Question for a diabetic brewer

My parents have starting brewing in the last couple of months, but my father is diabetic and is worried about what kinds of sugar and carbohydrate levels their homebrews contain. Is there any way of determining the carbohydrate content of different beers? How much sugar is left in the brew after fermentation, generally? I may not be asking all of the right questions, but I'd appreciate it if any diabetic brewers out there could chime in. Thanks.

Gtrman13 said:

My parents have starting brewing in the last couple of months, but my father is diabetic and is worried about what kinds of sugar and carbohydrate levels their homebrews contain. Is there any way of determining the carbohydrate content of different beers? How much sugar is left in the brew after fermentation, generally? I may not be asking all of the right questions, but I'd appreciate it if any diabetic brewers out there could chime in. Thanks.

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Brewing software can generally tell you how many calories etc. are in a beer.

It's my understanding that diabetics aren't really supposed to drink a whole lot. And when they do they have to up their insulin intake. I could have that wrong though.

It also depends on how well controlled his diabetes is. But he definitely shouldn't be drinking more than like two if you ask me.

It's very well controlled. He has an insulin pump that is permanently attached to his side. On a normal night he just has 0 to 1 beer, but on a rare occasion that he's as some sort of party I've seen him have up to three in the entire evening. He's just very cautious and likes to know everything that he puts into his body, which I applaud him for.

Now, he has an Apple computer, so if bought beertools pro, for instance, this would help him get the figures he needs?

I have been formulating a "diet beer" for quite some time. (Diet as in diabetic not weight loss. *BTW that is why diet soda is called diet...) In many a late night I was looking at amylase enzyme NOT BEANO. They are 2 different things.

As I understand things and I may be WAY wrong... a diabetic has problems producing enough insulin. Insulin breaks down complex sugars so that the body can absorb them. By decreasing the complex sugars during fermentation, the yeast will convert the sugars into alcohol leaving less unconverted sugars behind.

I have been thinking about doing a SMASH recipe with pilsner malt and some light hops. I also want to add the AE into the fermentor to convert extra sugars. This is going to destroy the beers body and complexity. So I need to use a "malty yeast" like Scottish ale or Denny's fav 50. This should get the beer to a .990 - 1.000 range as a FG. Since I am looking at a lower FG I also need to start with a lower OG. I am thinking 1.035ish. I will also mash in at a low temp like 148ish.

The reason to only use base malt is less left behind sugars.

The above beer does not mean my father-in-law can drink a case in a sitting but he may be able to have more than 1 or 2! I do not even know if this will work as I hope it will but it will be fun to see.

Since your father has a pump he does carb counting. That is where they have a ratio of how many units of insulin are needed per amount of carbohydrates in a given meal. Calorieking.com is a good resource for diabetics who are carb counting b/c they give nutritional information for a lot of commercial foods and for our case, some beers. http://www.calorieking.com/foods/search.php?keywords=beer&showresults=yes is a link to their "beer" list, mostly BMC stuff, but there is some other good stuff there. I would just say to choose a beer on their list that is similar to the one they are brewing and then he can find how many carbs are in that beer and dial up his pump accordingly. Good luck!