Calories, sugars and ABV

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cool brew

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There is obviously a relation between how many calories that are in your beer and the amount of sugar that was in the wart. Some of these sugars are turned into Alcohol and CO2, but there is still some left over sugar that is not fermentable. I want to make a brew that is not extremely sweet, but has a strong alcohol content (11%+). Wine seems to have these characteristics using grapes, but can it be achieved using beer ingredients? Also, it seems that when I use a program to calculate Calories/Pint when trying to make this 11% + brew it is estimating 750 calories/pint. This is not something that I want because I am trying to get my girlfriend wasted of this stuff, but I don't want her to get a gut like mine.

IN SHORT, Can we accomplish a beer with lots of alcohol, that is not extremely sweet and has around 400 cal/pint? That is what I am goin for with my next brew, the Rainfruit Rounder. I am going to do lots of experimenting with this one!:D
 
I don' t think what you want to do is possible. Calories from beer come from the unferemnted sugars and ethanol itself has caloric value.
 
Right- alcohol has alot of calories. Vodka, for example, has 64 calories per ounce. Usually you only drink an ounce and a half or so at a time, not 16 ounces, though! However, just to compare, that means that vodka has 1024 calories per pint.

The calories in beer come primarily from the alcohol, not unfermented sugars. Wine, too. Some of the beers I make come in at around 400 calories or less per pint. The Dead Guy clone is around 300 calories per pint, and so is my DFH clone. Both are around 6-7% alcohol.
 
Makes sense, I think I am going to start distilling beer, making basically a really week scotch. 15-20 % ABV or so. Should be an interesting situation.
 
cool brew said:
Makes sense, I think I am going to start distilling beer, making basically a really week scotch. 15-20 % ABV or so. Should be an interesting situation.

I think this is illegal.
 
I would worry more about the 10 to 15 years of aging it takes for a Scotch to start tasting good.
 
yeah, bad idea. If you age thick beers as if they are wines though, good flavors usually come out of them. I am going to brew a batch that will be ready in 5 months or so, right when I get back from italy!
 
You want to get her wasted but not if she's fat?

Can I suggest you just spike her drinks with drugs or vodka.

Why do people think a serious homebrew forum is the place to ask such things!!!

Yes I know. I'm an EAC!

Can we please have a forum to put threads like this in?
 
Beerrific said:
I think this is illegal.

There are grey areas of distilling laws from state to state. I know some states it's not illegal to distill alcohol for personal use but it might be to give away. Some states you can distill up to 100 gallons a year. hmm... that's what the law on beer is, isn't it? 100 gallons/ year/ person in the household.
 
cool brew said:
This is not something that I want because I am trying to get my girlfriend wasted of this stuff, but I don't want her to get a gut like mine.
I hadn't noticed this one before.
It sounds like you really love and care about your girl friend.:( Maybe she should find another boy friend who actually respects her.
 
cool brew said:
I am trying to get my girlfriend wasted of this stuff, but I don't want her to get a gut like mine.

Just feed her Rum & Diet Coke, but use Bacardi 151. Works real fast too!
 
orfy said:
You want to get her wasted but not if she's fat?

Can I suggest you just spike her drinks with drugs or vodka.

Why do people think a serious homebrew forum is the place to ask such things!!!

Yes I know. I'm an EAC!

Can we please have a forum to put threads like this in?
I was just thinking this. Although not the drugging the GF thing:D
The whole point to a GF is that you don't have to get them hammered right?


Dan
 
cool brew said:
Makes sense, I think I am going to start distilling beer, making basically a really week scotch. 15-20 % ABV or so. Should be an interesting situation.
I think the result will be gross (and illegal).

If you want high alcohol content, brew a big beer and use a high attenuating yeast (even champagne yeast). Don't forget to age it for a few months.

Also, look up Apple Jack. Depending on your interpretation of the law, the method is still illegal, but the results will be more palatable than concentrated beer.
 
RichBrewer said:
It sounds like you really love and care about your girl friend.:(Maybe she should find another boy friend who actually respects her.

Well, she has been getting kind of fat, and I don't really want to be carrying around a fat GF. Anyways, not like it really matters since she is so beautiful on the inside (amazing personality).
:mug:
 
Yuri_Rage said:
I think the result will be gross (and illegal).

If you want high alcohol content, brew a big beer and use a high attenuating yeast (even champagne yeast). Don't forget to age it for a few months.


Good call. I have been looking into this. I am gonna go BIG, double everything except the water! Can't wait, should be ready right when I get back from europe. Do you think bottle conditioning for a long time, or leave it the secondary (or third for that matter)?
 
Downside to skipping secondary is you can get more sediment in your bottles, though, as long as (cant stress this part enough) fermentation is complete, then it will likely carb faster, though you will still need to tack on conditioning time.

EDIT: Wow 2222 posts
 
Denny's Evil Concoctions said:
Downside to skipping secondary is you can get more sediment in your bottles, though, as long as (cant stress this part enough) fermentation is complete, then it will likely carb faster, though you will still need to tack on conditioning time.

EDIT: Wow 2222 posts
Yeah I was talking about racvking to a secondary, and then aging in a third. Would this be a bad idea. The yeast might go through a full sedimentaion process and then when I bottle there would be no more yeast to carbonate. Probably bottling within 3 weeks produces the best results.
 
I found the solution to the problem that I was having when I started this thread. For all of you who thought that it can't be done, it can. Adding enzymes into the wart will convert a lot of the unfermentables into fermentables. This will produce more overall expendable energy for the yeast cells, and make the energy that is not usable by the yeast cells minimal. The result of this will be a lighter beer due to less leftover sugars. This is comon in Amarican Light beers, not popular amongst beer affectionados, but popular amungst the female crowd (the SWAMBO'S ).
 
It is impossible to have no yeast in the beer without filtering. It may take up to 6 weeks to carb though if the beer is extremely clear.

Even with finings, a beer well mixed with priming sugar and held at fermentation temperature, should carb within 3 to 6 weeks.
 
Denny's Evil Concoctions said:
It is impossible to have no yeast in the beer without filtering. It may take up to 6 weeks to carb though if the beer is extremely clear.

That is awesome to know. Just popped a HB open that has been bottled for a week now and it's completely flat. I guess I will wait it out. I messed up pretty bad anyways, tastes like flat cider. Unfortunately I did this one before reading "The Joy of Homebrewing". I know understand that 40% table sugar isn't a good idea. Duhhhhh. I feal like a retard.
 
Yooper Chick said:
...The calories in beer come primarily from the alcohol, not unfermented sugars. Wine, too.

According to a dietitian that I know (Ph.D, not self proclaimed); although there are quite a few calories in alcohol, that is to say if you burn it in a calorimeter, the body cannot use most of them. Unlike glucose, which can be broken down and burned by any cell in the body, only the liver can use alcohol as fuel.. It metabolizes the alcohol into glycogen which it then stores locally. Once the liver's glycogen reserves are full, which doesn't take much, the rest of the alcohol gets broken down into non-toxic (or less toxic) compounds that are then tosses out with the dish water.
Short story long, technically, in a "Nutritional Label" a pint of 100% ethenol would have tons of calories; but your body would only absorb a few of those, then toss the rest...
 
Brewing Clamper said:
According to a dietitian that I know (Ph.D, not self proclaimed); although there are quite a few calories in alcohol, that is to say if you burn it in a calorimeter, the body cannot use most of them. Unlike glucose, which can be broken down and burned by any cell in the body, only the liver can use alcohol as fuel.. It metabolizes the alcohol into glycogen which it then stores locally. Once the liver's glycogen reserves are full, which doesn't take much, the rest of the alcohol gets broken down into non-toxic (or less toxic) compounds that are then tosses out with the dish water.
Short story long, technically, in a "Nutritional Label" a pint of 100% ethenol would have tons of calories; but your body would only absorb a few of those, then toss the rest...

I don't think this is exactly correct. Ethanol has one metabolic pathway: it is oxidized twice to produce acetic acid. It is then converted to a molecule that is normally used in the body (but not need to be taken internally) or excreted as waste. This produces energy (7 kcal/gram ) but this energy cannot be stored, thus it is used in place of other sources of energy. This effectively stops your body from using the other food you have taken in that day. Also, the energy that alcohol carries nothing (well, very little) nutritional with it. This is why alcohol is referred to as having "empty calories."
 
orfy said:
So what gives me my beer belly?
My liver's not that big!
I would assume it's those unfermentables. Thats why we must terminate them... (not really, cuz that's where the joy and flavor comes from). I guess I should relax, not worry, and let my GF drink as much Home Brew as she can handle till she gets a huge beer belly.
:ban:
 
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