Just a little experiment...

[Sir Humpsalot]

So I have a pregnant friend and a non-drinking friend who misses beer.

So 2L of American wheat beer, a few pellets of Cascade, heated to 180, and then force carbed. We will see what we get.

 

[Lumpy16]

Is the idea here to remove the alcohol? Pretty much distilling and keeping the beer instead of the alcohol? Seems interesting.

 

[Sir Humpsalot]

Yup. I already notice the beer getting darker. I am also afraid I may get some nasty yeast flavor from the heat. And there is some hop pellet gun around the rim now, but I may be able to scoop much of that away.

Of course, I have lots of questions right now, but that's what experimentation is all about.

 

[SeattleMatt]

How will you know if it worked? I guess if a refractometer and hydrometer read the same, you could be somewhat certain it worked. No alcohol to skew the refractometer reading.

 

[Sir Humpsalot]

Wow. That's actually an awesome idea!!! Thanks.

How long do u think I should hold 180F for? 5-10 minutes seems like a good guess to me.

 

[Sir Humpsalot]

Well it has turned a fair bit darker in the process. It's cooling now and I'm chugging 2L of Coke as quickly as I can. LOL I never drink soda.

One thing that occurred to be is that alcohol boils off in the 170's and that's also a good pasteurization temp. So in that sense, the two goals of killing bacteria and driving off ETOH are in line with one another.

The Brix meter puts it right at 4.0.

I will wait until it's further cooled before drawing a sample for the hydrometer.

 

[Sir Humpsalot]

Well, I ran the tests three times on the Regular and the NA version. Here's what I got...

For the Regular beer, I got 4.5 Brix and 1.009 SG.
For the Non-Alcoholic, I got 4.1 Brix and 1.008 SG
For Sugar Water Solution: 1.6 Brix, 1.006 SG
For Tap Water: 0.0 Brix and 1.000 SG
For Tap Water with 4% Isopropyl Alcohol added: 1.7 Brix and .995 SG


The original beer was 4.0%ABV

Alcohol skews the Brix reading high, apparently, so that lines up, but huh? I thought the FG would increase as the alcohol boiled off. I ran the tests three times to be sure with both beers degassed and at room temperature.

Can anybody do a little bit more with these numbers? Playing around with calculators, it seems to me like I maybe close to half of the alcohol out, down to 3% or 2.0% or so, but this is really just a very rough guess and I could be way off.

Next time I will keep the beer on the heat for a full 30 minutes, or maybe longer.

Nevertheless, this is still a really low alcohol brew now and having had discussions with both of my friends, neither is going to freak out about a small amount of alcohol... so it'll at least be worth them having a taste test to see what they think.

 

[Lumpy16]

Maybe I'm thinking about this wrong but wouldn't the FG be the same? The sugar content in the beer wouldn't change so then you would still get the same gravity. The density likely would be very similar. Maybe not though.

 

[Sir Humpsalot]

Maybe I'm thinking about this wrong but wouldn't the FG be the same? The sugar content in the beer wouldn't change so then you would still get the same gravity. The density likely would be very similar. Maybe not though.

I edited my post above to include a few more samples.

As you can see from my water sample and the water sample mixed with 4% alcohol, the presence of a relatively small amount of alcohol has a measurable negative effect on the SG (decreasing it)... whereas sugars have a positive effect (increase in SG).

(Lab notes: I added the alcohol by volume; the Sugar water was mixed down to a SG of 1.006 to test the brix.)

Another factor is that there must have been some boil-off losses as the alcohol evaporated. This should have the effect of increasing the SG, while the loss of alcohol also increases the SG. This may account for the similarities between the FG readings of the two beers.

So in terms of change, here's what we have:

Loss of ETOH By Evaporation
- Brix
+ SG

Increase in Sugar by Evaporation
+ Brix
+ SG


Now if I really wanted to get into it, I could make isopropyl / sugar water mixtures to mimic the beer at various alcohol levels and different degrees of boil-off. Unfortunately, I don't have any measuring utensils of adequate precision for this right now.

And now I'm really confusing myself.. because with the decrease in volume (more sugar remaining in the beer) and the loss of the ETOH, my SG reading for the non-alcoholic version should have been HIGHER, not lower. ???

 

[squigley]

Water is denser than alcohol...so burning off the alcohol should increase the FG slightly, but maybe not enough to account for the error in your analysis.

 

[Lumpy16]

Right my bad, wasn't thinking about that. Looks like it is quite a bit less dense too. Interesting results. Would be interested in how it turns out.

 

[Sir Humpsalot]

I just thought of another test I could do. Since one of my gf's is a lightweight, I could grab a funnel and some tubing and have her do a stand at the beer bong and see how she feels afterwards. LOL

 

[60sd]

I've read about distilling alcohol on some home distillers forums and based on that I would say that perhaps your best indicator of when the alcohol is boiled off is the temperature of the solution. Based on what I've read, and what I remember of science class, you cannot heat a solution past it's boiling point (vacuums and pressure aside). When the alcohol (with a lower boiling point) is out of the solution, the boiling point will be higher and the temperature of the solution will rise.

If you dont mind running a few batches through, I would try setting the heat at low/med and watching what the thermometer does. I would expect it to level off somewhere between 170-190, then start to rise again. I'd stop when it starts to rise.

Interesting thread, keep us posted!

 

[Sir Humpsalot]

Well, I tried making a "synthetic wort" out of table sugar and isopropyl. The result is... at an SG of 1.010, it has a brix of 5.8.

Hrmm.. that's quite a bit higher than my original beer. I guess I'll have to use ethanol instead of isopropyl and see if that changes the result... but I don't have any laying around. Guess I'm heading to the liquor store tomorrow...

And 60sd... I'm not sure my set up can hold temps precisely enough without an especially long heating session to slowly ramp it up. And it seems that the longer you heat it, the darker it gets. My pale ale is looking more like an Oktoberfest right now, and although I can't detect any alcohol aroma, I suspect I got less than a third of the alcohol out. So it seems like speed might be important for the home NA beer maker. Well either that, or using dark beers.

Edit to add: I followed up on what you had suggested and you may be on to something. Perhaps the way to do this is to bring the beer to a full boil. I was actually trying to avoid doing this, but now in retrospect, it's probably the best way to remove as much of the alcohol as possible.

 

[Sir Humpsalot]

Well, I just sampled the beer after a quick carbonation. It does have a noticeable hint of booze left in it, but I could definitely slam down several without getting tipsy. It needs a bit more carbonation though. I'd guess I probably removed about a quarter of the alcohol (down to 3%). Why? Well, based on my reading of various distillation websites, it has to do with how much heat it takes to remove the last traces of alcohol from a mixture. I'll explain below...

Here's a few thoughts for anyone who wants to join in on the experimentation...

I didn't get the temperature nearly high enough. For a beer with only 4%ABV, the boiling point is around 97*C. Given how low in alcohol the beer is, it's actually quite difficult to remove it. If my beer were, say, 10%ABV, it would be really easy to extract a couple percentages of alcohol. However, the lower the ratio of alcohol to water gets, the harder it becomes to get the last of it.

I'd recommend at least a 30 minute heating session. Or maybe bring it all the way up to a boil, and then let it cool down to 170F on its own before beginning to chill.

I'd recommend getting the temperature quite a bit higher, despite the fact that this will turn your beer darker. However, in terms of flavor, the beer doesn't seem to have suffered much. It still tastes like beer. The little extra couple pellets of hops were a nice touch.

My beer is quite cloudy, although it wasn't perfectly clear to begin with. But I'm not sure, I think I might have caused some haze in the heating process. Maybe I could have added some Irish moss in with the hop pellets? It's only been a couple hours in the fridge, but so far, I'm not seeing anything settling out.

Start with a low bitterness beer as your late hops additions will shift towards bittering over the course of the heating process. If you want hops aroma and flavor, go ahead and add it during this process of removing the alcohol. Non alcoholic IPA anybody?

As I mentioned before, we're already at the temperature needed for pasteurization. So add extra hops to your heart's content.

A 2 L flask is perfect for this, but make a little extra because you'll lose some to your hops, and your gravity sample (hopefully I can nail this process down enough that I can stop taking one), And apparently a 2L soda bottle holds 2 liters of soda... which means that there's headspace remaining. So make sure you have enough beer to fill it adequately.

 

[boscobeans]

If you dont mind running a few batches through, I would try setting the heat at low/med and watching what the thermometer does. I would expect it to level off somewhere between 170-190, then start to rise again. I'd stop when it starts to rise.

Interesting thread, keep us posted!

It should level out at about 174-175 until the alcohol is boiled off . It will then begin to rise.

bosco

 

[broadbill]

Hydrometers and refractometers measure the amount of dissolved sugars in a given solution, not the amount of alcohol in solution. This is why you didn't see a difference in your boiled vs. non-boiled. The amount of residual sugar in the fermented beverage didn't change with the heating. If anything, it would increase a bit as you increased evaporation of the water, concentrating the % of sugar in solution.

 

[Sir Humpsalot]

Hydrometers and refractometers measure the amount of dissolved sugars in a given solution, not the amount of alcohol in solution. This is why you didn't see a difference in your boiled vs. non-boiled. The amount of residual sugar in the fermented beverage didn't change with the heating. If anything, it would increase a bit as you increased evaporation of the water, concentrating the % of sugar in solution.

Hydrometers measure the density of the fluid. Motor oil has no sugar in it, but it will read a very high SG on a hydrometer. See? Hydrometers merely measure density. It gets difficult because alcohol has a lower density than water. I added 4% alcohol to water and it dropped the SG to 0.995. So as you add alcohol to a mixture that contains sugar, it's tough to tell how much increase in SG is due to sugar, vs how much decrease is due to ETOH production.

Refractometers measure the angle of the light passing through a fluid. If refractometers measure sugars, how do you explain that I added 20mL of pure alcohol to 480mL of pure water and read 1.7 Brix on my refractometer? There was no sugar content there... just pure (tap) water and pure alcohol (mixed to roughly 4%ABV)... but it read 1.7 brix whereas pure water read 0.0. Neither had any sugar added.

I'm not being argumentative here.. just trying to bring someone along by the Socratic method. Hey, as you can see, I'm struggling too to figure this stuff out. I don't have a lock on it. But logic will carry us through, so let's keep at it.

 

[Sir Humpsalot]

It should level out at about 174-175 until the alcohol is boiled off . It will then begin to rise.

bosco

Alcohol, on it's own, boils at 173F. OTOH, 4% alcohol with 96% water boils around 205F.

 

[boscobeans]

Alcohol, on it's own, boils at 173F. OTOH, 4% alcohol with 96% water boils around 205F.

So if what you state is correct; No alcohol can be distilled from a 4% ABV beer or mash at or around the BP of ethyl alcohol 175F.

bosco

 

[Desp]

Why not just drink a beer? It's not going to harm anything.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-18506174

 

[broadbill]

Hydrometers measure the density of the fluid. Motor oil has no sugar in it, but it will read a very high SG on a hydrometer. See? Hydrometers merely measure density. It gets difficult because alcohol has a lower density than water. I added 4% alcohol to water and it dropped the SG to 0.995. So as you add alcohol to a mixture that contains sugar, it's tough to tell how much increase in SG is due to sugar, vs how much decrease is due to ETOH production.

Refractometers measure the angle of the light passing through a fluid. If refractometers measure sugars, how do you explain that I added 20mL of pure alcohol to 480mL of pure water and read 1.7 Brix on my refractometer? There was no sugar content there... just pure (tap) water and pure alcohol (mixed to roughly 4%ABV)... but it read 1.7 brix whereas pure water read 0.0. Neither had any sugar added.

I'm not being argumentative here.. just trying to bring someone along by the Socratic method. Hey, as you can see, I'm struggling too to figure this stuff out. I don't have a lock on it. But logic will carry us through, so let's keep at it.

I understand what you are saying and I amend what I say: In the case of brewing, hydrometers/refractometers measure the sugar dissolved in water.

That being said, measuring the amount of sugar in solution isn't going to help determine if alcohol is being boiled off with the heating, as hydrometers do not measure alcohol directly. They measure the production of alcohol by the decrease in dissolved sugars in solution (as they are converted to alcohol).

 

[Sir Humpsalot]

I understand what you are saying and I amend what I say: In the case of brewing, hydrometers/refractometers measure the sugar dissolved in water.

That being said, measuring the amount of sugar in solution isn't going to help determine if alcohol is being boiled off with the heating, as hydrometers do not measure alcohol directly. They measure the production of alcohol by the decrease in dissolved sugars in solution (as they are converted to alcohol).

They also can be used to measure alcohol directly in the absence of sugar since alcohol affects SG and the refraction of light.

The preexisting charts you get with the hydrometer however, as we can see, are worthless for this.

 

[boscobeans]

Interesting article on the subject;

http://byo.com/stories/article/indices/43-low-alcohol-brewing/265-brew-a-great-non-alcoholic-beer

bosco

 

[TheZymurgist]

I understand what you are saying and I amend what I say: In the case of brewing, hydrometers/refractometers measure the sugar dissolved in water.

That being said, measuring the amount of sugar in solution isn't going to help determine if alcohol is being boiled off with the heating, as hydrometers do not measure alcohol directly. They measure the production of alcohol by the decrease in dissolved sugars in solution (as they are converted to alcohol).

Since alcohol has a density that is different from that of water or sugar, adding or removing it from any solution will change a hydrometer reading, as Sir Humpsalot stated. Therefore, if you take a gravity reading of any beer, then remove the alcohol, and take another gravity reading, your two gravity readings will be different. Hydrometers do not just measure the amount of sugar that is dissolved in a solution. They measure the density of the entire solution. When you take an Original Gravity reading, before fermentation, you are mainly dealing with water and dissolved sugar. After fermentation, you have water, sugar, and alcohol. All three of those items will have an effect on density, since they have their own density properties. Remove any one of those items, and it will have an effect on your hydrometer reading.

 

[Sir Humpsalot]

Why not just drink a beer? It's not going to harm anything.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-18506174

Because I already know how to make that!!! Partly, it's the challenge. Partly, it's to add a new option to my brewing repertoire. Partly, it was an excuse to put my new 2L flask to work and get a feel for how it's going to be put to use... you know, finding the pots that it fits in for double-boiling, getting a feel for how long it takes to heat up, etc.

Anyway, with regard to the BYO article, that is basically how I assumed you would go about doing it. However, this runs contrary to my understanding of distilling where, as I understand it, the lower the alcohol concentration gets, the more you have to heat it to get the last remaining bit (and the more water that is evaporated along with the alcohol). My understanding is that two liquids in a solution don't boil off at neat and tidy levels... they kind of evaporate off across a spectrum, where the higher you heat it, the more of each you will boil off. As I understand it, it shouldn't be possible to drive off all of the alcohol (or within even a half of a percent) until you are probably close to 190F or so.

Anybody with some distilling knowledge care to chime in?

 

[KeyWestBrewing]

You could eisen it and remove the alcohol that way. I may be wrong but I was under the impression that this is what they did for non-alcoholic beers.

 

[boscobeans]

Anybody with some distilling knowledge care to chime in?

Back in 69 part of a laboratory experiment, while in Pharmacy school, involved producing alcohol and then making an orange tincture with it.

Each student started with a simple sugar water mash and used plain baker's yeast. After a week we distilled the resulting "wine" using laboratory grade equipment with precise temperature control and measurements.

From what I remember we stayed very close to the BP of ethyl alcohol, discarding any distilate that came off before the correct temp and stopping once the vapor climbed a degree or two above that temp. The entire procedure was designed to produce alcohol that was safe for human consumption.

Although I do not remember the exact figures I do know we extracted most of the alcohol from our 1 liter samples. I do remember each student having a finished tincture volume in Rx bottles that were almost full (not sure if they were 3 or 4 oz bottles)

If the starting mash in the experiment could be equated to a finished beer I am sure that a very large amount of the beer's alcohol could be boiled off if the temperature was kept within just a few degrees of the BP of alcohol.

OMO

bosco

 

[Brad2287]

You could also test if there is alcohol in the final product using the test strips that are designed for breast milk. I am not sure what the mdl is for them, but it should put you in the realm of safe.

 

[Sir Humpsalot]

So I decided the easiest way to test for alcohol initially is to just drink one before work.

As a homebrewer and craft brew lover, this is certainly the best NA beer I have ever had. It has a really nice hop flavor and aroma from the super late hop addition during the second (alcohol-stripping) boil (The alcohol boils, so technically I can call it a second boil). There are however, a few issues.

First, it is cloudy... This is probably at least partly because I was scooping the dregs of the keg to scrounge up 2L of beer. However, it doesn't seem eager to settle out, so I don't think this is the whole problem. I am willing to bet it is at least partly process related. Also though, I don't know how well yeast flocculates without alcohol being present.

Second, I can feel a very slight buzz. I definitely removed some of the alcohol, but I will need to heat it for the full 30 minutes next time.

Third, there is an oxidation problem indicated by a distinct cardboard taste and aroma. I did forget to purge the 2L bottle before starting to carbonate the beer, so that may be where it comes from. Also, I bottled with a funnel and a hose, so it wasn't counter pressure filled. I just carbed it up to about 28psi to compensate for losses of CO2.

Overall, I would say it's not quite NA. If it were, I would say it is an almost passable alternative to mass produced versions... For homebrew and craft beer lovers, but I have reservations about serving it to people who have been raised on BMC. I think the flavors may be too much for someone who isn't even getting a buzz off of it. But with that said, there are clearly process issues with how I did it that prevent me from being 100% certain that this isn't a totally viable project. If the beer were clear and had a nicer head, I would be much more inclined to bring a non-drinking Sharps/O'Douls drinker a 6er.