OG - how low can you go?

[Sparger]

How low can you go with with OG for lagers before you significantly adversely affect it? Would like to make some lighter side beer, drink more, less headache. Don’t want water though.

 

[pdxal]

Well, ciders finish below 1.000 so there is the capability to finish that low.
Beer, maybe not.
Headaches, though, are unrelated to final gravity and are more related to poor control of fermentation and production of fusel alcohols.

 

[jmcquesten]

Well, ciders finish below 1.000 so there is the capability to finish that low.
Beer, maybe not.
Headaches, though, are unrelated to final gravity and are more related to poor control of fermentation and production of fusel alcohols.

I think the OP was talking about OG, not FG.

 

[schematix]

1.040-1.045 will give you a good balance. Going much lower will definitely be watery. Going much higher and you’re into normal beer territory.

Another option would be to do something like 1.035 and aim for only like 60% attenuation.

Not sure you’re set up but a single infusion mash at 160-162 would help give you a high FG. The beer will have body but low alcohol.

 

[noiz2]

I have brewed some very light beers to balance my other ones ;~) I have had OG as low as 1027. Now it's not super easy to go really low and still have a good beer so a couple of recommendations. #1 head over to Basic Brewing Radio because they have done a number of shows on going light. #2 you have to go a lot lighter on hops when the ABV is really low because it gets harsh quick. On thing to consider is doing almost all late additions. #3 you need to do something to boost the body. The go-to's for that are Rye and Wheat. For my "all weekend IPA" (OG1033 FG 1014) I'm using 4lbs of light Munich and 3lbs of Rye. 14g CTZ fwh, 28g Zythos @15min and 28g Zythos @flameout. It's a crowd pleaser and it's under 4%.

I don't do Lagers so not sure how low gravity would affect them. You could also (if you are kegging) thin a stronger beer out a bit with distilled water (unless that concept gives you the hives...).

 

[nagmay]

I've brewed several ales as low as 1.020 - usually from second runnings. We joke that this is "free beer", but it often comes out really nice. No fermentation problem, but they do tend to be very dry. A bit more crystal can help to balance it out.

Most beers in the US used to be Small Beer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_beer

 

[madscientist451]

Thanks for the tips, I'm doing a run of low ABV beers, I'm going to try your recipe when I can get some Zythos.

 

[noiz2]

Any of those Citraesque hops should work, Falconers Flight, Mosaic etc.

 

[Glot]

It's fairly easy to make a decent full strength beer but making a good low ABV is a good challenge. I do my ales at about 1025 OG and get good feedback.

 

[5mooth0perator]

Coming from the other direction, I've been making some carbonated herbal infusions using DME as basically just a primer. Not too bad, but I am thinking about trying to give it more of a beer flavor. I'd like to cap it at about 1%ABV, but also keep down residual starches and sugars. I was thinking maybe using some specialty malts, that had most of the sugars caramelized. The question would be which malts would be good for this. I think chocolate or patents are obvious choices, to cold steep then flavor the tea as necessary, but I wonder about the others. How much sugar and starch are in them. Usually people just add a small amount, so it doesn't really factor into the grain bill.

 

[shoreman]

I don’t know about lagers but with ales I’ve done some great ales in the 1.020’s - there’s a thread here I started about sub 1.030 beers if you do a search.

Flaked anything works - rye, oats, wheat and yeast choice and dry hopping.

 

[Morrey]

I did a 2.5% beer this summer that had 50/50 rye and wheat grain bill. I BIAB so I was able to get away with squeezing the wort out of the grain bag as this would be a stuck sparge nightmare otherwise. The rye and wheat held up the mouthfeel so it didn't have a watery perception. Single hop was Nelson Sauvin. If I remember correctly I believe my OG was 1.028. Will do this one again next spring.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

How low can you go with with OG for lagers before you significantly adversely affect it? Would like to make some lighter side beer, drink more, less headache. Don’t want water though.

Lagers are a tough one as there's nowhere to hide and little scope to use speciality malts and adjuncts to bulk out the flavour to compensate for the contribution to structure made by the alcohol. For lagers anything below 4% is heading towards sex in a canoe, but you can go lower with eg British bitters and hoppy golden ales.

 

[Miraculix]

Interesting thread. Just bought the book "session beers" which covers the topic. There are a lot of nice recipes but it does not go below 3.5%. Most of the beers in there are between 4 and 5 %.

I believe using strong base malts (munich, Vienna), some flaked adjuncts for head and mouth feel and keeping the hops on the low side will get you there.

Will brew an English Mild next, that will be around 3 to 3.5%. Will break some "rules" by adding flaked barley, but who cares

Will try the crowd pleaser session ipa that was posted on the first page, sounds very decent to me!

 

[Miraculix]

I have brewed some very light beers to balance my other ones ;~) I have had OG as low as 1027. Now it's not super easy to go really low and still have a good beer so a couple of recommendations. #1 head over to Basic Brewing Radio because they have done a number of shows on going light. #2 you have to go a lot lighter on hops when the ABV is really low because it gets harsh quick. On thing to consider is doing almost all late additions. #3 you need to do something to boost the body. The go-to's for that are Rye and Wheat. For my "all weekend IPA" (OG1033 FG 1014) I'm using 4lbs of light Munich and 3lbs of Rye. 14g CTZ fwh, 28g Zythos @15min and 28g Zythos @flameout. It's a crowd pleaser and it's under 4%.

I don't do Lagers so not sure how low gravity would affect them. You could also (if you are kegging) thin a stronger beer out a bit with distilled water (unless that concept gives you the hives...).

Are you using malted or unmalted rye?

 

[DEATHMASTER]

Your problem is that you're stuck on lagers. you can't go very low og with bottom fermenting yeast and expect to not get water. If you switch to ale yeast on the other hand and do a super session, a kettle or mash soured berliner, gose, or kvass that's teeming with flavor yet clocks in around 2.5%

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Interesting thread. Just bought the book "session beers" which covers the topic. There are a lot of nice recipes but it does not go below 3.5%. Most of the beers in there are between 4 and 5 %.

I believe using strong base malts (munich, Vienna), some flaked adjuncts for head and mouth feel and keeping the hops on the low side will get you there.

Is that the new Talley book? There's a great review on Amazon which rather confirms my fears, she may be quite good on some of the technicals but it sounds like she fundamentally just doesn't really "get" session beer culture or anything that isn't a session IPA.

Not sure about "hops on the low side" - there's many British beers with bitterness ratios of 0.9 or more, and you can be generous with the aroma hops. In fact I think one of the most interesting (and very difficult!!) areas of brewing at the moment is applying NEIPA ideas to lower strength beers, although I think a little oats goes a long way, even the current CBOB Goat's Milk tastes porridgey to me. But you can build out the body with things like melanoidin and lactose.

 

[Miraculix]

Is that the new Talley book? There's a great review on Amazon which rather confirms my fears, she may be quite good on some of the technicals but it sounds like she fundamentally just doesn't really "get" session beer culture or anything that isn't a session IPA.

Not sure about "hops on the low side" - there's many British beers with bitterness ratios of 0.9 or more, and you can be generous with the aroma hops. In fact I think one of the most interesting (and very difficult!!) areas of brewing at the moment is applying NEIPA ideas to lower strength beers, although I think a little oats goes a long way, even the current CBOB Goat's Milk tastes porridgey to me. But you can build out the body with things like melanoidin and lactose.

Yes, that's the book I meant. I just skipped through it the other day and read a bit here and there but it looks like it does not get to the point enough for my liking, but I really just spent one or two hours with it.

It has a lot of recipes from actual commercial beers at the end but focuses clearly on the ipa side of life. It also considers everything with 5% and below as session beer, which I personally don't agree with.

I am missing a part were she generally explains ways to cope with the thinning out of the wort but remaining body, head and flavour. Just like you just said, section about base malts, section about adjuncts, section about all the speciality malts like roasted, crystal, melanoidin (it's great for that, used it for my first session ipa) and how they all work in the session beer context.

It has a lot if historical stuff inside which I am not so interested in, but if I guess your personality correctly, you might quite enjoy that.

And regarding the hops, I was unprecise. I did not mean going low on the hops in comparison to the Og, but in absolute numbers and also just the ibus... In fact, I could have just written, go relatively low on the ibus, compared to the non session version of the beer you are making. Would have been clearer.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

it looks like it does not get to the point enough for my liking...focuses clearly on the ipa side of life. It also considers everything with 5% and below as session beer, which I personally don't agree with.

I think the review mentioned a recipe for a "session" beer of 5.6%, which is just nuts. It just points to a completely different concept of what session beer is, that is just alien to British eyes, and I suspect I would just want to throw the book across the room because of that lack of a wider appreciation of session beer culture.

I am missing a part were she generally explains ways to cope with the thinning out of the wort but remaining body, head and flavour.

Ah -that seems to completely miss the point of what many buyers will be looking for, you want to teach general principles alongside recipes. Teach a man to fish rather than giving him fish. But as you say you didn't spend long with it so give her credit, maybe you didn't get to that bit.

It has a lot if historical stuff inside which I am not so interested in, but if I guess your personality correctly, you might quite enjoy that.

Yep - I find it it fascinating in its own right (I've been reading quite a bit lately on the reluctance of British brewers to adopt new-fangled ideas on single-strain yeast in the late 19th century. As you do.) But it's more about trying to learn from it, identify which bits of modern practice are based on "we've always done that" or are done for reasons that no longer apply, and which are done for good reason. So I'm more interested in the technical nitty gritty, although the people stuff is not uninteresting too. But presumably she talks more about what, the development of session IPAs in the US?

I did not mean going low on the hops in comparison to the Og, but in absolute numbers and also just the ibus... In fact, I could have just written, go relatively low on the ibus, compared to the non session version of the beer you are making. Would have been clearer.

Or you could have just said keep the bitterness ratio constant.... BU:GU is such a useful concept that I think more of it first and absolute IBU second these days. But BU:GU is still flawed as it relies on IBU - the standard IBU prediction formulae don't cope well with late/cold hops which are increasingly used, let alone non-alpha sources of bitterness. But BU:GU is better than nothing, particularly when used with a bit of scepticism and experience....

 

[Miraculix]

Well, not much to say but that I agree on all of that.

My next brew will be an adaption of one of the milds from the recipe section. It is based on pale, brown and a hint of black malt, if I remember it correctly. I will replace 10% with flaked barley to get a bit more body and head and will also put more carbonation than the style usually requests inside, to match (hopefully) my personal taste.
If this works out fine, it was worth buying the book. I will try to get it between 3 an 3.5%.

I will have a look into it again regarding the focus on the ipas, I certainly missed details regarding the typical British session styles which were necessary to develop during the two big wars.

 

[dmtaylor]

How low can you go with with OG for lagers before you significantly adversely affect it? Would like to make some lighter side beer, drink more, less headache. Don’t want water though.

I think you could pull off 1.035 as long as you add 4-8 oz lactose or maltodextrin to keep it from turning out too watery (the 1.035 is for a recipe that does NOT include the lactose -- if including these then aim for a minimum of 1.040 or so). That's how I'd do it.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Arguably 1917 was the defining year of British brewing and we're still living with the after-effects, it's not a centenary to celebrate particularly. But in fact the real hits to beer because of WWII happened in the deprivations just after the war more than during the war itself - although there were some alterations to recipes from fairly early in WWII, in particular adding flaked barley so it is true to style for a mid-late 1940s recipe. To start with it was merely because flaked was not rationed, but then it became mandated, not least because many of the maltings were in East Anglia, which really suffered at the hands of the Luftwaffe.

You might want to poke around Ron Patinson's recipes for 1940s mild, I imagine you'll find quite a lot of flaked barley in those.

 

[Miraculix]

And as as so often before, thanks again for all the info! Greatly appreciated! Will have a look at Ron's recipes!

 

[Northern_Brewer]

No worries - always fun to share some of the results of my history geeking!

As an alternative, you could always partigyle, have something stronger for the winter (and next winter, and the next....) and then have the mild for drinking sooner?

My new-brewing-year resolution (ie with the new northern hemisphere harvest) is to really nail a session NEIPA, which combines two of the big trends at the moment. I'm under no illusions that it will be easy though - I need to do some more conventional NEIPAs first, play with some yeast and adjuncts, and I've got a bit of a backlog of fun hops to play with for my ongoing hop experiments, so it may take a while!

 

[Miraculix]

That is the plan! I already have a quite heavy stout here which is not as expected but I am sure that it will greatly mature over time and in a few months it will be delicious, so I already havee somehting for later....

... but I need to get at least two more really good beers done till december. My girlfriends father is comming over to London for christmas. He owns a brewerie and is brewing AMAZING beers, winning all those awards all the time, have to impress him

So far, I have nailed a session IPA, a normal strength IPA, some english type ale (own invention), the stout will hopefully improove until then (it is ok atm, not WOW but ok), and I am having a raw ale indian red in the fermenter atm.

I also have a raw ale, warm fermented pilsener just bottled. Opened first one today, GUSHER!!! There is still way too much yeast in suspension. Taste is really great and carbonation is spot on, just the floating 34 70 is a problem. I try to cold crash a few bottles and see what happens. If I can get thios clear it will be a really really good one.

I have resources to brew one or maybe even two beers before december.... maybe it will be not a mild but a sessions tout... or an oldschool porter with brown malt/amber malt/pale malt 1/1/1 .....

Tough decision. I like session beers so I guess it will be one. Mild, Stout, or oldschool porter.....


I certainly think that a true session neipa will be hard to make. Luckily enough, I am not a big fan of Neipas. Did brew one myself, was ok. A grapefruit bomb. Thought I might have created a bad one, so I had two commercial ones which were worse than mine (still ok though), so at the end I just do not like them so much.

Don't like the specific bitterness from the huge dry hop additions. I am also not a fan of the oversized dry hop flavour in general. I am happy with everything else

... I even had my first Coors light a few days ago, just to see what all the hate is about. I found it quite quaffable. Nice and cold in the summer, can imagine enjoying that. Not much flavour, not much alcohol, its ok. Obviously not great, but ok.