woody1525228571 Posted November 17, 2006 Share Posted November 17, 2006 G'day all, the other day my daughter (who doesn't mind a homebrew or two) posed a good question towards me about low carbohydrate beer. is it possible for the average homebrew punter to make a low carb beer with a decent taste, or a taste to rival that of the commercial low carb (read tastless) beers. My little miss being a female is obsessed with carbohydrate levels and calories but wants a decent taste (she also likes a good stout) all thoughts, recipes and opions welcomed :wink: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PB2 Posted November 19, 2006 Share Posted November 19, 2006 I'm yet to try a "decent tasting" commercial low-carb beer. Use enzyme (from you local home brew store) and get some extra hops in for aromatics and flavour. A low carb stout, to me, is a bit like decaf' coffee - why would you bother? Maybe some others on the forum can help you out?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woody1525228571 Posted November 20, 2006 Author Share Posted November 20, 2006 yeh i agree about the flavour of commercial stuff and the comment about the stout, sorry was just to let ya know that she also likes a decent beer which forces me to hide my best extra in the back shed thanks for the comments and let's see if we can't put our heads together and come up with something :lol: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr Smurto Posted November 20, 2006 Share Posted November 20, 2006 Pure blonde is a half decent drop - my partner is into the stuff and has asked me whether i could brew something like that. I guess they use a higher amount of fully fermentable sugars rather than malts and then hop the hell out of it! How does the dry enzyme work? I had a look at country brewer (http://www.countrybrewer.com.au/category76_1.htm) and it says for low carb beer and that it helps the yeast to consume more of the sugars. How? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PB2 Posted November 20, 2006 Share Posted November 20, 2006 The calories are in the remaining carbohydrates and the alcohol. So, if your daughter is concerned about calorie intake, you could make some brews that are lower in alcohol but not skimping so much on flavour. Although, alcohol does act as a flavour enhancer, similar to salt on food. Do this by cutting the simple sugars (dextrose/sucrose) in a recipe to a minimum while keeping the malt additives. eg. The Brewmaster Irish Stout - normal recipe is the can + 500g Light Dry Malt + 300g Dextrose to 23l, yields about 4.2%abv. Try the can + 500g Light Dry Malt to 23l which should yield about 3.5%abv. You can reduce the alcohol by about 0.5% if you keg the beer and force carbonate rather than priming with sugar. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr Smurto Posted November 20, 2006 Share Posted November 20, 2006 Pure blonde is still 4.5% ABV so its not a light, or even a mid. I agree the calories do come from alcohol, actually gram for gram they are one of the highest forms of energy but if you could substantially reduce the amount of sugar left in the beer than you 'should' be able to brew a low carb beer. I would have thought the simple sugars ferment out the best, not the malts hence why the low carb beers have hop overkill to make it taste slightly stronger than water. If anyone is that fussed about calorie intake they probably should avoid alcohol in general and stick to water :D On that point, you could be totally sacrilegious and use artificial sweeteners to make low carb beer as sweet as the normal stuff....... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woody1525228571 Posted November 21, 2006 Author Share Posted November 21, 2006 thanks for the comments and ideas think I might start trying a few different things like less sugars, keep the malts about the same, and use some hops to bitter and enhance flavours bugger 1 week to brew, 4 weeks to age, it's gonna be a long wait.......... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr Smurto Posted November 21, 2006 Share Posted November 21, 2006 Woody Done a bit of reading on the subject as it has me very curious as to how the commercial brewers do it. I reckon i might even join you in giving it a go. Will try a lager with 250g light dry malt, 250g dextrose, some of the dry enzyme and some extra hops, prob Saaz and will also dry hop with additional Saaz. Now i just have to figure out a way of measuring the carb levels...... (spot the nerdy scientist :D ) Cheers DrSmurto Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Brew Master Posted November 25, 2006 Share Posted November 25, 2006 Hi, everyone, Most of my brews are light, I add 500g of BE2 to all of my brews. The last one was a Stout with only 250g BE2 and this came out at 2.9 That's not bad I got 30 long necks of Stout for approx $4.00, They were the tins I got for $1.95 recently. Regards, Peter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tug Boat Ben Posted February 15, 2007 Share Posted February 15, 2007 After doing a bit of looking around i stumbled across this. it gives some info on how to make a beer with lower carb content but it doesn't help with the problem of how to measure carb content. http://www.bacchus-barleycorn.com/PDFfiles/LearnMore/Beer%20Lowcarb%20beer.pdf cheers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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