As of August 13, 2003, the Sootheox (and Quenchox) products are no longer offered for sale, but this information is made available for educational purposes, as many folks have expressed interest in making such brews and elixirs on their own, and several existing vendors of nutritional products have expressed an interest in starting to brew and market their own line of such products. 

This page will offer you detailed information on using each of our fermented antioxidant nutritional supplement brews and elixirs, plus basic information on the bottled product and storage.  Much of the information below is exactly what appeared on our flyers and inserts which accompanied our brews, and most of the material below was copied verbatim from these flyers and inserts.

As of August 13, 2003, the Sootheox (and Quenchox) products are no longer offered for sale, but this information is made available for educational purposes, as many folks have expressed interest in making such brews and elixirs on their own, and several existing vendors of nutritional products have expressed an interest in starting to brew and market their own line of such products. 

These live-culture, non-alcoholic (any alcohol content is below 0.5%) fermented nutritional supplement brews are high in antioxidants and other nutrients. 

Gas Pressure
The brews and elixirs (this depends upon the type and batch) may continue to ferment slowly in the bottle for a few weeks or months after bottling, and thus build up some gas pressure, much as found in a bottle of soda or beer (indeed, some premium classic micro-brewed high-end beers also continue to ferment in the bottle for months after bottling.)  Because of the possible buildup of gas pressure, and to exclude oxygen, we bottle the brews in sturdy pressure-resistant amber glass bottles of the type used for beer and/or champagne. 

Sediment
You may notice some sediment at the bottom of the bottle; this is normal, just as it is for unfiltered beers.  Do not shake the bottle before the first opening, as it may spurt foam.  Once the bottle has been opened and has been in use for some time, and you have gained some sense of how foamy the brew/batch is, you may then choose to shake to stir the sedment or not to shake -- that is your preference. 

Flakes or "Floaters" on Top 
You may notice some white or cream-colored flakes on the top of some of our fermented nutritional supplement products – these are called "yeast rafts".  These are normal and harmless; they are part of the brewing culture, and they especially proliferate in some brews after the bottle has been opened, as the yeasts scavenge oxygen from the free airspace above the brew and offer one mor elayer of antioxidant protection.   So, once the bottle has been opened, you may or may not notice, depending upon the brew and batch, some yeast colonies (“floaters” or “yeast rafts”) floating on the surface of the liquid.  Rest assured that these yeast colonies are part of the original culture, and are harmless and beneficial; they help to nurture and protect the brew.

Storage of Unopened Bottles
Unopened bottles should be stored in a cool dark place. Try not to shake or agitate.

Shelf Life
Unless the label of a particular Sootheox or Quenchox brew or elixir is othewise marked, the effective antioxidant shelf life of these products in their unopened glass bottles is very long, ranging from at least 2 years to over 5 years.
These products are all produced by lactic acid fermentation and are naturally high in lactic acid and other natural acids which tend to lower the pH and to preserve the liquid; some act as antioxidnats as well. Final equilibrium pH of each brew or elixir is 3.7 or below.

Opening the Bottle - Foaming
Please realize that some of the brews, particularly the Amber Molasses and Grape Nectar Brews, may foam excessively and even spurt foam around the room unless you open the bottles very carefully!  Open the bottles as carefully as you would a bottle of beer.
Usually what I recommend is this: 

After unpacking, set the bottle quietly on a large plate on a kitchen counter-top and leave totally undisturbed for at least 6 hours.  Then, without shaking or disturbing bottle, open SLOWLY with a bottle-opener while covering bottle and cap loosely with a kitchen towel.  This will catch any foam which may escape, and keep it from spraying all over you and your kitchen!  However, the 6 hour minimum settling time will usually prevent much of the worst foaming.

Suggested Usage
Suggested usage: we suggest that you start with 1 tablespoon (0.5 oz., or 15 ml.) once or twice daily. After your body has grown accustomed to this supplement, you may then wish to increase frequency to three times per day. Some advanced users chose to drink four to ten tablespoons (two to five ounces) per dosage, at least two or three times per day, for up to several months at a time.. There are a number of persons, including the developer of these brews, who have drank over 40 ounces of such brews daily for months on end, with no ill effects.
 

As of August 13, 2003, the Sootheox (and Quenchox) products are no longer offered for sale, but this information is made available for educational purposes, as many folks have expressed interest in making such brews and elixirs on their own, and several existing vendors of nutritional products have expressed an interest in starting to brew and market their own line of such products. 

The exact supplement facts will vary across the line of Sootheox and Quenchox brws and elixirs,but here are some facts which are common to all of our fermented antioxidant nutritonal supplement brews and elixirs.

These values are minimums -- many of our products will exceed these scores and values.

Description
These live-culture, non-alcoholic (any alcohol content is below 0.5%) fermented nutritional supplement brews are high in antioxidants and other nutrients. These products are all produced by lactic acid fermentation and are naturally high in lactic acid and other natural acids which tend to lower the pH and to preserve the liquid; some act as antioxidnats as well. Final equilibrium pH of each brew or elixir is 3.7 or below.

Suggested Usage
Suggested usage: we suggest that you start with 1 tablespoon (0.5 oz., or 15 ml.) once or twice daily. After your body has grown accustomed to this supplement, you may then wish to increase frequency to three times per day. Some advanced users chose to drink one to two ounces per dosage, at least two or three times per day.

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Supplement Facts - minimums across the entire product line
Serving size: 1 tablespoon (15 ml. or 1/2 ounce)

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Amount per serving:

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Lactic acid-rich, antioxidant-rich fermented liquid, 15.4 grams
This liquid is rich in antioxidants including phenolic compounds, polypheonols and flavonoids. 
Antioxidant activity of at least 260 ORAC FL (Trolox equiv.) units or 500 FRAP units per serving
Carbohydrates: 1.5 grams, Protein: 0 grams, Fats: 0 grams
Calcium 12 mg.
Magnesium 7 mg.
Potassium 20 mg.
as well as trace minerals, in a live-culture lactic acid-fermented lactic acid-rich broth, with a final equilibrium pH of 3.7 or below..

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Please note that these values are only minimums across our product line. Many brews and elixirs will exceed these values and scores, some by a large amount. For information on a specific product, please see our page entitled Label Information, including Supplement Facts

Label information and statements have not been approved by the FDA.

No claims are made for the ability of these products to heal or treat or prevent disease.

As of August 13, 2003, the Sootheox (and Quenchox) products are no longer offered for sale, but this information is made available for educational purposes, as many folks have expressed interest in making such brews and elixirs on their own, and several existing vendors of nutritional products have expressed an interest in starting to brew and market their own line of such products. 

All of the Sootheox brews and elixirs are bottled in thick glass bottles, and, for any bottle size over the 5 ounce (clear glass) hot sauce bottle, I have chosen to use only thick-walled amber glass beer bottles, primarily for the excellent oxygen barrier which the thick amber glass offers. I have, several times, examined alternative bottling possibilities such as PET soda bottles and PET amber glass beer bottles for bottling the brews, as PET bottles are not only cheaper, but far lighter, and also far more hardy and tough, and this means that they do not be packed in the shipping box as carefully as would a glass beer bottle.  However, even the best barrier PET bottles do not come close to glass in their abilty to block oxygen and other gases, and thus I continue to choose to use only such heavy glass bottles for bottling, since the potential shelf life of the product will be far longer.  All in all, the benefits of using amber glass beer bottles to package the brews are as follows:

• they offer an excellent and near-perfect barrier to oxygen and other gases, making such amber glass bottles  the undisputed gold standard for bottling of expensive micro-brewed beers around the world
• because of the above, they offer a far longer shelf life than do plastic bottles. In conversations with scientists at antioxidant testing labs which perform antioxidant shelf life test on nutritional supplement products, I have been advised that the choice of a plastic bottle (which is ever more common nowadays in the nutritional suplement world) can cut shelf life of a product by a factor of as much as 5 (five) or more. In reality, the effect is likely not so severe for these antioxidant brews due to several unique features of the brews... more on that topic in a later section.
• there is no chance of any off-flavors from bottle contaminating the product, as can happen with many lines of palstic bottles; this is one reason why amber glass bottles are the gold standard for any high-end brews inthe beer world
• amber glass beer bottles are very atractive to the eye and have a stylish appearance. While I personally would never consider such a factor, I have several friends who have told me that the only reason that their spouse allows my brews on their kitchen counter or in the kitchen nutritional suplement cabinet is because of the attractive brown glass bottles.

• amber glass beer bottles are more expensive than plastic bottles
• shipping costs for each case of empty glass beer bottles ordered is far higher than for a case of empty plastic bottles 
• amber glass beer bottles are far more fragile than plastic bottles, and thus such glass bottles containing brews need to be packaged far more carefully than their plastic counterparts; this results in higher packang and handling costs
• amber glass beer bottles are far heavier than their plastic counterparts: a 12 ounce amber glass beer bottle weighs 7 ounces compared to less than one ounce for a plastic bottle, while a 22 or 23 ounce glass beer bottle weighs 12 ounces per bottle, again far higher than a plastic bottle, and a 32 ounce (1 liter) growler bottle weighs an amazing 26 ounces. Thus shipping costs of the filled bottles of product are higher, since each 12 ounce bottle ordered incurs a weight "overhead" of at least 7 ounces (the weight of one 12 ounce amber glass beer bottle.)
• due to several of the above considerations, bottle cost and packing, handling, and shipping and handling costs are quite a bit higher for amber glass beer bottles than for plastic bottles, in fact, by a factor of more than 2. (However, the benefit is a higher-quality product with a far longer shelf life...)

The brews are live-culture products, and therefore, so long as any sugars or foodstuffs are present in the product, the unique organisms in the culture will continue to scavenge any small amounts of oxygen which do enter the bottle via migration through the bottle wall, and thus render it harmless.  Further, as long as foodstuffs are available in the brews, the organisms will, in fact, continue producing more antioxidants, and for a long time, perhaps as much as the first 7 or 8 months after bottling, the quantity of new antioxidants produced should, in terms of antioxidant power, be more than equal to the task of neutralizing or quenching any small amounts of oxygen which migrate through the walls of the bottle. 

So, comparing a plastic bottle to a glass bottle, there will indeed be some net reduction in antioxidant power for the brews packaged in plastic bottles even during the first 7 to 8 months after bottling, but such damage should be minimal.  However, once the organisms have gone totally dormant due to absence of foodstuffs (sugars, etc.), which may often happen somewhere after 5 to 8 months subsequent to bottling, then the attrition due to oxygen migration in the plastic bottles may be more noticeable, when compared to the same product stored in a glass beer bottle.

Therefore, I certainly do not fault those producers and vendors who have chosen to use plastic bottes for their fermented antioxidant products, indeed, I have considered this route (PET amber plastic beer bottles with oxygen barrier film) myself, and I would be among the first to assert that the use of such bottles will likely have little noticeable effect upon antioxidant content or other beneficial properties in at least the first 5 to 8 months after bottling. However, after that period, there will likely be higher degradation of antioxidant and other nutritive content of the products in the plastic bottles as compared to heavy-wall glass beer bottles, but it may not become a problem until at least another year or so has passed.  Again, I wish to stress that the use of high-quality plastic bottles such as PET amber plastic beer bottles is one which I have considered myself, and may indeed eventually choose to experiment with.  So, this is not a black-and-white polarized issue where one can say that one type of bottle is the only right one and the other one is totally wrong, but rather a more complex equation, filled with grays.

For now, for various reasons, I have chosen to bottle my brews only in amber glass beer bottles because they are the gold standard in several fields, including that of high-end microbrew beers, despite the higher shipping and handling overhead which their use incurs for me and for my customers. I may indeed at some time decide to move on to playing with the use of PET amber plastic beer bottles with oxygen barrier film for my fermented antioxidant brews.

Sootheox Fermented Sea Salt may be used much as you would use any ordinary sea salt. It may be used for cooking, for sprinkling on raw foods and in raw and heated dressings, condiments, etc. It may also be used in other ways for skin care and personal care as well, and for some ideas, you may wish to look at the webpage for  EMCO’s EM Rejuvenating Salt, and also at the first two pages of an article by Dr. Higa which mentioned some properties of EM-treated sea salt.
 

Since this is a live-food fermented product, and since this is certainly not a company or website which is trying to convince you to make any kind of purchase, but rather offering our products, with caution and reserve, as research products only, we offer no guarantee or warranty on the brews and elixirs or their suitability for any particular use.  Please click here to learn more about our mission in offering these products. We offer no money  back or return policies.  However, if you encounter a problem with our products, please feel free to contact us and tell us about it!  No warranties or guarantees expresed or implied. 

All problems due to damage or breakage during shipment must be taken up with shipping/freight vendor. 

Basic contact information for Sootheox (aka Proreduct) Brews:

Vinny Pinto
phone 301-694-1249

e-mail: vinny@mindspring.com

website: http://www.antioxbrew.com

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Click here to read Label Information, including Supplement Facts

As of August 13, 2003, the Sootheox (and Quenchox) products are no longer offered for sale, but this information is made available for educational purposes, as many folks have expressed interest in making such brews and elixirs on their own.

No claims are made for ability of this product to prevent, heal or treat any disease state.

All information is presented for informational and educational purposes only.  Label, flyer and website information have not been reviewed nor approved by the FDA. 

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