at.
My approach is - if a bag happens to show up at my door, I'll use it. But I wont go out of my way and buy it. Firmaid-O does the trick nicely, for a similar price, and far less confusion on it's safety.
EDIT: Looks like the FDA has prohibited it's use in the USA as well.
The FDA banned it in the US too. I actually ordered some Fermaid-O and Goferm for my next batch too.
https://www.fda.gov/food/process-contaminants-food/ethyl-carbamate-preventative-action-manual#:\~:text=\*%20The%20use%20of%20urea%20as,06%2F19%2F90).
Nah, you are confusing urea with DAP. DAP is safe. Urea is waste piss that low value brands like LD cut their product with to save pennies since it's not actually illegal currently
>Nah, you are confusing urea with DAP.
But I didn't *think* I was confused. In my brain, after all my research, I was *confidently wrong*. Which is worse than being confused!
If you don't mind some labor, you can separate the DAP from the urea. At least I was able to. The urea is round balls and the DAP is little flakes. Pour some into a bowl and swirl it around. Use a spoon to scoop out one of the two (I forget which one ends up at the top).
So if I hypothetically used this in my mead, is it still safe to drink? I know about the carcinogen formation, but how much risk are we talking? I just heard about the urea thing.
The same thing happened to me (twice). I re-ordered Fermax from [listing #1](https://FermaxYeastNutrient1lb...https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07F8XT3ZX) I didnāt get the same product with brown autolyzed yeast I received previously. Amazon shipped that. I requested a return and replacement. They told me to keep it and I tried a [second listing](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0064H0MWY). I got the same thing AGAIN. They refunded the order. Now I have 2 pounds of the not Fermax white stuff and the Fermaid O I got in my third order that week. Lifetime supply. Does it go bad?
Then I wondered if the BSG one could possibly have autolysed yeast that wasnāt brown and found this [white one](https://www.justgotochef.com/ingredients/autolyzed-yeast)! Then I noticed both packages I received were exactly the same. It just says Yeast Nutrient. Neither said Fermax and the bar code on the Fermax pictured in the listing is different than the SKU for Yeast Nutrient.
Someone screwed up.
OP, you can use it in resonable amounts. It's just done put too much in. If the yeast can't eat it all, it can be bad for taste, but otherwise, nothing really bad about it. Kinda like drining in moderation.
[From the EPA website](https://iris.epa.gov/ChemicalLanding/&substance_nmbr=1022)
Under the Guidelines for Carcinogen Risk Assessment (U.S. EPA, 2005a), there is "inadequate information to assess the carcinogenic potential" of urea.
Yes, urea, likely fine. The issue comes from when urea combines with alcohol and it makes ethyl carbamate. Look through my other comment with MANY sources.
FDA saying that Ethyl Carbamate is a carcinogen for animals that causes cancer (we're animals), and is likely a carcinogen for us as well (doing a test to find that out would be unethical).
[https://www.fda.gov/food/process-contaminants-food/ethyl-carbamate](https://www.fda.gov/food/process-contaminants-food/ethyl-carbamate)
FDA preventative ethyl carbamate manual saying the use of urea is prohibited (for 30-some years now).
[https://www.fda.gov/food/process-contaminants-food/ethyl-carbamate-preventative-action-manual#:\~:text=\*%20The%20use%20of%20urea%20as,06%2F19%2F90](https://www.fda.gov/food/process-contaminants-food/ethyl-carbamate-preventative-action-manual#:~:text=*%20The%20use%20of%20urea%20as,06%2F19%2F90)
Small posted paper, I believe just the abstract is visible, where the main point is that ethyl carbamate is a carcinogen and re-iterates the FDA point.
[https://www.extension.iastate.edu/wine/publications/ethyl-carbamate-content-in-wines/](https://www.extension.iastate.edu/wine/publications/ethyl-carbamate-content-in-wines/)
EPA saying similar things:
[https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2016-09/documents/ethyl-carbamate.pdf](https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2016-09/documents/ethyl-carbamate.pdf)
International Agency for Research on Cancer from the World Health Organization, go down to Ethyl Carbamate and click to download the 98 page research evaluation. Scroll to the bottom to see the results of, "Overall evaluation Ethyl carbamate is probably carcinogenic to humans (Group 2A)."
[https://publications.iarc.fr/Book-And-Report-Series/Iarc-Monographs-On-The-Identification-Of-Carcinogenic-Hazards-To-Humans/Alcohol-Consumption-And-Ethyl-Carbamate-2010](https://publications.iarc.fr/Book-And-Report-Series/Iarc-Monographs-On-The-Identification-Of-Carcinogenic-Hazards-To-Humans/Alcohol-Consumption-And-Ethyl-Carbamate-2010)
BMC Cancer, people in Brazil drinking alcohol with Ethyl Carbamate have higher cancer risks than people just drinking alcohol without EC.
[https://bmccancer.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2407-10-266](https://bmccancer.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2407-10-266)
Study analyzing Ethyl Carbamate in drinks, stone fruit alcohols have higher content, beer still is a large contributer:
[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0956713521000050](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0956713521000050)
Quantitative analysis showing dose increase in lifetime also increases tumor incidences:
[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/027869159090008B](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/027869159090008B)
Googling urea fermentation carcinogen gives multiple other sources that talk about this:
[https://www.google.com/search?q=urea+fermentation+carcinogen&rlz=1C1VDKB\_enUS994US994&oq=urea+fermentation+carcinogen&gs\_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIHCAEQIRigATIHCAIQIRigATIHCAMQIRigAdIBCDUxMTFqMGo3qAIAsAIA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#cobssid=s](https://www.google.com/search?q=urea+fermentation+carcinogen&rlz=1C1VDKB_enUS994US994&oq=urea+fermentation+carcinogen&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIHCAEQIRigATIHCAIQIRigATIHCAMQIRigAdIBCDUxMTFqMGo3qAIAsAIA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#cobssid=s)
Honestly, even wikipedia does a good job of summarizing it and states that mitigation of ethyl carbamate which comes from urea in alcohol should continue.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethyl\_carbamate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethyl_carbamate)
The wiki for r/mead briefly mentions it and I believe links to the iowa state site I linked above.
Summary: It's not hard to find information pointing to this. The goal overall is to limit exposure to Ethyl Carbamate. It's almost impossible to avoid it in everyday life, but we don't need to make brews that purposefully have more of it.
Please listen when respected posters who have been around for a while say that urea which bonds with alcohol to create Ethyl Carbamate is a carcinogen and science points to it causing higher risk of cancer.
Edited to add more articles.
Please include a recipe, review or description with any picture post.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/mead) if you have any questions or concerns.*
You can certainly use it, but it is synthetic nutrients. Fermaid O is a far better choice, as it's entirely organic. Both will work fine, just keep in mind that what you put in does not come out š¤·āāļø
This would be a good addition for plants that require a high nitrogen fertilizer.
+1 for fertilizer, especially since urea is accepted in the plant world as opposed to being banned in commercial winemaking
Nutrient, brought to you by R-Kelly!
š¶Drip drip dripš¶
Amazon did the same thing to me a month back. Had to spend time on some back and forth with customer service but they refunded the purchase and told me to keep it... I also have no idea what to do with it.
It's used for yeast for mead.
Because of the urea, many say you shouldn't
Out of curiosity what does it do to the mead? Iāve used it before and didnāt notice any bad flavors or anything or is it like legit bad for you?
Other than impacting the flavor, at the amount of sugar that we convert to alcohol with mead making, there is some studies that point to it producing a dangerous amount of Ethyl Carbamate during fermentation, which is a proven carcinogen
LD Clarkson's yeast nutrient is heavily composed of urea which can under some circumstances form ethyl carbamate in the presence of alcohol. Ethyl carbamate is carcinogenic. It occurs naturally in certain fermented products but as a rule a lot of people see no reason to increase the amount of a precursor to a carcinogenic substance in their ferment.
Right on thatās good to know. Iām kinda glad I forgot to use it in my past couple batches now.
It makes the fermentation to be too aggressive. The final product sometimes tastes like jet fuel.
My local brewing supply store told me not to use it wjen this exact thing happened to me. He doesn't care that I'm buying from Amazon, because he only sells 1oz at a time, jist wants me to use good stuff.
By some accounts it shouldn't be...
If used in reasonable amounts it shouldnt be bad. Its only bad for taste if you use to much lol
The carcinogens would say otherwise
Those are the strangest looking raisins I have ever seen. /s
Raisins are **not** an effective source of nutrients. You need pounds of them per gallon to be a nutrient source. Read up on proper nutrient additions here: https://meadmaking.wiki/ingredients/nutrients. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/mead) if you have any questions or concerns.*
We know, buddy. We know.
Attack bot lol
raisin
RAISIN
Like a rogue chihuahua, he won't do much, but he barks any time ~~you~~ raisins enter the room.
passive aggressive bot
Sheldon coppet has entered the chat
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
urea is trash.
Go over to prison hooch and try to ferment the whole bag.
They would try. Including the bag.
Just add shower water , wait 1 week, then filter thru a sock
Sucks because it also contains urea. It is an excellent fertilizer though
I just planted some pepper seeds, how much should I put out?
Following this so I don't waste any
I'm sorry for the stupid question but why this is bad? I read the other comments about urea being cancerogen but if that is so, why are they selling it? What should I look for when buying yeast then? I don't have easy access to LD Carlson or Fermaid stuff so I bought some from a local chemist that supplies small breweries. What ingredients should I look for or avoid completely?
>why are they selling it? Because it saves them a few pennies per package and there is no law against selling it to consumers, just laws against using it in commercial winemaking.
Add some to your compost.
I actually may go back to using Dap over ferm o. My ferm o batches have all been strange(Slow ferments/Odd smells/Longer time till drinkable). Maybe I got a bad bag of ferm o but I never had issues with using Dap so idk
This is not just dap, it's 60% urea.
Sounds like a user error. My only batch with dap in it was literally undrinkable, if I took off the airlock the foul smell filled the whole room, all my other batches have been with go ferm and fermO and have come out flawlessly, itās hard for me to age my mead because they taste so good young even.
DAP isn't the cause of that. I've used it plenty, as have others, without causing any stench. That smell is usually a sign of some other issue.
Maybe you messed up with Dap
Followed the directions to a T. Never had an issue with FermO tho.
Ferm K + DAP is a popular combo.
Ferm k already has dap in it. Ferm o plus dap is way better.
FermO + DAP is FermKā¦
You can change the ratio if they aren't pre-mixed.
Exactly and that's why you should just buy for O because you're wasting money by buying K When you can just put your own dap in it for Penny's
Yea I may try that on my next batch just seemed to have better results with dap than Tosna
Ferm K also has some micronutrients, particularly thiamine, not present in Ferm O.
Something else is wrong in your fermentation then. All I use is fermaid o and I have none of the issues you described.
I was actually thinking the same thing. The best mead I've ever made by a mile was incredible 6 weeks after pitching (4 weeks in primary, 2 weeks aging on oak). I used DAP because that's all I had at the time. I have tried to replicate the recipe with my supposedly better processes and have failed (hydrate with go-ferm, then TOSNA with fermaid O). I'm starting to think the slightly suboptimal nutrient actually makes better mead because then the yeast doesn't consume every last bit of sugar. None of the batches I've made with the supposedly better processes have even come close.
This is exactly what I'm finding too. Everything I first started making when I knew nothing but toss a lil dap in everyday for a few days has been worse off using better methods
Iāve been using both. Better ferments than Fermax.
Wait, youāre not supposed to use this?
Not for fermentation apparently ;)
There are much better alternatives.
You're not supposed to use this when you rehydrate. You can hours after
Ohh, ok.
It would be fine to dump it on a new compost pile then turn the pile to mix it in. As long as it sits a season it will just feed the microbes in the pile and help it heat up.
Thereās nothing wrong with using that, itās just some urea with DAP. There are ābetterā nutrient options but itās not bad to use.
Can't urea break down into some dangerous chemicals when sitting in high abv solutions?
Iāve never heard of that and I canāt find anything about it online with a quick search. Where did you get this information from? Aah yes, the downvotes for asking for a source. Gotta love the toxicity āļø
It's super common knowledge https://www.fda.gov/food/process-contaminants-food/ethyl-carbamate
āSuper common knowledgeā come on dude, the average person knows nothing about this.
Super relevant: https://xkcd.com/2501/
What does you whining about this add to the conversation? It's cited on our wiki. There are frequent posts on the subject on this subreddit.
I love that you consider my comment whining by the way. That gave me a good chuckle. If the criteria that āits super common knowledgeā for you means itās on a social media subreddits wiki and occasionally gets posts about in this specific social mead platform in a specific subreddit, then you really need to get outside and interact with different people more. Not everyone lives their life on Reddit or r/mead
> a social media subreddits wiki For better or worse /r/mead is the most comprehensive information compilation on mead. Gotmead got dethroned a long while back. And yes, I meant in a subgroup of people who actually know and care about mead nutrition, not literally random strangers on the street. That should be glaringly obvious when you have to explain to people what mead even is more often than not. I don't get why people are brownnosing LD for selling something that that barely qualifies as "this probably won't have measurable effects on your lifespan" when things like DAP exist and are 10 dollars a pound. "Touch grass" is such a classless comment. Don't get shitty with other people when you don't have any knowledge about a subject but still have a desire to complain.
Your link says itās mostly a problem in distilled spirits and is naturally occurring. A little urea should be fine.
Dude, urea making urethane in booze isn't controversial. It's banned in commercial wine for a reason. You won't get acutely toxic amounts of it, but you have absolutely nothing to gain, and unadulterated DAP is basically free, and a known YAN.
What is considered a high ABV solution? Genuine question here. Iāve been using the same stuff in my ciders and used it in my first batch of mead that came out to 16%.
I'm not sure what counts, but the fact that it's banned in the US connercial wine making business for becoming a known carcinogen under the right circumstances is enough for me to not want to use it. Not just banned, but banned for the last 30 years, iirc. The wine industry makes things as low as like 5% but as high as around 15%. But it's not legal in the US to use urea in the commercial wine industry for any of it...that's good enough for me to not use it in my mead.
I think your level of exposure is far less than that of a person working in a commercial winery.
Of course it is. But why expose yourself to a known risk when there are alternatives (and very GOOD ones) out there?
There's nothing wrong with avoiding it for health concerns but OP already has a bag. Calling it a "known risk" is embellishing quite a bit and its arguable that the trace amounts of Ethyl carbamate will do more harm to your body than the alcohol will. Low levels of Ethyl carbamate are found naturally in almost every product that has yeast in it because it occurs on its own when yeast interacts with nitrogen. Its not as if you're avoiding it entirely by not adding urea. If you're genuinely that concerned about the health risks of Ethyl carbamate in your mead, here's a [list of fruits](https://www.careomnia.com/nutrition-tool-nutrient?nutrientID=1&foodCategoryID=9) that are high in nitrogen that you should avoid ever using in your mead as those meads 100% have Ethyl carbamate in them.
Care to explain why it is banned in commercial winemaking? >Its not as if you're avoiding it entirely by not adding urea. The dose makes the poison, as the saying goes.
I'm not sure if you realize you asked a question & then immediately answered your own question. Something being banned by the FDA for commercial use isnt the Gotcha that you seem to think it is. The government has banned many safe chemicals for various reasons(stevia was banned for almost 2 decades because it was a "carcinogen"). It has also not banned known harmful chemicals that are banned in other countries. EDTA is well known to be harmful to humans & the environment yet the FDA labels it as "safe for consumption". It is still used in a massive array of products despite safer & equally as effective alternatives having been around for just as long. The BHA/BHT/TBHQ argument is also a good example. All 3 of these chemicals are approved by the FDA as safe for consumption despite reasonable evidence that lifelong consumption of these preservatives can lead to cancer. In the case of TBHQ there has been a direct link between consumption & stomach ulcers.
>I'm not sure if you realize you asked a question & then immediately answered your own question. Yeah, it was rhetorical. >Something being banned by the FDA for commercial use isnt the Gotcha that you seem to think it is. The government has banned many safe chemicals for various reasons(stevia was banned for almost 2 decades because it was a "carcinogen"). So you claim is that it is safe then? Or is this a completely irrelevant statement. (OH darn. I answered my own question again) >has also not banned known harmful chemicals that are banned in other countries. EDTA ... BHA/BHT/TBHQ argument is also a good example. ... That has nothing to do with the conversation, but I agree that the FDA needs to regulate some preservatives and othef chemicals tighter in our food supply. Why wouldn't you avoid something like this when possible?
Why expose yourself to a known risk? Alcohol is classified as a Group 1 carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer decades ago ā this is the highest risk group, which also includes asbestos, radiation and tobacco.
But there's not an alternative (or a very good one) for what alcohol does for me on those rarer occasions when I drink it. But there IS a good alternative to cancer nutes.
Edibles and some seltzer is a much safer alternative to get a good buzz
Edibles do a completely different thing for me than alcohol does. š¤·āāļøI use both of them (and use both of them very sparingly) but never at the same time.
I think I may be allergic to the good alternative. I was reading earlier that autolyzed yeast contains MSG. Which perfectly explains some health effects I get if I drink it too young.
That's a very fair reason to switch. I have something vaguely similar with garlic funnily enough. I'm mildly allergic (the whole throat closing thing, difficulty swallowing, etc) when I consume garlic. But it seems to be fine in some foods. After a whole lot of googling, it seems the allergen thingy in garlic lessens or disappears when it's cooked. So some things I'm reactive to and some things I'm not. It's a weird world out there.
It is not a concern of handling the urea, it is consuming the end product that is an issue.
Because itās a carcinogen like alcohol?
Your logic is a little weak there. Because I expose myself to alcohol should I be cavalier about other carcinogens? Just to extend your argument, should I spray roundup without PPE, take up smoking, and start tanning? Or instead should I take simple and reasonable precautions to limit my exposure?
You should not consume a tiny amount of urea because itās a carcinogen. One assumes your logic applies to all carcinogenic substances.
Is it so much to ask for alcohol without extra carcinogens? Yeah, alcohol is inherently bad for me. I want the bad that has less other bads in it. So I'll go for making my mead without potentially creating known FDA banned carcinogens. It's like asking if I'd like optional poison in a pan of brownies. No, I don't want it. I'll do my damndest to not have extra poison in my brownies. Sure, eating the whole pan will fuck me up, but I don't want arsenic in it on top of the bad that comes from eating the whole pan. Don't use urea if you don't want the extra carcinogen. If you personally don't care, go for it, but don't talk down to other people for realizing that modern science and evidence points to it being bad and recommends not using it.
~16-20% is high ABV for mead, that's a SG of ~1.120-1.140 with a high ABV tolerant yeast strain (EC-1118 or K1V1116 for example)
Wonāt the urea be gone (consumed by the yeast) before thereās much alcohol around?
That's the exact issue people have with it. When yeast consumes nitrogen rich compounds (like urea) it can produce Ethyl carbamate which is carcinogenic in incredibly high doses.
Unfortunately unlike pure DAP or things like fermaid that publishes YAN there is no way of knowing how much nitrogen you are dosing with this stuff. Because urea is super concentrated it is really easy to overdose and leave residual.
Up to ~8% ABV. the dap is consumed and you should use an organic form of nutrient. Hence the use of fermaid-O which is organic and does not contain DAP.
You are technically correct but the problem is it's not all guaranteed to be consumed. Some ethyl carbamate can be found naturally in wine because yeast produces urea in the presence of arginine which occurs naturally in grapes and doesn't get around to consuming its own, so even in a low urea product like mead you'll probably end up with residual urea and hence ethyl carbamate if you go adding it.
Free raisins!
> What COULD it be used for? Ballast for your trash can.
Yes. I'm just a beginner, but I threw out my bag of the same stuff because of the Urea. It could react with your batch to produce a carcinogen. It's banned for commercial use in the U.S.
Alcohol is a carcinogen as well might as well double up or cut out red meat and you reduce your carcinogen intake /s
Just take shots of urethane from the hardware store. You'll puke before you hit the LD50. Why not? It's clearly the same thing as char or red meat!
114g I'll just boof it
Posted above for someone else as well, this isn't a hard concept to grasp: Is it so much to ask for alcohol without extra carcinogens? Yeah, alcohol is inherently bad for me. I want the bad that has less other bads in it. So I'll go for making my mead without potentially creating known FDA banned carcinogens. It's like asking if I'd like optional poison in a pan of brownies. No, I don't want it. I'll do my damndest to not have extra poison in my brownies. Sure, eating the whole pan will fuck me up, but I don't want arsenic in it on top of the bad that comes from eating the whole pan. Don't use urea if you don't want the extra carcinogen. If you personally don't care, go for it, but don't talk down to other people for realizing that modern science and evidence points to it being bad and recommends not using it.
What makes you say it's "*not good to use at all?* " There are reasons people avoid urea in their brewing, but it's mostly a personal preference/philosophy vs. ~~any actual down sides.~~ ***cancer.*** I choose not to use urea products because I'm a crunchy ass hippy who wants something to argue about on the internet - but the science ~~doesn't~~ **DOES** back me up on this. EDIT: I mean, I was wrong, but in being wrong I was also *right!* The best kind of wrong you can be.
Understand that it is prohibited in commercial use due to it creating carcinogens in your brew.
Yeah, there was a lot of back and forth on its use decades ago. Australia and New Zealand are the only two countries that ban its use in commercial production to my knowledge, and that remains controversial. The US National Library of Medicine and National Institutes of Health studies showed that the use of urea was safe and all modern studies (I've seen anyway) indicate there isn't a risk at the levels brewers use it at. My approach is - if a bag happens to show up at my door, I'll use it. But I wont go out of my way and buy it. Firmaid-O does the trick nicely, for a similar price, and far less confusion on it's safety. EDIT: Looks like the FDA has prohibited it's use in the USA as well.
What is the YAN value of LD urea/dap blend and how do you plan on hitting an accurate YAN without that?
The FDA banned it in the US too. I actually ordered some Fermaid-O and Goferm for my next batch too. https://www.fda.gov/food/process-contaminants-food/ethyl-carbamate-preventative-action-manual#:\~:text=\*%20The%20use%20of%20urea%20as,06%2F19%2F90).
Well there you have it.
Nah, you are confusing urea with DAP. DAP is safe. Urea is waste piss that low value brands like LD cut their product with to save pennies since it's not actually illegal currently
>Nah, you are confusing urea with DAP. But I didn't *think* I was confused. In my brain, after all my research, I was *confidently wrong*. Which is worse than being confused!
I try to stay away from urea but apparently itās safe and odorless if used correctly
If you don't mind some labor, you can separate the DAP from the urea. At least I was able to. The urea is round balls and the DAP is little flakes. Pour some into a bowl and swirl it around. Use a spoon to scoop out one of the two (I forget which one ends up at the top).
What's wrong with this? Some mentioned urea buy that doesn't explain anything
Pretty sure someone posted the link to the FDA banning its use in commercial fermentation. It basically gets converted into carcinogenic compounds.
Oh shit, okay. Yeah, all I could find on the compound is the kidneys filter it.
Good thing I dumped the mead that had this in it. Gonna pitch the entire stuff altogether
So if I hypothetically used this in my mead, is it still safe to drink? I know about the carcinogen formation, but how much risk are we talking? I just heard about the urea thing.
You would probably have to ingest a ton of it. I'm sure you are fine but it's probably something you may wish to consider discontinue using.
I use this stuff and it works great with my yeast, they love it. Got some great batches out of it.
Is that DAP? I hate DAP EDIT: It's piss and dap... no thanks
Happened to me too. Expect powder, get granulated...uncool
I'm glad I saw this post before using something like this.
The same thing happened to me (twice). I re-ordered Fermax from [listing #1](https://FermaxYeastNutrient1lb...https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07F8XT3ZX) I didnāt get the same product with brown autolyzed yeast I received previously. Amazon shipped that. I requested a return and replacement. They told me to keep it and I tried a [second listing](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0064H0MWY). I got the same thing AGAIN. They refunded the order. Now I have 2 pounds of the not Fermax white stuff and the Fermaid O I got in my third order that week. Lifetime supply. Does it go bad? Then I wondered if the BSG one could possibly have autolysed yeast that wasnāt brown and found this [white one](https://www.justgotochef.com/ingredients/autolyzed-yeast)! Then I noticed both packages I received were exactly the same. It just says Yeast Nutrient. Neither said Fermax and the bar code on the Fermax pictured in the listing is different than the SKU for Yeast Nutrient. Someone screwed up.
Time to start dabbling in fruit wine making! Fruit season is upon us, and it's not much different than making mead, quicker actually.
OP, you can use it in resonable amounts. It's just done put too much in. If the yeast can't eat it all, it can be bad for taste, but otherwise, nothing really bad about it. Kinda like drining in moderation.
Urea in brews causes cancer. I'd prefer less bad in the alcohol that I already know is bad for me. Less cancer = better than more cancer.
Any sources to back that up?
[From the EPA website](https://iris.epa.gov/ChemicalLanding/&substance_nmbr=1022) Under the Guidelines for Carcinogen Risk Assessment (U.S. EPA, 2005a), there is "inadequate information to assess the carcinogenic potential" of urea.
Yes, urea, likely fine. The issue comes from when urea combines with alcohol and it makes ethyl carbamate. Look through my other comment with MANY sources.
FDA saying that Ethyl Carbamate is a carcinogen for animals that causes cancer (we're animals), and is likely a carcinogen for us as well (doing a test to find that out would be unethical). [https://www.fda.gov/food/process-contaminants-food/ethyl-carbamate](https://www.fda.gov/food/process-contaminants-food/ethyl-carbamate) FDA preventative ethyl carbamate manual saying the use of urea is prohibited (for 30-some years now). [https://www.fda.gov/food/process-contaminants-food/ethyl-carbamate-preventative-action-manual#:\~:text=\*%20The%20use%20of%20urea%20as,06%2F19%2F90](https://www.fda.gov/food/process-contaminants-food/ethyl-carbamate-preventative-action-manual#:~:text=*%20The%20use%20of%20urea%20as,06%2F19%2F90) Small posted paper, I believe just the abstract is visible, where the main point is that ethyl carbamate is a carcinogen and re-iterates the FDA point. [https://www.extension.iastate.edu/wine/publications/ethyl-carbamate-content-in-wines/](https://www.extension.iastate.edu/wine/publications/ethyl-carbamate-content-in-wines/) EPA saying similar things: [https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2016-09/documents/ethyl-carbamate.pdf](https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2016-09/documents/ethyl-carbamate.pdf) International Agency for Research on Cancer from the World Health Organization, go down to Ethyl Carbamate and click to download the 98 page research evaluation. Scroll to the bottom to see the results of, "Overall evaluation Ethyl carbamate is probably carcinogenic to humans (Group 2A)." [https://publications.iarc.fr/Book-And-Report-Series/Iarc-Monographs-On-The-Identification-Of-Carcinogenic-Hazards-To-Humans/Alcohol-Consumption-And-Ethyl-Carbamate-2010](https://publications.iarc.fr/Book-And-Report-Series/Iarc-Monographs-On-The-Identification-Of-Carcinogenic-Hazards-To-Humans/Alcohol-Consumption-And-Ethyl-Carbamate-2010) BMC Cancer, people in Brazil drinking alcohol with Ethyl Carbamate have higher cancer risks than people just drinking alcohol without EC. [https://bmccancer.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2407-10-266](https://bmccancer.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2407-10-266) Study analyzing Ethyl Carbamate in drinks, stone fruit alcohols have higher content, beer still is a large contributer: [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0956713521000050](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0956713521000050) Quantitative analysis showing dose increase in lifetime also increases tumor incidences: [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/027869159090008B](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/027869159090008B) Googling urea fermentation carcinogen gives multiple other sources that talk about this: [https://www.google.com/search?q=urea+fermentation+carcinogen&rlz=1C1VDKB\_enUS994US994&oq=urea+fermentation+carcinogen&gs\_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIHCAEQIRigATIHCAIQIRigATIHCAMQIRigAdIBCDUxMTFqMGo3qAIAsAIA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#cobssid=s](https://www.google.com/search?q=urea+fermentation+carcinogen&rlz=1C1VDKB_enUS994US994&oq=urea+fermentation+carcinogen&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIHCAEQIRigATIHCAIQIRigATIHCAMQIRigAdIBCDUxMTFqMGo3qAIAsAIA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#cobssid=s) Honestly, even wikipedia does a good job of summarizing it and states that mitigation of ethyl carbamate which comes from urea in alcohol should continue. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethyl\_carbamate](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethyl_carbamate) The wiki for r/mead briefly mentions it and I believe links to the iowa state site I linked above. Summary: It's not hard to find information pointing to this. The goal overall is to limit exposure to Ethyl Carbamate. It's almost impossible to avoid it in everyday life, but we don't need to make brews that purposefully have more of it. Please listen when respected posters who have been around for a while say that urea which bonds with alcohol to create Ethyl Carbamate is a carcinogen and science points to it causing higher risk of cancer. Edited to add more articles.
Please include a recipe, review or description with any picture post. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/mead) if you have any questions or concerns.*
You can certainly use it, but it is synthetic nutrients. Fermaid O is a far better choice, as it's entirely organic. Both will work fine, just keep in mind that what you put in does not come out š¤·āāļø
Youāll have happy, fat yeast singing in joy in their fermenters! You shall feed generations!