Wort soda or NA beer?

[arlms]

I have noticed that this subject is a bit sensitive around here but i thought i might give it a try anyway i have seen probably all of threads about this but most of them use the method where you ferment your wort and then heat up it up after fermentation to lose most of the alcohol, then you end up with a very low abv beer. I have also seen some people say that you could simply brew your wort and carbonate it to get something not really like beer but a bit different from the usual soft drinks.

For religious reasons i can't drink the low abv beer even if they are 0.5%. so i would like to focus on the carbonated wort method. I have never brewed beer before but i have been reading about it for a couple of months and i make a whole lot of craft soda.

Any ideas? should i skip something on the recipe? like bittering hops? and maybe only dryhop? are there any beer types that works better in this process? i have also read about "malta goya" clone recipes, but i would like to know if this method works with regular beer recipes too.

 

[shoengine]

I would be very, very unhappy if I couldn't take NyQuil when I was sick. With that said...

Alcohol in beer by my reckoning provides two practical advantages: drying and disinfection. I'm sure some folks will argue that inebriation is also a practical advantage, but that is merely a creature comfort. Nonetheless, you will end up with a drink that would require preservatives (hops or otherwise), or a short shelf-life, and a may end up with a one-dimensional malty or Hoppy character.

With that said, I don't see a problem at all. In fact I always taste my pre-fermented wort for character after I make it. It doesn't taste as good until it ferments, but nonetheless it still tastes good. Maybe you could increase your scope to include gruits.

Good luck!

 

[McGarnigle]

I have also seen some people say that you could simply brew your wort and carbonate it to get something not really like beer but a bit different from the usual soft drinks.

I believe this gives you Malta Goya. Have you tried it before?

 

[SGTSparty]

Just out of curiosity, have you ever tried beer or Malta Goya before? (I know you said its a religious thing but maybe you converted or something?) I would expect that flavors wouldn't change/mature etc. quite as much if you don't go through fermentation, but those changes may be harder to determine if you've never had the finished product obviously. I would also image you'd want to start with a pretty basic recipe, maybe a pale ale or something fermented with a yeast strain not known for imparting much of its own characteristics and just try it. And I'd probably start with extract out of ease and speed to make sure you like the resulting product before investing in anything else.

 

[arlms]

I have noticed that this subject is a bit sensitive around here but i thought i might give it a try anyway i have seen probably all of threads about this but most of them use the method where you ferment your wort and then heat up it up after fermentation to lose most of the alcohol, then you end up with a very low abv beer. I have also seen some people say that you could simply brew your wort and carbonate it to get something not really like beer but a bit different from the usual soft drinks.

For religious reasons i can't drink the low abv beer even if they are 0.5%. so i would like to focus on the carbonated wort method. I have never brewed beer before but i have been reading about it for a couple of months and i make a whole lot of craft soda.

Any ideas? should i skip something on the recipe? like bittering hops? and maybe only dryhop? are there any beer types that works better in this process? i have also read about "malta goya" clone recipes, but i would like to know if this method works with regular beer recipes too.

For preservation i am going to add sodium benzoate or just use the traditional method and pasteurize in hot water, preserving is not the problem for me. I was thinking more on if maybe i should change something with the recipe, like bittering hops as i mentioned before. I have read that some think that the wort taste a bit to bitter so i thought maybe i should exclude the bittering hops.

I also read something about if i would pasteurize the wort and let it sit for a couple of days the bitterness would settle down, is this possible without yeast? any thoughts about aging the bottled wort?

 

[arlms]

I believe this gives you Malta Goya. Have you tried it before?

Yes i have but it was a really long time ago. From what i have seen Malta Goya uses a pretty simple recipe with 2 grains and no hops.

Just out of curiosity, have you ever tried beer or Malta Goya before? (I know you said its a religious thing but maybe you converted or something?) I would expect that flavors wouldn't change/mature etc. quite as much if you don't go through fermentation, but those changes may be harder to determine if you've never had the finished product obviously. I would also image you'd want to start with a pretty basic recipe, maybe a pale ale or something fermented with a yeast strain not known for imparting much of its own characteristics and just try it. And I'd probably start with extract out of ease and speed to make sure you like the resulting product before investing in anything else.

I have had Malta Goya while on vacation before but i was really young and can't remember how it taste like, we don't have it here in Sweden. Beer is something i have never had. I have been drinking soda and carbonated apple juice since i was a kid, now when i'm getting older curious of discovering new flavors that may be accomplished without alcohol. i have a carbonation system, a plastic keg and a mash container at home so all-grain should not be a problem? seems to be similar to craft soda brewing.

 

[SGTSparty]

Interesting. I don't see any reason couldn't do this given your set up and related experience. That said, I don't know how much folks will be able to help you with specific recipe adjustments as I don't know if anyone's really tried it before to have experience. I would say start with a simple SMaSH beer (single malt, single hop), maybe even several 1 gallon batches with different hops to see what hops/combos you like and then move into more complex grain bills and hoping schedules/adjuncts/dry hopping after that.

 

[roadkizzle]

One thing that I've experimented VERY little but want to play around more with is basically an easy way to make wort sodas.

But I think that if you just carbonate full strength wort it will be sickly sweet and really not very enjoyable.

What I tried was brewing a pilsner, then filling half a clean bottle of wort while I was transferring it to the fermenter.

I then put a few ounces of the wort in a glass and filled it up with 12oz of sparkling water.
I thought that actually made at least an approximation of a normal beer... At least it made an enjoyable beverage that was bubbly, had some malty and hoppy flavors in it.

I plan on making a full small batch of this sometime soon. I can't give any ideas on how you'd want to tweak a normal beer recipe though.

I was thinking of treating this like canning fruits and preserves. Boiling the bottles after filling to make sure that any yeast or bacteria that may have transferred during bottling is killed off.

 

[arlms]

i thought i might come in here and give a little update for those who might be interested.

so i brewed my first batch. i used this recipe https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=100304. i brewed a much smaller batch though. after the mash it tasted quite alright. i did not use as many hops as it says in the recipe just to bring down the bitterness, i skipped the 60 min hops. it tasted extremely bitter after the boil and i was so disappointed. i pasteurized the wort cooled it down and bottled it. i gave it another taste today and i think the bitterness seam to have gone down a tiny bit. i will keep it bottled for a couple of days and give it another try.