Low Alcohol Brewday

[chrisb8]

I recently made my first attempt at a low alcohol beer and thought that it may be a good idea to write up the method that I used if it may be of help to others. This is of course a bit of an experiment and I will post updates as it goes along.

The basis of my method was to use the second runnings from a wheat beer mash which I brewed first and add to it cold-steeped speciality grains in order to add colour and flavour to the wort without adding any extra fermentable sugars. I started by cold-steeping 75g crystal, 50g chocolate and 75g carapils overnight in 10L of treated water at room temperature.

Next day, after the sparge for my main brew was complete and while this first wort was boiling I poured the steeped grains liquid into my sparge header tank, topped this up with more treated cold water and sparged the mash again using this and collected this in a spare fermenter bucket. The idea was to cool the original mash to stop any further conversion whilst also collecting the second runnings. Once the first brew was finished I cleaned out my boiler and started again on the second wort. I did a 40 minute boil for time saving at this point and with the following hop schedule – 20g Magnum for 40 minutes, 15g Mosaic for 10 minutes, 15g Mosaic at FO, plus 1tsp irish moss at 15 minutes. Once cooled and in the fermenter I had 16L at 1.009, pretty much what I was aiming for. I am trying the CML Pia yeast for this one which I pitched directly.

 

[chrisb8]

Some pictures of the brewing showing the second mash, the sparge (with my wheat beer boiling in the kettle), the collected wort & the OG sample

 

[chrisb8]

After 5 days the gravity reading was 1.005 which gives an ABV of 0.5%. At this point I have dry hopped with 20g Nelson Sauvin. The aroma of the sample was lovely but the taste was very astringent with tannins. After doing a bit of research I understand this could be due to the overnight steeping in such a relative large volume of water; the long sparge time, especially as it went well below 1.010; or the pH could have raised again due to the longer sparging process of making two worts from one. I will hope this reduces with conditioning and/or I will look into methods to reduce this.

 

[chrisb8]

Final gravity

 

[matt76]

This is interesting...

I was listening to a recent Brew Files podcast the other day about saving pennies wisely...

They were saying that there's often still plenty of fermentable sugars left in the grain you discard, especially if you're making big beers. So essentially you could get extra beer from one batch.

I've been wondering if I could get anything of note even from one of my typically 10L 1.050 OG batches - I'd consider 5L of 1.030 worthwhile for example (though probably optimistic!).

As I've nothing to lose I might give it a go next time I'm brewing.

 

[Rodcx500z]

Hi Matt even if you only got say 1020 you could add a little sugar to bump it up, sounds like a good idea i have a 10L fv which I never use I see a plan forming

 

[chthon]

I have been using more water in my latest brews for sparging, but I use a bucket in bucket system as a filter tun. After I get the correct volume in my boil kettle, the tun with the mash in it drains out in the outer bucket. I noticed that at the end of the evening, I get up to 1 liter of wort with a strength of about 1.020, I boil that down to 1.040 and freeze it for starters etc... (note: I brew only up to 10 liter, people who brew more can probably get more drained wort).

 

[matt76]

I have been using more water in my latest brews for sparging, but I use a bucket in bucket system as a filter tun. After I get the correct volume in my boil kettle, the tun with the mash in it drains out in the outer bucket. I noticed that at the end of the evening, I get up to 1 liter of wort with a strength of about 1.020, I boil that down to 1.040 and freeze it for starters etc... (note: I brew only up to 10 liter, people who brew more can probably get more drained wort).

This was part of my thinking - at minimum I might get something I can use for a starter

 

[chrisb8]

I obviously over sparged my mash to collect a larger amount of wort at a lower gravity to make a low abv beer. However you could always sample the wort you are running off until the desired gravity is achieved and then settle with whatever volume you have.

 

[Spinningwoman]

So essentially you could get extra beer from one batch.

That was known as ‘small beer’ - an everyday drink for ordinary people in the Middle Ages and later.

 

[chrisb8]

Time for an update.
So I decided to try to experiment with trying to get rid of the bitter tannin flavour by cold conditioning and fining. Firstly I moved the fermenter to the shed with the temperature outside hovering around 4 to 6 degrees for a week. Then I treated it to polyclar finings as I had read that this is the best option for stripping tannins and had a sample after 24hrs - still very bitter. So I moved on to my usual gelatine treatment and again had a sample after 24hrs - this time it was notably cleared but still bitter.

So I have moved on to bottling it and hoping that an extended period of conditioning in the bottle will help the situation. It's a shame because the initial flavour is really good but then you get a terribly bitter taste that ruins your mouth and taints your taste buds for the next hour

 

[chrisb8]

By means of a quick update to this thread the low alcohol brew is very slowly improving but is still very bitter. In the end I have put this down to the fact that the extraction of bitterness from hops is related to the sg of the wort being boiled and as I only had a sg of 1.009 the 20g of magnum used would have given an ibu of over 80. This I only realised later after playing around with the brewers friend calculator. Next time I may rely on the later hop additions to provide all the bitterness as I assume that enough will be extracted in the latter part of the boil.

 

[decanter2020]

Low alcohol bear is pretty much the same as normal beer with sugar and carbs, I think coots light is the lowest. I prefer spirits as carb free and very low sugar or red wine, no beer for me.

 

[chrisb8]

I had another go at a low alcohol brew today, this time with a small mash to provide the fermentables and a separate steep of grains for extra colour and flavour.

I did a half hour 12L mash as follows:
300g Flagon Pale
100g caramalt
100g crystal 60

At the the same time I steeped 100g brown malt and 100g Carapils in 6L of treated water at room temperature. This I then used to 'sparge' the mash, combining the two to give 17L into the boiler.

I did a 30 minute boil with the following additions:
15 mins - 5g Mandarina, 100g lactose, 1tsp Irish moss
5 mins - 10g Mandarina, 10g Mosaic
0 mins - 10g Mandarina, 10g Mosaic

Chilled, filtered and into the fermenter. Ended up with 15L at 1.011, spot on what brewers friend suggested. Looking for it to finish somewhere around 1.007 for an abv of 0.5%. I have pitched CML Pia yeast and will let it do its thing at room temperature and see what happens...

 

[chrisb8]

So I bottled my second attempt at a low alcohol brew today and things look promising. It finished at 1.009 for an abv of 0.25%. The colour is good and the flavour has a malty undertone, still perhaps a little bit bitter but I think it will condition nicely. Time will tell...