funtourist
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- Apr 27, 2013
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I am on a quest to develop a system that is easy to use to make high quality non-aloholic beer from a beer brewed using traditional methods, ingredients, and yeast. The reason - I am no longer a college student wanting to consume copious amounts of alcohol. As I get older, I still love beer, but for health reasons, want to limit my alcohol consumption as much as possible. I feel being able to make NA beer will help others continue their brewing hobby even after they decide alcohol is not something they want to continue consuming.
I have narrowed the search down to 2 methods:
Regular Distillation/heating of beer is ruled out because it will not produce a quality end product. Also ruled out is small beer, using special yeast strains, etc.
I feel that vacuum distillation (without concentrating the vapors) would be ideal because it simply evaporates the alcohol and some water. Hop aroma would be lost but could easily be added back in. I don't know of any cons.
What equipment would be needed?A vacuum pump at what rating or Horsepower? How long do you have to run the pump and how much needs to be evaporated to remove the alcohol to a point where the beer is 0.5% or less?
Reverse Osmosis is supposed to be the 'best' technique, but reviews of na beers almost always mention a sour-ness. It's a known fact that reverse osmosis filtration of water at a ph of 7 will change it to an acidic ph of around 6. So, there are some issues with the sourness which would need to be remedied by adjusting PH.
Also, equipment specs are needed, such as exact types of filter membrane and molecular weight cutoff rating (seems to be 200-300)
Please post to this forum your real world experiences, equipment and process specifications. Please don't post just your opinions because this forum will get really off track.
The goal is to get some real solid scientific evidence of how to make NA beer at home with readily available and preferably inexpensive equipment.
Looking for people who have tried this technique to give some feedback on their experience.
Some information resources:
http://www.sumobrain.com/patents/wipo/Flavored-malt-beverages/WO1996012788.html
http://www.tastybrew.com/forum/thread/166833
http://perrin.princeton.edu/12spring2012/482CHE482/na_beer.pdf
I have narrowed the search down to 2 methods:
- Vacuum Distillation
- Reverse Osmosis
Regular Distillation/heating of beer is ruled out because it will not produce a quality end product. Also ruled out is small beer, using special yeast strains, etc.
I feel that vacuum distillation (without concentrating the vapors) would be ideal because it simply evaporates the alcohol and some water. Hop aroma would be lost but could easily be added back in. I don't know of any cons.
What equipment would be needed?A vacuum pump at what rating or Horsepower? How long do you have to run the pump and how much needs to be evaporated to remove the alcohol to a point where the beer is 0.5% or less?
Reverse Osmosis is supposed to be the 'best' technique, but reviews of na beers almost always mention a sour-ness. It's a known fact that reverse osmosis filtration of water at a ph of 7 will change it to an acidic ph of around 6. So, there are some issues with the sourness which would need to be remedied by adjusting PH.
Also, equipment specs are needed, such as exact types of filter membrane and molecular weight cutoff rating (seems to be 200-300)
Please post to this forum your real world experiences, equipment and process specifications. Please don't post just your opinions because this forum will get really off track.
The goal is to get some real solid scientific evidence of how to make NA beer at home with readily available and preferably inexpensive equipment.
Looking for people who have tried this technique to give some feedback on their experience.
Some information resources:
http://www.sumobrain.com/patents/wipo/Flavored-malt-beverages/WO1996012788.html
http://www.tastybrew.com/forum/thread/166833
http://perrin.princeton.edu/12spring2012/482CHE482/na_beer.pdf