I like homebrewing as a hobby, nothing like the smell of a carboy bubbling away in the kitchen. And you can design your own brew, which is cool. From my thread on beer, I see that there are other homebrewers out there. Of course, we face the uncertainties of not knowing for sure what our carbs are on our homebrew. Anybody got tips for brewing low carb homebrew?

Hi. I haven't tried a low carb brew yet, but this member has. Maybe he'll drop by and give us his recipe.

I bet you could do a good lower-carb stout.

Do a hard cider with champagne yeast, and you get a very dry cider that can't possibly have much of a carb count. It's drinkable, and fantastic to cook with in place of white wine.

Good ideas.

Use Champagne yeast, because it doesn't poop out when the alcohol gets up there.

Using honey as an adjunct to your barley malt would be good, since it ferments completely.

Simply starting with a lower initial gravity would result in a lighter beer.

Using dark malts, as the roasting process converts some of the carbs to unmetabolizable compounds (I think) and the taste of these malts is more intense, allowing the use of less of them to achieve something palatable.

Plenty of hops makes for plenty of taste, without affecting carbs. I like a high alpha acid hop like Centennial, good for all three additions (bitterness, flavor and aroma).

I'm not one to follow recipes with my beers, so I won't have a problem using all these suggestions at once. Not something a beer style afficionado would be happy about though.

I am not a beer brewer but my husband has always brewed for us... He isn't home to ask right now but I know he has used strawberries in his beer. I'm not sure if he used that in place of the sugar completely or just in part. I do know that your beer will ferment quicker with the fruit though. Goodluck figuring out a LC recipe and make sure you post it if you actually figure out how to make one!!

Jenn

The Belgians use fruit in their lambics. I don't know whether this would enhance the low carb-iness, but it would be a nice change of pace. Certainly the berries would provide flavor without adding tons of extra sugar.

I don't brew beer, but I found this article that says what can be done to reduce the carbs

http://www.thebeerstore.ca/chill/Is...es-lowcarb.html

"To be clear on the process: One of the first stages in making beer involves mashing the grains in the mash mixer. This eliminates the simple carbohydrates, leaving the complex. The complex carbs are what give the beer its body. What your major brewmasters are doing is leaving these fermentable grains in the masher for 5-6 times longer than for regular beers.

By doing so, they eliminate most of the complex carbohydrates, as well."

This sounds AWESOME!! One thing I really miss in this WOL is hard cider. My favorite is Woodchucks (which they no longer sell in SLC). How hard is it to make your own cider? I'd really like to try it. Any websites or suggestions??

Thanks!
JamesBlond

Not to butt in, but all you need is some apple juice that doesn't have preservatives, and a packet of champagne yeast. The trick is finding the juice without preservatives, this time of year they are selling sweet cider though so you might be able to find some.

I've also made mead, which is fermented honey. I usually add some spice and a little tea to it, because it ferments out so completely that it doesn't leave much taste. And its best to let it sit for several months, although I've been known to drink it after a week with a little lemon juice.

TomSawyer-

Where might one locate Champagne yeast? And not to be TOO big a dummy , but what next? Do I need special equiptment??

JamesBlond

a while ago, i was checking out the homebrewing forum http://forum.northernbrewer.com/ and someone over there was talking about making lc beer. they were using bean-o to help make a more complete fermentation.

Jamesblond, this is one of my favorite sites for reading about the brewing process. You definitely need to read up on it before you attempt it, or you'll end up with a 5 gallon bucket of stinky bacteria. I spent about $100 on equipment, but it can cost you a lot less than that. Champagne yeast, and all other supplies, will be available at your local homebrew shop. Check your yellow pages under "brewing".

About that dry cider, though... I wonder what would happen if I added Splenda to sweeten it. I bet the yeast would eat the maltodextrin, so it probably wouldn't add any carbohydrates...

If you have a Friar Tucks in your town, they sell brewing supplies. Otherwise just go online there are dozens of suppliers. Champagne yeast in the little packets is only like $1. You'll want an airlock as well, and a bucket made of food grade plastic for your fermentation. I prefer glass carboys, its fun to watch things going on.

I bet the yeasties don't metabolize Splenda. That or you can sweeten it just before drinking.

I've never counted the little bits of carbs here and there, after reading some of the stuff on this site you people are making me feel like such a cheater!

Thanks for the tips! I'll read up and then (perhaps :P) attempt a batch of my own... It sounds FUN!

JamesBlond

Hello! I'm the homebrewer that Kristine referred to earlier. I've brewed two batches of lc beer. Both turned out very good. Judging by other beers final gravities and carb content, I'd guess my beer would contain about 5-7 carbs per 12 oz. Twice as much as the commercial lc beers. I'd rather have 1 these than 2 of that crap.

I start from scratch using all grain, so some of this information will not apply to extract brewers. I think you can still brew a good lc beer using extract.

My recipe is as follows:

10 gallons Low Carb beer

14# Maris Otter pale malt
5.5 oz. Cascade hops (5.8 alpha)
London Weyeast

I mashed the grain using rests at 140 (15 min), 148 (60 min), and 162 (15 min). This is a little more invovled than a one step mash, but I believe this helped convert more starch to sugar.

I used a 60 minute boil. 2 oz of the hops were added at the start. I added 1.75 oz with 15 minutes left, along with a lttle Irish moss (for clarity). I used the remaining hops after I'd cooled the wort to about 180 degrees to give it a nice hop nose.

The original gravity was 1.039 and the initial final gravity 1.012. Then I racked the beer and added 3 Beano tablets to each carboy. The enzyme in Beano did a nice job of bringing the gravity down to 1.004. It will ferment long that normal (about 2 weeks total). Some say to ferment at a little higher than normal temperature. I lke to keep my temp below 70 to prevent getting a funky taste. You can add the Beano at the time you pitch the yeast if you wish. I just wanted to see how much more it would ferment the beer. I guess that you could also do it during mashing.

A few thoughts....

This is a smaller beer than I would normally brew. My normal pale ale recipe calls for a grain bill of over 18 pounds and a lot more hops. Scale back your hops accordingly. At a final gravity of 1.004, overhopping you bittering hops will make it very bitter. I will try dry hopping next batch.

If you extract brew, I'd start at about 3.5-4 pounds of a light extract. You can add a little honey and roasted barley if you wish. Both are very fermentable. Stay away from crystal malts as they don't ferment as well.

I read an article about adding Splenda to the beer to get back some mouth feel, so I tied it. They recommended 1.5 cups for 5 gallons. I put 1 cup in my 5 gallon keg. Way too sweet for me. I doubt if I will do it again. The untreated keg was much better.

Remember, this is a "lighter" version of a normal homebrew. I didn't realize how light it was until, at a brew club meeting, I tasted mine after tasting other homebrews. It is however much better than anything available commercially. I'm going to work on some ideas in future batches.

Good luck and enjoy!

Bruce (Brews)

Thanks for the recipe and the tips for creating an lc beer. I forgot about mash temp affecting the body of the beer. I know the one enzyme works best at 150, and the other closer to 160. I forget which results in a more complete conversion of starches and dextrins to sugar. Have to look that up again in Joy of Homebrewing.

I've been lazy lately anyway, and doing mostly extract brewing. I'll have to find some Beano, does that convert dextrins to alcohol or does it turn them all to CO2?

I know what you mean about homebrew being better than commercial, I've been having an occasional dark beer and diluting it with Miller lite to make it last.

I totally agree that some things are worth using your carb allowance on.