Will sodium citrate harm yeast?

[billvelek]

On the spur of the moment, I thought of brewing a pumpkin beer today. Don't have any fresh pumpkin, but I do have canned; however, there is nothing on the label to indicate whether it has any preservatives, so I'm thinking that it probably _doesn't_ ... but I don't want to take a chance; besides, my brewing book says not to use 'canned' pumpkin with preservatives. So I thought of making a cherry beer instead using cherry pie filling. Besides the ingredients which I know are alright, it lists citric and ascorbic acids (I think they are okay) and 'sodium citrate' and 'red 40 color' (I presume dye won't be a problem either). I did a google for sodium citrate and read enough to see that it is sometimes used as a preservative. I don't know what the concentration is in the can, but we're talking about a 21 oz. can in a 5 gallon batch, so it will become very diluted. I'm tempted to just give it a try, but thought I'd at least see what sort of replies I might get while my water is heating up.

Thanks for any advice anyone can provide.

Bill Velek