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Does anyone know how to make a "non-alcohol" homebrew?
My brother-in-law quit drinking a few years back...since I've been homebrewing I think I've been a bad influence on him...
With respect to his wishes, I'd like to make a batch of something he too can enjoy and still remain faithful to his course...
Does anyone know how to go about brewing a batch of non-alcoholic hootch? The basic chemistry eludes me....thanks for the help.
cheers
This topic came up somewhere else a long time ago. The answer was that the method the commercial brewers use is VERY expensive and not worth your time. It sounded like you need extremely expensive equipment to strip out the alcohol.
I don't know how to do it. But the advice he gave (and a few others), it to just buy a sixer instead.
Here is a link I found... I only read part of it since I don't plan to make these.
Seriously though, for the extra time, costs involved (that I've heard over and over), loss of flavor from extra boiling and so forth.... just buy him a six pack of whatever.
It's probably not worth your time. Either way, here it is.
http://byo.com/feature/66.html
It sounds that you're truly concern of your brother. That's a good point in there. But sad to say I haven't tried a non-alcohol homebrew.
Even NA beer has SOME alcohol in it. I have never understood the point of it. Ok, it's like drinking a beer but with "no" alcohol... that's like sex without touching. What's the point?
I don't even look at NA beer anymore, but when I did, there is some alcohol.
Get him some Sharps or O'Doul's...
Do you need to make it 100% Etoh free or just 95% or so. For instance, if you need it to be 100% Etoh free it mght be a bit difficult. However if you just need to make it 95% Etoh free then this might not be so hard. For instance if your origninal Etoh content was 5% then removing 95% of the Etoh would leave you with an Etoh content of 0.25%. For comparison O'douls is 0.5% Etoh I believe. To accomplish this you could heat your fully fermented 'beer' to about 180 deg F. Etoh will boil off at 176 F @ sea level. At higher altitudes it will boiler sooner. You will probably loose some flavor - not sure though. You will definately kill off the yeast. After holding at temp for about 45 minutes you should have removed 95% of the Etoh from the 'beer'. Cool the 'beer' with a wort chiller or alternately you could cover and let cool naturally (more chance for contamination). Now you have a choice based on cost. If you keg then put it in a keg and charge with CO2 or N2 as normal. If you bottle then you will have to add a dash (say 1 to 3 OZ per 5 gallons or 1/4 tsp? per 12 oz bottle?) of priming sugar, another package of yeast (use the same type you originally used), and bottle. The priming sugar will add a bit of Etoh. You will need to balance the desire for carbonation with the desire to keep Etoh out of the final drink. Not sure how much the heat will effect the beer.
Another more complicated method would be to put the 'beer' under a vacuum and heat to a lower temp to remove the Etoh. for instance at 150 mm hg of absolute pressure Etoh boils at about 88 deg F. This would require more equipment (small pressure vessel, vacuum pump) but would probably preserve the 'taste' of the brew.
Hope this answers more questions then it starts.
Thanks, folks for the great responses...my brother in law drinks those sharps now, so any taste that gets destroyed from re-boiling would probably NOT be a big deal. Even one of my homebrewed hefe's that's been messed up will surely taste better than that garbage. 
739IPA, thanks for the good idea. I'm going to check into the exact process, I think anything under 1% ABV would more than suffice.
cheers
This might be lame, but what about doing sodas? If you have a kegging outfit and can carbonate water, there are all kinds of flavored syrups you could use. Quite honestly, that is a big reason I'm interested in kegging; so I can do "gourmet" sodas too.
There are plenty of aged non-alcohol drinks like ginger beer and root beer that are a challenge to make well. You could always look into that.
I've started looking into NA home brew as well. Please post and/or let me know how it turns out for you, Gizmo. Cheers!!
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