Low Alcohol Brew

[Seadog]

Morning Chaps,

Anybody have any experience of brewing lower or less alcohol beer?

I am considering halving the sugar in a kit as a trial, are there any pitfalls I should watch for?

Cheers :

 

[Cwrw666]

I did one recently. A brewmakers victorian bitter. A bit of an experiment - I brewed it short (to 4 gallons instead of 5) but accidently put more sugar in than I'd intended bringing the ABV up to about 4%. So I added more water, taking it up to 4.5 gallons which should make it about 3.5% ABV.
It's now bottled and still conditioning. I did have a drink of it at bottling time and it tastes quite promising. Not much of a kick to it (as you'd expect!) but a decent flavour, and I guess because I'd used much less than a kg of sugar, it didn't seem to have the `homebrew twang' to it.
I'm going to maybe try this again, but again brew short to 4 gallons and be more careful about how much sugar slips in. It'll be a while yet before I try it though as I've just put a ST Peters Ruby Ale on and already have quite a lot of brews in stock.

 

[MyQul]

You could also buy a less attenuating yeast instead of the kit yeast. It will give you a lower ABV% as it wont chew through as much available fermentabless as a higher attenuating yeast. It'll also give your beer a bit more body. Windsor is a good (notorious) one or, I think, mangrove jack newcastle dark ale yeast.

 

[Seadog]

Would that leave the brew bit sweet? or do I use less sugar?

 

[MyQul]

Yes If you just use the kit and 500g of sugar it may come out too sweet for your tastes. I've never used Windsor however my researches into it say that it will use all the table sugar and some of the malt sugar.

Also check out the coopers low alcohol kit receipes

http://www.coopers.com.au/#/diy-beer/beer-recipes/non-alcoholic-light/