Creating an NA (Or...how I neutered my beer)

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They could also be using a cold mash to get flavor with less starch/sugar.

I saw an "athletic brewing" beer at the store this week, but I didn't pick it up because it had a lot of carbs (currently on keto) --probably unavoidable to make an NA that tastes good. I'll have to try them in the future.
That is also a thought! Yeah you might be hooped there... Can you even have regular beer?
 
That is also a thought! Yeah you might be hooped there... Can you even have regular beer?
Regular, not really. But my first keto-compliant IPA and Gose both placed in their categories at a recent competition (not keto categories, but going up against normal beers).
 
Well after reading almost every comment on this thread....I ask about the Elephant in the room...
I make Ginger Beer and if I leave it too long it ferments and has alcohol due to the addition of next to nothing grains added to 1 Gallon batch. So that being stated....I make a great Ginger Beer Soda and now have a Keg system where my next batch will have no yeast just carbed via Co2 tank.

Bringing that logic to the other side of the kitchen, when I make beer I have a great tasting beer before pitching the yeast, where my sugar taste will soon subside due to yeast doing their 'thing' and I wish I could back sweeten that same beer like I do wine when I add K-Sorbate, but have no desire for carb in my wine, after fermentation, adding K sorbate to fermented beer would be flattening in a priming sugar scenario. However in a Kegging world you do not need yeast to carb your beer, so I guess you could K sorbate kill all yeast, back sweeten and co2 carb....

The Elephant Trumpets" - Why not just make a beer as usual, skip the pitch of yeast and carb with Co2, leaving a true Zero Beer?" Instead of tainting flavors with yet another boil to purge distill Alcohol out of the batch? Yeast Piss brings a certain flavor and stays even after boiled?
Thoughts?
 
It's been a spell since I've brewed, but I remember my worts being fairly sweet tasting. It'd be interesting to carb it and see what it's like, but i think it'd be much different than 'beer.'
 
It's been a spell since I've brewed, but I remember my worts being fairly sweet tasting. It'd be interesting to carb it and see what it's like, but i think it'd be much different than 'beer.'
I think the amount of sachrides we add, be it mash or DME, etc., could be dialed back to a good taste malt, if a dryness is desired as ABV does, as well as a lower PH could do, there are Acids and Tannins as in wine that could get you close.
I am not saying a N.A could ever be a Regular, just wondering why everyone keeps fermenting just to try and eradicate the residual of fermenting.
 
I think the amount of sachrides we add, be it mash or DME, etc., could be dialed back to a good taste malt, if a dryness is desired as ABV does, as well as a lower PH could do, there are Acids and Tannins as in wine that could get you close.
I am not saying a N.A could ever be a Regular, just wondering why everyone keeps fermenting just to try and eradicate the residual of fermenting.
I think this is kinda of like what you are thinking of:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malta_(soft_drink)

If it hasn't been fermented, it isn't really, technically, nor legally, a "Beer".
I personally wouldn't enjoy an overly-sweet beverage, and without removing the simple sugars somehow, that's what you end up with, unfortunately.
 
I think this is kinda of like what you are thinking of:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malta_(soft_drink)

If it hasn't been fermented, it isn't really, technically, nor legally, a "Beer".
I personally wouldn't enjoy an overly-sweet beverage, and without removing the simple sugars somehow, that's what you end up with, unfortunately.

Right, I have had that as soon as last couple of weeks. IT does have the taste of unfermented beer or rather my Wort before fermenting has that taste. However it is dark and has heavy caramel. Whereas almost all the NA's are a Pilsner style. Becks has a good one and so does Clausthaler, or however you spell it. No matter.
Aforementioned reduce sugars to start with in recipe. Instead of 1lb of DME to a gallon reduce to .5lb. I might try it in the next few weeks as I am drying out for 90 days over here.
 
You could also look into the non-enzymatic / cold mash procedures people are using to make low gravity beers. It's supposed to extract all of the flavor but at half the gravity or less?
 
Wouldn't it be less work and less trauma to the original flavor profile of the beer to reverse freeze distill? Meaning freeze and save rather than discard the frozen portions. Can save the unfrozen alc too to boost a lower gravity beer.

This is what I have in mind as well after reading every post in this thread.
My logic behind the effectiveness of this is simple - I have freeze concentrated commercial beer and my goal is to lower carbs but keep the rest of the beer's characterstics the same, and retain most of the alcohol - aka - concentrated beer.
The first part that melts out is very pungently alcoholic and its usually a very light color.
The rest of it when you concentrate it 4-5 fold for a mid 30's abv gets darker and it just starts to get cloudy when I hit that 30% mark I am guessing. That means, the cloudiness, the particles and a lot of the color is left in the frozen liquid. Much of the alcohol has melted out.
The frozen part now has beer color, beer flavor, beer mouth feel and low low alcohol. Basically the same as the original beer- the ABV.

The math behind this to this simple mind is this. Ethanol boils at 175F while water at 212. That's a 37 degree difference with the risk of burning stuff.
Ethanol freezes at -173 while water freezes at 32. Its a whopping 205 degree difference. Agreed home freezer only hits -15 to -20, but ethanol runs out so fast because its 150+ degrees above its freeze point.

It would be worth it for someone to try this - Because I'll pay handsomely for the part you remove fixing to throw away. Besides if you start with a low abv beer, you can melt out more to even 20% ABV theoretical, and leave even less ABV in the ice that's your preferred product.
I shoot for 30-35% because I feel I like that flavor and strength as well as the indications of cloudiness seem to appear right around there if I start with a cloudy beer, telling me the carbs are getting out. I cold crash the concentrate and it leaves very little sediment and a clear and deep brown drink.

Thanks.
Srinath.
 
Something to think on:
Both water and ethanol are very good chemical solvents. To a degree they even act as solvents to each other (google: azeotrope)
However, water and ethanol are different types of solvents; oils tend to dissolve better in ethanol than water, and water is good at dissolving minerals and the like.

When you engage in a separation process like heat, vacuum, or freeze distillation; you change the solubility of certain aromatics and oils, potentially significantly altering the smell and taste of beer.
 
Something to think on:
Both water and ethanol are very good chemical solvents. To a degree they even act as solvents to each other (google: azeotrope)
However, water and ethanol are different types of solvents; oils tend to dissolve better in ethanol than water, and water is good at dissolving minerals and the like.

When you engage in a separation process like heat, vacuum, or freeze distillation; you change the solubility of certain aromatics and oils, potentially significantly altering the smell and taste of beer.

Yes very true. I find that the concentrate has a couple of stages and some thing get concentrated and some get diluted from the original beer. Since I throw away the frozen part, I'd leave that to someone who studies/drinks that.

If you have citrus, sweet, herbal and vegetable like tastes in the beer, it will get concentrated - almost disgustingly so into the part I drink. Funky Buddha, Lagunitas 12th of never, aviator 3 bones are some stellar examples of where its got a marginal-bad beer straight to disgusting.

However the melt off first starts out lighter color than the base beer, then gets a bit darker and I usually stop as it starts to get cloudy - leaving me with a clearer drink than original and most of the time a drink that's the same color as original.

I have got lucky in a few cases, the process concentrated the flavors I liked and diluted the flavors I didn't like in many many beers making a OK beer into a great concentrate or even turning good to great etc. None ever started out good and got to bad BTW, Those I listed above were bad to start with, just got much much worse.

Cool.
Srinath.
 
Trying some NA beers when pregnant, I found the sweetness of them pretty foul. But my flavor perception changed radically with the hormone swings. I haven’t brought myself to try the comercial NA brews again since as I remember them as being so terrible.

I’d love to try to brew a NA beer now that is drier. It sounds like starting with a low hopped session brew, short grain bill, mashed and steeped low and high, fermented to completion, and then heat vaporized to reduce alcohol while hopping, adding pure water to original volume or more, and the force carbonating may be the best chance to get a great very low alcohol / NA beer.

This will be on my New Year list of things to try. I’d love to have a small keg of something very light and delicious around.

For those considering this for recovering alcoholics... the habit/flavor of the beverage might be a stumbling block, even if essentially no alcohol. Also, the small amount of alcohol may still be difficult to process for someone with liver or ethanol processing enzyme deficiencies. Folks who get flushed cheeks when imbibing are at a metabolic disadvantage with beer, among others.

But still, would be great to have a great NA beer option on hand.
 
@RainyDayBrewer Try Heineken 0.0. I think you may be pleasantly surprised. I enjoyed it. And also if you can find it, I hear Bitburger Drive is very good.

What's the deal with the metabolic disadvantage if you get flushed cheeks?

In 2020, I've taken to brewing lower abv beers. Essentially for me, 1.040 is the new 1.050. I'm shooting for EVERYTHING to be 4% or lower. Stone released a really good 4% abv NEIPA called "Never Ending Haze" and while light in body, it's really quite good. I think too many people complain about the body of beer. The flavor is really what is important. The body is something your palate adjusts to.
 
Cheeks... aldehyde dehydrogenase 2 deficiency... impaired alcohol metabolism. It’s pretty common in many Asian populations.

Thanks for the recommendations. Yes, the sweet flavor is my problem, not the body.

BTW- just heard about safeale’s low alcohol yeast. I wonder if it leaves beers too sweet also. Anyone use it?
 
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Cheeks... aldehyde dehydrogenase 2 deficiency... impaired alcohol metabolism. It’s pretty common in many Asian populations.

Thanks for the recommendations. Yes, the sweet flavor is my problem, not the body.

BTW- just heard about safeale’s low alcohol yeast. I wonder if it leaves beers too sweet also. Anyone use it?
Oh, I see. Fortunately I don't have this issue. I'm not sure near beer would hurt someone who has this deficiency. Unless you drink like 10 of them in 30 minutes, maybe...maybe.
 
Cheeks... aldehyde dehydrogenase 2 deficiency... impaired alcohol metabolism. It’s pretty common in many Asian populations.

Thanks for the recommendations. Yes, the sweet flavor is my problem, not the body.

BTW- just heard about safeale’s low alcohol yeast. I wonder if it leaves beers too sweet also. Anyone use it?

The amg method turns many many 1.01 to 1.006 FG beers into 1.00 to .996. I am hoping I have got under .99 in the recent one that has hit the wall at this point. 5 gal batch of 7.5% and 1.009 OG - if it hits .989 (which I cant measure) I'd have 10.4% abv and 0 carbs. All of which will have turned to alcohol.
If it works, I am going to freeze concentrate it 3 fold - or hell not even bother with that, just drink 0 carb 10.4% beer. Brut territory and beyond.

Cool.
Srinath.
 
The amg method turns many many 1.01 to 1.006 FG beers into 1.00 to .996. I am hoping I have got under .99 in the recent one that has hit the wall at this point. 5 gal batch of 7.5% and 1.009 OG - if it hits .989 (which I cant measure) I'd have 10.4% abv and 0 carbs. All of which will have turned to alcohol.
If it works, I am going to freeze concentrate it 3 fold - or hell not even bother with that, just drink 0 carb 10.4% beer. Brut territory and beyond.

Cool.
Srinath.

That’s the opposite of N/A beer Srinath. I’ve seen too many die of liver failure to go chasing ABV, and if I were desperate for alcohol I would open my liquor cabinet, or just still moonshine. One of the great things about beer is that you can enjoy a couple joyful pints without too much impairment. It has actually saved many lives, as a clean, nutritious hydration and an alternative to “drinking”. London turned pretty dark when gin came on the scene, and beer was the family friendly alternative. Although, the occasional barley wine is a delight- high ABV ferments and distillation ruin so much of beer’s beneficence. Low ABV beers are a wonderful thing to be enjoyed and brewed- especially if they are not syrupy, but tasty, light, and “dry”.
 
I was responding to your "sweet flavor is my problem" part of your post only.
To make NA brew that's not sweet or alcoholic you may have to ferment the wort dry, then freeze distill the alcohol out and drink the ice basically. Color of beer likely the texture/mouth feel but no sweetness. I don't know but I am throwing a lot of it down the sink in the next few days. I have a 5gal that may have hit the wall at north of 10.4%, will be freeze concentrating it to 30% leaving a 4gal or so worth sitting in the toss pile.

Cool.
Srinath.
 
SafBrew LA-01™ I guess it’s new. Anyone use it yet? What do you think?

Maybe I should ask in the yeast thread.
 
I don't see what it can do, if the wort has sugar and the yeast doesn't ferment it, it will end up sweet.
I almost think you and I need to split the proceeds of my experiment. The basic line of reasoning (or other lines that make you make up stuff) is this.

Take a beer with known abv and digestible carbs - too lazy to brew from grain.
Warm it, put AMG and a dry fermenting yeast. 1 week - 1 month later it will finish under 1. hopefully under .99 hopefully near 0 carb left.
There on I freeze concentrate that till I got 30-32% abv. The remaining liquid likely has alcohol, but I'd hope its traces - because I was doing 40% and the next oz of melt off would clearly hit you like beer.
I started going to 30-32% and it usually is like nothing left in the ice. And trust me I don't have that high alcohol tolerance because I drink on empty stomach and I drink often fasted for days on end. Alcohol even 1 drink of whiskey in 2 hrs I will feel it. 1 beer in 2 hrs I feel drunk and sleepy. Anyway, at 30-32% I don't feel the ice has really any alcohol in it and it looks and tastes like beer. And that is the first oz I melt out - Say I freeze 16oz of 6%. I'll melt out 3oz and say that's 30% or so, the next 1/2oz I melt out, I would taste it - and feel no alcohol by my unscientific taste buds and in feel of how drunk I am.
That would be as close to NA as I would imagine we can get, melt out another oz still leaving you 10oz+ by that math, and low carb as well. Really someone needs to taste this beer like thing I am tossing down the drain.

Cool.
Srinath.
 
Yes, I was also thinking the LA 01 would leave sweet wort if it didn’t ferment the maltose... but maybe there is enough fructose/glucose thrown off to do something. Maltose must be perceived with some sweetness. Maybe this is a better method for a natural soda instead, so sweetness could be maintained with maltose and sucrose/fructose could provide carbonation.

On the other hand I imagine your ice, from filtering would be primarily water, and taste like water... but you say it tastes like beer? Might be worth a try.

I don't see what it can do, if the wort has sugar and the yeast doesn't ferment it, it will end up sweet.
I almost think you and I need to split the proceeds of my experiment. The basic line of reasoning (or other lines that make you make up stuff) is this.

Take a beer with known abv and digestible carbs - too lazy to brew from grain.
Warm it, put AMG and a dry fermenting yeast. 1 week - 1 month later it will finish under 1. hopefully under .99 hopefully near 0 carb left.
There on I freeze concentrate that till I got 30-32% abv. The remaining liquid likely has alcohol, but I'd hope its traces - because I was doing 40% and the next oz of melt off would clearly hit you like beer.
I started going to 30-32% and it usually is like nothing left in the ice. And trust me I don't have that high alcohol tolerance because I drink on empty stomach and I drink often fasted for days on end. Alcohol even 1 drink of whiskey in 2 hrs I will feel it. 1 beer in 2 hrs I feel drunk and sleepy. Anyway, at 30-32% I don't feel the ice has really any alcohol in it and it looks and tastes like beer. And that is the first oz I melt out - Say I freeze 16oz of 6%. I'll melt out 3oz and say that's 30% or so, the next 1/2oz I melt out, I would taste it - and feel no alcohol by my unscientific taste buds and in feel of how drunk I am.
That would be as close to NA as I would imagine we can get, melt out another oz still leaving you 10oz+ by that math, and low carb as well. Really someone needs to taste this beer like thing I am tossing down the drain.

Cool.
Srinath.
 
I have not drank an NA beer since Feb 18 (I think) 1992. That was the night I landed in the US and saw a NA on a restaurant menu (Pizza Como in Reading PA BTW). NA beer just caught my eye and I ordered one - was a sharps. Yea sorry not doing that again. But it has the color of beer, has the mouth feel of a lite beer and I would say - likely the taste of a beer without alcohol in it, to me beer taste isn't separable from alcohol. IMHO it tastes, looks and feels like a beer with near no alcohol.
Let me see if someone will volunteer to get with me on a batch of the ice and I'll have tjem taste the melt off too if they want to.
Cool.
Srinath.
 
Wouldn't it be less work and less trauma to the original flavor profile of the beer to reverse freeze distill? Meaning freeze and save rather than discard the frozen portions. Can save the unfrozen alc too to boost a lower gravity beer.
good idea. looks like this post was passed over for re-heating and boiling off the alcohol. has anyone just tried freezing the beer and pouring off the alcohol as suggested here? no re-boiling of hops. not sure how to measure how Alcohol is left but this would seem to leave the beer intact.
 
I do this. In fact most people here are sick of my posts about this - freeze concentrating beer. Someone in Columbia SC/Charlotte NC can come taste either concoction and tell me if I am making total garbage or a million $$$ idea. Yes it likely has the methanol which I don't believe I can remove via freezing.
Cool.
Srinath.
 
good idea. looks like this post was passed over for re-heating and boiling off the alcohol. has anyone just tried freezing the beer and pouring off the alcohol as suggested here? no re-boiling of hops. not sure how to measure how Alcohol is left but this would seem to leave the beer intact.
While I agree that this is a great theory thete is a concern that someone did mention. Many of the flavor compounds are soluble in alcohol thus stripping alcohol potentially strips flavor. However, does the same theory apply to boiling? Plus, additional heating affects the flavor and potentially the color (darkening, whereas freezing may lighten).

Regarding freeze concentrating (or stripping?) If you know the approximate abv, you can calculate an estimated volume. 1 gal at 5% abv is 128*.05 or approx 6.5oz. You can then take a s.g. of your collected sample and compare it to the known s.g. of pure ethanol.
Challenges:
6oz is too small of sample volume for my setup. I don't know if you can benefit from a refractometer here either with an unknown. Though possibly compare sample pre freezing and both the diluted and concentrated?

I don't know how the alcohol distribution will be in the freezing solution. Typically things freeze from the outside inward. There is a possibility that the alcohol will be trapped in the center of your ice-block. Also, As the alcohol melts, it will melt the surrounding ice/water. I don't know if there is a reliable way to freeze extract the alcohol on a home-brew scale.
 
The freeze melt off is darker and richer than the base beer. It also is a bit more oily. In fact I warmed it to the point of ~50% leaving something really syrupy with a good oil film on top. The flavor profile can be more concentrated in some aspects but less in some other flavors compared to the base beer.
The Ice I throw away is still easily recognizable as a derivative of the base beer again but I have not examined it for oil or tried to warm it etc.
Testing these for gravity or with refractometer is a bit of a 3 variables 2 equation problem.

Freezing occurs outside in. I freeze them in 2 liter plastic bottles and I stick a skewer down the middle a few times before starting.
I melt it to a calculated 30 to 35%, if it was a 5% beer, I'll shoot for 6 fold. Typically I am in 9% territory and hence shoot for 3.5 fold. I found if I tried stronger I am unable to get a non alcoholic ice left behind. As in, even at 40% the ice seems to have too much alcohol in it. My thought is taking a 9% beer that's 2l vol and melting out 450ml instead of 600 ml leaves the remaining 1550ml tasting too alcoholic for me to think the 450 isn't any stronger than 30-35%. I may need a second freeze and melt with a more powerful freezer to get past my 30-35% is my thought.

Cool.
Srinath.
 
There's a pretty good Craft NA Brewery near me. They make some tasty beers, considering...
The owner came into my bar and when I inquired about the methods of removing or never getting alcohol, he said it was a proprietary method.
I have purchased HopTea and HopWater because I like beer but don't always want to get drunk, but it's damn expensive for something that doesn't get you drunk.
So, I now have hop pellets and will be dry hopping my Seltzer at home. But this idea could be fun, too.
 
So I’ve been looking to make an NA and had an idea along the same mindset as what Bubbles2 proposed last year, sort of. The goal: make a tasty beer flavored carbonated malt beverage with zero alcohol (so save the “no yeast/no beer” comments. Not important.) I’ve noticed most big name NA beers are light lager styles which typically involve a small amount of grain/extract in alcoholic Homebrew recipes so let’s consider that as we start. My concept centers around using only enough malt to reach what would be an acceptable FG and using other factors to enhance malt perception and mouthfeel. This particular recipe being akin to an IPA, 5 gallon batch.

Adjust water with Gypsum, CaCl, and acid as desired. (I started doing this with my regular extract brews and noticed a significant improvement. My water is very low in minerals btw.)
Steep #1 wheat, .5# Abbey, .5# carapils
Boil 1# Munich DME (since it seems to have the most flavor impact of the base malts so a little could have a greater effect), .5# maltodextrin
This gives us an OG/FG of roughly 1.023

Add hops in your usual way (for my IPAs these days I do a 4-6oz addition somewhere between 110 - 150 and steep for 20-30 mins.) ...RDWHAHB
Cool and siphon directly to a keg.
Dry hop in the keg.
Carb and serve.

I would think this would have more body than most commercial NAs, minimal sweetness, plenty of hop flavor, and good mouthfeel. All with no alcohol.

Were this successful you could easily do the same for other styles that don’t rely on big flavor contributions from yeast. Many of the dark malts used for stouts contribute very little sugars and you could add lactose for body and dry spice in the keg with coffee, toasted oak chips, cacao nibs, vanilla bean, etc.

I’m going to give it a try soon but I’d be curious to hear other thoughts on the process.
 
Yes. No fermentation required for this idea. Avoiding all alcohol production. All about targeting flavor and mouthfeel.
 
Trying to keep the process as simple as possible. The boil off method to reduce alcohol content seems unreliable at best, it’s time consuming and doesn’t seem to jive with hoppy styles where introducing more oxygen can have such a negative affect.
 
So your plan is not to make NA beer but a malt drink?
Basically. Not really concerned with the semantics, but having a keg full of something that tastes like (good, probably not great, but better than commercial NA) beer without any alcohol that is easy to make.
 
drink slower.....i can drink all day and not blow over a 0.06BAC......
I love drinking beer all day. Love Homebrewing. But I’ve got many compelling reasons not to have alcohol in my system all day long. I’m finding that I love the taste of beer much more than the alcohol itself so experimenting with NA seemed like a worthwhile endeavor. Just not one that I would want be too time consuming.
...not all of us have your indestructible liver, lol!
 
I love drinking beer all day. Love Homebrewing. But I’ve got many compelling reasons not to have alcohol in my system all day long. I’m finding that I love the taste of beer much more than the alcohol itself so experimenting with NA seemed like a worthwhile endeavor. Just not one that I would want be too time consuming.
...not all of us have your indestructible liver, lol!


when i'm working i drink kombucha.....close as i can get to NA beer! (10 gallons batches, i wish i had a pic of the scobys i grew! they were the size of pizza stones....lol...i'd drink a 96oz bottle during the work day! great times!) :mug:


edit: and when i make otherthings the NA beer smells foul....goes straight down the drain.....
 
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I am a bit of a sipper. If it's in my hand, I'm sipping. And then it's gone. This is why I'm not a fan of liquor. I just keep sipping.
I learned I needed a water, a soda, a beer and a whiskey. That way I was always sipping.
My wife balls it my sippy cup syndrome.
Sip, sip.
 
Basically. Not really concerned with the semantics, but having a keg full of something that tastes like (good, probably not great, but better than commercial NA) beer without any alcohol that is easy to make.
It's not semantics, malt drink tastes not even remotely like beer, NA or otherwise. One more issue you'll be confronted with is that malt drink is a breeding ground for all sorts of spoilage organisms. Without preservatives or pasteurization you'll have to drink it all rather quickly, like in a few days tops.
 

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