Goofynewfie
Well-Known Member
I'm from Canada as well and I know quite a few people who after 2 beers should not drive. just because you do not feel the effects does not mean they are not there
Ever wish they made good NA beers?
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I'm from Canada as well and I know quite a few people who after 2 beers should not drive. just because you do not feel the effects does not mean they are not there
I suggest we get back to the OPs topic, which is good tasting low/NA beers. Please.
FWIW I brewed a batch of stout with plans to vacuum boil the alcohol out, which may not bring it down to NA range, but very likely will drop it down to a very low amount. Unfortunately I never got around to putting the vacuum assembly together so I never got to try it. I have the stuff to do it, I think, including a heater with temp control and vacuum pump and hose and attachment hardware.
My plan was to rig up a carboy with a carboy cap and hose it to a vacuum pump. Heating it with a controller to keep the temp in the range where alcohol will evap out. After some undetermined amount of time transfer to a keg and force carb.
Sounds easy enough. I likely won't have the time to try this again until the autumn, though.
FWIW I brewed a batch of stout with plans to vacuum boil the alcohol out, which may not bring it down to NA range, but very likely will drop it down to a very low amount. Unfortunately I never got around to putting the vacuum assembly together so I never got to try it. I have the stuff to do it, I think, including a heater with temp control and vacuum pump and hose and attachment hardware.
My plan was to rig up a carboy with a carboy cap and hose it to a vacuum pump. Heating it with a controller to keep the temp in the range where alcohol will evap out. After some undetermined amount of time transfer to a keg and force carb.
Sounds easy enough. I likely won't have the time to try this again until the autumn, though.
Thunder_Chicken
Well-Known Member
You may want to look into kvass - it is a light, fermented, beer-like beverage made from rye bread and sour cultures and popular in Russia and eastern Europe. ABV is generally much less than 1%.
Careful with that!
I don't know if a carboy can withstand the vacuum without imploding. It's only one atmosphere of pressure, but perhaps too much for a carboy. They aren't built very well, and one weak spot, a hairline fracture, or a bump can cause it to collapse with terrible consequences.
In the lab, even heavy glass vessels especially designed for vacuum have a metal shroud (screen), just in case. Take a look at a vacuum film evaporator. The rotating assembly prevent sudden boils while enlarging the exposed fluid area to the "film" that clings to the sides. Then you need something to trap the vapor so you're not sucking all that stuff into your vacuum pump.
Back in the late 90's when I wasn't brewing so much, my wife and I, in an attempt to lose a little weight, switched to NA beers. We tested all that was available back then. We decided, that Odouls and Sharps were terrible, and were in fact not beer but some other flavored carbonated drink. We did discover though that the NA versions of cheap beer do taste reasonably close to the regular version. Our favorites were Pabst and Old Milwaukee - at least they tasted like cheap beer. Really not bad at all on a hot Summer day
Well I have brewed a couple Low Gravity beers these year and was very happy...
- English Mild/E+Norther Brown
- English SUmmer Ale
- "American" Summer Ale
I mean if you get down to around 3% ABV it is almost NA beer....
You can drink a 2 or three of those and never feel them... Wake up in the morning and cannot tell you had any alcohol the night before...
dstranger99
Well-Known Member
I've seen 4 NA's in my Area, Odouls original & Amber, Busch, and Beck's. The Amber Odoul's is better than the original. Haven't tried the Beck's yet, Busch tastes just like a regular Busch.. But it would be great if they ever did a Sierra Nevada extra hoppy N/A..
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m3n00b
Well-Known Member
I messed up my kolsch and it ended up at 3.5%. Still feel one.
I was thinking of using a ton of specialty grains without mashing to get the flavor and then only using a pound or two of extract for a 5 gal batch. get an OG of 1.025 or something. FG of 1.015.
There are a couple of small beer recipes floating around I've been meaning to try that are in the 2.5% range. Believe it or not, I often have NA beer around the house for those times when I want something to drink and know I'll be operating heavy machinery. I like soda fine, but tend not to drink a lot it, maybe one or two a week, if that. Somewhere in my head, I've decided the NA beer is a healthier option than soda, which is probably junk science I've pulled out of nowhere. I do drink a fair amount of water, but, sometimes, I just want something different. I still can't believe it when they card me for NA beer. Of course, it is often in the shopping cart with a couple of six packs or bombers of regular beer. I'm not sure what the cashier is thinking when I'm checking out.
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m3n00b
Well-Known Member
I never drink soda. I want to drink beer like one would drink soda. IE at work and other places.
Usually nothing at all, or if they do maybe "a notorious alcoholic trying to hide behind some low alc. fare..."
Many years ago I had some NA beer in the U.K. that wasn't too bad at all, but nothing like a home brew by today's standards or even a decent house bitter. Old Peculiar NA, IIRC.
Of course that didn't last long and I switched back to the other stuff quickly. Why travel to England and not drink one of their ESBs?
Ship's Ale (Brighton Marina's Pub) in particular was very memorable.
According to this chart, mashing at 167-176F at a thickness of 1-1.4 qt/lb, will give you very low fermentability (below 50%), while also keeping the starch content of the wort low. I have to see if I can talk my brewing partner into giving it a try this weekend.
That's not a half bad strategy. Basically you are submarining your efficiency, but have still have lots of grain to provide more flavor than what you would get if you simply reduced the grain bill to keep the ABV low. While this might work well, commercially this wouldn't fly because you would be wasting a lot carbohydrate, and people won't pay much more for a low alcohol brew
@pjj2ba, At the extreme, you could (theoretically) brew a 1.030 OG beer that only attenuates down to 1.021, leaving you at 1.2% ABV, so your grain bill could be very modest.
But your sanitation needs to be pretty stellar because you're leaving a lot of potential snacks for any critters.
But your sanitation needs to be pretty stellar because you're leaving a lot of potential snacks for any critters.
Won't all of that unfermentable sugar give it a very sweet flavor?
m3n00b said:
Germans, surprisingly are way into NA beers. My German brother (as he is affectionately known) only keeps NA beers at home and drinks alcoholic beers when we go out. Erdinger Alkoholfrei Weissbier is by far the best NA I've ever had, and my local soccer team had a case of it for each half, because they said its so healthy, tasty, and keeps you from cramping.
I worked at a company in Munich a while back and they had a small company grocery store attached to the cafeteria where they sold at least 4 styles of REAL beer (I've been told in Bavaria, every employer must provide, or allow their employees to bring a minimum of two beers every day), and apparently, an old man who worked in the machine shop over-served himself late one evening, and is now down a few digits. So they only sell NA now
Jacob_Marley
Well-Known Member
Me too.
It's a large part of why I make wine rather than beer ... wine keeps better - the beer I'd be entirely too happily compelled to drink.
I spent most of my younger days living just too damn hard ... I would have made a good ancient Roman ... lived too hard, worked out too hard, got too little sleep, too much stress, too much wine, smoking, gluttony, fighting, fornication. Now I'm just hoping to pull my ass out of the fire before I end up dead.
Hyman Roth said it best "Good health -- the most important thing in the world. More than success, more than money -- more than power. "
Damn right.
Not if it is done right (shortish). There should be mostly Alpha amylase activity above 167. This will break up big branched chains into small branched chains and some straight chains (clipped off branches) and finally some di- and tri-saccharides. These last ones are sweet tasting and the yeast can eat them. The bigger chains are not fermentable and contribute to the high FG, AND they have no taste. If you go too long, the alpha amylase will eventually chop the bigger chains up into fermentable sugars and result in a lower FG
Often sweetness comes primarily from crystal malts, and the sweetness comes from compounds formed during the drying process that aren't present in the base malts (at least not in high amounts)
Well eat before you drink... and if that is not the issue...
Go lower...
I had tried about 10 years ago to brew LOW-GRAV beers when I was doing EXTRACT brewing... The results were disapointing...
But I seem to have no problem since I went ALL-GRAIN... and I am amazed how much flavor I can get (to include MALT)...
Makes me want to see "how low can I go"...
I am going to try a Summer Ale using Maris Otter and shoot for 2.8 to 3.0.
The cool thing is I get BEER and it cost so little because of the small amount of ingredents..
If I am successful I will try to drop you a line.
DPB
Varmintman
Well-Known Member
Been thinking about this for awhile and I am going to have to say no I would not like a good NA beer. And the funny thing is I do not brew high gravity beers but stay within 3% to 4% alcohol. One would think I would love having a NA beer but nope I guess the buzz is part of it all as well.
And yes I am a lightweight.....And dang glad of it
And yes I am a lightweight.....And dang glad of it
headbanger
Well-Known Member
Homercidal said:
Homer, is there a way you could achieve the same, or similar, results by freezing the beer? I have no idea about this so just asking but the whole boiling/vacuum thing seems kind of risky to me.
Freezing the beer would be called fractional freezing, or freeze distilling, or concentrating. All of those terms means to INCREASE the alcohol, as you remove a portion of the water as ice crystals, leaving more alcohol, and everything else, behind.
headbanger
Well-Known Member
Ah, I see. I thought maybe there was a way to freeze everything but the alcohol and then siphon it off.
Nope. Alcohol doesn't freeze that easy. Boils right quick though!
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