[RUSTYME]

I don't drink at all , not even shandy , don't even use wine or anything in cooking .
But i used to like the taste of beer , stout , ale etc , but never liked wine  ever , yuk , so i was wondering , is it possible to make alcohol free beer ?
I don't have a problem with other people being soaks , lol , just i don't want to drink but would like an alcohol free beer with all the minerals and vitamins though , is it possible ?

[Dreich Pete]

What a coincidence; I was just talking to somebody about this today and I made a mental note to research it. I was partly prompted by the notion of making something low alcohol that I could sell without running into licensing red tape, and what we decided (based solely on observations) is that there must be a threshold at which alcohol isn't classed as such - we think it's 0.5% which would allow for shandy. I love all the craft beers that are so abundant these days, but as most of them are 5%+ I struggle to enjoy more than two or three. It'd be nice to enjoy that sort of things with friends and still drive home.

As I understand it, most low/no alcohol variants of wine & beer tend to be de-alcoholised (is that a word) after the production process, and my initial thoughts would be that as alcohol is a side product of the fermentation process, it may not be possible to make a genuine like-for-like replacement version. I'll share anything I find out and will look forward to any knowledgable sorts sharing their wisdom with us.

[RUSTYME]

Small beer may be the way to go for what you want Pete ?
Back in the 17th century , water wasn't safe to drink , so the masses drank 'small beer' , anywhere upto a gallon or so per day . The strong beer was made as per normal , then a second batch was made using the same ingredients , thus making a batch of very weak beer 'small beer' , still with the taste , minerals and vitamins , but with very low alcohol content . The peasants could thus drink it by the bucket load .
I have toyed with the idea of doing this myself , i would have no trouble giving the 'strong' first brew away , leaving me with the ' small beer' .
I , however , don't want low alcohol content , i want 'no' alcohol content  .
I may end up making small beer in the end if the 'no' alcohol version is too demanding .
 

[jaykay]

In theory, you can either heat the beer afterwards, as the alcohol evaporates at a lower temperature than water boils, or you can freeze it and pour off the alcohol, as it stays liquid after the water has frozen.

The downside of either is altering the taste, plus the yeast is killed by the heating method, so you have to then re-carbonise it somehow if you don't want flat beer.

Sounds like an interesting summer project......

[RUSTYME]

Could get a soda stream at a bootsale i spose ?
I hated the stuff they made back in the 70's .
The freezing method would be less harming to taste ( i would think , but i don't know why i think that ?) , but i won't have access to a freezer ( no leccy ) , so the heating method would be the route i would have to go . Maybe someone has done  this already , so may be able to use their experience .
It will take me forever to collect all the gear needed to play with mind  , so don't hold your breath waiting for me to discover the answer , lol .

[Q]

Ha - you have interested me now!

I had a scout around and the main objective on the net seems to be to achieve a low alcohol beer less than 0,05% but thats not what you want.

See the link below because that one seems to involve a process where part way through brewing, the alcohol is boiled off before the yeast is added to carbonate. This means you wont need the soda stream 

http://www.mademan.com/mm/how-brew-non-alcoholic-beer.html

[RUSTYME]

Cheers Q , that seems to be the way to do it . Even i can get the stuff to give that a go , apart from the ice , i would have to use the river , (always very cold even in summer) , instead .
I have a 5 gal plastic beer barrel , a 5 gal food grade bucket with lid and tap ( a honey bucket) , and the ingredients shouldn't be too dear . May even try this before the move , or just after . I will have to ask in the pub if i can have some old beer bottles , or visit the bottle bank !!

[Ina]

Would it be possible to collect the unwanted alcohol in some way? It could be quite useful in extracting herbs, using for medicinal purposes, disinfection etc.

[Dreich Pete]

All the reading I did last night pointed to only 4 methods: boiling the alcohol off, freezing it off, vacuuming it off, or reverse osmosis.

Freezing it wasn't a very commonly mentioned method ad I would imagine it is because freezing large containers is generally quite hard due to the space required - I suppose a chest freezer would suffice.

Boiling it off seems to be the most common method but with the consistent drawback that it robs the beer of flavour. The way around that is to add the flavour back again after the boiling, or to add new flavours into the brew. I did read about adding a yeast afterwards but that an either re ferment and produce alcohol again, or continue fermenting after it is bottled, with predictable results in the storage closet.

The vacuum method seems to be popular commercially, although it is really just another way of boiling off the alcohol, just at temperatures that don't affect the flavour as much. The obvious drawback is the cost of the equipment and you still have to heat it.

Lastly, the reverse osmosis option will remove the alcohol, leave most flavour, and requires no heating or freezing or pressurised vacuum vessels, but it does require very specific filters.

In your situation the only real option is to boil it off, and I would suggest that as it's for your own consumption you work on finding a brew that has an acceptable taste after the process. I think most people are trying to de-alcoholise their brew to taste the same as the regular version, but with a slight adjustment to attitude that stops being a problem. As long as it still tastes good enough to drink and suits your palette.

[RUSTYME]

Yep , boiling off seems the easiest option to try . I best wait till i have moved though , hectic enough as it is , and once everything is in boxes and all mixed up in sheds and caravans , i won't know what is what or where it is , lol .
I will be making a still Ina , for extracting essential oils from herbs . So i could use that to make the small amounts of alcohol i may need , or make a bigger one specifically for the purpose , that would be fun , explaining to plod when i get raided , " 'onestly hossifer , i only use it to make alcoholol to get hoils from erbs " .
 

[jaykay]

We once had a head of year suspected a girl of bringing alcohol into school, in her drinks bottle, heavily disguised as Ribena. So he brought the bottle over to the science department to see if we could tell for certain.

The head of science, who was a chemist, set up the little still, and sure enough, at 78C, off came the alcohol 

[cloddopper]

Pete,
The vacuum method seems to be popular commercially, although it is really just another way of boiling off the alcohol, just at temperatures that don't affect the flavour as much. The obvious drawback is the cost of the equipment and you still have to heat it.
 Not quite correct  ... You can get water to boil at 50 oF  ie give off gas bubbles  if you use a decent hand vacuum pump it was one of the school science projects we did in the 1960's,   alcohol will also " boil off " at low temps under vacuum .


 There is a German beer called Dunkle or dunkel beer ( dark beer )  or better known as Maltz Beer 
It is  sweet though slightly sour beer  taste and has an almost microscopic ABV .don't know if that is by design or process .

If as soon as the alcohol was produced to sterilize the liquid It could be that a very hot sugar overload addition could stop the beer from fermenting anymore .
 In Germany pregnant women and people with broken bones are encourage to drink about a half a litre a day .  It has  a high calorific content .

it's worth looking up just to see if it is what you're after .