Not beer?

[user 18729]

I’ve been looking into cold brew coffee and serving it on nitro. The reason? I’m going to cut back on the beer to try and trim down a bit and want to make something with very little carbohydrate in it to have on an evening.

So my question is, what have you brewed that’s not carby and alcoholic?

 

[Subtle Duck]

We do cold brew every summer at work. Got a toddy system but it could easily be made with a bottling bucket, a biab bag and some paper coffee filters. Brew it over night in a fridge and its good to go in the morning. We've tried a lot of different coffees but the consensus is south American works best as it accentuates the caramel and chocolate flavours. If you're feeling really adventurous try mixing the coffee concentrate with a squeeze of lime and top up with tonic water. Beautiful!

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

I’ve been looking into cold brew coffee and serving it on nitro. The reason? I’m going to cut back on the beer to try and trim down a bit and want to make something with very little carbohydrate in it to have on an evening.

So my question is, what have you brewed that’s not carby and alcoholic?

Brew your own ginger beer? OK it’s slightly carby!

Using your own beer, a shandy made with diet lemonade?

Not my own brews but also:

Diet tonic water with lime (just a dash of sugar syrup)?

Alcohol free sparkling wine?

The trouble is, nothing is as good as a beer - except another beer of course.

 

[MickDundee]

You shouldn’t need to stop eating/drinking particular foods if you are trying to lose weight. By sensibly tracking your calories and macronutrients (using MyFitnessPal or similar) there’s no need to restrict anything as long as it fits what you are tracking.

Ive lost over a stone since September and I have 6 beers every weekend and today I ate a Reeses Nuttylicious bar.

 

[user 18729]

You shouldn’t need to stop eating/drinking particular foods if you are trying to lose weight. By sensibly tracking your calories and macronutrients (using MyFitnessPal or similar) there’s no need to restrict anything as long as it fits what you are tracking.

Ive lost over a stone since September and I have 6 beers every weekend and today I ate a Reeses Nuttylicious bar.

I agree before Christmas I was losing weight just by cutting out the carbs during the week and having a few beers just on a weekend. I’ll go back to that after I’ve trimmed down a bit I’m just looking to lose some timber quickly over the next few weeks

 

[user 18729]

Has anyone experience of making tonic water (diet of course with sweetener in place of sugar)?

Reading into it you need to be careful with the Quinine levels or you’ll end up with the sh***

 

[Clint]

Does it need quinine unless you're planning on malaria?

 

[HarryFlatters]

Make your own seltzer? Hard or soft, it's up to you.

Literally just fizzy water with fruit juice in it. I'm gonna make a boozy one for the summer, it should cost about £5 to make an entire keg's worth.

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

You shouldn’t need to stop eating/drinking particular foods if you are trying to lose weight. By sensibly tracking your calories and macronutrients (using MyFitnessPal or similar) there’s no need to restrict anything as long as it fits what you are tracking.

Ive lost over a stone since September and I have 6 beers every weekend and today I ate a Reeses Nuttylicious bar.

You are more disciplined than me for sure. Tracking calories is just too much of a chore and “sensible” is more a starting point once I get a taste for something. I do the same as Hopsteep I think, allow the weight to build slowly and when it reaches a trigger point (for me, waistline getting uncomfortable) get it back in check - I exercise and eat less/more healthy. What I never do, crucially, is buy bigger clothes.

 

[terrym]

Brew some low ABV beer. It has less sugars in the wort so less sugars and calories in the finished product.
I brewed one recently at about 2% including the priming sugar contribution and it actually tasted and looked like beer and reasonably drinkable so will make some more this summer as 'lawnmower beer'.
https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/threads/low-alcohol-homebrew-beer.84831/

 

[Richie_asg1]

Has anyone experience of making tonic water (diet of course with sweetener in place of sugar)?

Reading into it you need to be careful with the Quinine levels or you’ll end up with the sh***

Yes I did a bit of reading, looking at brands and methods but the bit that put me off was the effects of quinine overdose - Death.
I did find some reasonably priced soda stream concentrate though.

When I first started brewing I made a very low alcohol cloudy lemonade in the smallest glass coke bottles and stopped fermentation by pasteurising them when the trial plastic bottles were carbed up. It worked very well but boiling pressurised glass bottles takes some nerve.

Something else I want to try is a Pimms style drink that is brewed, then force carbed, and bottled under pressure from that. Like a carbonated tea wine high in juniper.

 

[HarryFlatters]

effects of quinine overdose - Death

Same as alcohol overdose then

 

[Clint]

I thought that was being convinced the toilet had moved to the wardrobe....

 

[Chippy_Tea]

I thought that was being convinced the toilet had moved to the wardrobe....

You need one of these Clint.

 

[nige]

After looking at the price of Advocaat and looking at recipes, I'll have a go at making my own.

 

[Richie_asg1]

That explains the yellow snow in Narnia.

 

[RichardM]

You shouldn’t need to stop eating/drinking particular foods if you are trying to lose weight. By sensibly tracking your calories and macronutrients (using MyFitnessPal or similar) there’s no need to restrict anything as long as it fits what you are tracking.

Ive lost over a stone since September and I have 6 beers every weekend and today I ate a Reeses Nuttylicious bar.

No need for "tracking your calories and macronutrients (using MyFitnessPal or similar)", just eat a bit less, drink a bit less, eat a balanced diet and exercise a bit more

 

[MickDundee]

No need for "tracking your calories and macronutrients (using MyFitnessPal or similar)", just eat a bit less, drink a bit less, eat a balanced diet and exercise a bit more

Depends what your goals are really. If you just want to lose weight and don’t care how it comes off, fine - I lost 5 stone at 19 doing exactly that. It was great at the time but looking back I was “skinny-fat”, even when I was heavily into exercise and could run for hours.

I thought I was having a balanced diet but when I started tracking my macros back in the summer of this year (I kept 4 and a half of the 5 stone off for about 14 years until I was super stressed in my old job and put 2 stone on) I discovered my diet was far too carb heavy.

My wife went to a personal trainer who said to work your meals around your protein and it was a revelation for both of us - I’d always based my meals on what carbs I was having. I cut this down my carbs from about 70% of my diet to about 40% and upped my protein and fat and it’s been a revelation. The difference in my body composition and metabolism is unbelievable. The saddlebags I even had when I weighed 13 and a half stone have pretty much gone and even though I’ve been losing weight the progress I’m seeing in the gym is even rivalling my 19 year old self already (Although I was mainly cardio back then and I’m into weights and HIIT at the moment) and blows what I was doing at 29 pre-kids out of the water.

I’m 10lbs from my original target of 14st but I’m seriously thinking of stopping earlier because my measurements at 14st10 are actually smaller than my measurements at 14st at 29.


Anyway I’m deviating from my original point - I was merely pointing out that you don’t need to cut out the things you love to eat/drink in order to lose weight you just need to make sure you can do it whilst maintaining a calorie deficit. The way I find easiest to do that is by tracking what I’m eating.

 

[Dutto]

.......... to have on an evening.

So my question is, what have you brewed that’s not carby and alcoholic?

To ensure that I drink sufficient amounts of liquid and at the same time maintain my svelt figure, I quite often resort to a pint of tap-water of an evening!

Zero calories and it isn't a diuretic, so overnight trips to the loo are reduced or eliminated.

 

[Dutto]

..............

I’m 10lbs from my original target of 14st but I’m seriously thinking of stopping earlier because my measurements at 14st10 are actually smaller than my measurements at 14st at 29.

...........

Er ... this is probably due to either memory loss (often brought on due to advancing years), or measuring different parts of the body (an easy mistake when one is too fat to reach the parts that one used to reach), or a new fangled elastic tape measure specially designed for overweight people on diets!