I have experience and can help here. First choose a yeast that stops at a consistent known gravity for you. For example US05 consistently stops at 1.010, 34/70 at 1.008 (with my process/system, your results may vary). Target your typical mash ph with salts/acid. Acidify ALL sparge water to 5.2 to avoid extracting tannins in the sparge.
A .003 drop in SG points comes out to an abv of about 3.9% (by law, .5% abv and lower is considered non alcoholic beer). With the knowledge that US05 stops like clockwork for me at 1.010, I would target an SG of 1.013 (1.013-1.010=.003=.39% abv). Adjust accordingly for yeast strain of your choice.
A few other tips:
1. Keep the BU:GU ratio around .5 to .6, using your brewing software to calculate this. With such a low gravity beer, bitterness goes a long way.
2. Mash warm. Nothing crazy but say high 150s F.
3. Super important about watching your PH (see above). This will be a shockingly small mash with an alarming amount of sparge water. Relax and trust the process.
4. Keg, force carb and keep cold. Serve on freshly cleaned tap/lines. I know NA beers are prone to infection/spoilage. That is why you rarely find them on tap. I have had them last for months with this process without any issues whatsoever.
5. I have done side by side comparisons with other NA yeasts with a panel of tasters. Nothing super scientific, no triangle tests or anything. But real brewers yeast and a slight bit of fermentation seemed to produce the best results. I’m guessing the yeast produces the fermentation byproducts, lowers the ph, and adds a tiny amount of alcohol so that it tastes more like regular beer. It will still taste just the slightest bit like wort. But this gave me much better results than the LA-01 yeast mentioned above. Yes there will be .39% abv, but as long as your wife doesn’t down the whole keg in one sitting, I’m pretty sure it will be fine.
6. If anyone has any further questions, I’ll try to help. Good luck.
I guess you need to provide more details on "your process". Can you provide a recipe that has produced a <0.5% ABV beer fermented with US-05? The only thing that stands out as something to limit attenuation is "Mash warm. Nothing crazy but say high 150s F." Are you talking 159.9F? Even at that mash temp, it is hard for me to imagine a yeast like US-05 only getting 23% attenuation.
I brewed about ten test batches for work over the dead of this past winter. I brew outdoors. I targeted a mash temp of 158. But I mash in an insulated stainless mash tun so I don’t have the ability to heat it to maintain temps. With such a small amount of grain in a 15 gallon mash tun and below freezing temps, it dropped to about 142 by the end of the mash. Sparged with 168F water adjusted to a ph of 5.2. One hour boil. Chill as normal. Rack to fermentor and pitch yeast. All basically the same process as brewing regular beer other than mashing at a higher temp and closely watching your ph.
I think everyone is getting hung up on attenuation figures. And telling me that I don’t know what I am talking about. Just because a yeast is stated as having 75% attenuation, doesn’t mean it automatically consumes 75% of whatever your starting gravity number happens to be. I’m sorry but that’s not the way it works. In this situation we are creating a very weak wort with a very limited amount of fermentable sugar and a small amount of unfermentables. In all my batches I did with 05, I hit my SG of 1.013 and my FG of 1.010. Since these were tests for a commercial product, which would have to strictly meet the sub .5% abv, my backup plan was to dilute with water. Luckily I did not have to do so.
If we would have gone beyond testing and actually packaged this product to sit on a shelf warm, I’m not sure I would trust it to be shelf stable in a can sitting warm on a shelf somewhere. I would think you would need to sulfite/sorbate it or chemically stabilize it somehow. Or pasteurize it. But keeping it cold in a keg worked for as long as it was around.
If you are genuinely interested, I can provide a recipe. I didn’t exactly just come up with all this completely on my own. My boss asked me to test out some NA beer, so I did some research and this is how I approached the task and it worked for me.
People seemed to like it if they got a free sample but they didn’t want to pay for it. Not in our rural market anyway. “There’s no booze in this? Then why would I pay you for it?”
I am a little put off from some of the attitude I have gotten from a couple people on this thread. I mean there was one guy with zero interest in making an NA beer, but he felt the need to chime in and tell me how I don’t know what I am talking about, and I don’t know how yeast works, “science” doesn’t back up my claims etc. So basically nothing positive to contribute to the thread, just popping in to call me an a$$hole and feel good about himself.
I may not have a PHD in microbiology, but I do work with yeast every day in my day job for the last 10 years and by chance noticed some patterns. I also wrangle wild yeasts and bacteria and maintain a home yeast library. I brew on the weekends, constantly trying to perfect things. So I’m not the end all be all of yeast, but I have a pretty solid understanding of the subject. End rant.
Very basic all Citra NA IPA recipe 12 gallons:
6lbs Pilsner malt
Mash 60 minutes at 158F
Boil 60 minutes
1.25 oz Citra @ Flameout
Whirlpool 15 minutes and chill
2 packs US05
Ferment 5 days @68F
Soft crash to 50F
8oz Citra dry hop for 3 days
Cold crash, then keg/fine carbonate
Keep cold!
SG 1.103
FG 1.010
IBUS 7.6 (trust me it is plenty bitter for an NA IPA)
Bitterness ratio .583
*adjust accordingly for your system/batch size. Please see earlier post and remember to mind the ph of your water.
