Low Enzymatic/Cold Mash/Low alcohol beer

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I also try to brew Low(er) O2. I won’t say I’m full blown LoDo but I do take steps in an effort. …but my goal is low carb in this beer so I had to make a cpl sacrifices.

My OG into the fermenter is 1.027 — a bit higher than I anticipated. Of course it depends on how low the 34/70 slurry takes it to FG, but I am planning on ~3% ABV ~5.5 carb beer. By contrast this same grain bill would be ~4.5% ABV and ~11 carbs Using my Low(er) O2 processes.

I have some ideas on how to take it lower carb next time. Not so much base malt and more specialty grain will probably be a start depending on the body of this beer.
 
Those are about the final numbers I’m looking for as well for carbs and ABV. Keep us posted.

I just came across the first commercial “cold brewed” beer I’ve seen on the shelf. It was an iteration of Founder’s ‘All Day IPA.’ Got a couple in the beer fridge right now. I rather like the Founder’s regular IPA.
 
BrewnWKopperKat said:
As I understand it, heating the wort from room temp to a boil often results in a ~ 1% beer beer; while a rest at ~ 152* F results in a ~ 3% beer. When I used this technique I included the rest. Obviously the results will depend on the amount of sugars from the cold extraction step.
Click to expand...

I’ve been thinking about your comment and I believe this is one reason my mash resulted in a higher OG than I anticipated. I imagine I’ll get ~3% as you say because I heated slowly via HERMS.

I may alter my technique next time by mashing at room temp (or cooler) until I no longer see an increase in SG via regular sampling, recirculating the entire time, then transfer to the boil kettle and heat the wort quickly to a boil. On my next NEM, I will forgo the overnight refrigerated mash.

does this sound plausible?
 
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brewbama said:
I may alter my technique next time by mashing at room temp (or cooler) until I no longer see an increase in SG via regular sampling, recirculating the entire time, then transfer to the boil kettle and heat the wort quickly to a boil. On my next NEM, I will forgo the overnight refrigerated mash.

does this sound plausible?
Click to expand...
focusing on the bolded phrases: With cold steeping (crystal malt, light roasted malts), over the past year, I did some short cold steeps, measuring OG and observing color changes. Grains were double crushed. I would shake/stir the malts ever 5 or 10 minutes. I found that OG was stable after about 30 minutes.

It seems plausible that 'cold steeping' base malts and recirculating would have similar results - most of the extraction may be done in an hour or so.
 
Well, the taste test of the NEM Vienna Lager is less than stellar. It just tastes… weird. Kind of a soap flavor or something. I’m going to give it some more time but at this point it’s a dumper.

It makes me wonder if the juice is worth the squeeze. My goal remains low(er) carb, full flavor beer but I am concerned this may not be the path forward.

Of course, the possibility exists that I can improve on the process so I will try again, but I am at a crossroads right now. Second guessing myself. The best bet may be brew a small grain bill and/or use enzymes. IDK
 
brewbama said:
Well, the taste test of the NEM Vienna Lager is less than stellar. It just tastes… weird. Kind of a soap flavor or something. I’m going to give it some more time but at this point it’s a dumper.

It makes me wonder if the juice is worth the squeeze. My goal remains low(er) carb, full flavor beer but I am concerned this may not be the path forward.

Of course, the possibility exists that I can improve on the process so I will try again, but I am at a crossroads right now. Second guessing myself. The best bet may be brew a small grain bill and/or use enzymes. IDK
Click to expand...
Bummer. I too have been hoping for a magical elixir, or at least a process to make a low carb/ABV beer. I did brew a Brut IPA a while back with amyloglucosidaise that did well in a comp, but it tasted like a Mich Ultra. I’d hoped that cold mash low enzyme would be the silver bullet.
 
Related to #202, there is some discussion on cold steeping / extraction in a topic over in AHA forums (link). I spend some time looking for the "Dr Fix" quote to see if there was additional discussion - it appears to have been in a section of HBD that wasn't captured by "Internet Archives" - see /1/ & /2/ for additional copies and links to the "Dr Fix" quote.
 
Posting now so I don't lose this thread again.

This spring, I tried out a cold mash American amber. It had a number of shortcomings, but proved that the concept had merit.

Last week I brewed up a cold mash porter, and I'm getting ready to rack it into a keg soon. I will follow up with my process and tasting notes to keep discussion of this process alive.
 
So my latest endeavor was for something with hefty flavor to help drown out my likely shortcomings with this new process. I settled on a recipe of:
7lbs dark (15 srm) Munich
8oz Crystal 60
8 oz Chocolate (350 srm) malt

I performed a 2 hr mash at 65F as a no-sparge BIAB with 6.5 gallons of RO water. With no salt additions, I measured a pH of 5.5 at the end of the mash. I ran the wort straight up to boil, and added 0.5 oz of homegrown Willamette for 30 minutes, and another 1 oz for a 30 minute flameout.

In the end, I had 4.75 gallons of 1.022 OG wort, and I pitched a decanted quart slurry of US-05 yeast. That meant a 35% efficiency. The kettle had a thick sludge layer which would easily have wreaked havoc on a gas fired setup.

In racking to the keg tonight, my initial tasting is that there is a mild grainy-ness, but it's blended into the crystal and chocolate malt flavors which seem to balance out as a light porter or a roasty brown. My FG is 1.010 which gives me 1.6% ABV. What is likely to be the next difficult step is balancing the carbonation level, as I don't think it will take much to throw the whole thing out of balance.

I'll report as this carbonates up, but I've got a feeling this is going to be a big win for me in the NEM method. 20230928_162459.jpg
 
Alan Reginato said:
I just saw this thread. I will save it, because I liked the idea. On winter, South hemisphere, I will give it a try. I shall share my perceptions.
Click to expand...

Ok. I give it a try.
The recipe:



20th Cold Brew Test.png

The inverted sugar would be the priming sugar.

I choose the 1 hour stirring approach. It was manual, so it was also a exercise. Not too hard, a medium speed was enough.

IMHO It worked, a lot of colour was extracted.

IMG_20230926_102129.jpg

During the stirring process.


IMG_20230926_102042.jpg
Some time after, but there was still a lot of particles in there.

I asked a fine grind, to BIAB setup. So, a lot of malt flour comes too. And after liftoff the grain bag and do a sparge, when I turned on the electric element, it turned to be a nightmare. In less than 3 minutes I could smell something burning. Take off the element and the scorching was REALLY bad. Maybe a gas burner would work better. Anyway I cleaned it. Added 4 whirflocks. Waited for 4 hours, transferred the wort to the fermentors. Cleaned the kettle, there was a lot of insoluble starch in there. Transferred back, cleaned the fermentors, a lot of cleaning involved...
Them turned the heat on, again, when it went about 60C, burnt smell again, cleaning again, turn on again and did a 65C mash, for 1 hour.
The insoluble starch and the scorching are a HUGE PROBLEM, SERIOUSLY. Let it settle down and racking aren't optional.

After all, forgot to take other pictures. But everything went normal, it is fermenting now. No sinal of burnt flavours, or I hope it so.

The final colour was a deep red, very nice. And smelled good too. The yeast was from a stout, so the final result will be a little darker.

I shall update as it goes, wish me luck!
 
scorching: IIRC (it's been a couple of years since I've brewed with this technique),
a course grind,​
sparging,​
gravity (let the wort sit for a couple of hours), and​
leaving some wort behind when transferring​
help prevent scorching while heating the wort.
 
stirring to shorten the 'cold extraction' step: stirring for an hour may not be necessary, but it may depend on the amount (and ratio) of water / malts.

With short cold steeps (crystal / roasted malts, not base malts), I find that extraction of colors & fermentables is generally complete after about 30 minutes. When I cold steep, I single crush the malts and give the steep a brief stir every five minutes.
 
Very nice @Alan Reginato !

It's true that there is a substantial amount of starch/sludge that is not present in a normal mash.

I did not settle or decant mine, but I think I avoided scorching because the heating element is located in the middle of a 5 gallon batch. Looking at yours being situated lower and with 10 gallons, I could easily see that making the difference.

And I'm slightly concerned with your 53 IBU on a 2% beer!
 
additional background: in other topics, I've talked about using a shorter cold steep of crystal malts (30 min vs overnight) . With a shorter cold steep, I find that I get almost all of the extraction (color, SG) in about 30 minutes. As part of that process, I give the steeping wort a quick stir every 5 minutes. Maybe a stir every 15 min (rather than every 5) is 'close enough'?

BrewnWKopperKat said:
stirring to shorten the 'cold extraction' step: stirring for an hour may not be necessary, but it may depend on the amount (and ratio) of water / malts.
Click to expand...

About a week ago, I put together a brew "day" where I attempted to measure the effectiveness of a 1 hour cold extraction while stirring briefly every 15 minutes. I then let the cold extraction sit overnight and attempted to measure again.

OG 48 (est), FG 12 (est), IBU 43 (Tinseth est), SRM 16 (est); 2 gal (into fermenter)
Water: no/low mineral; mash 60 min @ 152F; "amber balanced" profile added to mash
Grain: ~ 3.5# Pale Ale malt; ~ 4.25# Munich 10L; 0.25# Crystal 120L
Hops: Golding at 60, 30, 5 in a 3:2:2 ratio
Yeast: Nottingham @ 65F
Note: strike water included wort from cold extraction / steep

To reduce the flour from a double crush, all grains were single crushed. I also let the cold extraction wort settle for about an hour before adding it to the brew day kettle (and I left most of the last of the cloudy cold extraction wort behind).

Process (late afternoon on the day before brew day):
  • Munich 10 (cold extraction): in a 2 gal pail, add 1.75 gal water and malt. Stir briefly every 15 minutes. After 60 minutes measure SG.
  • Crystal 120L (cold steep): in a 0.5 gal container, add 0.25 gal water and malt. Stir briefly every 15 minutes, observing color. After 60 minutes measure SG.
  • After 60 minutes, move the two containers into a refridgerator overnight
For the 1 hour cold steep (stirring once every 15 minutes), I didn't see color changing after 30 minutes. WIth my other cold steeps (stirring every 5 minutes), color seemed to stop changing after about 30 minutes. So maybe: less stirring, similar result. The brand of crystal 120L I used was 'new to me' and it looks like I got a higher efficiency (around 50%) than I normally get (around 35%).

For the 1 hour cold extraction (stirring once every 15 mintues), it appears that I got about 20% efficiency out of the malt. The measurements on brew day were messy. It may be there was some additional SG from the overnight cold extraction.


If I were to repeat the cold extraction measurements as part of a future brew day, I would consider splitting the cold extraction into two containers (different grain to water volumes).
 
I've only tried a couple times so far, but IMO a starch precipitation rest and transfer off the sludge is well worth it. It avoids scorching and drops the gravity much lower.

If you wanted that gravity, you can add more grain (something with some B glucans, or something flavorful) during the conversion rest.

edit: also I recommend acidifying if under 2%; I've found the pH doesn't get low enough for FDA recommendations (4.6) sometimes. I'm toying with trying the GMO lactic acid yeast on a 1% beer.
 
Alan Reginato said:
Ok. I give it a try.
The recipe:



View attachment 830751
The inverted sugar would be the priming sugar.

I choose the 1 hour stirring approach. It was manual, so it was also a exercise. Not too hard, a medium speed was enough.

IMHO It worked, a lot of colour was extracted.

View attachment 830760
During the stirring process.


View attachment 830757Some time after, but there was still a lot of particles in there.

I asked a fine grind, to BIAB setup. So, a lot of malt flour comes too. And after liftoff the grain bag and do a sparge, when I turned on the electric element, it turned to be a nightmare. In less than 3 minutes I could smell something burning. Take off the element and the scorching was REALLY bad. Maybe a gas burner would work better. Anyway I cleaned it. Added 4 whirflocks. Waited for 4 hours, transferred the wort to the fermentors. Cleaned the kettle, there was a lot of insoluble starch in there. Transferred back, cleaned the fermentors, a lot of cleaning involved...
Them turned the heat on, again, when it went about 60C, burnt smell again, cleaning again, turn on again and did a 65C mash, for 1 hour.
The insoluble starch and the scorching are a HUGE PROBLEM, SERIOUSLY. Let it settle down and racking aren't optional.

After all, forgot to take other pictures. But everything went normal, it is fermenting now. No sinal of burnt flavours, or I hope it so.

The final colour was a deep red, very nice. And smelled good too. The yeast was from a stout, so the final result will be a little darker.

I shall update as it goes, wish me luck!
Click to expand...
Update!

FG stopped at 1.009. It means only 0,9% ABV. Not sure why or how. There's a burnt flavour, not that strong. And it's super bitter, even to me. But I'm not done, yet.

Trying to save this batch, added 3 kg of inverted sugar along with 5 L of water. Throw out the yeast cake, where the burnt flavour was more intense, and had to transfer back and forth between fermenters and the kettle. Also, added a new yeast package. Everything sanitised with alcohol.

Let's see how it goes.

I thought of naming this beer: Disaster Batch. If end up drinkable.
 
Alan Reginato said:
Update!

FG stopped at 1.009. It means only 0,9% ABV. Not sure why or how. There's a burnt flavour, not that strong. And it's super bitter, even to me. But I'm not done, yet.

Trying to save this batch, added 3 kg of inverted sugar along with 5 L of water. Throw out the yeast cake, where the burnt flavour was more intense, and had to transfer back and forth between fermenters and the kettle. Also, added a new yeast package. Everything sanitised with alcohol.

Let's see how it goes.

I thought of naming this beer: Disaster Batch. If end up drinkable.
Click to expand...
My attempts have had fairly low attenuation, too. I suspect there's just a higher proportion of non-fernentable protein, dextrin, etc.
 
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Hey guys I too want to brew low alcohol beer. I’ve been doing a few sober months here and there and just really enjoy the taste of beer.

My thoughts before reading about NE mashing was to mash a low OG beer hot and pair that with a yeast that doesn’t ferment maltriose.

Have you guys heard of this method? I’m hoping to do a test batch soon, Either what’s described in this video below or the NE mash.

 
I've been working on an Ultra Low ABV beer for a while now, and I think I've landed on a recipe I'm going to keep. I've tried the cold/lem method, and to be honest it was more hassle than it was worth. The scorching in my grainfather was brutal.

The real turning point in this recipe was using a maltriose negative yeast like Windsor.. it left tons of body in what should be a really thin beer.

Props to Craig at Ultra Low Brewing for all of the information

https://share.brewfather.app/i7n4xJo4zPDH9P
 
Last edited:
aeviaanah said:
Hey guys I too want to brew low alcohol beer. I’ve been doing a few sober months here and there and just really enjoy the taste of beer.

My thoughts before reading about NE mashing was to mash a low OG beer hot and pair that with a yeast that doesn’t ferment maltriose.

Have you guys heard of this method? I’m hoping to do a test batch soon, Either what’s described in this video below or the NE mash.

Click to expand...

I've tried this. Unfortunately, I used Windsor 'cause I had it. I really don't like Windsor. Tainted my results and I quit experimenting quite a while back. I haven't tried with London ESB, which also doesn't ferment maltriose, but I like the London ESB far more than Windsor! I think I'll try again with London ESB once I get my life settled again (finalizing divorce).

I don't test for PH levels. Can I just add some acid malt to the grain bill?
 
@elproducto Thankyou for sharing the recipe, it looks solid. Do you have any suggestions for an easy drinking lager? I’d like to start there before attempting IPA

Have you tried halting fermentation as a method to controlling ABV?
 
kmarkstevens said:
I've tried this. Unfortunately, I used Windsor 'cause I had it. I really don't like Windsor. Tainted my results and I quit experimenting quite a while back. I haven't tried with London ESB, which also doesn't ferment maltriose, but I like the London ESB far more than Windsor! I think I'll try again with London ESB once I get my life settled again (finalizing divorce).

I don't test for PH levels. Can I just add some acid malt to the grain bill?
Click to expand...
I’ve only used Windsor once a very long time ago when I was first home brewing. I remember because I had a bad experience…probably because it’s a low attenuator and I like dry beer. London ESB sounds like a good sub.

Try Brufather and trust the ph calculations. I typically acidify both the mash and post boil in all recipes. It seems with the low ABV beer you want to get post boil to 4.8 or so which is a little lower than typical (5.0-5.2). I doubt you’ll achieve 4.8 post boil ph with standard 5.2-5.6ph at mash (measured cool). So, you’ll want to plan on both a mash and post boil pH addition. I’ve gotten really good at eyeballing this commercially in the kettle but I always rely on measurements in the mash.
 
elproducto said:
I've been working on an Ultra Low ABV beer for a while now, and I think I've landed on a recipe I'm going to keep. I've tried the cold/lem method, and to be honest it was more hassle than it was worth. The scorching in my grainfather was brutal.

The real turning point in this recipe was using a maltriose negative yeast like Windsor.. it left tons of body in what should be a really thin beer.

Props to Craig at Ultra Low Brewing for all of the information

https://share.brewfather.app/i7n4xJo4zPDH9P
Click to expand...
What’s the logic with the 10m hop stand? We’re usually around 30-45m.
 
Alan Reginato said:
Update!

FG stopped at 1.009. It means only 0,9% ABV. Not sure why or how. There's a burnt flavour, not that strong. And it's super bitter, even to me. But I'm not done, yet.

Trying to save this batch, added 3 kg of inverted sugar along with 5 L of water. Throw out the yeast cake, where the burnt flavour was more intense, and had to transfer back and forth between fermenters and the kettle. Also, added a new yeast package. Everything sanitised with alcohol.

Let's see how it goes.

I thought of naming this beer: Disaster Batch. If end up drinkable.
Click to expand...
Well, I might have saved this batch. Now it's ABV is 3,5% and FG 1.007. The burnt taste still there, but much more subtle. The smell is imperceptible. And the beer, besides still green, is drinkable.

If I had some midnight wheat (or similar) at hand, I would use it to turn it into a stout. It should match perfectly the burnt flavour, someone could think of too much black malt.
If someone got scorched wort, it's a way to go.

I thought of adding some spices at priming syrup, maybe cinnamon and clove, because I got none from the saison yeast (quite uncommon). How about that?
 
Alan Reginato said:
Well, I might have saved this batch. Now it's ABV is 3,5% and FG 1.007. The burnt taste still there, but much more subtle. The smell is imperceptible. And the beer, besides still green, is drinkable.

If I had some midnight wheat (or similar) at hand, I would use it to turn it into a stout. It should match perfectly the burnt flavour, someone could think of too much black malt.
If someone got scorched wort, it's a way to go.

I thought of adding some spices at priming syrup, maybe cinnamon and clove, because I got none from the saison yeast (quite uncommon). How about that?
Click to expand...
Was there a typo? 1.009 was 0.9%, but 1.007 is 3.5%?
 
Poured an early bottle of what I brewed in #215.

Session strength (roughly 5%) and it's a very malt forward beer - and probably needs more (20?) IBUs.

No off flavors related to grain particles or scorching. Extra time (gravity) and leaving wort behind were key contributors.

Will I brew it again (adding extra IBUs)? Probably.

1698180735550.png


The book in the background is Microbrewed Adventures.
 
Hey, all. Been a while... I'm looking to cut back my alcohol consumption an extreme amount, have been considering just not drinking alcohol at all anymore for health reasons. But I'm having the hardest time with the idea of giving up brewing.
The NA beers on the market are pretty unappealing and extremely cost prohibitive. So, I'm wanting to get back into brewing extremely low abv beer. I think I could probably be OK with sub 2% abv beer. I made an Irish Red for my nitro tap back in fall of 2021 that was decent, but that's the last time I've done this method. I am thinking to do another one this weekend with some wy1084 I have going.

Has anyone brewed with this method lately? I think the key to this is to use some specialty malts. The beers I made with only base malts tasted a bit weird. But the Irish Red I made had some crystal malts and it had a much better flavor. My only complaint was maybe it lacked body, but that is to be expected for a very low abv beer I think. The key though is to keep the OG down and those caramel malts add sugar.
 
I'd agree that using plenty of specialty malts is key, namely for the dextrins and other unfermentables that give body.

My current go-to is a porter-style. Going off memory, it's 50-100% 15L Dark Munich, some Crystal 60/80 and a good chunk of chocolate malt. I'm only steeping for 60 minutes at 50-70f. The cold water doesn't seem to extract color as thoroughly, so I like bumping up specialties 25-50% over a standard recipe.

Unfortunately my last batch used an old liquid yeast that took a looong time to start and picked up some mustiness.

Otherwise, it clocks in at 1.4% and serves beautifully on nitro.
 
beersk said:
I still treated these the same I would a hot mash and added salts and lactic or phosphoric acid to adjust the pH. But perhaps they would benefit from further lowering of the pH. I'm not sure.
Click to expand...
I never considered this until now but some of this "different" flavor could be from needing to lower the pH further because there isn't enough fermentation to lower the pH into proper levels. Without a pH meter I can't measure precisely. But if one were to acidify, as they normally do, to a level of, say, pH 5.3 in the mash then maybe slightly post-boil, this still wouldn't be enough to bring the pH down to levels you'd normally see in regular strength beers because there is less fermentation activity and less for the yeast to do. Or am I off base on that?
If not, this could be a key component to improving these beers. I guess if anyone has taken a pH reading of a cold mashed finished beer without extra acidification to see what the final reading is, we would know for sure...
 
beersk said:
Has anyone brewed with this method lately? I think the key to this is to use some specialty malts.
Click to expand...
Based on a previous experiment which I described in this thread but never reported back on, I concluded that for low ABV beers, conventional mashing with less grain works just as well and is simpler & less wasteful compared to the cold mash method. If you go the conventional route, specialty malts, high mash temperature, and weakly attenuative yeast are key. A couple of months ago, I brewed a decent 1.5% ABV English bitter this way.
 
hamachi said:
Based on a previous experiment which I described in this thread but never reported back on, I concluded that for low ABV beers, conventional mashing with less grain works just as well and is simpler & less wasteful compared to the cold mash method. If you go the conventional route, specialty malts, high mash temperature, and weakly attenuative yeast are key. A couple of months ago, I brewed a decent 1.5% ABV English bitter this way.
Click to expand...
Did you post the recipe somewhere? I may have missed it.
 

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