Low Carbohydrate - Stay With Me

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mrTbeer

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I'm generally a critic of mainstream low carbohydrate beers as they are often low on flavour. I've also read that it's the alcohol not the carbohydrates that are the bads guys anyway. I'm happy being naive medically but thought as a (new) brewer i should at least know what makes a low carb beer.

<1.9g/100mL is considered low carb
3.1g/100mL is considered regular beer (whatever that is?)

Coopers website claim it can be accomplished with an enzyme to get more complete fermentation.
Carlton (VPL label) claim it can be accomplished by brewing longer?

I'm not looking for recipes and don't really want to make low carb beer, i'm just trying to understand if it is possible and if so how it's done. I've no doubt this has been covered on ahb before but i'm just trying to cut through all the bullshit information that seems to be out there.
 
Have a look into the different ways the two enzymes, beta and alpha amylase chop up a starch chain.

I think someone wrote (maybe Palmer) a tree lopping analogy where the tree is cut down, into logs and then into managable lengths and then into boards etc etc...

...low carb beer is the MDF in this analogy. The flavour critters in beer have been shredded and reconstituted into something resembling beer.

Basically, if you add enzymes (they always end in -ase) to the fermenter the last drops of flavour left in there are shredded and the yeast munches them and turns the flavour component of your beer into more alcohol.

The way to make a nice, flavoursome, low carb beer is to pour half of it down the drain and add a nice, flavoursome high carb beer to it.
 
Low carb just means that it finishes low on your hydrometer.

What I'd like to know is with the Big Head 'No Carb' beer, does that mean it finished at 1.000?
 
So by pouring half your low carb beer out and filling it with standard beer, you get...mid carb?
 
Here's my recipe for low carb beer if anyone wants it:

100% ethanol to 5% and soda water. :p
 
the info from the coopers site is probably aimed at home brewers as they mention fermentation - so you chuck in a packet of enzymes (along with your sugar and goop and yeast) to do their work during fermentation. unless you denature them the will keep doing their thing in the bottle, albeit much slower

brewed longer just means they mashed longer so the enzymes had more time to do their thing
 
Low carb beers aren't anything new, they were doing them as long ago as the 1960s - anyone old enough will remember Carlton's D-Ale, I think it was called - D for diet of course, and a similar product from XXXX but the name escapes me now. In the UK a very popular beer was Holsten dit Pils (note the two dots over the a, is that neat or what) which I used to drink from bottles in the 60s as it was the only way to get a decent German lager in most pubs.

The carbohydrates referred to are, of course, the dextrin carbs that are left in the beer after fermentation. The lower you mash, the less dextrins you get. Mainstream Aussies are, AFAIK, mashed quite low anyway - around 63 for up to 2 hours, followed by a mashout, so they are probably fairly low "carb" as is, compared to a bottle of Old Speckled Hen for example.
 
And just for the record for anyone who hadnt thought about it like this - Alcohol is a carbohydrate.

Best low carb drink is water :p
 
Alcohol is a carbohydrate.

Depends who you ask (chemists or dietitians). It's made of C H and O, but technically ethanol's not a carb ... it's an alcohol.
 
If you do use dry enzyme, bottle bombs can become an issue; i.e. cause FG can be around 1.000 and possibly below. I used it once a few years back to make a TED clone, bottles tops were like champagne corks. I may have bottled when i got gravity to 1.003 etc
 
Bribie, the ones your thinking are xxxx dl and carlton diamond.So if the mash is performed for longer and lower more malt is converted to fermentable sugar and then it's fermented more thoroughlyThanks for the info people.
 
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