Lower Calorie Beer?

Hello Gents,

I think this would be classed as a newbie question (and I am a newbie), hence why I am posting here...

A little background....

I am currently an expat working in a certain Middle Eastern country that frowns upon the consumption of alcohol...of course this doesn’t stop us from doing it within the confines of our compound ;-)

Currently, I brew beer and wine using the following recipe(s):

1.3kg (beer) / 1kg (wine) fructose
24 litres of non-alcoholic beer / grape juice
Yeast

(With the beer, I add a teaspoon of fructose per bottle for secondary fermentation.)

I literally throw all the ingredients into a large plastic bin and hey presto fermentation begins... as you can see, this is kind of like the expat version of buying a Coopers Homebrew kit and adding water....

Now the question....

The resulting homebrew (especially the wine) is somewhat high on calories and leads to an increase in love handles ;-(

So, is there anything I can do to reduce the sugar content of these brews?

I appreciate that there is little I can do about the fact that both the non-alcoholic beer/grape juice already contain sugar and I use fructose as I can get away with using less of it than table sugar.

I’ve seen suggestions about using honey in brews, but this seems to be in conjunction with DME... and I don’t think I can buy DME here... along with any other ingredients that the authorities might construe as being of use for home brewing...

Does anybody have any suggestions for making my recipes more Weight Watcher friendly? ;-)

Thank you all in advance!

Drink less.

No but seriously, most people will tell you to drink what you enjoy, but throttle back on consumption if your worried about weight gain. Someone might have some kind of tips on process, but really I see the "Drink less" recommendation thrown about more.

I add an extra half an hour to my exercise routine. 30 minutes equals close to 500 calories burned for me (circuit training for the win!), which is anywhere from 2-3 beers I can drink per workout. Needless to say, this kind of incentive has me going to the gym a lot more.

Look up the apfelwein thread (it's easy to find, it's over 300 pages long) and think about making some of that. It's apple juice, dextrose, and yeast. It's also damn good apparently (only 3 more weeks for me to find out).

Plus, it's not fermented wheat or grape.

Wine has almost no Calories that are not alcohol. Most of the Calories in beer are from alcohol. Alcohol is 7 Cal. per gram.

Use less fermentables if you don't want the calories is the simple answer.

Also look up a enzyme you can buy called dietase, the protein changes sugars into a form that yeast can't change into alcohol so limits fermentation. You get body and flavour, but not so much alcohol.
http://www.brewmart.com.au/index.ph...oduct=420&crypt_key=ue2p2GTRPx9weJ0JY4a0vhISt
Can't find it anywhere except my local brew shop though, so maybe it's under a different name elsewhere.

Go outside and go for a 30 minute run. That 120+ degree heat will have you sweating off that delicous beer in no time!!

Redskins838892 said:

Go outside and go for a 30 minute run. That 120+ degree heat will have you sweating off that delicous beer in no time!!

Click to expand...

drink beer in the sun,,,,,,,,,,,,,,i sweat like crazy

DarkDeveloper said:

I literally throw all the ingredients into a large plastic bin and hey presto fermentation begins... as you can see, this is kind of like the expat version of buying a Coopers Homebrew kit and adding water....

The resulting homebrew (especially the wine) is somewhat high on calories and leads to an increase in love handles ;-(

Click to expand...

Well there is good news...hooch brewed like that will probably make you go blind, so you won't have to look at the love handles.

Seriously though, losing weight is a two part equation: put the fork/glass down, and exercise more. Ultimately, it always boils down to those two things, eat fewer calories, and burn more calories. I've got to do both, between brewing and grilling, I'm losing my teenage figure.

I am about to go to one of those countries you should PM me detailed recipes !!!


but I agree workout more !!

this is what my sister does and she is skinny as hell. everything that is served to you eat only half of it and the beer u drink will even out with ur calorie intake. if i followed her recipe i wouldnt have love handels myself but w/e.

Ok Folks, thanks for the advise!

with the beer you can try adding some beano, its enzyme action breaks down the complex carbs into sugars that can be digested by the yeast.