A low ABV brew

[peebee]

I don't know what peebee did - I'll have a read of his thread later. Cheers for the link.

Preceding thread ("PeeBee's Brewday - Low Alcohol Beer"). Also Brewing alcohol free - Page 5 - Home Brew Forum for dire warnings; or search for "grain omelette".

 

[BackToBasics]

I've not listened to them yet but Brulosophy have recently put out a couple of podcasts on no/low alcohol beers - one as a brulosphy bruviews and the other as a brulabs episode. I think the former will probably just be Marshall repeatedly telling us he likes beer flavoured beer and, I'm assuming, won't contain much in the way of brewing advice. I'm hoping the brulabs one has some more info though as it tends to be a bit more nerdy/indepth.

Just checked on my brew. Something is happening but it's not looking like a normal fermentation at the moment just several large yeast islands have formed almost filling the surface. Should I be expecting a krausen? Given how little fermentable sugar there is in there I can imagine it'll be an incredibly tame fermentation but without the krausen I'm not sure how to time my dry hopping. If nothing really kicks off I'll just throw them in on Tuesday I think.

 

[Sadfield]

In my view it doesn't matter about dry hop timing. If very little alcohol is being produced, then neither is co2 that would off gas any volatile hop aromas.

 

[BackToBasics]

Good point. I'll stick to my plan of throwing them in tomorrow so they've got a few days before I pull them off (and hopefully keg) at the weekend.

Still no krausen as such - now it's just a single large yeast island covering most of the surface. Fairly sure fermentation is happening though. I've got a spunding valve on but didn't add any co2. A whopping 2psi of pressure has built up and there's a definite smell of fermentation if I let some gas release. Think I just need to accept that this isn't going to behave like a normal fermentation.

 

[BackToBasics]

Just thrown in the dry hop and took a gravity reading while I was doing it. Despite concerns it has fermented down to 1.012.

From the sample, it has a surprisingly malty smell that doesn't quite follow through in the taste. It's quite thin but I'm hoping carbonation will hope cover some of this up.

However, it's very bitter and the lemondrop is a lot stronger tasting than I was expecting. It's not bad and may improve with conditioning/carbonation but, as it stands, far from my favourite hop. Sadly, I didn't taste the sample until after I threw in the dry hop.

 

[BackToBasics]

Okay, so life got in the way of this one for a while. It's in the keg now though, and I've got the first pint sat next to me now.

I think I'd class it as a partial success

The bitterness needs taming - should be easy to address that in future brews.

Lemondrop was, perhaps, not the best choice of hops. It's distinctly lemony and the smell is slightly reminiscent of fairy liquid. Thinking about it, I'm not sure exactly what I was expecting. Again, easy to address in future - think I'd be tempted to try something with more of an exotic fruit vibe, I've got a bag of tropical england hop mix from CML that could be interesting.

It's definitely a bit thin and lacking in body but nowhere near as bad as I thought it might be. I could up the lactose a bit but I don't think I can mash much higher. A trickier issue to tackle but if I can get the bitterness and hop selection right I don't think it's a major issue.

I, unfortunately, don't have an abundance of positive points but the one good point I have hopefully balances out the issues - it hits the spot in terms of looking, tasting and drinking like a beer. Not sure anyone would mistake it for a "standard" ABV beer and I'm not happy enough with it to start handing out samples to find out. Hopefully, the next iteration will sort out the bitterness and use more suitable hops and I can get some feedback then.