Brewing a lower alcohol beer for the Mrs.

[drthvtr]

My wife would like me to make an ale with a lower alcohol content. I have a pale ale recipe that I like, and I thought I could modify it. Here is the proposed new recipe, what do you think?

1# crystal 10
3# extra light DME
0.75 oz Amarillo (bittering)
1 oz Strisselspalt
0.5 oz US Saaz
Wyeast London Ale III #1318

 

[TallyPatriot]

What size batch? If your talking about 5 gallons, a quick Beersmith calculation shows only 3% ABV. That is really low and doesn't account for poor efficiency, you could end up with ~2% alcohol. If it were me I'd bump that up to 4.5 or 5 lbs of DME which should get you in the BMC alcohol range around 4.5% ABV.

 

[drthvtr]

Yes, it would be a 5 gallon batch. Maybe another pound of DME would be good. My wife is used to drinking Coors Light. She likes my beer, but 2 of my brews are about all she can drink. I make that same recipe with 7# DME and more hops as one of my standard batches.

 

[RobWalker]

3.5 - 3.9 is good for a low abv, any less and you're just gonna be drinking water!

 

[drthvtr]

OK. Thanks for the input. I will go with 4# DME and report back how it came out.

 

[lx302]

4# DME and if you want cut back the crystal to .5 or .75lbs.

 

[drthvtr]

I used a full pound of crystal 10. It took a while to condition in the bottle, but it was good enough that I have another batch in the secondary right now. It is not as tasty as it is with 7# DME, but it is not bad. My wife is happy with it.