Freezing the Balls off my Beer....

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BrewOnBoard

BrewOnBoard

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So I've got an idea....:D

I was reading a book about cider making that my boat-hottie gave me for christmas. It goes into detail into the (now illegal) procedure for making Apple-jack by freezing the cider and pouring off the un-frozen alcohol.

So here's my idea. Why not (in theory) take that same idea and instead of using it for evil;), turn it around and use it to make a non-alcoholic beer? Take regular beer, freeze it, and pour off the unfrozen alcohol.



Pros:
(1)Easier than a p173.3deg boil, and re-pitching yeast to carb.
(2)Should maintain all hop flavor.

Cons:
(1)Freezing might kill the yeast (???) and thus require re-pitching.
(2)Ummm..... Since it is a type of distilling it is probably (technically) illegal even though you'd be "distilling" in order to make it non-alcoholic :mad:

What do you think? Could it work? (in theory)

BrewOnBoard

PS: Before I get flamed for wanting a NA beer allow me to say that I LOVE NA beer just as I love any and every beer. :mug:
 
I doubt it, because alcohol is hydrophilic, meaning it mixes well with water and naturally wants to stay close to it. On top of that, you have to over come hydrogen bonding to separate the alcohol from the water. Think about the efficiency of a pot still, even when it is boiling it is not getting a very high yield because some of the water is going with the alcohol into the vapor solution. In that case, heat is forcing the alcohol out of solution. In the case of cooling, you would be relying on the water setting below the alcohol, but because they mix naturally I doubt the difference in a normal size bucket would make an impact.

I'm no expert, this is just my minor in chemistry talking...

I'm sure someone else knows the way this is done commercially, and perhaps freezing is a part of it?
 
Not true, its the defining technique in making ice beers (ies bocks anyone) where the frozen water chunks are removed to bump up the ethanol. I dont know if those chunks are full of beer flavor too. probably...
 
Fractional distillation with a lower ABV beer may be more difficult than you think. I've accidentally frozen beers before (no seriously, I forgot they were in the freezer) and when I took them out they were solid ice. The alcohol wasn't separated out at all. Then again, I'll bet if I poured some into an empty malt bucket and froze it that way it may work better.

The best way to find out if it works is to try it.
 
EvilTOJ said:
Fractional distillation with a lower ABV beer may be more difficult than you think. I've accidentally frozen beers before (no seriously, I forgot they were in the freezer) and when I took them out they were solid ice. The alcohol wasn't separated out at all. Then again, I'll bet if I poured some into an empty malt bucket and froze it that way it may work better.

The best way to find out if it works is to try it.
Click to expand...

Whenever I've had accidental frozen BMC from the garage I found that I was actually getting a better beer, but without the carbonation. The ice was all water. Either way, it still sucks to drink BMC.....Hold on, I should say they were PARTIALLY frozen
 
I think it could work fairly well. Like stated above, they use basically the same technique to make Eisbocks (a double bock that you intentionally freeze a portion of and rack the beer below the sludge/ice to another carboy, thus making a more concentrated beer with higher ABV.
 
It would be easy enough to test. Pour a couple of beers in a bowl, stick it in the freezer. When it starts to ice up scoop out the crystals. I'm guessing that most of the flavor is going to stay with the alcohol & you will end up with lightly beer flavored water, but its worth a shot...
 
If you want an NA (or close to it) beer...

Once your beer has finished fermenting, return it to the boil kettle and bring the temperature up to 172 degrees for 45 minutes.

Alcohol (only) will boil off, leaving behind the remaining ingredients.

This works best for malt oriented beers and may require some dry hopping to reintroduce hops flavor/aroma that may have been carried off with the secondary "cooking".
 
BierMuncher said:
If you want an NA (or close to it) beer...

Once your beer has finished fermenting, return it to the boil kettle and bring the temperature up to 172 degrees for 45 minutes.

Alcohol (only) will boil off, leaving behind the remaining ingredients.

This works best for malt oriented beers and may require some dry hopping to reintroduce hops flavor/aroma that may have been carried off with the secondary "cooking".
Click to expand...

A little piece of me just died. ;)
 
BierMuncher said:
If you want an NA (or close to it) beer...

Once your beer has finished fermenting, return it to the boil kettle and bring the temperature up to 172 degrees for 45 minutes.

Alcohol (only) will boil off, leaving behind the remaining ingredients.

This works best for malt oriented beers and may require some dry hopping to reintroduce hops flavor/aroma that may have been carried off with the secondary "cooking".
Click to expand...

Ken Schwartz said:
In HBD #1609, Maribeth Raines reports on her UV spectrophotometric assay analysis of alcohol content after applying this method to homebrew. The results she obtained indicated that in no case (including a half-hour of vigorous boiling!) did the alcohol reduce below 2% abv, calling into question the usefulness of this technique (though under controlled "lab" conditions she did have a brief success in achieving 0.5% abv -- please visit the HBD archive to see her full report). In addition, my own experience, as well as that of others having reported in the HBD in the past, is that other deleterious effects such as off-flavors, oxidation, and reduction of hop character can and do occur. If I'm only going to reduce to 2% abv, I'll stick with my low-gravity/160F mash schedule.

Why doesn't this method work well? Remember that water boils at 212F (at sea level), yet a pot of water at 212F will not just suddenly disappear -- it takes time. Same with alcohol -- it will take a long time to remove the majority of the alcohol. At the same time, evaporation of water will accelerate at 175F, so you lose water along with the alcohol. Over the period of time it takes to reduce the alcohol to very low levels, a lot of water will be lost as well. Certainly that can be made up with fresh water, but the point is that 15 minutes probably won't do it; according to Raines, it probably can't be done in the kitchen at all.
Click to expand...

No- and Low-Alcohol Brewing
 
After reading that write-up, I am left with the following questions:

1. What relevance does a 30 minute boil have to the experiment in question? Seems odd to me that someone would try boiling beer for 30 minutes if they were trying to prove out the theory that holding it at distillation temperatures would remove most of the alcohol. Makes me wonder what these "lab conditions" were where she did have success.

2. Ok, so 15 minutes of cooking won't work. what number will work? 45 minutes?

3. If, according to Raines, it "probably can't be done in the kitchen at all," where can it be done? It seems unlikely to me that the factor which prevents this from being viable is the name of the area in which it takes place.

Just a quick critical eyeball.
 
My understanding of how ice beers are usually done by home brewers.

1)Ferment the beer to completion.

2)Place the beer in a bucket or other easily accessible fermenter.

3)Allow the beer to cool until ice crystals begin to form at the top.

4)Use a slotted spoon or skimmer to strain the ice out of the beer.

5)Continue this process until the beer is at the desired strength.

6)Bottle or keg the beer and consume.

I would add yeast at bottling time in this case to ensure bottle carbonation.
 
MrNate said:
After reading that write-up, I am left with the following questions:

1. What relevance does a 30 minute boil have to the experiment in question? Seems odd to me that someone would try boiling beer for 30 minutes if they were trying to prove out the theory that holding it at distillation temperatures would remove most of the alcohol. Makes me wonder what these "lab conditions" were where she did have success.

2. Ok, so 15 minutes of cooking won't work. what number will work? 45 minutes?

3. If, according to Raines, it "probably can't be done in the kitchen at all," where can it be done? It seems unlikely to me that the factor which prevents this from being viable is the name of the area in which it takes place.

Just a quick critical eyeball.
Click to expand...

I don't think Schwartz was trying to convince the reader that Raines knows what she is doing. I think she is up their with George Fix in the homebrewing world in terms of being so accomplished in academia that the rest of us mortals just assume she is competent. I would recommend reading the post from HBD 1609

HOMEBREW Digest #1609 Tue 20 December 1994

She boiled the beer after failing to achieve > 45% alcohol reduction via several methods in her kitchen.

She describes the method she used in the lab, I'm not familiar enough with the equipment or methodology to really understand exactly what did work in the lab except that she used very small samples of beer.
 
desertbronze said:
My understanding of how ice beers are usually done by home brewers.

1)Ferment the beer to completion.

2)Place the beer in a bucket or other easily accessible fermenter.

3)Allow the beer to cool until ice crystals begin to form at the top.

4)Use a slotted spoon or skimmer to strain the ice out of the beer.

5)Continue this process until the beer is at the desired strength.

6)Bottle or keg the beer and consume.

I would add yeast at bottling time in this case to ensure bottle carbonation.
Click to expand...

That's basically it, or you can stir/swirl the carboy when sludge starts forming to keep it from being a thick ice mass on top....then when you've got the desired amount frozen (it is not a terrible difficult calculation to get in the right area desired) you can rack the beer underneath the ice to another carboy. But yes, for an NA beer you'd want to use the ice, not the beer left un-frozen.

I'd say go for it and try without paying attention to the doubters! It'll be fun. That's how this industry/hobby started: experimenting!
 
remilard said:
I don't think Schwartz was trying to convince the reader that Raines knows what she is doing. I think she is up their with George Fix in the homebrewing world in terms of being so accomplished in academia that the rest of us mortals just assume she is competent. I would recommend reading the post from HBD 1609

HOMEBREW Digest #1609 Tue 20 December 1994

She boiled the beer after failing to achieve > 45% alcohol reduction via several methods in her kitchen.

She describes the method she used in the lab, I'm not familiar enough with the equipment or methodology to really understand exactly what did work in the lab except that she used very small samples of beer.
Click to expand...

Interesting experiments.
 
remilard, thanks for the info! I learned a great deal.

I still hold out hope that several freeze thaw cycles will work. If our forefathers were sucessfully doing this trick to concentrate and pour off the ETOH than it seems like it should work in this case too. Of course, since it may be illegal to concentrate the alcohol (even though I would pour it down the drain) I won't be doing this experiment.;)

BrewOnBoard
 
I have my beer fridge in the garage. One winter, the first winter I kegged, I had my one keg of beer in the fridge. Each day it was darker and darker with more and more flavor. Then it stopped coming out all together. After I realized it was frozen, about 12 glasses later, I thawed it out and returned it to the fridge. The rest of the keg sucked. Turned my 6% beer into about a significantly less flavorful 4% beer. I can tell you that it was a reallllly good beer when it was nice and dark coming out all jacked up! HAHA!!! Jacked up! :rockin: This happened over about a week and a half btw. It diddn't happen over night. I think the trick is to do it SLOWLY! Just my 2cp.
 
Hold up! The freezing experiment wont work. As water begins to crystalize as ice, it displaces any impurities. That means that the ice in the beer will be almost 100% pure water. There will be no flavor to the ice, it will all remain in the unfrozen portion of the beer. Sorry to burst your bubble, I'm surprised no one has pointed it out yet.
 
KingBrianI, I kinda agree with you on that. Anytime I've had a bottle freeze the ice is usually white and tastless. Hasnt anyone ever made home made popsicles with Koolaid or something. When you start sucking on the popsicle it turns white, (that's what she said) leaving mostly tasteless ice behind?
 
I would try tracking down one of these yeasts that doesn't produce ethanol.

They don't produce the right esters either and leave a less beery taste, but maybe you could get away with that in something flavored (raspberry wheat etc).

I think that is the most promising no alcohol avenue for the homebrewer, and it is not very promising.

Since ester production is high during the early stages of fermentation, you might try regular beer yeast for a day, sterile filter (or crash cool and gelatin if filtration not available) and then pitch a bunch of the non ethanol producing yeast to finish the attenuation. That gives you authentic beer esters and good attenuation with low alcohol production in a moderate gravity wort. If I were itching to do a wacky low alcohol experiment, I would start here since I find no reference to anyone trying it (whereas heat has been tried with poor results and the non ethanol producing yeast alone have been tried with poor results).
 
remilard said:
I would try tracking down one of these yeasts that doesn't produce ethanol.
Click to expand...

What??? There is such a creature? Does it have a name? What's it used for? Where can I find it?

KingBrianI, Where do you get off calling my flavor "impurities"?:D You might be right though, and it wouldn't have been a problem for the apple-jack makers because they were throwing away the ice. Still, it might be a worthy experiment because I can't imagine how ALL the flavor from the beer can be concentrated down into 5% of the solution.

If it does work out that way, then you've just made beer concentrate, (just add water). Backpackers have wanted that for years!

BrewOnBoard
 
BrewOnBoard said:
What??? There is such a creature? Does it have a name? What's it used for? Where can I find it?

KingBrianI, Where do you get off calling my flavor "impurities"?:D You might be right though, and it wouldn't have been a problem for the apple-jack makers because they were throwing away the ice. Still, it might be a worthy experiment because I can't imagine how ALL the flavor from the beer can be concentrated down into 5% of the solution.

If it does work out that way, then you've just made beer concentrate, (just add water). Backpackers have wanted that for years!

BrewOnBoard
Click to expand...

Sure, most yeast don't produce ethanol.

The Ken Schwartz article I linked talks about ones you might want to use in brewing.
 
Just to update this thread.

There was an interesting episode of Basic Brewing video from this week where James Spencer debunks the 'Illegal'-ness of ice-brewing, and also has some interesting outcome in his experiment.

Im trying it as we speak to see what I come up with, although my experiment isnt to make NA beer, but rather concentrate the flavor and alcohol for long term conditioning with oak or something
 
I don't know much about non-alcoholic brew but the closest I came was simply drinking the post-boil hydrometer. It was so delicious. It was a highly-hopped recipe and that helped balance the sweet. Don't ferment, just hop it well, chill, and artificially carbonate. That would be my first attempt if I ever tried brewing a non-alcoholic beer.
 

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