Low-ABV beer?

[Toxxyc]

Good morning everyone! So this weekend was a weekend just like any other, with some beers here and there (and a few very good Gilroys as well, but that's off topic), and again the topic came up of alcohol free beer. Now we all know it - beer brewed and boiled to drive off alcohol and all that, and we also all know the issue with these beers. The flavour (and specially the hop profile) is pretty much ruined. But now I've been thinking about something else - why not hop the beer during the post-ferment boil while the alcohol is boiling off? Hear me out...

Post-ferment boil, most hop aromas are boiled off in about 5 minutes. Flavour is boiled off in about 15 minutes, and after that I dunno what happens. This is what I read up online doing some research. So here's my idea:

1. Make a no-hop beer. Basically mash the grains and don't do a full boil. In other words you'll be left with a low-gravity wort after a very short sanitizing boil. This wort will be more in volume, obviously, so you'll adjust for this when you mash.
2. Ferment this low-gravity wort to completion. This should happen relatively quickly since it's a low gravity, and it won't stress out the yeast.
3. Post-ferment, you dump this low-ABV beer in your boiling kettle, ready for the boil. Here you'll do the boil you would have needed to get to your target gravity pre-ferment.
4. Boil. During this boil, you do your hop additions according to the full schedule. According to this site: http://www.goodeatsfanpage.com/season13/alcohol/alcohol_trans.htm you should be able to boil out 75% of the ABV in the beer in an hour. Extrapolating that percentages give around 15% ABV remaining of the original amount after a 90 minute boil. You can even do a longer boil if need be to remove more. 150 minute boil and you're left with 5% of the ABV.

Now if you had a lekker low ABV from the low starting gravity to begin with, say around the 3% mark, you'll be ending up with 0.45% ABV in a 90-minute boil. 0.15% in a 150 minute boil. That's not a lot. Do your hop additions here and unless I'm mistaken, you'll be in your target IBUs and so on without the long-boil flavour of hops in your beer, which is a trademark of post-ferment boiled beers, is it not?

Am I missing something here or can it really be done as simply as this? If so, I'm going to do a little test run with this on a small batch (split batch, probably my first AG/BIAB brew) and see what I can come up with. It'll have to be force carbonated obviously (or re-yeasted and some carbonating sugar added), which I don't have access to, so that's why I'm asking. Am I missing something here or can it really be as easy as this?

I know there are options to brew a low-ABV beer using a very light grain bill from the start, but that's not what I'm after. Brews like those are generally very weak in flavour and while it does have a low ABV (and a very low calorie content), it's not exactly what I'm after. I want a fuller malt flavour.

 

[Miraculix]

You want to have at least 15 to 20 ibus when fermenting, otherwise your beer will most likely turn sour. Hops inhibit bacteria growth which will happen otherwise.
But you could reduce your post fermentation boil to only late additions, that would probably work!

 

[Toxxyc]

You want to have at least 15 to 20 ibus when fermenting, otherwise your beer will most likely turn sour. Hops inhibit bacteria growth which will happen otherwise.
But you could reduce your post fermentation boil to only late additions, that would probably work!

See this is why I need to ask - because I didn't know this. It makes sense. IBU's won't boil off, will it? It's just the aroma and flavour that goes to waste but the actual bitterness won't boil off too much, am I correct? Also, if I aim for, say, 15 IBUs I'll need to calculate this concentration post-boil as well, since it'll increase with time. I'll be using hop bags to ensure I get as little hop particles into the beer as possible before the boil to avoid destroying too much of the hop profile in the boil.

Overall - do you guys think it's **** idea or is it actually possible? If it work like I hope it will, it'll result in a cheap, low-ABV beer, which is what I'm after. With a long enough boil I can even get it into the "almost alcohol free" territory, meaning guilt-free drinking before driving.

 

[RPh_Guy]

4. Boil. During this boil, you do your hop additions according to the full schedule. According to this site: http://www.goodeatsfanpage.com/season13/alcohol/alcohol_trans.htm you should be able to boil out 75% of the ABV in the beer in an hour. Extrapolating that percentages give around 15% ABV remaining of the original amount after a 90 minute boil. You can even do a longer boil if need be to remove more. 150 minute boil and you're left with 5% of the ABV.

Did you... Did you just reference a puppet show script as your source?


I was thinking about a process for NA beer that doesn't even involve yeast:
Basically you create a very lightly sweet wort (sg ~1.006-1.012) with unmalted grain and/or denaturing the enzymes.
Boil with hops, adjust pH, add glycerol, fine, and stabilize with sulfite+sorbate. Force carbonate.
I don't have a reason to make NA beer so I haven't tried it. Just an idea.

 

[Toxxyc]

I unfortunately don't have access to a forced carb system yet, so I have no other option than to bottle-carb with yeast and sugar, so some alcohol will be there. I've made peace with that fact. I just want to get rid of some of it as well. I'm not a big drinker (but I love beer), and I'm pretty lightweight, all cards on the table. I'm not the type who can drink 10 beers in an evening - I'll get sloshed. For me, 2~3 homebrews is where it's at. Anything more and I don't feel too lekker, which is another reason I'm looking for a very low-ABV option. Would be nice to fill a mini-keg, go to a braai and drink to heart's content while still being able to drive home.

 

[RPh_Guy]

I unfortunately don't have access to a forced carb system yet, so I have no other option than to bottle-carb with yeast and sugar, so some alcohol will be there.

Got that covered! Add food-grade dry ice to the bottles.

Edit: or you could use a carbonation cap if you want to get one.

 

[Miraculix]

See this is why I need to ask - because I didn't know this. It makes sense. IBU's won't boil off, will it? It's just the aroma and flavour that goes to waste but the actual bitterness won't boil off too much, am I correct? Also, if I aim for, say, 15 IBUs I'll need to calculate this concentration post-boil as well, since it'll increase with time. I'll be using hop bags to ensure I get as little hop particles into the beer as possible before the boil to avoid destroying too much of the hop profile in the boil.

Overall - do you guys think it's poopy idea or is it actually possible? If it work like I hope it will, it'll result in a cheap, low-ABV beer, which is what I'm after. With a long enough boil I can even get it into the "almost alcohol free" territory, meaning guilt-free drinking before driving.

You are correct, the bitterness will stay when being boiled and of course the ibu per volume will increase when volume gets reduced.

I think I would just go with 20 ibus to start before fermentation and than do the rest via late additions during the post fermentation boil. But I am not into high ibu beers but much into flavorful beers so this reflects my personal taste.

 

[Toxxyc]

Got that covered! Add food-grade dry ice to the bottles.

Edit: or you could use a carbonation cap if you want to get one.

Carbonation cap still requires a CO2 rig, doesn't it? Dry ice sounds like a plan, never thought about that. I guess the amount you add will have to be...carefully done and executed though, right?

You are correct, the bitterness will stay when being boiled and of course the ibu per volume will increase when volume gets reduced.

I think I would just go with 20 ibus to start before fermentation and than do the rest via late additions during the post fermentation boil. But I am not into high ibu beers but much into flavorful beers so this reflects my personal taste.

I'm a fan of bitter beers, bit of a hophead at this stage, so I honestly don't mind either way. Will start off with 20 IBUs and then work batch-to-batch from there. Thanks for your help, man!

 

[Miraculix]

Carbonation cap still requires a CO2 rig, doesn't it? Dry ice sounds like a plan, never thought about that. I guess the amount you add will have to be...carefully done and executed though, right?


I'm a fan of bitter beers, bit of a hophead at this stage, so I honestly don't mind either way. Will start off with 20 IBUs and then work batch-to-batch from there. Thanks for your help, man!

Naaaa, than start with 30. The loss of alcohol might also do something on the perceived bitterness, but I'm not sure into which direction it goes.

 

[Toxxyc]

I think I'll stick to around 20. I can always adjust with a bitterness hop tea at the end - can't take IBUs out

 

[RPh_Guy]

Carbonation cap still requires a CO2 rig, doesn't it? Dry ice sounds like a plan, never thought about that. I guess the amount you add will have to be...carefully done and executed though, right?

Yes and yes. If you go through with this plan, I'd be happy to help determine the amount to add.

 

[Miraculix]

Doesn't dry ice instantly evaporate or explode when touching liquid at room temp?

 

[RPh_Guy]

Doesn't dry ice instantly evaporate or explode when touching liquid at room temp?

Not instantly, but fairly rapidly.

After reading more about it, I would stick to soda bottles like in this video.



and here
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/...-bottling-and-dry-ice-for-carbonation.325481/

 

[Miraculix]

Not instantly, but fairly rapidly.

After reading more about it, I would stick to soda bottles like in this video.



and here
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/...-bottling-and-dry-ice-for-carbonation.325481/

Interesting! But fairly dangerous, especially with glass bottles.I would 2nd your plastic suggestion.

 

[Toxxyc]

Yes and yes. If you go through with this plan, I'd be happy to help determine the amount to add.

Thanks man, I sincerely appreciate it. I'll definitely keep you updated. It'll probably be done somewhere over December. I have only one fermenter, but I am getting my hands on some additional vessels so I can do a proper split-batch. One boiled pre-ferment (as normal), one boiled post-ferment, to see the difference.

Interesting! But fairly dangerous, especially with glass bottles.I would 2nd your plastic suggestion.

Yeah it's a bit risky, if you ask me. Not to mention I'm not even sure where to get proper food-grade dry ice around my area. It's not like South Africa is the best supplied country in the world, you know...

 

[eldernut]

Is it even necessary to do all of that? When you make traditional soda's with yeast and sugar the resulting alcohol content is so low as to be indistinguishable, people give them to kids. Is there something about malt particularly that needs a heavier wort sugar content than say traditional lemonade? I'm just asking because I've only started brewing beer so who knows? My elderflower fizzy pop is pretty close to alcohol free and it's softly carbonated when I brew it exclusively with wild yeast from the plant. I ferment the flowers for 6 days, just long enough for the yeast to take hold. Then bottle it. It takes a good 6 months before it gets any noticable alcohol content but I typically drink it at 3-4 weeks happily alcohol free (or nearly so).

Perhaps if you just brewed with brett strains only and drank it early it would be similar?

 

[RPh_Guy]

Is it even necessary to do all of that?
[...]
My elderflower fizzy pop is pretty close to alcohol free and it's softly carbonated when I brew it exclusively with wild yeast from the plant.

I'm not sure, but you might be underestimating ABV. Do you take s.g. readings? What's the total amount of sugar you add, in what size batch?

FYI the type of yeast doesn't matter, the ethanol fermentation pathway is the same for all.
In beer, a lot of the characteristic flavor and mouthfeel come from the barley, and barley contributes a lot of natural sugar that yeast happily eat and turn into alcohol.

 

[eldernut]

I'm not sure, but you might be underestimating ABV. Do you take s.g. readings? What's the total amount of sugar you add, in what size batch?

FYI the type of yeast doesn't matter, the ethanol fermentation pathway is the same for all.
In beer, a lot of the characteristic flavor and mouthfeel come from the barley, and barley contributes a lot of natural sugar that yeast happily eat and turn into alcohol.

No, I don't take readings typically because I make it for myself. But I am fairly sensitive to alcohol, (one beer wonder) so I typically get a drowsy buzz even below 4%. Certainly wouldn't be able to drink a litre of the stuff in an hour if it had any appreciable amount in it. My oldest bottles which were done with wine yeast and are already several months old I did take a reading from and it came in at less than 3% but I feel the buzz even drinking a single glass of that.

I'm not up on the technical side of things, I brew my other fizzy intuitively and don't even measure the sugar I'm putting in it. Something like 1/3 cup per litre of fizzy pop I think. I just scoop the stuff in and eyeball it, taste it. I only got into brewing when a cooking syrup I was making spontaneously fermented and I liked it. Took it from there and started making more carbonated drinks.

Granted I can see what you're saying about the metabolism of sugar, the reason why I'm thinking this way is because the wild yeasts are slow it takes weeks to carbonate a bottle with those alone so if the carbonation isn't happening rapidly I suppose the alcohol content isn't either since they are related. Compared to the commercial wine yeast which carbonates a bottle in 48hrs.

In any case, I suppose I will find out through first hand experience since I'm primary fermenting a wort with wild yeast only and the same wort with commercial in another batch. I'll be able to compare them side by side and see how they each develop.

 

[RPh_Guy]

1/3 cup sugar per liter has an alcohol potential around 10% ABV.

You're drinking it before it fully ferments, so it's not quite that high, but bottling under those circumstances is dangerous and unpredictable.

 

[eldernut]

1/3 cup sugar per liter has an alcohol potential around 10% ABV.

You're drinking it before it fully ferments, so it's not quite that high, but bottling under those circumstances is dangerous and unpredictable.

I use flip top bottles and off gas them every day for the first few days to be sure of no explosions (when I use commercial yeast). When I can open the bottle and not get a hiss then I let it go after that. But its generally unnecessary with the wild yeasts because they are so slow to ferment. They seem to impart a lot of flavour but only mild carbonation after 3 weeks or so.

 

[Toxxyc]

eldernut, I wouldn't give that recipe to kids. At all. It's pretty high in alcohol if you burp the bottles to give off gas. I'd recommend you take a set of gravity readings (one before you start fermentation and one with a bottle that stops burping) at least once before you get in trouble.

 

[eldernut]

eldernut, I wouldn't give that recipe to kids. At all. It's pretty high in alcohol if you burp the bottles to give off gas. I'd recommend you take a set of gravity readings (one before you start fermentation and one with a bottle that stops burping) at least once before you get in trouble.

Noted. I don't give it to anyone actually. It's just for me. But I have to admit back in the dark ages my family used to make fizzy pop exactly this way and feed it to all of us. Ah....the days before regulations and thermometers and responsible parenting...lol.

In any case I'll be watching this thread now to see how it's done.

 

[tll77]

Basically you create a very lightly sweet wort (sg ~1.006-1.012) with unmalted grain and/or denaturing the enzymes.
Boil with hops, adjust pH, add glycerol, fine, and stabilize with sulfite+sorbate. Force carbonate.

This process sounds like a recipe for malta, an unfermented hopped barley soft drink. I've never thought it tastes like beer, though.

 

[JimRausch]

4. Boil. During this boil, you do your hop additions according to the full schedule. According to this site: http://www.goodeatsfanpage.com/season13/alcohol/alcohol_trans.htm you should be able to boil out 75% of the ABV in the beer in an hour. Extrapolating that percentages give around 15% ABV remaining of the original amount after a 90 minute boil. You can even do a longer boil if need be to remove more. 150 minute boil and you're left with 5% of the ABV.

Instead of the puppet show website, do a search on this forum for a thread called "How I neutered my beer". It's a pretty exhaustive thread that covers how you can dealcoholize a finished beer. You don't want to BOIL it. A temp of 170(I think) held for 30 minutes will drive off most alcohol because the vaporization temp of ethanol is lower than the boiling point of water. So, less chance of destroying flavor compounds. Also, if I remember right, most folks are adding some dryhops after the neutering process. I do agree with miralculix in post #2- you do want to add bittering hops and boil prefermentation to get a certain amount of IBUs to start. Otherwise you do have that Malta stuff (which is pretty sickly sweet) and risk contamination by bacteria.

 

[bracconiere]

flambe'd beer!

 

[SanPancho]

yes, the "neutered my beer" thread is where you should go.

i did this by accident once recently, had a sour that must have gotten infected somehow as gravity dropped like it was a normal ferment during the souring. there was enough sugar left to make a roughly 1-1.5% ABV beer so it went to the wife in place of her gross NA beers. (she's pregnant)

if i had to do it again, i'd probably follow the advice above. boil with a little bit of hops for some ibus, ferment, then bring up to 175 for a while and toss in some hops for a nice whirlpool. then proceed to crash, fine and carb.

if you follow the advice, please let us know how it turns out.

 

[RPh_Guy]

This process sounds like a recipe for malta, an unfermented hopped barley soft drink. I've never thought it tastes like beer, though.

Interesting. Still seems like there should be a way to make it taste more like beer, or at least better than the commercial NA beer. It needs low SG and balanced bitterness.

 

[tll77]

It's my understanding that even if the end goal is non-alcoholic, one would still need to ferment with yeast. Even if the alcohol is distilled, other fermentation byproducts contribute to the taste of beer.


If you are at sea level, alcohol should boil off around 173f. And, like @SanPancho said, add hops then.

One could even bottle condition this if they were willing to tolerate a touch of alcohol.

 

[Toxxyc]

I'm a bit above sea level (about 4,500 ft), so it should boil at even lower temperature. Flambe won't work, since the ABV is simply too low in a beer, but a lower temp held might just work. I'll do a split batch then - one boiled pre-ferment and then heated post-ferment to the required 170°F (which is around 77°C) for a while. The other one I'll do as per my initial and boiled post-ferment (and then also hopped for flavour and aroma).

For future reference, I'm letting the recommended thread live on by posting the link here: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/creating-an-na-or-how-i-neutered-my-beer.39433/

Anyway, back to topic at hand. What I'm worried about is yes, alcohol boils at 170°F, but does it also boil off at that temperature when the alcohol is combined with water in that azeotropic bond? Reason for asking - water also dissolved with the alcohol in that 96/4 percentage, so some alcohol will always remain, which I'm fine with. However - how will I know how much alcohol remains at the end? I'm brewing this as a "safe" beer, specially since the non-alcoholic and alcohol free movement is really picking up speed in South Africa at this stage and I find the concept absolutely interesting at the very least. I mean if I go to a braai and I have to drive, what could be nicer than sipping on my own homebrew all evening and not worrying about getting sloshed?

So yeah, without the fancy electronics, how will I know what the final ABV of the product will be when done?

 

[jmarkkaufman]

I’m not convinced that with good sanitation practices you need the hops. Look at starters. I think starters TASTE sour but think it’s a perception thing because I am accustomed to hopped beer. The resulting beer always tastes fine (and some of it has been entered into competitions and done quite well) so I do not think it was contaminated despite a perception of sourness. I think it is worth a try on the unhopped “beer”. Very interested in hearing how it all works out and may try to brew an N/A beer myself.

 

[tll77]

alcohol boils at 170°F, but does it also boil off at that temperature when the alcohol is combined with water

No, it does not. It depends on alcohol concentration and rises as the %alcohol drops.
Use the chart in this link to find an approximate temp vs alcohol%(the purple curve is the one you want)

https://homedistiller.org/theory/theory/strong

 

[NGD]

That dry ice video was pretty ballsy. I know a guy (who has a similar appearance to me) put a 1/2in cube of dry ice in a liter PET bottle with 1in water. The resulting explosion was powerful. Louder than a shotgun. Took a fair chunk of earth.

Had that person been holding onto the bottle I...I mean he would likely be typing with one hand. Calculate carefully and I’d highly recommend against using glass.
Plus I’ve found that bottle fermented beers seem to have more character after 2-3 weeks.

 

[RPh_Guy]

I’m not convinced that with good sanitation practices you need the hops. Look at starters.

Lacto is ubiquitous. Beer is highly likely to sour without hops, over time. That is why we use hops.
If a starter is sour, then blending it into a much larger batch will reduce the sourness below tasting threshold. The same can't be said if the entire batch sours.

 

[Toxxyc]

Thanks for all the info guys! I'm definitely going to add SOME hops to the brew. Might as well give it something to work with then it comes to the pre-boil phase so that I can at least taste something other than just plain malt.

Anyway, I found two places here in South Africa recommended by some other brewers I'm going to contact to find out costing on laboratory testing of my brews. Here's to hoping it won't break the bank. If the ABV is low enough I'll strongly considering making a ton of this beer to drink at parties and other get-togethers when I plan to drive.

I'm REALLY looking forward to this, not only because of the low ABV but also because it'll probably be my first-ever AG/BIAB brew!

 

[Miraculix]

I’m not convinced that with good sanitation practices you need the hops. Look at starters. I think starters TASTE sour but think it’s a perception thing because I am accustomed to hopped beer. The resulting beer always tastes fine (and some of it has been entered into competitions and done quite well) so I do not think it was contaminated despite a perception of sourness. I think it is worth a try on the unhopped “beer”. Very interested in hearing how it all works out and may try to brew an N/A beer myself.

I tried it multiple times mate, believe me, you need hops.

 

[jmarkkaufman]

Sounds good.

Regarding the low ABV beer I look forward to hearing how it turns out ‘

 

[Toxxyc]

I got my grains and hops a short while ago. Festive season meant things went slower than planned. Going to brew soon-ish!

 

[505-Brewer]

You want to have at least 15 to 20 ibus when fermenting, otherwise your beer will most likely turn sour. Hops inhibit bacteria growth which will happen otherwise.
But you could reduce your post fermentation boil to only late additions, that would probably work!

If you are relying on hops to prevent bacteria from spoiling your batch you are doing it wrong. Yes hops are antibacterial but thinking you absolutely need hops to produce a clean beer is not factual. Good yeast pitch and sanitation is a better practice.

 

[Miraculix]

If you are relying on hops to prevent bacteria from spoiling your batch you are doing it wrong. Yes hops are antibacterial but thinking you absolutely need hops to produce a clean beer is not factual. Good yeast pitch and sanitation is a better practice.

I am not relying on it, I say hops take care of the little amount of unwanted guests that you don't get with good sanitation and yeast pitch rate.

Those guests will multiply and sour your beer. If not instantly, then with time in the bottle.

Tried this several times. Unless you brew under lab conditions, no chance without hops. I tried this more than five times, know a lot of people who did as well, everybody ended up with something sour. Sometimes nicely sour though.

 

[Toxxyc]

Alright, so the long and the short:

I have a 1.1kg grain bill. I'm going to mash at higher temps to get less fermentables. From my quick calculations and using online guides and sources, I suspect I'll end up at around 0.25% ABV. To me that's low enough to not boil it AT ALL after the ferment, so I'm going to push for a slightly higher IBU in the initial boil.

On the hop profile, I'm planning it really simple. Admiral in the boil for bittering. It's a good bittering hop, giving notes of resinous citrus like orange along with some spices. It's a hop made for IPAs and APAs, so I think it's a great basis to start off from in terms of the bittering. For flavour and aroma I'm going to go for that experimental U1/108 hops I have in the fridge as well. It has a sweeter profile, with tropical fruits like lichi, guava or mango and also has a lemongrass and citrus note to it. I think these two will work together very well (in my head they do). I'll also dry hop with the U1/108 before bottling, so I can be sure that aroma is all there. Maybe even dry hop in the mini keg. Would be aweseome.

On the fermentation - it'll be pitched directly on the yeast cake from my previous brew - Mangrove Jack's M42 New World Strong Ale that was used to ferment the IPA bitter I'm bottling this weekend, so it's kinda perfect. The yeast has a high attentuation, so I hope it doesn't eat too much of the sugars, but it left the IPA bitter at 1.012 so here's to hoping. It has a neutral aroma profile, so you'll taste whatever malts I toss in there and it won't change the perception of the hops. I'll ferment at the normal 20°C I do all my brews, which is easy to maintain with my cooler-box-and-ice-packs-under-a-towel-method.

Anyway, yeah so that's it. Any thoughts/ideas I can do or change on this brew?