low carb beer question

BYO has several articles pertaining to low-carb brewing: Low-Carb Homebrew Creations (May, 2004) Back to the Beano: Mr. Wizard (Jul.-Aug. 06) Carb Cutting: Mr. Wizard (Dec. 06)

This one is online for reading:

It does exist. Good luck, Wild

Thank you. I'll give it a go, I have to.

I've enjoyed beer too much and it shows.

It's hard not to drink when I brew a keg per week. 22-23 jugs of beer a week with my goodly missus. The kegorator must be filled constantly else I feel sad. Sob... only joking I'm not that obsessed. But I do love me beer.

I don't just have a beer belly I have a beer bum too. LOL

Hope fully this low carb beer can help.

Now I have done some reading and sent of a question about beanos to beanos about the pills reducing the carb. No answer as yet.

A suggestion from one site is to put four beano pills per 5 gallons. The beano site says that cooking the beanos will reduce their effect in normal use.

Also to reduce the carb sugars I am taking an obvious step of halving my sugar in the brew from a kilo to half a kilo.

I am thinking of putting 16 pills in my kit brew of 25 litres. My keg holds 22 litres, I bottle the next 2 ltres and throw the brew muck last litre on the lawn. (doesn't seem to hurt the lawn).

Pertaining to the heat issue I think I should wait till all water is added to the wort so that it is at a yeast ready temp and add the pills at the same time as the yeast.

Anyone tried this or have good reasoning against or for this beano pill addition regarding lowering carbohydrates in the beer?

Cheers from a dieting drinker.

Traditional homebrewing wisdom about Beano is to be VERY careful using it. It WILL break down the carbs (into sugars), however, you can't control it (it NEVER STOPS breaking down the carbs).

Most the people who've tried Beano that I've read about were NOT happy with the results... you NEED some higher order carbs in the beer for flavor and mouthfeel. Otherwise you're just drinking alcohol and water (maybe that's what you're after?).

All that said, most posts I've ever read used FAR fewer than 16 tablets!!! (Two or three, if I remember).

Derric

Traditional homebrewing wisdom about Beano is to be VERY careful using it. It WILL break down the carbs (into sugars), however, you can't control it (it NEVER STOPS breaking down the carbs).

Most the people who've tried Beano that I've read about were NOT happy with the results... you NEED some higher order carbs in the beer for flavor and mouthfeel. Otherwise you're just drinking alcohol and water (maybe that's what you're after?).

All that said, most posts I've ever read used FAR fewer than 16 tablets!!! (Two or three, if I remember).

Derric

That has been my understanding, only from what I've read in various newsgroups from people who've tried them.

You may want to post over in "rec.crafts.brewing" or at least search those archives on Google. ((Note your post will get the "don't do that" answers for sure! :)) This topic does come up there once and a while.

My understanding is that it is an enzyme, which, by nature, doesn't get "used up." You generally want enuf enzymes to act quickly, but I think that if you only have a "few" that they will continue working over the long term. I don't know, but would suspect that they might continue working (tho' slowly) even if refridgerated. (Even most yeast continues to work at refridgerator temps ... slowly).

I suppose that would depend upon the flavor... Any "sweet" flavor is going to require carbs (unless, perhaps, some artificial sweetner might work - I don't know).

Using darker malts would add some flavors, maybe roasty/toasty type flavors that may not be composed of carbs.

I've read some differing thoughts on whether "body" comes from carbs.

The commercial breweries have been trying to do that for a while. Personally, I've not tried any of them.

Probably you will just have to try some small batches with different ideas in each. However, I'm not sure that you can actually test and confirm any sort of carb level without lab equipment.

Derric