I want to make something like Lagunitas DayTime, a low carb, low calorie beer. They did an interesting write up on DayTime and the lite beer concept, Beer 101: Low Carb IPA. I do not necessarily want to clone this beer but want to learn how to make something like it. @shoreman started a thread here that hasn't gone far but has some general information.
For the sake of definition I’m going to say “lite” beer is low in calories and low in carbs. Low calorie will mean lower ABV since alcohol = calories. Low carb will require very low FG with little or no sugar (fermentable or not) or starch left in solution. One might also call this a session beer but I feel like that does not necessarily mean low carb. So we are looking for a low carb session beer.
This light/lite beer is not a BJCP Light Lager which is a "Highly carbonated, very light-bodied, nearly flavorless lager designed to be consumed very cold. Very refreshing and thirst quenching". I am assuming the Lagunitas version is an ale and it is certainly not nearly flavorless.
A few excerpts from the Lagunitas site: Where most beer styles are defined by flavor, Sessions are about the combo of drinkability & low-alcohol content (ABV). At only 98 Cals, 3 Carbs & 4% ABV, DayTime IPA represents everything we know about making hop-forward beer.
DayTime IPA is a gentle canvas of malts and fluff-ifying oats splashed with a cannonball of hops—lots of Centennial and Citra hops. ABV 4% 30 IBU 1.036 OG
The problem comes in that, typically, the brewer is not able to convert all the starch in the grain into maltose or other fermentable sugars. In traditional and craft brewing, there is always a measure of unfermentable carbohydrates left behind that make it into the final product. . . . So how do we go about reducing carbs? The answer comes in two forms. If you want to get pretty close to a low carb beer, you start by lowering your mash temperature. This allows your alpha-amylase to work for longer before it degrades due to high heat (again, go read that January article!). The longer your alpha-amylase works for, the more maltose you will form, the more fermentable your wort will be and the less starch, and hence carbs, will be left over in the final product.
(What is) the modern process of low-carb beer production - It is as simple as adding an exogenous enzyme called amyloglucosidase (or gamma-amylase). These enzymes (often taken from Aspergillus, a fungi) are incredibly good at cleaving all the bonds in starch, creating free glucose, which yeast like even better than maltose. This enzyme can either be added to the mash (Lagunitas style) or the fermenter. By adding it to the mash, we ensure it doesn’t accidentally get into beers it isn’t supposed to, however the efficiency is just a little less.
I am assuming that amyloglucosidase is the same thing as Glucoamylase that folks use in brut beer? @bracconiere
Gluco-Amylase Enzyme (Amyloglucosidase), 1lbAdd Gluco-Amylase Enzyme to your mash to convert dextrins into fermentable sugars when producing whisky and light beer. Because you only use 50g - 100g per 100-lb of grain or starch, the 1-lb bulk size is for those who produce large or frequent batches.Click here for a 2-oz size Gluco-Amylase...
brewhaus.com
Here is a rough first draft:
1.036 OG worth of malt.
90% two row or pilsner malt
10% oats, malted or flaked
2:1 Centennial:Citra hops, 10 min and flame out for 30 IBU
DayTime has a little haze so I'm thinking a moderate dryhop with Citra and another citrus/pine hop.
A light hoppy water profile with plenty of calcium but not real high in sulfates.
Glucoamylase in the mash and maybe fermenter also.
Mash @145F/63C 90 min.
A higher attenuating west coast ale yeast.
I'm not sure how to put this in a recipe calculator. Am I right in assuming that the Gluco will change the brewhouse efficiency to be a higher number? Anyone have experience with this?
i tried adding gluco to the mash, and the beer didn't go dry. if i tried it in the mash again, i'd probably try a reverse step mash. maybe sparge with room temp water and when the grain bed hit's something like 120f add the gluco? not sure, i've just always added my gluco to the fermenter....
i usually eyeball ~1g/gallon. so i add about 11-12grms to a 10 gallon batch of 1.060 OG wort.. gets me down to .999-1.001 in good order...
i'd say your recipe sounds good for a hoppy light beer. what i mean is i'd like drinking it
I suppose you could also use the Mangrove Jack's M29 (French Saison), M41 (Belgian Ale) and M31 (Belgian Tripel) yeasts. No, you won't get as low as using amylase enzymes, but definitely low enough so that remaining calories really don't matter.
I have brewed two year in a row a low alcohol beer (well, a saison, but is it still a saison when one uses diastatic abbey yeasts? But the spirit is saison; low FG, high bitterness, low alcohol) (3,9%, that's including carbonation which is 3 volumes of CO2), with only Merkur (a disease resistant Magnum) as hop for bittering and flavor. Rather high bittering for the first hop gift, then rather high before the end of the boil (15 minutes) for the flavor gift. The tannins from the hop should help the body and the mouth feel of the beer.
I am not a fan of most Belgian beers. My pallet has never learned to appreciate the clove and banana flavors. I am struggling with the Brewers Friend recipe calculator trying to find how they get only 3 carbs in the final product. Lagunitas claims 1.036 OG, 4% ABV and 3 Carbs. I can't find a way to match those calculations. I'm not focused on the calories so much as the carbs. Alcohol has no carbs.
I sacrificed half a can of DayTime in the name of research and degassed some to find a FG of 1.006. Well it was not a total sacrifice. I drank the 60 degree flat beer to analyze the flavor... Some digging @deadwolfbones seems to indicate that Lagunitas uses an English yeast strain (WLP002 / WYEAST 1968) but we don't know that for sure.
So HERE is my first try at putting this in the Brewers Friend recipe calculator. I have assumed 83% attenuation based on gluco in the mash and not the fermenter. The crystal 10 is there because it's already mixed in the grain I have from Two Hearted kits I bought on sale. I can't get the carbs below 10 despite matching all of Lagunitas numbers pretty close. Switching out the crystal for 2 row doesn't seem to make much difference in that regard. To get the calories and carbs down I can lower the grain amount for 1.030 OG and boost the attenuation to 100% and get close to Lagunitas' numbers but the OG is too low. Maybe I'll have to try it both ways.
Post time 2022-9-24 14:18:29
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