Amylase has become my best friend in dieting.

Too many big beers have been playing havoc with my waistline so I decided to try to drop a few pounds and as most of you know a couple bombers of 6-8% beers has as many calories as a lot of meals. So one of my first cuts was beer and I found the Miller Lite Clone recipe on this site and gave it a whirl. It turned out pretty good, better than Miller Lite anyway, so I decided to make a lite something else. So I took the Ode to Arthur Guiness clone and scaled down to 1.32 I believe and did everything else to the recipe and tossed in Amylase after a week, let it sit for a couple and after a week and a half in the bottle it is already quite good. Of course it thinned it out but the taste was very very close to what I want. I am currently making a Pale Ale with a similar technique and it smells really good as well.

If you want a lite beer with a little flavor then I suggest trying it. Be aware of what you are making though, this isn't going to be a full bodied beer and don't go too crazy, remember it's not going to have much malt sweetness so I don't think I would try this with a 100 IBU IPA. It won't be as good as your big beers but mine has been better than ANY lite beer I have ever bought. They seem to come in the 4% alcohol range and 100-115 calories.

I think I don't understand how amylase enzyme helps things. Is this a no-carb diet?

If you put in Amylase after primary fermentation it breaks down the left over starches making them fermentable. So it cuts down on carbs but it also cuts calories which is all I truly care about.

CatHead said:

If you put in Amylase after primary fermentation it breaks down the left over starches making them fermentable. So it cuts down on carbs but it also cuts calories which is all I truly care about.

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NOT TRUE.

It does lower carbs but does NOT lower calories, the calories from ethanol remain unchanged. I have done LOTS of AE trials and experiments and am VERY familiar with what it does, it's effects on beer and that beer with people. As seen here: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/diabetic-friendly-beer-trials-ae-disscusion-314858/ I will say you are on the right path I just wanted to dispel misinformation.

Yeah, so you're ending up with less carbohydrate mass at 4kcal/g and slightly more ethanol mass at ~7kcal/g. You're doing nothing to the total calorie amount ingested unless you pour some out on the ground.

Why wouldn't you just mash the correct way?; protein rest, alpha-amylase rest, beta-amylase rest. No left-over starches, complete fermentability! Adding more water in the sparge or boil to give you a lessened-body brew can help out too.

Interesting idea!

The reason your beers are low in calories is because they are low in OG to begin with. The savings in calories with extra attenuation is miniscule.

On a bigass barleywine (1.120), 12oz of beer has about 395 calories if it finishes up around 1.030 (pretty reasonable). If it attenuates (impossibly) down to 1.000 thanks to AE, it's now 380 calories. Congrats, you've saved 15 calories and have a horrible tasting beer. On a normal gravity beer, the savings is about 5-6 calories per.

If you usually drink eight of these miraculous barleywines a day, your diet sucks, and you've still only saved yourself 120 calories.

I'd rather just leave half the bun off of my double-double. Exactly the same net result.

Not all beers will taste horrible dry, many can benefit from it like: stouts, saisons and IPAs to name a few.

Also as alluded to but not really covered in above posts is the fact that if you want to drink a bunch of beer and loose weight it requires a LIFESTYLE change not a recipe change.

it helps if he is lowering the OG but still getting the same ABV by using the amylase to get a lower FG

daksin said:

If you usually drink eight of these miraculous barleywines a day, your diet sucks, and you've still only saved yourself 120 calories.

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Or you could have the most amazing new fad diet to hit the streets

MotorcycleMatt said:

Or you could have the most amazing new fad diet to hit the streets

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There was a guy a year or two ago who subsisted on nothing but doppelbock for lent. He lost a lot of weight.

Zamial said:

NOT TRUE.

It does lower carbs but does NOT lower calories, the calories from ethanol remain unchanged. I have done LOTS of AE trials and experiments and am VERY familiar with what it does, it's effects on beer and that beer with people. As seen here: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/diabetic-friendly-beer-trials-ae-disscusion-314858/ I will say you are on the right path I just wanted to dispel misinformation.

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Every online calculator I use when I take a beer with an OG in in the 1.032-1.036 range and take the FG of 1.004-1.007 (where it would finish without) down to 1.000-1.002 where it seems to finish with it it knocks off about 3-5 calories per 12 ounces. While not a significant amount it did drop them a few.
http://byo.com/low-alcohol-brewing/...an-lower-the-carbohydrates-what-do-you-think?
I also point out this where at the bottom he mentions a Beano wheat that drops from 133 cals. to 122. Similar process with Amylase and Beano.

daksin said:

The reason your beers are low in calories is because they are low in OG to begin with. The savings in calories with extra attenuation is miniscule.

On a bigass barleywine (1.120), 12oz of beer has about 395 calories if it finishes up around 1.030 (pretty reasonable). If it attenuates (impossibly) down to 1.000 thanks to AE, it's now 380 calories. Congrats, you've saved 15 calories and have a horrible tasting beer. On a normal gravity beer, the savings is about 5-6 calories per.

If you usually drink eight of these miraculous barleywines a day, your diet sucks, and you've still only saved yourself 120 calories.

I'd rather just leave half the bun off of my double-double. Exactly the same net result.

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I have also done a lot of other things as well and lost 12 lbs in a month. But my point with the beer is I have went from five to six on an average Friday and Saturday night 175-236 calorie beers (Using SNPA and Torpedo because they seem to be my go to) to 3-4 110 calorie beers on Friday and Saturday. Saving myself personally between 800-1500 calories a weekend. Of course they aren't as good as Sierra Nevada and a grilled chicken sandwich isn't as good as a bacon cheeseburger but sacrifices have to be made or continue on the same path and wonder why things aren't changing. But they are a lot better than any comercial lite beer available and the two that are ready are actually pretty good.

Just pointing out that the amylase is doing literally nothing to help your diet and could be making decent beer worse. Just make delicious low gravity beers like 60/-, ordinary bitter, milds etc etc etc.

I would just take every beer I have designed and do a 1:1 rescaling for session style then limit myself to maybe one a day...two at most.

You are putting a lot of sugars into your system even with a dry beer, calories be damned you are essentially robbing Peter to pay Paul by maintaining a three to four beer a day habit.

Switch from beer to water for two weeks and watch how fast the weight drops, toss in an hour a day of cardio and it will drop even faster. I dropped 55lbs last year by cycling and cutting the empty calories and sugar intake.

I lost ~65 last year and did not adjust my beer intake (I drink WAY too much on the weekends). What I did do was start walking 3-4 times a week 3 miles. Also for the first 3-4 months I did the no then low carb (well I still drank my Juan Moore light from Humperdinks) thing. I have gained some back since moving but am starting to work on it again.

I can't see any reason to be able to drink five or six beers in a day--with or without weight gain/loss. Why not simply drink less beer? Yes, I know this is almost sacrilege for some, but we no longer live in the day when people needed beer to have a safe source of water. Most of us have pretty good water and with a slight addition of some flavoring can have a pretty reasonable, quenching drink. I drink beer because I like beer. I eat cake because I like cake. Yet, liking cake does not mean I should, or even would, have four to six pieces of cake in a day. Why don't we apply the same common sense to beer? Yet, I have to admit to overindulging. But my problem isn't stopping the beer, but stopping the pork chops or the bacon. This is something I am working on. I wonder if it would help to add amylase to my bacon.

I see this is an older thread but... I know if I'm going to have beer.. Later today... I'll cut back thru the day. No potato chips = one very good beer. Not have a large fry = two good beers= and so on. I get a good buzz on three 6abv beers. . so. I'm good.

frankjones said:

I see this is an older thread but... I know if I'm going to have beer.. Later today... I'll cut back thru the day. No potato chips = one very good beer. Not have a large fry = two good beers= and so on. I get a good buzz on three 6abv beers. . so. I'm good.

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If weight is of your concern, don't eat that bull**** food and don't worry about it. Have a couple beers a day, fine. But potato chips and french fries are **** food. Beer, in moderation, actually does something good for your body.
I see people drinking soda like fish all day at my office. I drink water. Soda, aside from a little caffeine, is totally worthless.

It really is all about a lifestyle change. Exercise more, make better food choices, maybe don't drink as much. But the most important part to losing weight is exercising. I'd do that before I ate or drank less.

But if you hate exercising, well, you're going to have a muuuuuuch harder time losing weight regardless of what you do.

But, having said all that, it can't hurt to cut back on beer. I know I over indulge.