Brewing a light hefe 2.5%abv. How?

[Dsh1109]

As the title says Im looking at brewing a hefe with roughly half the abv. How would I do so? I see most recipes are purely pilsner and wheat malt. I think the route I would normally take would be cut the base malts and keep the specialty grains the same, but these recipes are usually all base malt. What do you guys think, would it still be a pleasant experience? Maybe for a 5 gallon batch cut the wheat and pils in half but add some specialty grains like melanoidin at the same level as a normal 5% abv 5 gallon batch? Do a decoction but really boil the heck out of some of it, more than the normal amount?

Open to any suggestions. Also I know it won't be to style, this is just what I'm looking for, Hefe taste with half the abv.
thanks

 

[kh54s10]

Use a recipe design software and keep the balance of the hops etc, I would think that you want to cut all the malts by the same percentage otherwise you either have a wheat flavored pilsner or a pilsner flavored wheat.

 

[bracconiere]

an option would be to brew two beers with one mash...as far as i know people used to use second runnings to make small beers...

 

[jrgtr42]

The hardest part to brewing a hefe at that low, would be keeping the mouthfeel and flavors right.
Since most hefe's are basically those two bases, I would reduce them, then add in something like the Melanoidin or something like that.
Decoction is the traditional method for brewing a hefe - if you boil it down, you also have to watch that you're not reducing it too much, your color will darken and you may end up with higher than expected abv.
Keeping the abv low and flavors right will be tough - you may end up with what tastes like watered down hefe.

 

[ebbelwoi]

Try replacing some of the pilsner (maybe 1/3 to 1/2) with Weyermann carapils/carafoam to get some of the body back.

 

[Miraculix]

I think the best idea to keep body and mouthfeel would be to only use wheat malt as the base, no Pilsener. To get some additional malty flavour use five to ten percent melanoidin.

Another option would be to use about 20 percent Munich 2.

I brewed quite some beers with less than 3% lately and based on these experiments
I think I would use 20% Munich 2, 5% melanoidin and 75% wheat. That should do the trick!

 

[Dsh1109]

Thanks, for all the information everybody! I'm interested in potentially just doing a cold/non-enzymatic mash. I have never seen anyone do this with a Hefe, but it seems like it works out good for other beers that have been brewed this way. A thought is do you think there is going to be enough sugars there for the yeast to throw enough esters to actually get the traditional Hefe flavors from the yeast. The non enzymatic mash seems to get mouthfeel and malt flavor down, but I'm not sure how much alcohol the yeast need to produce to get the same esters. In case you want a link to some info on Non enzymatic mashing

 

[Miraculix]

Thanks, for all the information everybody! I'm interested in potentially just doing a cold/non-enzymatic mash. I have never seen anyone do this with a Hefe, but it seems like it works out good for other beers that have been brewed this way. A thought is do you think there is going to be enough sugars there for the yeast to throw enough esters to actually get the traditional Hefe flavors from the yeast. The non enzymatic mash seems to get mouthfeel and malt flavor down, but I'm not sure how much alcohol the yeast need to produce to get the same esters. In case you want a link to some info on Non enzymatic mashing

That is an interesting link. Thanks for that, never heard about it but would make sense in the context of low abv beers. You can add glucose to increase ester production. This is a trick from German Hefe brewing. They do it with special mash schedules resulting in increased glucose levels during conversion, but you could simplify it by just adding glucose directly.

Also fermenting a higher gravity wort and diluting it after fermentation, results in higher ester levels than directly fermenting the lower strength wort.

 

[ebbelwoi]

Also fermenting a higher gravity wort and diluting it after fermentation results in higher ester levels than directly fermenting the lower strength wort.

This is an important point.

Regarding something I mentioned earlier, Weyermann recommends its Carapils (aka Carafoam in the US) for low-alcohol beers, at up to 40% of the total grain bill. You could also use Carahell at a lower amount.

And for what it's worth, there are plenty of non-alcoholic hefeweizens to be found in Germany nowadays, so it can be done.

 

[Miraculix]

This is an important point.

Regarding something I mentioned earlier, Weyermann recommends its Carapils (aka Carafoam in the US) for low-alcohol beers, at up to 40% of the total grain bill. You could also use Carahell at a lower amount.

And for what it's worth, there are plenty of non-alcoholic hefeweizens to be found in Germany nowadays, so it can be done.

I think the non alcoholic Hefes are actually normal Hefes which have their alcohol removed by heat or other processes.

They taste all right, not great but all right. My favourite non alcoholic hefe is from Schneider's. But also paulaner and Erdinger are quite all right.

 

[Soulshine2]

As the title says Im looking at brewing a hefe with roughly half the abv. How would I do so? I see most recipes are purely pilsner and wheat malt. I think the route I would normally take would be cut the base malts and keep the specialty grains the same, but these recipes are usually all base malt. What do you guys think, would it still be a pleasant experience? Maybe for a 5 gallon batch cut the wheat and pils in half but add some specialty grains like melanoidin at the same level as a normal 5% abv 5 gallon batch? Do a decoction but really boil the heck out of some of it, more than the normal amount?

Open to any suggestions. Also I know it won't be to style, this is just what I'm looking for, Hefe taste with half the abv.
thanks

first question is why would you want such a low ABV hef?
yes a hef is pilsner and wheat...thats it, pure and simple + low hops and wheat beer yeast for the banana and clove flavors.. change the recipe with melanoidin and its not really a hef anymore.
You could probably just lighten the grain bill ...or just add a little more sparge water to lower the gravity. But I think you would affect the flavor immensely (and adversely)if you did so. Boiling the heck out of it would only boil off water so it would raise the gravity.

 

[Soulshine2]

The hardest part to brewing a hefe at that low, would be keeping the mouthfeel and flavors right.
Since most hefe's are basically those two bases, I would reduce them, then add in something like the Melanoidin or something like that.
Decoction is the traditional method for brewing a hefe - if you boil it down, you also have to watch that you're not reducing it too much, your color will darken and you may end up with higher than expected abv.
Keeping the abv low and flavors right will be tough - you may end up with what tastes like watered down hefe.

THIS ^

 

[Red Clay]

I think the non alcoholic Hefes are actually normal Hefes which have their alcohol removed by heat or other processes.

They taste all right, not great but all right. My favourite non alcoholic hefe is from Schneider's. But also paulaner and Erdinger are quite all right.

TL/DR: Your best bet to get low alcohol beer (other than lower OG) is vacuum distillation. Here is a Reddit thread discussing it. And a BYO article. Good luck!


Yes, non-alcoholic beer, in general, requires one of three alcohol removal processes, all three with moderate to significant tradeoffs.
1) Heat distillation - heating the beer post-fermentation to remove alcohol. This is basically just getting the alcohol to evaporate. Since alcohol has a lower boiling point than water (all that triple point stuff from chemistry), alcohol evaporates faster than water and thereby concentrates the water in what is left behind...the stuff you want to drink. This is bad for flavors in general. It strips all the high aroma and flavors off in addition to alcohol since they also have lower boiling points than water (which is why you smell them readily.) Heat damages the beer too. This is something you could do at home and is relatively cheap equipment-wise.

2) Vacuum distillation - with or without milder heating, this is pulling a vacuum to accomplish the same thing. Just like when you boil beer in Denver rather than San Diego, lower pressure results in lower boiling temperatures. So pull a vacuum and you can get beer to 'boil' as low as 120F. Much better than Heat Distillation and the way many commercial examples were done for years. It still strips off the low boiling point compounds (like some hop aromas), but it doesn't heat-damage the beer through accelerated aging/oxidation. Way more difficult to do at home, but an enterprising and serious home brewer should be able to pull it off with some expense.

3) Reverse Osmosis - Just like removing ions from water for brewing, you can pick an RO membrane that will allow you to concentrate water and alcohol on one side of a membrane, returning the other stuff (proteins, flavor compounds, etc), then using a second RO loop to separate the alcohol and water and putting the water back with the other stuff. By far the best method of dealcoholizing, but very expensive. The membranes themselves put this out of the realm of all but the most serious and, frankly, rich home brewers. High pressure pumps, two RO loops, lots of maintenance. Alfa Laval will be happy to sell you a unit starting in the low six figures. Low oxygen pick-up and low temperatures (55F) mean this is how all good DA beer is made.

If you are eager to give it a go, read up on vacuum distillation. I'd be surprised if some home-brewer hasn't attempted over the years. We can hope that they captured their experience to share with future home-brewing generations!