Genuinely usable Small Beer

I am very interested in making a small beer to satisfy my curiosity as to weather it really could be used to rehydrate you as well as water. So I was thinking something no higher than 1% ABV might do.

Does any one have a genuinely usable Small Beer recipe for all grain? Maybe even one that isn't from the second runnings and is formulated specifically weak?

I'm planning a much lower abv beer for the new year (brewing in next couple of days) but not as low as 1%.

Most of my brews have been around 4%, I'm dropping to 3.4% or so for the next one. Really to see if there's a great taste difference - I'm keeping the hopping regime the same but reducing the first bittering hops.

This is my planned brew - if it's similar in flavour to the previous 4% one, I'll try reducing again.

Comments / suggestions welcomed!

The Long Way (to Amarillo)
Standard/Ordinary Bitter

Recipe Specs
----------------
Batch Size (L): 55.0
Total Grain (kg): 6.688
Total Hops (g): 240.00
Original Gravity (OG): 1.031 (°P): 7.8
Final Gravity (FG): 1.005 (°P): 1.3
Alcohol by Volume (ABV): 3.45 %
Colour (SRM): 4.2 (EBC): 8.2
Bitterness (IBU): 29.5 (Average)
Brewhouse Efficiency (%): 80
Boil Time (Minutes): 90

Grain Bill
----------------
4.000 kg Maris Otter Malt (Warminster) (59.81%)
1.700 kg Pilsner (Bamberg) (25.42%)
0.350 kg Aromatic Malt (5.23%)
0.338 kg Wheat Malt (5.05%)
0.300 kg Biscuit (4.49%)

Hop Bill
----------------
25.0 g Target Leaf (12% Alpha) @ 90 Minutes (First Wort) (0.5 g/L)
30.0 g Amarillo Leaf (9.4% Alpha) @ 15 Minutes (Boil) (0.5 g/L)
30.0 g Amarillo Leaf (9.4% Alpha) @ 10 Minutes (Boil) (0.5 g/L)
30.0 g Amarillo Leaf (9.4% Alpha) @ 5 Minutes (Boil) (0.5 g/L)
50.0 g Amarillo Leaf (9.4% Alpha) @ 20 Minutes (Aroma) (0.9 g/L)
75.0 g Amarillo Pellet (9.5% Alpha) @ 7 Days (Dry Hop) (1.4 g/L)

Misc Bill
----------------

Single step Infusion at 67°C for 90 Minutes.
Fermented at 20°C with Hopback brewery (harvested from a Summer Lightening)

Welcome :

Not sure what the result will be but here is one by George Washington.

Take a large Sifter full of Bran Hops to your Taste -- Boil these 3 hours. Then strain out 30 Gall. into a Cooler put in 3 Gallons Molasses while the Beer is scalding hot or rather drain the molasses into the Cooler. Strain the Beer on it while boiling hot let this stand til it is little more than Blood warm. Then put in a quart of Yeast if the weather is very cold cover it over with a Blanket. Let it work in the Cooler 24 hours then put it into the Cask. leave the Bung open til it is almost done working -- Bottle it that day Week it was Brewed.

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"To Make Small Beer." From his 1757 notebook. (http://www.nypl.org/locations/tid/36/node/40921)

I found with lower gravity, you need to seriously haul back on the IBUs, with less body to balance the beer it can end up tasting very bitter and thin. More hops, not always the answer?! T

Love the GW quote, not sure I fancy his beer. Think I'll stick to Obama's honey ale.

What I found with the commerical examples at work - nann...nter with that level of body and...beeryness.

You could look for a Kvass recipe, it's usually weak but with lots of rye bread flavours.
I read that http://www.themadfermentationist.com has a recipe.

Edit: found a basic Kvass recipe at http://www.whats4eats.com/beverages/kvas-recipe

Following this thread!

Fiona2013 said:

Following this thread!

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Me to


Aamcle

I always thought that the small beer was made from the same mash as a stronger beer. The first mash makes the stronger beer and then mash the same grains again to make the small beer.

I've just looked it up, apparently it's called parti-gyle brewing :? Woodfordes do this for their 7% barley wine and the 4.3% golden ale. So it must be possible to get a 4 or 5% beer and a 1% beer from one grain bill

My mash efficiency I'm luck to get one beer!

I like Cains Calcutta Ale only 2.8% but a lot of flavour.

What's the matter with back liquoring? :wha:
1% is hardly worth fermenting! :nah:

I have recently taken to drinking low abv milds after I've noticed cains dark mild in asda is very cheap and my little local stocks some others. I wouldn't like to go as low as 1% but its certainly appealing to have a keg full of something light on the liver.

A very good description and overview of the old methods can be had HERE From 'The London and Country Brewer'- anon dated 1736

that first a stout Beer, then an Ale, and afterwards a small Beer may be had at one and the same Brewing

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Another good read can be found HERE From A Treatise on the Brewing of Beer, by E. Hughes dated 1796

Small Beer.

As I said before, small beer is too frequently neglected, because the master or mistress of a family drink but a small quantity of it. I verily believe there would be less good small beer consumed in a family of servants and workmen, than if it were inferior and bad in its quality. It may be thought strange by adding the name of good to small beer, but it must be acknowleged that there is a great disparity in the quality of ales, and why not in small beer; on the one hand, it certainly depends on what length you draw from quantity of malt.

Small beer should be let down into the tun much warmer than ale; and as soon as it shews an inclination to work it should be cleansed; it will then work well in the casks, and will have a quick, lively taste. Small beer, not having a sufficient strength, cannot support a long fermentation in the tun: for if it is worked cold, and left too long in the tun, it will drink flat and unpleasant.

Now, as I said before, there will be no more good small beer consumed in a family, than if it were ever so bad; for when a workman or servant has occasion for a pot of small beer, if bad, he will, perhaps, drink a part of it, and throw the remainder away, and, very likely, carelessly leave the cock dropping, in order to get rid of such a bad commodity the sooner. Now, on the other hand, if the small beer was good, the consumers would take care to leave the cock, &c. secure, well knowing they should not have a better substitute.

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Nothing worse than a workman leaving your cock dropping :shock: :lol:

are we still on subject? :lol:

This has got me thinking - can I produce a beer with the same level of flavour / body as the above, but with say half the ABV? Experiment time!

My recipe above was for a 3.4% highly hopped Amarillo beer, which is nicely underway. It was overnight mashed starting at 68C which fell to 54C in the morning at pH5.2. I used a highly attenuative brewery yeast (2nd generation originally from a bottle Hopback Summer Lightening). This gave me 85% attenuation in my Christmas brew.

The two key variables I can see that can be changed are the yeast and the mash temp.

1. Yeast – the Hopback yeast gave 85% attenuation, if I switch to say WLP002 this could drop to around 75% (according to my Googling here).
2. Mash temp – raising this to 72C should increase the unfermentables by around 50% (again, according to my Googling here). However there is a hit to Brewhouse efficiency of about 5%.

Now, I’m thinking that maltyness/body comes from the residual sugars left in the beer after fermentation – so if we aim to keep these at the same level then the resulting beer should have a similar body.
Taking account the decreased attenuation, and the increase in unfermentables from 1 and 2 above, I’ve adjusted the AA% down from 85% to 70% in Brewmate. I’ve also adjusted the recipe to a) take account of what I have in stock and b) add some crystal for colour c) halve the brewlength as this is an experiment

So, on to hops – here I am not sure! Asalpaws says rein back the IBUs as lower residual sweetness, Rob Walker says maintain the body. I think the above maintains same level of body (not as high as 1010 but I think reasonable for a small beer at 1006).

I think I’ll maintain the same hopping regime, and see what happens. I think can cope with a beer that’s too bitter more than one that’s too sweet.

So – to action – I hope to be able to brew this one over the weekend, but need some WLP002. (Order to Malt Miller going in right away – hopefully will get it by Sat).

Any comments on my thoughts above?

Resulting recipe will hopefully give similar beer at 1.74%:

P09 Small Way (to Amarillo)
Standard/Ordinary Bitter

Recipe Specs
----------------
Batch Size (L): 27.5
Total Grain (kg): 2.200
Total Hops (g): 130.00
Original Gravity (OG): 1.019 (°P): 4.8
Final Gravity (FG): 1.006 (°P): 1.5
Alcohol by Volume (ABV): 1.74 %
Colour (SRM): 4.2 (EBC): 8.3
Bitterness (IBU): 27.5 (Average)
Brewhouse Efficiency (%): 75
Boil Time (Minutes): 90

Grain Bill
----------------
1.936 kg Maris Otter Malt (Warminster) (88%)
0.110 kg Munich malt (5%)
0.110 kg Wheat Malt (5%)
0.044 kg Crystal malt (dark) (2%)

Hop Bill
----------------
10.0 g Target Leaf (12% Alpha) @ 90 Minutes (First Wort) (0.4 g/L)
15.0 g Amarillo Leaf (9.4% Alpha) @ 15 Minutes (Boil) (0.5 g/L)
15.0 g Amarillo Leaf (9.4% Alpha) @ 10 Minutes (Boil) (0.5 g/L)
15.0 g Amarillo Leaf (9.4% Alpha) @ 5 Minutes (Boil) (0.5 g/L)
25.0 g Amarillo Leaf (9.4% Alpha) @ 20 Minutes (Aroma) (0.9 g/L)
50.0 g Amarillo Pellet (9.5% Alpha) @ 7 Days (Dry Hop) (1.8 g/L)

Misc Bill
----------------

Single step Infusion at 72°C for 90 Minutes.
Fermented at 20°C with WLP002 - English Ale


Recipe Generated with BrewMate

(of course, if this works, we can repeat the experiment and get down to around 1%)

I really like your yeast choice, used recently for a porter and got about 69% attenuation. Still think you may want to reduce the bittering hops but depends ultimately on what you enjoy. Let us know how it goes, could be a very nice summer beer. T

Asalpaws said:

Still think you may want to reduce the bittering hops but depends ultimately on what you enjoy. Let us know how it goes, could be a very nice summer beer. T

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If I go for 5g of Amarillo for bittering, this brings it down to 18.7 IBUs, on Brewmate, it appears much better balanced so will give this a try.

Will report back possibly with pictures - late Jan I expect.

Plan to do side-by-side comparison, plus an independent taste test without revealing the smallness of one of the beers until afterwards.

Brewed today, 1019, lovely hop aroma, WLP002 arrived from Rob at the Malt Miller this morning - thanks Rob for excellent service as always (postman was very interested in the garage brewery as he popped it round the door).

Will be putting the yeast to the wort as soon as it hits 21c - later this pm (heaters on, my counterflow is too good at this time of year).

First results expected in say 3 weeks - when both have cleared.

Phew, what a day - my first "triple" brew - this was one of the three. Should fill the racks following the Christmas depletions.

A.