Rebrewing Non-Alcoholic Beers

[freshfish]

Hello,
I live in a dry region but I know people who dabble in brewing. However, getting the materials/consumables is hard. So, many people get near-beer (readily available) or non alcoholic beer and reintroduce yeast and sugar. The results are often - well, not so good.

I wonder what you could offer me as advice in rebrewing non-alcoholic beer. What can I do to create a fairly flavorful beer that doesnt taste like a fizzy yeast drink :o)

I have the basic materials (carboy, airlock, hydrometer, beer yeast, and non alocholic beers)

Instead of simply adding sugar to a few litres of the near beer and bringing them to a boil to create a
"wort"....is there anything you could suggest I could to this "wort" to make it better? Honey? Rasberries?


Thank you
needingbeer

[danno]

welcome. it sounds like all you need are grains and hops, are hops difficult to get?

[guildofevil]

Tell us where you are (middle east maybe?).

We promise we won't tell the local Gestapo.

Séan

[shirteesdotnet]

#1- I would think you would have to reboil to keep out contaminants.

#2- you'll also need some good flavorful malts and some hops.

#3- might as well just start off with some fresh water too.

[sundontlie]

welcome.
never thought of that before...
depends on what you can/can't get as far as ingredients..
what are you using the non-alc beer for - what ingredient is in that, that you otherwise could not find?
because i'm thinking you should just brew an entire batch from
scratch yourself rather than take a non-alc and make it better..
of course you have internet, and there are many great sites for ordering ingredients online. my personal fav is www.homebrew.com

[freshfish]

Thanks for the quick responses. I'm in Kuwait (one of only two dry countries here). So, getting the ingredients you would find at a local brew shop is possible but difficult. So, many people just rebrew the near beer. It ends up alcoholic but the flavor is, well...recycled :eek:

I'm using Amstel (NA).

We have stumbled onto some (i mean a very limited supply of) barley malt and rice malt. But its rare and in very small quantities. So I cant count on it. Rice Malt is easier to find.

I have just tried my first rebrew attempt and used about 3.5 lbs of barley malt. I boiled that in a few litres of the near beer (for the makeshift wort) and poured that into several more litres (total of 5 gallons)...pitched the yeast once it cooled to 90* F

Hydrometer reading was ~42 which is ok I suppose.

The yeast took off and for the first 24 hours there was alot of activity but after about 48 hours the activity has pretty much stopped. I cant figure out why.

Will bottle in a couple days and will let you know in 3-4 weeks as to the results. But I'm now looking to try out another batch (but no longer have the barley malt).

Would crushing a couple pounds of rasberries in the wort help add nutirents for the yeast as well as add some flavor?

Would honey work?

How about rice malt?

NOTE: The process I use is what I used with kits in the States. Its also sanitary. I just lack the common ingredients. Cant find hops or yeast. Beer yeast I bring in every time I travel cuz its easy. I might be able to find some corn sugar...I can maybe find grains in their unprocessed form.

[shirteesdotnet]

Well, you could brew a gruit type beer which was the common beer drink before hops was unanimously used as the bittering agent. do some google searches on "gruit beer" (also, i had started a thread here about medieval beers). Gruit used a variety of herbs to bitter the beer instead of hops. Hops were also used, but people didnt really know the benefits when they were using it. If you can get ahold of herbs out there in Kuwait, go for it. Id even try going to a tea shop... they have some interesting flavors.

Instead of malts, you could do the rice malt, honey would work too... but you dont want too much of it, or will start tasting something other than beer... more like a wine.

Im curious why even bother with near beer? Just because it already has some malt & hop character?

Lastly...what type of beer exactly are you going for? Just a refreshing drink? A German oktoberfest style? An IPA? A stout? Whats you fave? Tell us that... and maybe all of us here on the message boards can work together on an ingredients list (based on what you have access to) and we could help you create a nice brew. Hell, I might even try it with near beer.

Man, thats a lot of bottles of near beer.

Ohh yah, forgot to mention. With no hops, you could easily make a hard lemonade or strawberry ale like im planning... and with rasberries you could do something similar.

[freshfish]

I posted a response but it appears to have dissapeared.

shirteesdotnet, thanks for the info. Minutes before your post, I had run across a hard lemonade recipe. Am trying it now.

To answer your question, I am using the near beer for its malt and hoppy character.

But I also looked at the Gruit Beer and that looks interesting. The issue with that is that the herbs can be quite rare or speciliaty and I would have to order them from abroad. And that does not solve the malt issue.

I have found oats and wheat...and am going to try and get a hold of some of the rice malt.

Has anyone tried a rice malt beer?

shirteesdotnet; do you have some good recipes for hard lemonade or berry style brews?

[HogieWan]

Originally posted by freshfish

I have found oats and wheat...and am going to try and get a hold of some of the rice malt.


can you get malted wheat?

[shirteesdotnet]

Forgive me if I forget who I got this from... On the boards here... I think Otis posted this:

>Hard Lemonaid (5 gallons)
>
>1 lb Corn Sugar
>3 lbs. extra light Dry Malt Extract
>6 Cans Lemonade frozen concentrate
>Wyeast 1056 American Ale yeast
>Boil the sugar and malt in 2-1/2 gallons of water for 15 >minutes. Cool and add the frozen concentrate and 3 gallons >of water(OG:1.046) Pitch yeast.
>
>I forgot to correct the recipe with the addition of 1 pound of >lactose sugar.. It comes out a little dry with out it..... >addition to secondary should be ok since lactose sugar is an >unfermentable.

[freshfish]

Cant find malted wheat....the malts are very hard to find and if found they are small speciality stores such as health food stores....they dont want people getting their hands on malt and brewing their own beer :) Its a dry country after all.

As for the hard lemonade recipe, thanks. But I'm trying to find recipes that would not require malt extracts (dried or liquid). They are too hard to come by.

As for Yeast...I get a few packets when I travel but I stick to the basic beer yeast.

[shirteesdotnet]

If I were in your situation, I might try subbing the ingredients something like this:

Hard Lemonaid (5 gallons)

-1 lb honey
-3 lbs. rice malt (or whatever malt u can get)
-6 Cans Lemonade frozen concentrate
-whatever yeast you can get your hands on

-Boil the honey and rice malt in 2.5 gallons of water for 15 minutes. Cool and add the lemonade concentrate and 3 gallons of water. (OG: 1.046) Pitch yeast.

If I couldnt get lemonade concentrate, Id go to marthastewart.com, pull up a lemonade recipe (ive made her lemonade b4 and it rocks) and make enough lemonade to bring the OG to 1.046... of course youd have to do this before adding in that 3 gallons of water, which you may only need 1 gallon. who knows.

-1/2 lb honey into secondary to sweeten it up

[freshfish]

That sounds good. I will try that.