Homebrew Experiment (Burning alcohol out)

So I have an amber ale that i made for the 3rd time. It's been a month now in the fermenter so I desided I would take half of the batch and burn the alcohol out of it. Beer was put into the oven for 30 minutes at a 180F. Stirred 3 times during this. Befor I did all this, I had left out a sample of the brew with the alcohol so I could have a side by side comparison. What a difference! The beer without alcohol tasted so much better then the one with! I force carbed the 2 and half gallons and is now sitting in the fridge. I'll return with the results in a couple days.

sweet cant wait to see how this turns out

Big discussion on this here: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f13/de-alcoholizing-beer-belgian-wit-248403/

Experiment in progress, still good head retention,strong flavor of the hops still, this beer had 30 IBU's. Strong aroma of the hops. On my 2nd pint, currently not feeling any effects of alcohol, but who's to know if I burnt it all out. Kinda wish I had a breathalyzer to truely test the theory. Cheers everyone!

The beer!

Wouldn't the gravity go up if the alcool is gone? I know alcohol has a lower gravity than water...

hmm, good point. Can't take a reading now since its carbed I imagine. I'll have to try that next time.

Experiment was a.....failure! I had 6 pints and definately felt intoxicated. So now im thinking im going to take the rest of that batch and try again. Instead of 30 minutes in the oven, i'll try an hour. I'll return with the results.

you might just be pasteurizing the beer. I believe that is the process to pasteurize.

Quite the experiment! Keep it up, interested to see how long you can bake this beer.

Keep taking the temp of the "beer" in the oven. It should stabilize at about 173 F. Once it starts going above that, all the ethanol should be out of it.

thanks for the help guys. I really want to make an awesome non alcoholic beer someday.

Can you "run" it thru a still to burn off the alcohol?

Yea I know that's illegal, but......

Once it starts going above that, all the ethanol should be out of it.

Click to expand...

BZZZZT! No. You will never get all of the ethanol out (it's a physics thing). You may be able to get somewhere between a significant portion and most of it out, but probably not before you cause an unacceptable level of oxidation and other damage to your beer from sustained open heating. As I understand it, commercial NA beers employ a low temperature vacuum system to remove the alcohol (and they still have 1/2% ABV). My $0.02: if you want a low alcohol beer, brew a low alcohol beer.

I hear you Captain Damage. So im starting to think it just isnt possible, but we will see, kegging the brew right now. I put the beer on the propane burner, stayed at 180-190F for 30 minutes, then put straight into the oven at 180F for 30 minutes. Took a gravity reading. The gravity changed from 1.010 to 1.014. So if we are going by gravity readings, really it only changed .5% after all that, but we will see tomorro.

Update on the brew. So now it taste really weird, almost like carbonated wort hehe. I think I may have got most of the alcohol out, on my 4th pint and still feeling nothing. The beer was clear, now its extremely cloudy. Well im glad i killed my curiosity but don't think I'll be doing this again.

cheers everyone!