Suggestions for low, or alcohol free, weizens. Or Guiness 0% clones

[peterpiper]

Does anyone have any recipe suggestions, for brewing clones of Erdinger alkoholfrei weizen, or Guineas 0%? Or other worthwile, low alcohol beers.
And is bottle carbonation possible?

As far as I understand, low alcohol beer needs to be pasteurised (at 70°C ?). For how long?
I guess that all subsequent transfer / storage / bottling, will have to be ultra sterile.

 

[fury_tea]

I was looking at doing some low alcohol beers myself.

Guinness Zero would be difficult to achieve at the homebrew level I think, but you could possibly get to a low alcohol stout by building a light malt bill and a high temp mash, maybe using some lactose and adjuncts like cacao nibs etc. Might take some experimenting to get to something you like though so maybe start doing some small batches and take lots of notes. There's an article here that could help you on the road to thinking about it: https://www.brew-dudes.com/homebrewing-low-alcohol-beer/8478

There's an under 1% IPA on David Heath's YouTube channel:

Again not the style you are after but gives you a good idea of how to approach it.

I had a hairbrained idea of my own (maybe done before, as most ideas are), but I read that some wine yeasts are incapable of breaking down complex sugars so could leave you with a low alcohol and high maltose beer, could work for something like a stout, maybe...? Might taste a bit like the African/Jamaican malt drinks rather than a beer though

 

[peterpiper]

I was looking at doing some low alcohol beers myself.

1)......There's an article here that could help you on the road to thinking about it: https://www.brew-dudes.com/homebrewing-low-alcohol-beer/8478

2) There's an under 1% IPA on David Heath's YouTube channe

3)............. I read that some wine yeasts are incapable of breaking down complex sugars so could leave you with a low alcohol and high maltose beer, could work for something like a stout, maybe.

1) The brew dudes bitter sounds promising. But wonder if suggested chilling, to end fermentation early, might lead to refermantation issues later.

2) Wouldn't mind trying an IPA, but didn't find that Lactose gave satisfactory 'body' (in a blackcurrant sour beer).

3) I'd also wondered about that route, maybe with a champagne yeast. Though in this discussion https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/threads/champagne-yeast-use-in-brewing-beer.77529/ it's suggested that complex sugars are fermented, eventually.
And I'm now thinking, an ale yeast is more likely to give the right flavour.

Seems lots of possible options, but was hoping to work off any reports of successfull brews.

 

[jof]

From my LA experiments of ale style beers, I can say they take a lot longer to drop clear and really need that time to mature too.
Almost the longer the better.

 

[peterpiper]

This old thread https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/threads/peebees-brewday-low-alcohol-beer.77965/page-4 has lots of usefull info, including yeast choice. And the Rye IPA recipe there, sounds like a good starting point.
But posts there, say that low ABV beers don't need long conditioning. Many looked to be still hazy, but that could just be the rye.

It seems that manufacturers are now isolating maltose negative yeast strains, eg Fermentis SafBrew™ LA-01. Unfortunately most are reserved for “professional use only” (and only available in large packs), due to pasteurisation being needed to ensure a stable packaged product.