1st Low Alcohol Brew

[OliH]

Hi Everyone, yesterday I thought I'd have a go at a low alcohol beer (drinking too much through boredom!). The recipe is below it's my own creation so please feel free to tell me what's wrong with it!

15l Maxi BIAB so 4l of bottled water was added to the fermenter after a 40min boil.
1kg Viena Malt
400g Maris Otter
200g Crystal
250g rolled oats
Mashed in 12l at 66*C for 40 min and stirred halfway through. Mash out at 80*C 10min. No sparge.

8g Columbus/ 15g Hallertauer @ 10min
30g Hallertauer @ Hop stand 80*C

I will dry Hop with something!

Cooled to 18*C and a pack of Wilko Gervin yeast pitched.

I used Brewfather to calculate it and it came out as 2.6%, OG 1.026/ FG 1.006. BU/GU 0.7. IBU 19

the actual OG came in at 1.023 so very low.

I checked this morning and there is Krausen so looks like it's doing it's thing.

I was hoping that because of the low alcohol content this would be done quickly and I can get it bottled is this correct or would you recommend to leave it for 2 weeks like standard?

Also anyone got any advice for carbing/ conditioning low alcohol beer?

Thanks everyone!

 

[The Baron]

I would expect the beer to maybe ferment ever so slightly quicker than a average 4% beer but it will still need the same cleaning up carbing and conditioning time IMO

 

[nixhaz]

I too brewed my first low alcohol one yesterday.. First actual brew in about 5 years (these are tough times!!).
I think it will end up at 2.85% if all goes to plan... it ended up at 1.030 OG.
It's bubbling away like mad with a decent krausen.. was too hoping it would be finished a bit quickly as I'm impatient as heck!

 

[MyQul]

I normally make lower alcohol beers normally 3.8%. I regualarly make bitter. I find I can start drinking it after 3 days if I want (although more conditioning is better). Carbonation isnt up to full level but you do get a bit.

Also if you know anything about commercial breweries, they get there beer out the door in just a few days, I dont think anyone (commerciall) waits 2 weeks. At below 3% your beer should be fermented out in a max of about 4-5 days (unless you've been fermenting it somewhere cold). I reckon you could be drinking it in under 10 days grain to glass

 

[OliH]

Thanks for the replies, @MyQul that's really helpful thanks. I've not used the Hallertauer hops before so quite interested. They were really cheap, and I thought they might get flavour in without too much bettering?

 

[nixhaz]

Hmm, so mine has been at 19C for a week, and it is reading 1.010. Do you think it's finished? (I used S 05). My calculator said it should finish at 1.007.

How's yours going @OliH ?

 

[OliH]

Hmm, so mine has been at 19C for a week, and it is reading 1.010. Do you think it's finished? (I used S 05). My calculator said it should finish at 1.007.

How's yours going @OliH ?

Just taken a sample and mine has hit 1.007 so 1 point off the target of 1.006. I guess I'll check Sunday and if it's the same I'll bottle. It was at about 19C but it was Nottingham, which seems like a really easy yeast. The sample didn't taste great though! I was trying to do it quick so thought I'd get dry hops in a bit early, not sure if it was too early or it's the type of hops.
It is a total experiment this one, haven't used Vienna malt before, haven't used the Hallertauer hops before and not done anything this low an ABV!

 

[Racinsnake]

Evening all. Apologies if this doesn’t belong in this thread but I’d like some advice on brewing a very low/zero alcohol kit brew. I was thinking of just using the malt yeast and brewing very short?

 

[jMac]

Evening all. Apologies if this doesn’t belong in this thread but I’d like some advice on brewing a very low/zero alcohol kit brew. I was thinking of just using the malt yeast and brewing very short?

What you’d actually need to do is brew your kit very long (as brewing short would increase the alcohol content not lower it).

However, unless you can find a specific LA/NA kit (and I’m not sure such a thing exists), what you are essentially doing is watering down your beer, and that’s going to follow the law of diminishing returns (as the malt and hop flavours in the kit are not designed with your low alcohol target in mind). In all grain you can work around this by using small quantities of highly flavoured speciality malts and hopping as you want in that low OG wort to try and eke some flavour out of it. Not sure how you’d do this with a kit.

If you’re really keen to go experiment with very low alcohol brewing, you might like to take a look at doing a very simple small batch stovetop all grain brew (which you can do with not much more than a large stock pot and a sieve - I’m sure there’s a thread somewhere about it) and then diluting that to achieve a full length low OG wort. But it would be an experiment.

 

[Cwrw666]

I think he might mean using a 1 can kit, brewing it short but without the kilo of sugar. In which case it might well work - the flavour would be stronger from the short brewing but the alcohol a bit lower as he'd be leaving out half the fermentables.

 

[terrym]

If you’re really keen to go experiment with very low alcohol brewing, you might like to take a look at doing a very simple small batch stovetop all grain brew (which you can do with not much more than a large stock pot and a sieve - I’m sure there’s a thread somewhere about it) and then diluting that to achieve a full length low OG wort. But it would be an experiment.

Try this
https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/threads/low-alcohol-homebrew-beer.84831/@peebee has done quite a lot of work on low ABV beers too

Edit
@Racinsnake
I thought of going the kit route (kit can and no extras) to brew my low ABV beer linked above, but went off the idea because I didn't want to spend upwards of £12 to end up with 23 litres of something that was only just drinkable, although you could split a kit can and brew a half batch (or even more volume to drive down the ABV). But if you go this route a 1.5kg kit (smallest amount of malt say a Wilko Cerveza) will produce a beer of about 1.9% before you add the priming sugar which in itself can add 0.2% ABV or more, dependant upon how much priming sugar you use.
Alternatively if you dont fancy brewing something by AG you could make up an extract brew using DME (or LME if you must) with a hop boil and you can brew what you want if you have a stockpot, you just have to be mindful of the sensitivity of increased bitterness that I was alerted to by peebee

 

[jMac]

I think he might mean using a 1 can kit, brewing it short but without the kilo of sugar. In which case it might well work - the flavour would be stronger from the short brewing but the alcohol a bit lower as he'd be leaving out half the fermentables.

Ok, that makes sense. Make the kit as usual but without the additional fermentables. I guess if you can find a kit somewhere in the 3.5% range (maybe a mild? I think you’d def need to look at a malt forward kit for this, and possibly dry hopping it) you might be able to get down to 1.5-2% ish.

 

[Cwrw666]

Ok, I've not done the whole low alcohol route in the past, but I have taken a 1 can kit and made it up to 4 gallons (instead of 5) and added 500g of sugar instead of a kilo. The result was about the same strength as the original kit should have produced, but with more flavour and more body. And a total absense of `homebrew twang' which was definitely present when the original kit was made up as per instructions.

 

[Racinsnake]

Thanks Brewers plenty to read il report back as and when