Alcohol Boil Off
- Thread starter ibwahooka
- Start date
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Sounds like he did this with a honey beer, so the hops should help in that regard for this specific batch. Good point though, once you remove the alcohol and simultaneously pasteurize it you'll have to protect it somehow from spoilage. I would personally recommend sorbates since sterile bottling is out of the realm of possibility in my kitchen. Sulfites should be unnecessary since you just pasteurized it, correct?
If you're bottling a solution of dry beer/mead that has very little sugar and very little in the way of nutrients or alcohol left, you probably won't have to worry about spoilage organism too much - you haven't left them anything to eat. So I'd think if you use sanitary conditions, then you wouldn't need sulfite and sorbate.
If you have a sweet batch, then you probably need both to keep some feral yeast from starting or some other spoilage organism from taking over. However, if you didn't want to use them, you could bottle it and pasteurize the bottles - since you've already heated this, a little more heat isn't going to hurt it. In that case you certainly could do without both.
If you have a sweet batch, then you probably need both to keep some feral yeast from starting or some other spoilage organism from taking over. However, if you didn't want to use them, you could bottle it and pasteurize the bottles - since you've already heated this, a little more heat isn't going to hurt it. In that case you certainly could do without both.
just an idea... have you thought of using a double boiler? it may be a bit more complicated to maintain the magic temperature, but you could prevent a lot of scorching......
Well the beer didn't scorch all that much.
I'm just waiting for the beer to carbonate and then into the refrigerator it goes!
Well the boil off was only partially successful. There still may be too much alcohol in the brew to safely let my wife drink. I drank a glass on an empty stomach and my head is feeling the effects. Not a lot mind you, but I can still tell.
Thanks for all your help guys. I will continue to try.
-Shawn
Thanks for all your help guys. I will continue to try.
-Shawn
That would be the scary thing to me, is being sure that it's down to a safe level. I'm sure there is some math/trick to figuring it out though.
You can test the alcohol level by spirit indication to get an accurate measurement of the remaining alcohol (if any). If the goal is to make it close to alcohol free - I would definitely measure it.
You can never get rid of all the alcohol unless you get rid of all the water. You can boil off *some* of the alcohol, but it will quickly reach an equilibrium that still has much more of the original alcohol left than you'd expect. (some of the previous posts already said this)
I recommend abandoning this idea, and instead save a bottle or two to toast the new arrival together in a few months
(congratulations!)
I recommend abandoning this idea, and instead save a bottle or two to toast the new arrival together in a few months
(congratulations!)
The key word here is "equilibrium". Assuming you don't put a lid on the pot you're heating the beer/mead/etc in, and further assuming that your kitchen air is not 75% ethanol vapor (both good assumptions, I feel), then you can't get the whole story with just an equilibrium phase diagram. By venting the escaping vapor, you should be able to drive off more alcohol.
How much more? I have no idea. Hopefully we'll get an idea soon.
Way back when in collage, I remember a series of lab experiments we did to show the phase changes of different materials. The simple experiment was taking a solution of water and alcohol, measuring the temperature at certain time intervals as the solution heated. The solution reached the boiling point of the alcohol…. a temp of something like 170 degrees (F)…. and stayed there for a period of time. This was the phase where the alcohol was going from a liquid to a gas (boiling off the alcohol). The temp didn't rise until the alcohol was gone, at which point the temp began to increase and went to 212 degrees and the water began to boil.
Anyway, if you could heat the solution to the boiling point of the alcohol and monitor the temp accurately, you would be able to tell when the alcohol was "boiled off" by noting when the temp started to raise again.
Anyway, if you could heat the solution to the boiling point of the alcohol and monitor the temp accurately, you would be able to tell when the alcohol was "boiled off" by noting when the temp started to raise again.
The first batch that I tried the spirit indication method on, I boiled it down by slightly more than 50% then added back water to the original volume and took my readings. I wasn't sure if all the alcohol had been removed so I decided to boil it down a second time to see if the gravity changed more. After boiling it down and again adding liquid to bring it back to the original volume, there was essentially no change in the gravity, and I was satisfied that the process had removed virtually all the alcohol.
There is nothing that stops you from adding back water to the original volume and repeating until you are sure there is no alcohol left. What effect this will have on the flavor of your beer I cannot say. In the case of my mead, it had a scorched flavor but since I was only testing the alcohol level and wasn't planning to drink it, I wasn't too upset.
There is nothing that stops you from adding back water to the original volume and repeating until you are sure there is no alcohol left. What effect this will have on the flavor of your beer I cannot say. In the case of my mead, it had a scorched flavor but since I was only testing the alcohol level and wasn't planning to drink it, I wasn't too upset.
<materials engineering hat>
Not so. Single component systems (pure compounds, elements, etc) will follow that kind of behavior: an isotherm during a phase change. Two or more component systems do not display this behavior (except for some systems at certain critical points, such as ethanol-water at about 96.5% ethanol or tin-lead at 63% tin). Upon heating, the system will enter a two-phase region where vapor and liquid (in this example) exist in equilibrium over a range of temperatures. The rate of temperature change will be different than it was before entering the two-phase region, but it will not reach zero.
For the ethanol-water system, the composition of liquid and vapor in equilibrium depend on both the overall composition and the temperature. You can't boil one component independently of the other. In a system where equilibrium is possible, you'll never get all the alcohol out. Solution: deny equilibrium.
</materials engineering hat>
So, did you decoupage that collage, or what?
(I love your misspellings because they're always perfectly good words, just not the right word!)
I've done this phase change lab too, and it's quite amazing how well it works. Too bad, as Mr. Materials Engineer pointed out, it won't work here--alas!
I'd probably just go with drinking water 'til the baby comes.
Of course, in my day, we didn't know alcohol was bad for the baby, so we drank (well not me so much, but lots of us). Too bad we don't know how much alcohol is actually bad and when it stops being a danger.With the first one my wife still drank (one a day or so during the third trimester), but she really gets depressed when we are sitting having dinner and she wants a glass of wine, mead or beer. I tell her that it's ok and she will be able to have it soon, but you know how pregnant women can be (no offense ladies I think that what you do is great).
Usually I won't partake in alcohol during dinner, but sometimes when I sneak out to the back patio with a beer in hand I can see it in her eyes. Just trying to keep her happy. That's the whole reason for this. I can finally make GOOD beer, not crappy mass manufactured NA, and try to make it NA.
I will keep experimenting with getting the alcohol out. Maybe I can become the forums premier NA guy or something.
-Shawn
Usually I won't partake in alcohol during dinner, but sometimes when I sneak out to the back patio with a beer in hand I can see it in her eyes. Just trying to keep her happy. That's the whole reason for this. I can finally make GOOD beer, not crappy mass manufactured NA, and try to make it NA.
I will keep experimenting with getting the alcohol out. Maybe I can become the forums premier NA guy or something.
-Shawn
I think you're there already! ;D
And around here, I don't think you'll get much competition for the title.
Some of the mass produced NA beer is pretty good. I haven't had any in a long time, but I think it was St. Pauli Girl that actually tasted like good beer. It's kind of expensive. You can also make a style of beer called English Mild that has a low alcohol content and tastes good -- it's also pretty fast to brew. (I should brew some of that so I can have decent beer without so many calories...)
I think you're there already! ;D
And around here, I don't think you'll get much competition for the title.
I also have some Army friends that only drink NA since they are recovering. So I will continue to strive for the title!
Milds are great, I like brewing them. I am also a big fan of Berliner Weisse, which only has about 2.5-3.5% abv. The weisse is a sour beer though so it doesn't finish very fast (bacteria take a long time to do their thing).
The Mild might be a good candidate for trying to make it NA. It's low abv to begin with, and the roasty flavors would stand up to more heating. It is also lightly hopped so you won't throw the flavor off too much by getting rid of most of the alcohol.
