Hi all, I am a homebrewer with several years of experience making all-grain beer but I am attempting to heavily reduce alcohol consumption and new to the challenge of making non-alcoholic beer (<0.5% ABV).
I tried to make a non-alcoholic oatmeal stout, essentially by only brewing with oatmeal and specialty grains (no 2 row or other base malts). Well I will say that taste wise my experiment was a success, the result was better tasting with no unfermented wort flavors like many commercial NA stouts. And the ABV was quite low, around 0.13%, I only dropped one SG point. Which gives me room to add more oatmeal next time while keeping ABV low.
The weird part comes in when drinking my NA homebrew, I get a little heady euphoric feeling like an alcohol buzz without the impairment. It doesn't last long, maybe 30 minutes? I have tried many, many commercial NA offerings and never got this feeling, so I think it's fair to rule out a placebo effect. I had a buddy try my NA homebrew and he experienced the same thing, asked me if I was sure there wasn't alcohol in it.
Not sure if anyone on here does NA homebrew or can maybe explain this phenomenon. Here's some more info on stuff I tried to rule out:
- OG 1.014, FG 1.013. Both taken at room temp. Tested my hydrometer in local tap water 1.002. Has worked fine for years of "alcoholic" homebrewing.
- Used phosphate buffers to lower post-boil pH to around 5. Post fermentation pH is in the 4-4.5 range, using strips I've tested on a bunch of stuff and seem pretty accurate. I would think this makes infection unlikely (and there's no off flavors/aromas).
- Primary fermentation 10 days, force carbed and been in keg about 2 weeks at this point.
- Room fermentation temp was 60-65F during primary, I'm aware the vessel could be higher but I'd think the fact that little ethanol was produced means there's not an appreciable amount of fusels either... happy to be proven wrong on this.
I have seen some scant information on this possibly being a B vitamin sensitivity, triggered by the yeast in the homebrew being rich in B vitamins. Which could perhaps be the missing link between my homebrew which is unfiltered, and I have yet to see/try an unfiltered commercial NA option. But this seems a little "over the top" to me to be a reaction to vitamins, so I'm skeptical...
I tried to make a non-alcoholic oatmeal stout, essentially by only brewing with oatmeal and specialty grains (no 2 row or other base malts). Well I will say that taste wise my experiment was a success, the result was better tasting with no unfermented wort flavors like many commercial NA stouts. And the ABV was quite low, around 0.13%, I only dropped one SG point. Which gives me room to add more oatmeal next time while keeping ABV low.
The weird part comes in when drinking my NA homebrew, I get a little heady euphoric feeling like an alcohol buzz without the impairment. It doesn't last long, maybe 30 minutes? I have tried many, many commercial NA offerings and never got this feeling, so I think it's fair to rule out a placebo effect. I had a buddy try my NA homebrew and he experienced the same thing, asked me if I was sure there wasn't alcohol in it.
Not sure if anyone on here does NA homebrew or can maybe explain this phenomenon. Here's some more info on stuff I tried to rule out:
- OG 1.014, FG 1.013. Both taken at room temp. Tested my hydrometer in local tap water 1.002. Has worked fine for years of "alcoholic" homebrewing.
- Used phosphate buffers to lower post-boil pH to around 5. Post fermentation pH is in the 4-4.5 range, using strips I've tested on a bunch of stuff and seem pretty accurate. I would think this makes infection unlikely (and there's no off flavors/aromas).
- Primary fermentation 10 days, force carbed and been in keg about 2 weeks at this point.
- Room fermentation temp was 60-65F during primary, I'm aware the vessel could be higher but I'd think the fact that little ethanol was produced means there's not an appreciable amount of fusels either... happy to be proven wrong on this.
I have seen some scant information on this possibly being a B vitamin sensitivity, triggered by the yeast in the homebrew being rich in B vitamins. Which could perhaps be the missing link between my homebrew which is unfiltered, and I have yet to see/try an unfiltered commercial NA option. But this seems a little "over the top" to me to be a reaction to vitamins, so I'm skeptical...