An idea and some research

[alecwallace]

Hi all,

I have been thinking about a beer that sprung in to my head the other night. Ive been trying to watch the amount i eat and drink but miss both food and drink too much!

So i thought can i brew a no alcohol beer that tastes like my favourite beers, IPA and RIS that obviously wont have the alcohol warmth but have all of the other character, so full body, hoppy in the case of IPA, with a good head etc etc.

Ive seen that to make no alcohol beer, its fermented as normal and then the alcohol is boiled off, however i am wondering, is there any reason you can think of where i mash, boil, then ferment. Then reboil to evaporate the alcohol and then hop with the normal schedule? This way i can still get the hop attributes that would be lost through reboiling a fermented beer.

I know someone will say brew it - thats the plan, im just fishing to see if there is anything obvious im overlooking!

many thanks

Alec

[Beer O'Clock]

Obviously, without residual yeast, you will have to force carbonate. Even an ale needs some carbonation for the mouth feel.

[killer]

I think it's worthwhile.
You might do it on a small scale first...
Typically to make alcohol free beer - the beer is boiled at reduced pressure - this reduces the boiling point and the amount of time it spends at the boiling point. This will reduce any "damage" the boil does to the beer. It would be interesting to know how an extended boil at about 100° C might impact on the flavour of a fermented beer.

I wonder could you do the opposite ? Really freeze the crap out of a bottle of it a couple of times, and decant off the liquid when it's frozen - the alcohol.

[Belter]

Have you ever tasted a beer that has been frozen and defrosted. Its pretty awful

[gnutz2]

That's a brilliant idea you have, do it and let us know how you get on.

[timbo41]

Big secue did the freezy thing for his Superbeer. Apparently brewdog do it a lot. Don't know about the beer slush puppy though

[Dr. Dextrin]

I tried a few experiments with heating beer to see what flavours pasteurisation might produce. I concluded that making the beer hot for anything more than a minute or two pretty well ruins it. So I imagine boiling it at atmospheric pressure wouldn't be much use. There's also the issue that it'd probably take quite a while for most of the alcohol to leave.

So I'd say some arrangement for boiling under reduced pressure would be quite important.

[alix101]

Eisebok for starters frozen beer that tastes good ...you should certainly try it IMHO I don't think it will work ...however I've never done it so I've got nothing to go off but surley your going to have to use large volumes of water to archive this.

[irv]

it is worth taking up running/jogging so you can justify, or balance out the calories from beer.

[gnutz2]

I tried a few experiments with heating beer to see what flavours pasteurisation might produce. I concluded that making the beer hot for anything more than a minute or two pretty well ruins it. So I imagine boiling it at atmospheric pressure wouldn't be much use. There's also the issue that it'd probably take quite a while for most of the alcohol to leave.

So I'd say some arrangement for boiling under reduced pressure would be quite important.

The original post refers to making only half the beer before boiling, the hopping schedule would be in the second boil.

Late hopping and dry hopping gives the beer lot s of flavour.

[schlafsack]

Do you want to give up the alcohol or the calories? Even if you boil the alcohol off you are still going to have a highly calorific drink, just one that tastes bad.

[darkonnis]

Right, essentially what we're on about here is distillation.
Heres a how to obviously, this isn't definitive and I only have limited experience "toying" with such things. To try it out you'll need:
a pan
glass demijohn
bung for demijohn with standard hole
coil of copper pipe
silicone tubing or other tubing which will survive high temps
a way of keeping the coil cool.

Put your beer in the demijohn, connect the bung of the demijohn to the copper pipe, then have the coil outlet go into a jar away from wherever you are heating.
Heat the demijohn, keep the temp at about 79c, which is easier than you might think because the evaporation of alcohol will constantly be removing heat from the system.
Said alcohol is then collected in a jar at the end of the coil.

You might be thinking, wow wow wow hold on a second, I don't want to make brandy or the like why all this? Truth is, without doing this. it is impossible to determine how much alcohol you have removed. For example, 5L @ 5% abv is 250ml alcohol. Sure you could just heat it, and hope. But how do you know when to stop? Also worth a mention, alcohol is after all a poison, it won't do you any good breathing it in. See: this & this So its better to collect it in a jar or jug, top said jug up with water, give it a stir then put it down the drain. Just go until you get 200mlish, you won't get it all, and the last 40ml will probably come out but it'll take much much longer than the stuff before it. Alternatively, you could put the stuff in your car if you so wished given the amount (+mix of petrol), most vehicles are designed to run over a given range of octanes (in the US i seem to remember putting putting 80 odd in the bike i rented) but personally, I wouldn't. I'd just toss it.
and Voila! Alcohol less beer

Freeze distilling, just isn't plausible for what you are trying to accomplish. for example, put some brew in a plastic bottle about 2/3full, squish the air out and seal it. Put it in the freezer on the coldest setting.
Leave this for as long as you like, I've never bothered with anything over a few hours myself but the theory holds that eventually the majority of water will freeze. Whilst alcohol will not freeze in a home freezer it can become "locked" in a surround of water molecules and sugars. Anyway, If you freeze it down fora bit, and pour out the majority of liquid you'll find that there is more there than could possibly be alcohol. Which then leads to the other problem of pouring half your "strengthened" beer down the drain as you only want the bit with less alcohol. Again, how much alcohol you've removed is anyones guess.

I mention all this for information purposes only. I thoroughly suggest taking a good measure of the risks involved before trying all this out.
If it where me, I'd just brew a low %% beer, high mash temp to keep as much body as possible and go from there but each to his own. You could also try a dual mash brew (idea I had to thicken up my stouts) Put one lot of grain in the MT, at the "correct mash temp" mash then drain to the boiler. Using a second set of grain mash in at a much reduced temp (50c?) then let this sit and run off to the boiler slowly as it comes to the boil. Because no conversion takes place, the fermentable sugars should be low and the body should be maintained.... As for the taste. I tried a non fermentable grain bill once (A failure, but I learnt lots) using a grainbill of only dark malts, it didn't taste too bad, but obviously not a bean of fermentation had happened. Whether it will work here is a different kettle of fish.

Cheers,
Cooky

[Dr. Dextrin]

I seem to remember from school chemistry lessons that you could get devices that went on a tap and produced a vacuum in some way by making use of the water flowing through them. I'm not sure what they were called, nor if you can still get them.

If you did away with the condensing coil and just attached one of these to a demijohn with a length of hose, you could probably evaporate alcohol in the way darkonnis suggests, but at a reduced pressure, and therefore a reduced temperature (although maybe a glass demijohn wouldn't be the safest vessel to use). The tap water would act as the condenser and also flush the alcohol away, thereby also avoiding any legal problems about collecting distilled alcohol.

As regards knowing when all the alcohol has left, you just have to observe the loss in volume in the heated vessel and make a few plausible assumptions about the percentage alcohol in the evaporated liquid.

[jmc]

Do you want to give up the alcohol or the calories? Even if you boil the alcohol off you are still going to have a highly calorific drink, just one that tastes bad.

+1

Most of the carbohydrates in the malt are converted to alcohol, but there's still plenty of unfermentable sugars / carbohydrates left in beer after a normal brew.
Yeast typically can't ferment the last 20-30% of the carbohydrates in the wort.
The residual unfermentable sugars add body, mouthfeel and flavour to a pint, but they do have calories.

Even if you manage to remove the alcohol without ruining the beers flavour you're still left with a drink with lots of calories as they won't boil off.

[jmc]

I seem to remember from school chemistry lessons that you could get devices that went on a tap and produced a vacuum in some way by making use of the water flowing through them. I'm not sure what they were called, nor if you can still get them.....

Good point. I'd forgotten about that, I had to look it up as couldn't remember the name of it.
Venturi effect.

Not sure it will reduce pressure / boiling point enough though.