Transmutable Explorations

Category: Beer

  • My Alcohol Dichotomy

    My Alcohol Dichotomy

    I love beer… but I also strive to live the healthiest possible lifestyle.  I often encounter people that think I’m embellishing my beer resume since I guess I don’t look/act like the typical 40+ year old beer drinker.  I have enough proof that I’m not beefing up this resume 😁 Read on if you’re interested in understanding more how I combat the alcohol dichotomy in my life.

    The Alcohol Dichotomy in my Life

    There was a time where studies thought that drinking a small amount could have positive health benefits.  Newer studies have been pointing more and more to there being zero level of alcohol that has health benefits.  I’m such a fan of alcohol (especially beer) that I can’t really imagine a life without imbibing a bit.  Dropping this vice, would likely make an immediate net positive increase in my health.  Because of this, many people who know how much time and resources I spend on optimizing my health, ask me why I don’t do it.  The simple answer is: I enjoy it immensely!  That doesn’t mean that I don’t do things to make the most of the vice that is most detrimental to my health.

    My love for Alcohol (Beer)

    Beer is a weakness of mine.  I love the taste and the variety.  Even before Untappd gamified it, I was a big fan of the social aspect.  The chemistry and biology involved in creating it throws me back to what it must have been like to be an alchemist.  Understanding the history and geography of how ‘styles’ evolved lured me into becoming a beer judge.  All of this led me to eventually holding beer education events and guided tastings.

    Impact on Health

    At the same time, more and more research is showing that no amount of alcohol is healthy.  Ingesting it, in many ways, goes directly against every other thing I do throughout my day.  This definitely puts me in an ugly situation.  I’m going to argue that there is some good that comes from drinking beer.  At the same time, I’m also going to enumerate the bad that I’ve seen as well.  Keep in mind that everything I’m going to mention is either indisputable fact, or things that I’ve seen directly in my N=1 experiments.

    The Bad

    • Ethanol is undoubtedly a toxin to the human body.  Your liver will go into overdrive the moment it detects its presence and will focus on eliminating it rather than on other more beneficial reactions that the liver is typically involved in.
    • Alcohol dehydrates the human body.  This is part of what often leads to the dreaded ‘hangover’.
    • Alcohol is mostly an ’empty’ calorie.  It’s also the most calorically dense macronutrient after fat (7 calories per gram).  These calories add up!
    • Alcohol negatively impacts sleep, HRV and heart rate.  I’ve conducted numerous experiments related to this using my Oura ring.  For me, crossing beyond two drinks within a few hours of going to bed is extremely detrimental to all of these biomarkers.
    • Frequent drinking leads to a reduction in free testosterone.  I’ve verified this through blood tests via InsideTracker.
    • Heavy drinking seems to induce higher levels of anxiety and depression the day after.  This is subjective as I have no objective way of measuring it.
    • Beyond a point, drinking leads to poor decisions.  These take many forms, but one of the worst for me in terms of health is that I find it very easy to choose less than ideal foods.  This is exasperated by the fact that many places that serve alcohol rarely have healthy food choices to begin with.
    • Drinking has a tendency to destroy any hope of being productive afterward.  This is definitely the case for the day of drinking, but often the hangover effect makes it carry into the next day as well.

    The Good

    Despite this extensive list of bad things, there are a few things that I consider ‘good’ about drinking ‘real’ beer.  I consider anything unfiltered, brewed without extra sweet adjuncts to be ‘real’ beer.

    Real beer is a good source of B vitamins.  This is a byproduct of the yeast used to make it.  If you’re drinking beer that has had this filtered out, you’re not getting the goodness that you should from your favorite fermented beverage.  There’s a reason why health conscious folks have been adding brewer’s yeast to their food for years.

    I’ve noticed that ‘real’ beer (in moderation) seems to have a positive benefit on my gut health.  I started by measuring this subjectively, but have since confirmed using Viome tests.  Beer is fermented (hence a probiotic) and often is a rich source of polyphenols.  Hops used in beer are a unique source of many plant compounds that have several health benefits.

    Moderate drinking helps me keep my blood pressure lower.  This is a fine line, one drink can easily put me over the edge and raise it instead.  The occasional drink definitely seems to help with stress.

    The biggest ‘pro’ of drinking beer to me is it’s positive impact on my mental health.  Kicking back a few sessionable lagers with friends is one of my favorite ways of socializing.

    Mitigating the Bad

    Do the ‘pros’ of drinking beer outweigh the ‘cons’?  Definitely not!  Because of this, I’m always striving for new ways to mitigate the ‘bad’.  Here are some of my tips and tricks.

    Before Drinking

    Mitigation starts long before you start drinking.  First of all, to combat the productivity destroying aspects of a few drinks, I make sure to get all important things for the day out of the way before starting.  Now before you start calling me Captain Obvious, note that this doesn’t just apply to work related items.

    One of the highest priority things that I make sure before I go out for a few drinks is to make sure I get in a good resistance training.  Now this won’t account for all the ’empty’ calories you’re about to consume, but getting your large muscle groups moving helps make the best of the large amount of carbohydrates that will soon be flooding your system.  Didn’t ensure you did this before going out?  I’ve found that something as simple as a few air squats and wall pushes in the bathroom seems to make a big difference.

    Before going out, it also pays to eat something on the healthy side.  This will hopefully make you less likely to gorge on more calorically dense, nutrient devoid bar food throughout the night.

    If you’re into supplements, and a regular drinker, it helps to have a go to stack of liver builders to try to offset any damage to your liver that you’re likely causing.  I have a group of things that works very well for me based on measuring blood levels of liver enzymes.  I’ll also take a binder before leaving the house.  I used to use activated charcoal exclusively, but recently have been preferring algae in the form of both chlorella and spirulina.

    Finally, I’ve recently become a fan of ZBiotics.  This probiotic that helps your body breakdown acetaldehyde has become a great tool for making my next day more productive.

    While Drinking

    I don’t really have anything groundbreaking to offer here.  This is mostly all been said before.  Stay hydrated!  If water doesn’t always cut it for you, you can mix an electrolyte powder in every few glasses.  Respiration helps to eliminate alcohol from your system, so if you can get some steps in while drinking, do it!  I’ll also do my in bathroom workout routine throughout the night.  Just a few wall pushes/air squats is all it takes!

    After Drinking

    Again, nothing that hasn’t been said before here… Remember how important hydration is?  Keep doing it!  Now is the time to replace electrolytes, B vitamins and magnesium.  Definitely do not go to sleep right away!  Try to put as much time between that last drink and sleep as you can because that’s going to negatively impact your next day.

    If you’re interested in really taking things to the next level though, I recommend using much of my sauna cocktail (you can skip the niacin and taurine).  I initially developed this to support detoxification pathways while in the sauna but in general it’s great overall liver support.  In addition to this, I add glycine and NAC as these both upregulate the production of the most powerful endogenous antioxidant: glutathione.  I’ve also started taking DHM at this point as well.

    Other General Rules

    I have a few other general rules.  I feel like these rules have the biggest positive impact for me other than maybe the pro-liver supplements.

    First, I try to always stick to ‘real’ beer, fresh from the source.  I’ll sample a ‘lactose’ beer, but I’m avoiding drinking those by the glass.  I want something as close to what my great great grandfather drank as possible.

    I try to separate days where I have more than one drink by at least two days.  In my experience, drinking more than this tends to start a negative trend with regards to body composition.  There are likely several reasons for this.  This could create a tendency to short your workout routine.  There’s obviously the extra calories factor.  I also feel that, at least for me, this seems to cause body changes that slow fat burning.  I don’t have ways of easily measuring the biomarkers that I believe are involved, but the moment that I can, I plan to conduct an experiment into this.

    Many people feel that day drinking is the ultimate Degen move.  I drink during the day whenever possible.  The detrimental impact of drinking on sleep is so obvious that I want to put as much time as possible between that last drink and bed.  Just make sure that you shift your drinking window rather than elongating it 🤣

    Always eat a healthy meal before drinking.  If you must eat while you’re out, opt for healthier options.  Stay away from the fried stuff and desserts.  Avoid the pizza.  Go for lean protein, undressed salads and sides of vegetables when possible

    Conclusion

    So there you have it.  This is how I try to incorporate something that I love into my life while recognizing it as inherently ‘unhealthy’.  Everything here allows me to go out for a few drinks while still remaining productive the next day.  Maybe these things will work for you?  Maybe you have something that you do that I haven’t tried?  If so, drop me a line… or better yet, let’s discuss it over a ‘real’ beer!

  • ZBiotics Review

    ZBiotics Review

    There are parts of the year when there is a beer fest every weekend.  Whenever the weather is great, I want to hang out at a great outdoor beer garden.  If I ever want to become a BJCP Master Beer Judge, I also need to take advantage of judging homebrew whenever I can.  This lifestyle can also hinder your ability to get things done the next day.  I’m not into that.  Earlier this year, I got to try ZBiotics as a way to combat this.  Read on for my ZBiotics review.

    Alcohol Metabolism 101

    There’s no longer any doubt that alcohol is a (sweet, delicious 😁) poison to the human body.  When you drink alcohol, your body almost immediately begins a cascade of mechanisms to eliminate its harmful effects.  Alcohol is absorbed into the bloodstream.  It gets shuttled to the liver where enzymes start to break it down.  Here it is converted into acetaldehyde which is then converted to acetate.  Acetaldehyde is toxic and the process of breaking it down is gated by the quantity of the enzymes that you have available and how well they are suited to actually cause this breakdown.  Acetaldehyde is theorized to be the main cause of both long term alcohol-caused damage and the dreaded ‘day after’ effects of drinking too much.

    Home Remedy

    Like everyone who drinks often, I have my own home remedy for making the next day be better than it could be.  I pretty much follow the Jim Koch (from Samuel Adams) pre-drinking ritual.  Make sure to do everything I can to stay hydrated during and after drinking.  First thing upon waking, take some B-Vitamins and down some electrolytes.  These things combined with never drinking on an empty stomach tend to do alright by me.  When I’m eating low carb, I noticed that it’s also best to stop that before drinking.  Something about having some carbs in my stomach seems to really help.  After drinking, I’ve become a big fan of using DHM.

    ZBiotics Review

    I had heard about ZBiotics on several podcasts that I listen to regularly.  The claims were strong and I was interested in trying it out.  The current routine that I follow has a lot of moving parts, and avoiding any aspect of it could definitely throw off your morning.  I reached out to the company, explained my interest and got a sample.

    What is ZBiotics?

    ZBiotics is the first probiotic that you drink before you drink.  It specifically consists of a genetically engineered probiotic designed to breakdown acetaldehyde. You drink a bottle of this up to a few hours before you first drink.  The bacteria then hang out in your gut for up to 18 hours decomposing acetaldehyde.  The theory is that this helps your liver do it’s job of getting rid of the harmful byproduct of alcohol metabolism faster.

    At first, I was skeptical… I tend to avoid “genetically engineered” anything.  Would this really be as good or better than what I was already doing?  Will there be any long term or strange side effects?  Without a doubt, I was going to be paying very close attention when using this.

    The ZBiotics Review ‘Test’

    I decided to test out ZBiotics on a Thursday night.  My plan was to take it an hour before I went out to visit some local breweries.  I wasn’t going to use anything from my normal ‘drinking stack’.  I was going to follow some general best practices:  Go out fed (with carbs) and occasionally drink water throughout the night.  Just following these practices alone would not necessarily guarantee a smooth morning the next day.

    The ‘Results’

    So I took the ZBiotics after I ate dinner.  It had a light lime taste, but wasn’t offensive.  I didn’t notice anything after consuming it and headed out for some drinks.  Throughout the night, I didn’t really notice anything different either.  If anything, I felt like I was drinking more.  After alternating between ZBiotics and my normal stack a few times, I think the reasoning for this is that I don’t feel as bloated when only taking ZBiotics.

    When I got home, I still felt fine.  I stayed up for a bit, drank some more water and then went to sleep.  I woke up the next day feeling fine.  Subjectively, I feel that I had had enough alcohol to make me feel otherwise.  I didn’t feel the need to resort to B vitamins and electrolytes upon waking.  Over the course of a few weeks, I continued to test.  I’d revert to my stack.  Next I’d use ZBiotics and sometimes I’d combine both.  ZBiotics seemed to always be additive.

    Conclusion

    So here we are months later with my ZBiotics review.  I’d say that for me, ZBiotics works.  I continue to use it (combined with my ‘drinking stack‘) when I know I plan on drinking a lot.  For me, this has often been while judging homebrew.  It would become an expensive habit if I used it every time I drank.  I tried to do a much more scientific comparison over the course of 3 weeks.  Every Friday I would drink the exact same beers in about the same amount of time.  One week I would use ZBiotics, one week I would do nothing special and the next I would try my stack.  Unfortunately, the brewery ran out of one of the beers I was using for testing on the third week.  So I can’t definitively say if ZBiotics alone is better than what I was doing before.  It is clear to me that it is better than doing ‘nothing’.  Based on my subjective testing, I prefer to combine both approaches.  There were a few times where I was feeling less than perfect the next day using just ZBiotics.  Adding the B Vitamins and electrolytes usually takes care of that though, so I’ll continue following this approach.  Have you used ZBiotics?  What was your experience?  If you’re interested, this link will provide a discount.  Let me know!

  • ScaleBlaster Review

    ScaleBlaster Review

    Every home that I’ve ever lived in has had hard water.  There are pros to having hard water, but there are also many cons.  The cons have led me to investigate ways of mitigating hard water, but this also has additional drawbacks.  I recently purchased and installed a ScaleBlaster.  Read on for my ScaleBlaster review.

    Why Care About Hard Water?

    Hard water tends to be high in calcium and magnesium.  Even though these usually make water taste better, they pose many problems when used in a home water system.  Most noticeable are limescale deposits on water fixtures.  This is visibly unsightly, but also leads to damage and a decrease in efficiency to the overall water system.  Hard water makes dissolving soaps more difficult.  This can make showers unpleasant and over time, can lead to damage to the fibers in the clothes that you are laundering using this water.  The lingering, unsightly residues are really the thing that I hate most about hard water.

    Mitigating Hard Water

    The most common way of mitigating hard water is through the use of a water softener.  A water softener is an appliance that uses ion exchange to replace calcium/magnesium ions with sodium ions.  Sounds great, right?  Well, this exchange of ions results in water that doesn’t taste as good.  Also, if you’re trying to avoid added sodium in your diet, you’ve now created a whole new mechanism for it to get into your body.  Many of the places where I’ve experienced hard water, I never really did anything to mitigate it and just dealt with the associated problems.

    The first home that I purchased had a water softener.  I liked not having the visible telltale signs of hard water, but I quickly got annoyed by having to replenish the ‘salt’ in this water softener on a regular basis.  I also noticed that the quality of my homebrew was drastically decreased.  Hops and malts were muted and the mouthfeel of my frequently brewed recipes was ‘off’.  Before this, I hadn’t really given much thought to water chemistry during my brew days.  After a bit of research and getting my ‘post-softener’ water tested, it was clear that this was likely the cause of my brewing woes.  I had one water tap that was pre-softener and I started using that for all of my brewing.

    My current home also came with a water softener.  One of the first things I did was setup the ability to completely bypass it so that with the flip of a few valves, I could have unadulterated water at any tap in the house.  This information will come in handy later.  When brewing, or filling my hot tub, I’d make sure to completely bypass the softener as well.  I still had that annoying problem of having to constantly load the softener with salt and thought that there had to be a better way.

    My ScaleBlaster Review

    Searching around for alternatives, I eventually discovered the ScaleBlaster.  I had my doubts, but finally pulled the trigger when there was a sale on one at Costco.

    What is the ScaleBlaster?

    The ScaleBlaster is a Made in the USA ‘electronic descaling device’.  You install it early on the incoming water line.  This install involves wire wrapping your water pipes in a very specific manner, hooking this wire up to the ScaleBlaster and then plugging the ScaleBlaster into a regular electrical outlet.  The device than produces an oscillating electronic field that changes the calcium molecules.  This causes the ions to precipitate or collide with each other, to the point that they no longer deposit and just come out the other end of your pipes.

    This sounded very interesting.  Technically, it wasn’t softening the water.  My water would still taste great.  I could brew with it.  Best of all, no need to reload with salt!  The ScaleBlaster promised to eliminate the visible problems of hard water.  Even better, it claimed that the alteration of the calcium ions would also allow the water to remove pre-existing scale deposits from my pipes and equipment.

    How did I test?

    Since the ScaleBlaster isn’t actually softening the water, I couldn’t test my water before and after to see how well it works.  Instead, I turned off the water softener for a few weeks before install.  I then took note of how the scale built up on my water fixtures.  Another great visual indicator came from my sprout growing process.  For growing sprouts, you need to run cold water over the top of the tray several times a day.  With the softener off, the top of the tray had noticeable scale development in between waterings.  Now that I had a few objective measurements in addition to the subjective ones, I was ready to begin.

    The Plan

    My plan was to install the ScaleBlaster, bypass the water softener and let it operate for two weeks in this state.  After this time, I was going to do a deep clean of all the fixtures and surfaces to remove the scale.  Then, I would run things for another two weeks and see how things compared to running without the water softener.

    Installation

    Installing the ScaleBlaster was straightforward, but fairly involved in order to make sure everything was perfect.  The biggest issue was the wire wrapping.  It took the better part of an afternoon to properly do the wire wrapping.  This was mostly because I was working in a tight space and had a difficult time perfecting a method to easily manipulate the several feet of wire that needed to be wrapped.  I placed the ScaleBlaster downstream of my existing water filter as recommended in the instructions.  This also allowed me to plug the ScaleBlaster into the same electrical outlet

    Conclusion

    It took a few days, but subjectively, I felt that the ScaleBlaster was working.  Long before doing the ‘deep clean’, I noticed that I was no longer seeing evidence of scale on my sprout trays.  After doing the deep clean, things actually stayed clean.  One annoying issue did develop though… a few toilets in my house started emitting a high frequency whine.  This usually occurred while water was running in other parts of the house.  We discovered that a slight jiggle of the bits inside the tank usually stopped this, but it would regularly come back.  Eventually, I did a deep clean of all components in the tank and this seems to have resolved the issue.

    So is the ScaleBlaster worth it?  It’s been over a month and I haven’t put the original water softener back into rotation.  I’ve read reviews online and some people with very hard water did not seem to have the same experience as me and either returned the ScaleBlaster or used a water softener in conjunction.  Personally, I’m happy with the current setup and knowing that I can easily add the water softener back into the mix if I need to do so.  Have you used the ScaleBlaster?  I’d love to hear about your experience and how you deal with hard water issues.

  • How to backup and restore inMyCellar database

    How to backup and restore inMyCellar database

    Probably the most frequent question I hear from inMyCellar users is: “HELP!! I got a brand new shiny phone, installed inMyCellar and my cellar is now empty!  How do I get it back?”.  I hear your concern.  It pains me that I haven’t had enough free time to complete the uber cloud based backup solution of your dreams (believe me, it IS coming), but I figure it’s about time that I finally document the approved and tested way of ‘How to backup and restore inMyCellar’.

    Currently, your entire ‘cellar’ is stored in an on device sqlite database and luckily Google provides an easy way to back that up and restore it on the same device or on another device.

    Install adb

    First, you need to install the Android Debug Bridge (ADB) on a computer that you can connect your Android device to.  ADB is a Google created tool for Android developers.  You can read all about the great things it can do and download it here.

    Turn into a developer

    Now that you have ADB ready to go, the next step is to make sure that ADB can ‘talk’ to your Android device.  This involves turning ‘Developer Options’ on on your Android and setting it up for ‘USB Debugging’.  Don’t worry, you can easily turn these settings off with one click when you’re done, but there are a ton of cool things you can do with them, so you might want to keep it enabled.  Turning on development options and USB debugging is described in detail here.

    You can verify everything is working by typing the following at a terminal on your computer:

    adb devices

    If you see a device identifier listed and no complaints about not being authorized, you’re good to go on to the next step.  If you encounter any issues, refer back to the prior pages to make sure you followed all of the steps.  Follow any troubleshooting steps specific to your computer’s operating system.

    How to Back that thing up

    The next step is to create a backup of your inMyCellar data.  Make sure the device that has your current inMyCellar data is plugged into your computer and accessible via ADB.  Create a directory on your computer called: inMyCellar navigate to that directory in a terminal and type:

    adb backup -f ./data.ab -noapk com.transmutex.inmycellar

    Hit ‘enter’ and you should get a prompt on your Android device asking you if you would like to backup your inMyCellar data.  You can set a password at this stage to encrypt your data, but you can skip this step since inMyCellar does not store anything sensitive.

    When the backup is complete, you should have a file on your computer in your inMyCellar directory named data.ab.  This is a backup of all of your inMyCellar data.  Now it’s time to put that data on your new Android device.

    How to Restore inMyCellar data

    At this time, you can unplug your old Android device and plug in your new device.   Make sure you installed a fresh copy of inMyCellar from the Play store on your new device.  You will then need to make sure that this device is setup for debugging and accessible via adb.  Follow the same steps listed above that you did for your old Android device.  Once it’s accessible, run the following command from a terminal in your inMyCellar directory:

    adb restore ./data.ab

    Once again, you will be prompted on your device, asking if you want to restore the data.  If you setup a password when originally backing up your data, you will need to enter it here.  When this process is complete, you should be able to open up inMyCellar and see all of your data on your new device!  Feel free to reach out with any questions or concerns.

  • Hey Google, talk to the Beer Judge Exam Trainer!

    Hey Google, talk to the Beer Judge Exam Trainer!

    It’s finally here… my first app for the Google Assistant has been approved.  You can get all of the details here,  but the basic gist is that it’s a straightforward helper for studying for the BJCP exam.  It’s available on Google Home, Android 6.0+ phones (soon to be 5.0+), TVs and iOS 9.0+ phones.  I basically used this as an example app to become familiar with the process in order to build a more sophisticated app, but if people find this useful I will enhance it.  Just say, “Ok Google, Talk to Beer Judge Exam Trainer” on your Google Assistant equipped device.  As always, drop me a line with any feedback.