Extract brewing/Kit Beer with B-Brite

[brewtex]

Hey,
Anybody ever try to use b-brite to treat their brewing water? Here's what I'm thinking: Heat 2 gallons to boiling add a canned kit beer, DME,and corn sugar.Treat the cooled 3 gallons tap water treated with b-brite instead of boiling it and having to cool it down. My Theroy:(1)There is all the arguments about weather b-brite is a cleaner or sanitizer this is probably more of an issue of concentration/contact time.(2) Effect on beer flavor,granted this is probably not such a good idea if were talking American Lager, but the HCO3/CO3 (b-brite is a percarbonate cleaner) would be a benifit to say Irish Stout and maybe some English styles.(3) Peroxide dissisociation should oxygenate wort.Critiacal analysis please.

[BrewDog]

1) Not sure if there are more chems in there besides the peroxide activators. If so, they can contribute off flavors or even poisons if they are concentrated enough.

2) There are several things that happen in the boil:

-Sterilization - wort is sterilized
-Isomerization - hop alpha acids become bitter. without boiling you get zero bitterness
-Concentration (Evaporation) - excess water is removed to make the sugar concentration stronger.
-Carmelization (Color and Flavor Development) - sugars cook to provide color and flavor components.
-Volitilization - SMM (and other off flavor producing elements) are driven off in the boil.
-Flocclation - proteins are coagulated to remove them from the wort. these produce off flavors or haze if left in the beer.

So, aeration and sterilization are taken care of, but the other components of the boil are not performed, so you won't get very good beer at the end if you try this.

[brewtex]

Dawg,

;) I was thinking more along the lines of the canned pre-hopped beer kits.Under that premise hop alpha-acid isomerization,wort carmelization,volatization of DMS,and protein coagulation should have already occured at the brewery by the manufacturer of the kit.The addition of the one pound of DME as a source for additional fermetables contributions to these aspects should be minimal. Certainly, if were talking unhopped extract then it would be the typical extract partial boil.
However, the point you bring up about the potential toxcicty relative to concentration of unknown/known constituents of the b-brite does make the whole idea abit unsavory:eek: