# How go you make a zero alcohol APA?



## New_guy (3/1/14)

My dad can't drink alcohol anymore but loves a good beer 

Would be great to brew up a decent 0% APA

Anyone able to suggest how it's done ? 

I was going to do a test batch with a FWK 
1) add water to drop the SG down to 1.015
2) use 1/4 teaspoon yeast to get it to 1.010
Then dry hop 

This should give me a 0.6% beer 

I know it will be thin 

Any suggestions???
I


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## Ducatiboy stu (3/1/14)

I would tast ...um....not that good. 

You would need to also drop the hop amounts. It will be a tastless un balanced mess.

If he cant drink alc, try Coopers Birrell. Its actually pretty good.


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## Sully (3/1/14)

FWK is expensive for an experiment exercise ~$50. I have been doing FWK over the last 6 months and I wouldn't want to water them down any further. They are already atvthe starting SG and all you'd be achieving unfortunately is very watered down beer. 
Try a single tin of goop without any extra sugars first made up to the 21L - 23L and see were you end up. You can always throw more hops into boost flavour & aroma. Take an SG reading before pitching and adjust the water, at a guess you'd be around the 1020 mark, so you shouldn't need too much more. All the flavour will still be there and not watered down as significantly as the FWK would.


I must say i have been impressed with the quality of kits & bits I have been tasting lately, they have come along way since I first started brewing. 


Food for thought...


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## warra48 (3/1/14)

I agree Coopers Birrell is actually pretty good.

The thing we can't do at home is to remove the alcohol from our brews in the same manner is the commercial guys do it, that is under vacuum.


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## New_guy (3/1/14)

Points taken 
We have both tried most of the no/low alcohol beer 
Not meaning to be rude but they taste like shite
My theory was a low starting OG only 10 points from the FG to generate just enough ferment for taste 
Does this not work in practice??
Also do you carb and bottle it? Will this bump up the ABV??


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## peas_and_corn (3/1/14)

Good no alcohol beer is virtually impossible to make, and even with the right equipment is really hard. Most breweries use ro to get the alcohol out nowadays, but it still has drawbacks


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## law-of-ohms (3/1/14)

Low alc will be subseptible to infection. How about fermenting a stanard brew and then boiling off the alc in a cooking pot on the stove?


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## Ducatiboy stu (3/1/14)

Sully said:


> You can always throw more hops into boost flavour & aroma.


No no no no no

You need to go the opposite. The malt balances the hops.

Have you ever tasted hop tea without much sugar/malt.

I have brewed down to 2.5-3%..hard to get it to taste decent


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## Lecterfan (3/1/14)

I am compiling info to start a thread on this based on several (non scientific, totally anecdotal, but aesthetically rigorous) experiments that are currently still underway as I have had unpleasant trips to the gastroenterologist lately and my alcohol intake has been heavily reduced - down to virtually nothing for about 3 long boring weeks haha. I see no reason to let one of my favourite hobbies be ruined.

Holston, Coopers Birrell, Weihenstaphaner Hefe are three non-alcoholic beers that are available at my local Dans that are easily drinkable (and have helped me survive xmas and NYE without wanting to stab someone in the eye)…one to avoid is Clausthaler - friggin awful. Bitburger 'drive' is quaffable - a half decent gully washer that smells like beer but tastes like water.

While there are always going to be those who dismiss these beers, just like a lot of people will poo-poo gluten free beers or light beers or mid strength beers, that is simply a mind set and they should count themselves lucky that they aren't forced to consider alternatives. Sure it won't taste the same, but I found the social and behavioural aspect of non-alc beers has been great for me. Still has less calories than many soft drinks, is nice and dry and bitter and you can drink a heap of them without causing crippling agony - sounds ok to me.

I'm not yet convinced that it is a total write-off making extremely low to no-alcohol beers at home, but it certainly adds a lot of effort and time and thought to the process. I'm also not convinced that many (if any) of the advice available on the internet is offered by people who have actually done it/tried it for themselves… That's why I'm holding off starting a thread until I've tried about 4 different recipes (first batch is just being carbonated so won't report back for a few weeks as I am comparing the 'full strength' bottled carbonated %3 to the cooked and kegged version).

Anyway - as long as he likes bland lagers then there are plenty of half decent non-alc beers he can smash through. Good luck with whatever you do.


edit - turned an L into a K


edit again - I've also found that rather than buy light beer (you know, for those heavy nights when I REALLY want to feel some hellfire in my gullet) I now just put a squirt of AIPA into a glass then fill it with one of the non-alc beers for a %2ish beer that is NOT a boring old lager haha.


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## Bridges (3/1/14)

Secondary ferment for carbonation is generally adding about 0.5% alcohol. My wife went through this when pregnant and wanted a beer minus the alcohol. The Germans all make them as they have 0% blood alcohol for driving. Becks I seem to remember being ok. But budvar, erdinger, and many others are around.
http://www.alcofree.com.au/collections/beers
Maybe start here...
Good luck, sharing a beer with my old man is something I'd hate to lose.


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## mckenry (3/1/14)

Bridges said:


> Secondary ferment for carbonation is generally adding about 0.5% alcohol. My wife went through this when pregnant and wanted a beer minus the alcohol. The Germans all make them as they have 0% blood alcohol for driving. Becks I seem to remember being ok. But budvar, erdinger, and many others are around.
> http://www.alcofree.com.au/collections/beers
> Maybe start here...
> Good luck, sharing a beer with my old man is something I'd hate to lose.


Bridges - I'm not long back from Germany and hired a car while there. I made the appropriate enquiries as to BAC and its the same as here, 0.05. Its only zero for learners and all drivers in their first two years, plus anyone 18-21.


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## Bridges (3/1/14)

My bad, that was what the dude in the local bottle shop told me when I asked why all the zero alc beers he had seemed to be German. He's a very knowledgeable bloke generally and I trust his opinions on beer. Cool now I can say I've learned something today!


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## New_guy (3/1/14)

Lecterfan said:


> I am compiling info to start a thread on this based on several (non scientific, totally anecdotal, but aesthetically rigorous) experiments that are currently still underway as I have had unpleasant trips to the gastroenterologist lately and my alcohol intake has been heavily reduced - down to virtually nothing for about 3 long boring weeks haha. I see no reason to let one of my favourite hobbies be ruined.
> 
> Holston, Coopers Birrell, Weihenstaphaner Hefe are three non-alcoholic beers that are available at my local Dans that are easily drinkable (and have helped me survive xmas and NYE without wanting to stab someone in the eye)…one to avoid is Clausthaler - friggin awful. Bitburger 'drive' is quaffable - a half decent gully washer that smells like beer but tastes like water.
> 
> ...



Thanks Lecterfan
Your right the rest of us r bloody lucky 
I have attached a photo of his current favourite ( from Aldi) not sure if you have had it

The goal of this thread was to find out if I can make a beer we can share as he has never tasted by home brew


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## New_guy (3/1/14)

Ducatiboy stu said:


> No no no no no
> 
> You need to go the opposite. The malt balances the hops.
> 
> ...



My experience of drinking NAB is that it's like malty bubbly soft drink - not enough hop character - I wanted to make something that tasted much more hop forward 

Is this even possible ??


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## Mardoo (3/1/14)

I've been contemplating carbonated wort soft drinks for awhile now. Make wort, boil it or add something to kill beasties (perhaps campden tablets?), add flavorings and carbonate. Those flavorings could be hops in your case, but the hard flavors to get in would be those produced by the yeast during ferment.

Your short ferment with added campden might work. The other possibility that occurs to me is to make a starter but stop it before the alcohol production begins, decant off the starter wort and add to a separate sanitized wort. Or even make a full-batch and treat it like that starter, racking off wort before alcohol production begins and then sanitizing the wort. That's basically your idea I guess. Flavor is of course an issue as others have mentioned but you might find some success working from recipes like Manticle's Dark Mild.

Good luck. Very interesting challenge.


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## Ducatiboy stu (3/1/14)

It is...but its about getting the balance. Try to keep your SG:IBU ratio the same. I know brewers say you can never have to many hops....but get the balance wrong and it wont taste decent


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## GrumpyPaul (3/1/14)

I asked the same question once before and did give it a go.

I cant find the thread i started but here i another one with good info.

aussiehomebrewer.com/topic/45730-is-it-possible-to-brew-a-non-alcoholic-beer/

i went with the cooking off the alcohol after fermentation method. Dont boil it.. You only need to go about 78degrees to cook off th alcohol.

The end result was ok...drinkable but not great beer. A few more attempts migt have improved it but i didnt bother.

Good luck with it.


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## New_guy (3/1/14)

Cheers all
Nothing like a good challenge 
Will come back to you when I have a result


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## Dunkelbrau (4/1/14)

I've been curious about this as well, a nice refreshing brew for people I know who don't drink for health reasons might be a nice surprise on the keezer for them when they come around for dinner.

I'm thinking your want to go with a malt forward style rather than an IPA..


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## Ducatiboy stu (4/1/14)

I actually went the route of brewing low-mid strenght beers...purely because I didnt like getting drunk drinking beers.

I found that keeping the flavour & aroma amounts low with a nice bitter background to be better.

ie..given an amount of hops, use more as a % for bittering then split the remander for flav & aroma

Say you want a beer to have 30ibu..first 20 as bittering...split the last 10 over flav an arom.


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## Mr. No-Tip (5/1/14)

Could the old man drink a sub 3% beer? That would open a lot more options.


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## Ducatiboy stu (5/1/14)

What sort of options...


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## pk.sax (5/1/14)

Idea: What about fermenting with bacteria that conk off early, like 2% ish. I remember reading in some lambic text that some type of bacteria quit that early. Make a low gravity brew but mash it at 70 degrees like, do only a 5 minute hop addition. It should retain maltiness, now ferment with the bacteria and keg.

Anecdote: My lowest gravity ever was an unintentionally watered down beer that I hopped to volume rather than strength and my mash temp was about 68. Was meant to be 20 litres of 1042 and turned out to be 30-32 litres of 1030. Fermented out to 1006 from memory. Was very very drinkable. The recipe was Tony's lcba to start with.


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## Mr. No-Tip (5/1/14)

Ducatiboy stu said:


> What sort of options...


English mild.
SIPA.
Leictesweizen.
Berlinerweiss.
Lite American Lager.
Scottish 60.


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## New_guy (5/1/14)

Mr. No-Tip said:


> Could the old man drink a sub 3% beer? That would open a lot more options.


Unfortunately no, has to be "NAB" which I believe is 0.5% ABV or less


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## indica86 (5/1/14)

6 of them is one of the other...


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## New_guy (5/1/14)

So if I did a brew as per normal then post ferment reheat brew to above 78.3 deg C (boiling point of ethanol) then dry hop 
This could work?
Only problem is how do you carb it? I don't have kegs


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## Dunkelbrau (5/1/14)

If the brew is fully attenuated, just prime like normal and add new yeast. They will only eat the new sugar you put in!


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## TSMill (5/1/14)

I'd start with the commercial alcohol free beers as a base, and figure out the best way to boost the hop flavour/aroma (hop tea, isohop, very small addition of vodka infusion....)


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## kezza (5/1/14)

what about brewing a normal apa and running it through a "water purifying apparatus" remove all the alc and be left with no alc beer. I don't know if that would work


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## barls (5/1/14)

Your all forgetting the isomerisation of the alpha acids in the heating to remove the alcohol. 
I did one ages ago at work as a trial batch. I believe it was 1035 og and 32 Ibu not fermented and pasteurised to kill off anything that would be in it. Personally I'd go that way and force carb it. Tasted way better than most of the no alcohol ones


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## of mice and gods (5/1/14)

Awhile back on here people were talking about a new liquid hop product that was made for adding a few drops to a commercial lager to up it's aroma/flavour. Maybe you could brew a super light beer with only a tiny bittering presence and then trial adding this kind of hop extract to achieve your 'apa' kinda flavour? once you know the right amount, do up a few bottles for the old boy.


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## surly (5/1/14)

barls said:


> Your all forgetting the isomerisation of the alpha acids in the heating to remove the alcohol.
> I did one ages ago at work as a trial batch. I believe it was 1035 og and 32 Ibu not fermented and pasteurised to kill off anything that would be in it. Personally I'd go that way and force carb it. Tasted way better than most of the no alcohol ones


Without fermentation, wouldn't the beer be too sweet?
If you think about it, the average PA probably finishes around 1.010, That is a fair bit less, sweet sugar than even a low OG un-fermented wort. Without any alcohol present, wouldn't it taste even sweeter?


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## BingBangBrewhouse (5/1/14)

I recently read that making a normal apa (whatever strength you want) letting it ferment as usual. Then boiling out the alcohol after primary and conditioning (bare in mind that hop aroma and flavour) and if you want to dry hop just chill it again and keg or whatever works really well.


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## barls (5/1/14)

surly said:


> Without fermentation, wouldn't the beer be too sweet?
> If you think about it, the average PA probably finishes around 1.010, That is a fair bit less, sweet sugar than even a low OG un-fermented wort. Without any alcohol present, wouldn't it taste even sweeter?


hence the 32 ibu. it was just perfectly balanced.


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## Cube (5/1/14)

IIRC, Birell is brewed with a yeast strain that dosen't spit out alcohol as a by-product of chewing through the sugars. I believe there is no post heating process, just brewing as per normal.

I'd love to get my hands on this yeast.


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## surly (5/1/14)

barls said:


> hence the 32 ibu. it was just perfectly balanced.


Interesting. 
I like the sound of this approach much better than the brewing of a very "weak" beer. It is also much faster


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## popmedium (5/1/14)

Just a thought, but could you do a reverse eisebock? Freeze the low ABV beer and remove the alcohol somehow?


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## barls (5/1/14)

Cube said:


> IIRC, Birell is brewed with a yeast strain that dosen't spit out alcohol as a by-product of chewing through the sugars. I believe there is no post heating process, just brewing as per normal.
> 
> I'd love to get my hands on this yeast.


i was under the impression it's done with a vacuum boil ie a boil at near vacuum


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## Cube (5/1/14)

joel connolly said:


> Just a thought, but could you do a reverse eisebock? Freeze the low ABV beer and remove the alcohol somehow?



Something like spinning it around really fast to remove the liquid?


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## New_guy (5/1/14)

barls said:


> Your all forgetting the isomerisation of the alpha acids in the heating to remove the alcohol.
> I did one ages ago at work as a trial batch. I believe it was 1035 og and 32 Ibu not fermented and pasteurised to kill off anything that would be in it. Personally I'd go that way and force carb it. Tasted way better than most of the no alcohol ones



Hi Barls,

Sorry dumb question time - 
Do you mean that you had a OG 1035 brew with 32 IBU that you then fermented and then force carbed ? Or did you not ferment? 
How did you pasteurise the brew?


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## dent (5/1/14)

I've brewed 2% APAs that were great, just mash really high and use a buttload of crystal malts etc.

As far as alc free, I bet a 50L keg would be strong enough to hold a vacuum. Get it set up with a refrigeration vaccuum pump or similar and you could really get something working.


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## barls (5/1/14)

New_guy said:


> Hi Barls,
> 
> Sorry dumb question time -
> Do you mean that you had a OG 1035 brew with 32 IBU that you then fermented and then force carbed ? Or did you not ferment?
> How did you pasteurise the brew?


not fermented at all. At no time did yeast be involved. 
Being it was a test batch it wasn't carbed. It was put through the pasteuriser at my former work


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## Dunkelbrau (5/1/14)

1.035 is pretty sweet for my taste, did the pastuerisation make it higher IBU?


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## indica86 (5/1/14)

Cube said:


> Birell is brewed with a yeast strain that dosen't spit out alcohol as a by-product of chewing through the sugars


Not quite right from what I read.
The Birell yeast won't eat Maltose.


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## Lecterfan (5/1/14)

From: http://www.beerandbrewer.com/_blog/Magazine/post/Homebrewer_Low_down_on_Low_Beers/

[SIZE=11.5pt]Coopers is the only brewery in Australia using this technique in its product called Birrell. They use a special yeast that was developed over 30 years ago in Switzerland which Coopers licence from the Danish Carlsberg brewery. Dr Tim Cooper explains that the ingenious thing about this yeast is that it only ferments three types of sugar; sucrose, fructose and glucose.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=11.5pt]“Those three sugars only represent a smaller proportion of the overall carbohydrate mix that you get from the malting and brewing process,” he said. “The particular yeast is quite clever in the sense that it only ferments those three sugars and doesn’t ferment maltose and maltotriose. Maltose is the main sugar that is derived from malt, so that means we end up with hardly any alcohol.”[/SIZE]


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## indica86 (5/1/14)

That's the one I read at work.


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## Dunkelbrau (5/1/14)

Isn't that pretty much champagne yeast then?


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## Cube (6/1/14)

indica86 said:


> Not quite right from what I read.
> The Birell yeast won't eat Maltose.






Cube said:


> IIRC, Birell is brewed with a yeast strain that dosen't spit out alcohol as a by-product of chewing through the sugars. I believe there is no post heating process, just brewing as per normal.
> 
> I'd love to get my hands on this yeast.


You edited my post to make it a statement. The IIRC is an important factor. Like, IIRC this button will nuke NZ being not quite sure it will. Remove IIRC, NZ WILL be nuked.


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## peas_and_corn (6/1/14)

Why do you hate New Zealand?


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## Ducatiboy stu (6/1/14)

Its Australias 7th state........


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## indica86 (6/1/14)

Cube said:


> You edited my post to make it a statement. The IIRC is an important factor. Like, IIRC this button will nuke NZ being not quite sure it will. Remove IIRC, NZ WILL be nuked.


****. I'm sorry. For me IIRC was not a word so irrelevant to me. I'll endeavour to not slight you in that manner again.


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## Cube (6/1/14)

indica86 said:


> ****. I'm sorry. For me IIRC was not a word so irrelevant to me. I'll endeavour to not slight you in that manner again.


 :lol: :beerbang:


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## indica86 (6/1/14)

I had to click on the notification just to see what beerbang was.
I'd LOL but that's not a word either. :kooi:


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## Cube (6/1/14)

peas_and_corn said:


> Why do you hate New Zealand?


Never said I did. I was born there. I just live in Australia because, you know, it's better.


h34r:


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## manticle (6/1/14)

bitter


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## Cube (6/1/14)

No, better, I said better. Stoopid accent.


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## manticle (6/1/14)

butter?


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## Cube (6/1/14)

Dammit, I said CHIPS MAN CHIPS


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## manticle (7/1/14)

Who's Sid?


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