Brewing a Near Beer Soon

It should work. But it is going to taste very watery.

ETA: The diastatic power is going to be really low. Can't do the math right now, but really, really low. Rescinding the "it should work."

 

It will vary a little from maltster to maltster, but I've never seen Maris Otter above 50 lintner.

 

Too late to edit, so adding here... you need to include the weight of the flaked barley too.

 

I haven't done anything like this before, so am just spit-balling.

What about some maltodextrin for body?

There have been a couple episodes of The Brew Files podcast (the alter ego of Experimental Brewing) in which Drew interviews about very low ABV beers. Can't recall the specific hints, but you might get something out of it.

Change your yeast? The Lallemand ESB yeast and the Windsor yeast do not ferment maltotriose, so will leave something behind in the wort. In a regular batch, people might complain about not hitting the FG, but in a low gravity batch, provides a sense of fullness
https://www.lallemandbrewing.com/en/united-states/product-details/windsor-british-style-beer-yeast/
ESB may now be called London, as someone else may have trademarked ESB(?)
https://www.lallemandbrewing.com/docs/products/tds/TDS_LALBREW_PREM_LONDON_ENGLISH_DIGITAL.pdf

I've see slightly higher Maris Otter DPs than @VikeMan 's 50, but it will still be a challenge. A longer mash might help.

Simpsons gives mix and max, with max at 75.
https://www.simpsonsmalt.co.uk/our-malts/finest-pale-ale-maris-otter/
Muntons listed at 62
https://shop.greatfermentations.com/product/maris-otter/pale-and-base-malts
Crisp listed at 50
https://bsghandcraft.com/crisp-finest-maris-otter-ale-25-kg-55-lb

 

To give an example of this, I'll relate my experience with Windsor. I used it to ferment an English Bitter I made a while back. Now this beer had 23% crystal/carapils malts, so that may have contributed to the low attenuation. Anyway, this beer started out at 1.046 and finished at 1.019, giving an apparent attenuatoin of 59% and an ABV of about 3.5%.

Surprisingly perhaps, that beer was quite full as far as mouthfeel goes, and I did not perceive it as particularly sweet.

As far as the OP's idea goes, I don't see how

in a 5 gallon batch is going to produce anything that remotely tastes like beer. To (more or less) quote Douglas Adams, I suspect the OP will end up with "a beverage that tastes almost but not quite entirely unlike beer."

 

Isn't a near beer traditionally made by fermenting the second runnings of a big beer? It would be difficult to plan ahead to predict and brew to an abv less than .05% but it gives you a different approach to try.

 

I'm actually experimenting with making a 0% beer (not 0.5%). My idea was to steep the crushed grain like tea (at a high enough temperature to denature the enzymes) to give it a grainy taste, and then strain and boil with hops. The steeping at 180-190 F certainly doesn't work as it extracts a lot of starch or proteins and results in a very milk-like beer that won't clear (it does taste grainy though). My next experiment is to soak the crushed grains at a much lower temperature, perhaps about 135 F, a temperature below conversion. Hopefully, at that temperature, it won't extract the starch/proteins or whatever causes the milky-like appearance, but still extract the grain flavor. Then I can strain and boil with hops.

 

I wasn't thinking of under-attenuative yeast strains and maltodextrin as the solution, but suggesting they might be part of a solution. But the toughest nut to crack here is the flavor. I know I can get decent flavor in 4% ABV beers or thereabouts, but 0.5% is a far cry from that. Still, it is probably worth listening to those Denny and Drew podcasts where they discussed this stuff:

https://www.experimentalbrew.com/podcast/episode-96-dancing-con-con
(segment with Chris Saunders at 01:03:50)
https://www.experimentalbrew.com/podcast/episode-95-one-percent-ales-and-other-tales-mike
(can't recall if they go into details of the 1% mild ale in the lounge segment, which begins at 41:44)
https://www.experimentalbrew.com/podcast/brew-files-episode-63-run-athlete
(the entire show is with a low alcohol brewery - they are somewhat cagey about how the do it, IIRC, but maybe I just needed to listen more carefully for clues).

 

Oh, I'm not saying near-beer cannot be made, but it's hard for me to imagine how it can be done without starting with a decent amount of grains, doing a fermentation, and then removing the alcohol in some manner. I'll admit that I perhaps don't have the greatest imagination, though. I'm all for the OP trying, and I'll second listening to the podcasts you mention.

 

Is there any reason you do not care to evaporate the alcohol? Making beer requires fermentation. Anything short of that is going to be not very much like beer. And fermentation always requires some alcohol production. Getting around that only causes more headaches IMO. I don't suggest you make a typical beer... do what can be done with yeast and fermentables but plan to remove the alcohol.

Consider heating your low gravity beer under pressure. This can lower the alcohol boiling temperature a fair bit and will minimize cooked flavors in the finished product.

Cheers

 

The whole "non-alcohol beer", which should actually be called "negligible alcohol beer or NAB, is an experiment in progress. There are various commercial ways of producing the beer, which is generally far beyond the capabilities of a homebrewer, but the verdict is still out on whether homebrewers can make a reasonably beer-tasting version. The boiling off of the alcohol technique seems to produce a decent enough version, but it also results in a lot of the hop taste and aroma being burned off. Dry-hopping after boiling off the alcohol should improve the taste, but I'm still wondering if a totally zero percent beer is not possible. One of the local colleges here in Ontario (Niagara College) invented the first process of making a totally zero percent beer, but their method is Copyrighted. I've tried it and it's not bad. Another owner of a yeast company here in Ontario also invented a negligible alcohol beer using a low amount of grain and some specialty grains, but it's still a work in progress. This is a very new field and looking for some creative inventions. The field is still open, and I'm very interested in others' attempts and results.

 

If you do decide to add water after evaporating alcohol to thin the beer, be sure to boil the water. Not so much for sanitation though that is one reason, but to reduce oxygen.
Cheers

 

I just relistened to one of those podcasts I mentioned, Athletic brewing, and was reminded that they stressed sanitation because of the limited protection supplied by alcohol in a negligible alcohol beer. If there are residual carbs and limited alcohol, maybe we shouldn’t dismiss the value this step has for sanitation.

 

Yeah, good point!

 

Might want to look into cold mashing. It’s supposed to be a way to get lots of malt flavor into your wort without adding the sugars. I’ve made really good beer at 3.5% without that technique, so I wonder how low you could go with creative techniques like that one.