What to add to non-alcoholic beer. We prepare our own homemade non-alcoholic beer

I recently went on a tour of the Baltika brewery. It has always been interesting to figure out how non-alcoholic beer is prepared (and whether it is beer at all), about which there are so many myths and conversations. Here's what we managed to find out about the brewery itself and zero...

Plant entrance. The territory of the complex occupies 30 hectares, it is almost the size of the Vatican (44 hectares):

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It must be said that non-alcoholic beer appeared here in 2001 and “Baltika 0” became the first domestic non-alcoholic beer. The equipment on which it is produced allows the use of the most advanced method for producing non-alcoholic beer today - dialysis.

How is non-alcoholic beer produced? There are several ways to make non-alcoholic beer: suppressing fermentation, evaporation and removing the strength from the finished beer. The optimal method is membrane filtration technology, during which alcohol is removed from the finished beer, and this is how Baltika 0 is produced. This method allows you to get rid of the strength without compromising the taste and aroma.

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The excursion begins with a long corridor in which there are stands with awards and diplomas. There are more than 600 of them from Russian and international professional and consumer competitions. Non-alcoholic beer is no exception; Baltika 0 has been repeatedly recognized as the best non-alcoholic beer at Russian and international professional competitions, in 2006 - a silver medal at the World Beer Cup, in 2008 - bronze at the Australian International Beer Awards.

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The base for beer, the wort, is prepared in the brewhouse. First, the malt is crushed so that the water has access to the soluble substances. The ground malt is then mixed with water and heated to convert the components into a soluble extract. Next, the wort is filtered, and the spent grain remaining after cleaning is dried and used to feed livestock:

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After this, the wort enters special kettles, where hops are added, which gives the beer bitterness and a variety of aromatics, after which it is cooled, pumped into special cylindrical-conical tanks (CCT) and the fermentation stage itself begins. I remember the historical copper vats, which do not work and represent monuments to the first production facilities of the brewery. It was with them that it all began in 1990. If you look closely, you can see circles on the floor left over from other vats:

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I couldn't pass by and looked into the microbrewery in the testing center. It conducts research and development of new varieties. The capacity of the experimental brewery is small, only 500 liters. But an industrial scale of production is not required here:

All technological processes are controlled in the production laboratory:

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All brewery processes are automated as much as possible. The only process that takes place under the close supervision of people is quality control:

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All raw materials are imported or Russian, grown under the control of brewers. And these are the types of malt that are used in the brewery. The most popular is pale malt (leftmost). It is from this that non-alcoholic beer is brewed:

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Fermentation department. It is here that non-alcoholic beer matures along with regular beer in large cylindrical-conical tanks, at a certain temperature, pressure and duration of the process. As I learned, beer differs in the method of fermentation, and is divided into only two types - ale and lager:

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Ale is considered a top-fermented beer, when the drink ferments at room temperature and the yeast rises to the surface of the beer. Lager ferments at low temperatures, and the yeast, on the contrary, sinks to the bottom. Non-alcoholic beer is lager.

Since non-alcoholic beer, like any other, is a fermentation product, it contains a small percentage of alcohol: up to 0.5. Kefir and kvass also contain alcohol: fresh kefir, for example, contains 0.2% alcohol, while stale kefir reaches 1%. And kvass can contain from 0.6 to 1.2%.

The tanks are beautifully illuminated with multi-colored illumination:

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After fermentation, beer (except unfiltered) goes through filtration, while non-alcoholic beer simply goes through a more complex process. As I already mentioned, “Baltika 0” is produced using dialysis technology; beer goes through a complex and multi-stage system of filters in which the strength is removed from it due to the difference in the size of water and alcohol molecules.

Bottling lines for the finished drink:

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Communication channel with management:

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In the end, I was taken to the company’s museum, which displays all sorts of exhibits dedicated not only to the Baltic Sea, but also to beer in general. This, for example, is a beer wagon that traveled around St. Petersburg:

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This is what a home brewery looked like in Rus':

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And this is the legacy of the Soviet Union. Previously, cities grew so fast that the food infrastructure (shops, restaurants) could not keep up with them. And then a solution was found - mobile cans of beer:

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European Corner:

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Photo of the Carlsberg plant - previously manual labor was used (by women, as a rule) and brewing was a rather labor-intensive process:

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Layout of the Baltika plant in St. Petersburg:

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Our tour ended in the tasting room. We had the opportunity to compare the taste of non-alcoholic and regular beer:

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Thanks to the Baltika staff for the tour and detailed story.

Herbal non-alcoholic beer
Required:
1 kg rye flour,
12 liters of water,
200 g hops,
1/2 kg sugar,
300 g mint leaves,
200 g lemon balm,
200 g honey.

Cooking method. Pour rye flour onto a baking sheet and dry in a moderately heated oven or fry in a frying pan until light brown. Then add water to the flour, add hops and simmer over low heat for 1 hour. Strain the broth and cool. Place sugar, honey, lemon balm, mint in another bowl and bring to a boil, but do not boil. At the same time, stir thoroughly with a wooden spoon so that the sugar and honey do not burn. Then strain the broth through cheesecloth and cool.

Combine both decoctions and simmer over low heat, stirring constantly, for 30 minutes. Then remove from heat and cool. Place the cooled beer in a warm place and leave it open. Let it steep for 25-30 hours and then bottle it. It is recommended to drink the finished beer chilled.

Dark non-alcoholic beer

Required:
5 liters of water,
1 kg barley,
100 g hops,
1/2 cup barley malt,
1/3 cup maltose,
200 g sugar,
1 tbsp. l. salt.

Cooking method. Wash the barley and dry it in a moderately heated oven. Grind the dried grains until coarse flour is formed. Pour water over barley and cook over low heat. After about 1 hour, remove from heat and leave to cool. After the barley broth has cooled slightly, strain it through a double layer of gauze. Then prepare the hop decoction as indicated in previous recipes. When it cools down a little, add barley malt, salt and cook for another 2 hours. After this time, remove the broth from the heat and let it cool. Add maltose to the cooled broth and mix thoroughly.

Then mix both decoctions, cover with a dark cloth and take out to a dark and cool place so that the decoction infuses. Prepare burnt sugar separately. Take a deep cast iron frying pan, pour sugar into it and place over medium heat. When the sugar begins to melt, stir it constantly with a wooden spoon until the grains are completely melted and the sugar turns dark brown.

The caramel mass should have a consistency similar to thick honey or molasses. Then take the sugar out into the cold and let it harden. Chop the frozen sugar and add to the beer. To make the burnt sugar dissolve faster, heat the beer over low heat. Cool the finished beer and bottle it. Refrigerate. This beer has a pronounced bitter taste and a beautiful, rich dark brown color, which distinguishes it from other types of non-alcoholic beer.

Non-alcoholic beer "Yantarnoe"

Required:
300 g hops,
10 liters of boiled water,
2 cups sugar
3 cups barley or rye malt flour.

Cooking method. Pour water over the hops, add barley or rye malt flour. If you don’t have such flour on hand, replace it with dry kvass; the taste will not deteriorate. Mix everything well and put on fire. The flour should settle to the bottom during the heating process. Bring the mixture to a boil, but do not boil, but immediately remove from the heat and leave to cool.

Make syrup from sugar and a small amount of water and boil it to the consistency of thick sour cream. The color should be dark brown. When the syrup has cooled and hardened, crumble it into small pieces and add to the still warm hop mixture to help the sugar dissolve. Boiled sugar gives the beer a dark golden hue, and it becomes like amber. Leave the finished beer to ferment for a day. Then strain it and leave it in a cold place to infuse for another day. After this, strain again and cool.

Non-alcoholic beer “Forest Fantasy”

Required:
15 liters of cold boiled water,
200 g spruce and pine needles,
1 glass of barley malt,
200 g hops,
3 cups sugar
2 tbsp. l. salt.

Cooking method. Prepare a pine decoction. To do this, rinse pine and spruce needles thoroughly with running water. Then place them in a medium-sized enamel pan, pour in 5 liters of water and put on fire. After the water boils, cook the pine needles for 1 hour. Then add 1 cup of sugar and salt and continue cooking for another 2-3 hours, stirring constantly. The result should be a rich syrup, with a consistency similar to molasses or fresh honey. Cool the prepared broth.

Pour the remaining warm water into the prepared decoction, add hops and place on low heat. Boil the infusion for 1 hour. Then cool it and strain thoroughly through a double layer of gauze.

After a day, add barley malt and the remaining sugar to the broth, put on fire, bring to a boil and simmer over low heat for 2 hours. Then cool and strain again through cheesecloth. Leave the beer to steep for 20-25 days; after this time, pour it into bottles and seal it. If possible, keep the beer in a completely dark place, then its taste will be richer and more intense.

Non-alcoholic sweet beer

Required:
20 liters of water,
1 kg barley malt,
300 g hops,
2 cups sugar
2 cups molasses,
2 tbsp. l. salt.

Cooking method. Pour 10 liters of cold water over barley malt and leave overnight. In the morning, add salt and put on fire. Bring to a boil and cook the malt for 3-4 hours. In a separate bowl, pour the remaining water over the hops, put on the fire and cook for 30 minutes.

Then combine the liquids, strain and cool. Pour sugar into molasses and stir. After this, add molasses and sugar to the beer base, mix well and place on low heat. Heat the mixture until the sugar is completely dissolved.

Take the beer to a cool place and leave for 24 hours, then strain again and pour into previously prepared bottles. Leave the bottles uncorked for a day. Then seal the bottles and refrigerate for a week.

Required:
10 liters of water,
1 glass of barley malt,
5 glasses of hops,
1 glass of maltose,
1 tbsp. l. salt,
2 kg cranberries,
1/2 cup sugar
100 g honey.

Mustard non-alcoholic beer

Required:
5 liters of water,
100 g hops,
1/2 cup molasses,
30 g mustard seeds,
1 tbsp. l. salt,
1 tbsp. l. mustard honey.

Cooking method. Pour water over the hops and simmer over low heat for 1 hour. Then strain and leave to cool. After this, add molasses, salt, mustard honey to the cooled broth and stir until the honey is completely dissolved.

Mustard seeds require special attention. Only black mustard seeds, which grow in the Caucasus and southern Russia, are suitable for making beer. Wash the seeds, place on a baking sheet and dry in a moderately heated oven. Cool the dried seeds and grind them. When ground, black mustard seeds are pungent, have a tart taste and smell reminiscent of horseradish. Pour the ground grains with water and place on low heat. Cook for 12-15 minutes and then strain.

Cool the mustard broth and mix with beer. Mix well and, if necessary, pour into previously prepared pasteurized bottles. Store beer in a dark and cool place. In about a week it will be ready to be consumed.

Cranberry non-alcoholic beer

Required:
10 liters of water,
1 glass of barley malt,
5 glasses of hops,
1 glass of maltose,
1 tbsp. l. salt,
2 kg cranberries,
1/2 cup sugar
100 g honey.

Cooking method. Sort out the fresh cranberries, rinse thoroughly, mash and squeeze the juice out of the resulting berry puree through cheesecloth. Pour water over the pomace, boil and strain, add sugar and juice.

Pour 5 liters of water over the hops and cook for 1 hour. In a separate bowl, boil barley malt, cool to 60°C and mix with hop decoction. Stir, bring to a boil, but do not boil. Then add salt, honey, maltose and stir until the honey is completely dissolved. Cool.

In a large vat, combine both decoctions and mix thoroughly, then boil and place in the cold. Once the beer has cooled, cap it, or, if desired, bottle it and seal it tightly. Store the beer in a cool, dark place for a day or two. Enjoy the finished beer chilled.

Non-alcoholic beer "Khlebnoe"

Required:
10 liters of cold boiled water,
1.5 kg rye bread,
1 glass of barley malt,
1/2 cup maltose,
2 tbsp. l. salt,
50 g cumin,
20 g dried mint,
1 tbsp. l. honey

Cooking method. Cut the rye bread into medium-sized slices, place on a baking sheet and toast in a moderately heated oven until golden brown. Then pour 3 liters of boiling water and leave for 2 hours. After this, strain the infusion, add salt, maltose and let it brew for 5-6 hours.

Heat the remaining water on the stove, then add barley malt to it and cook for 2 hours. Cool the resulting broth to a temperature of 50-60°C, add cumin, washed dried mint leaves and honey (buckwheat honey is best when preparing this type of beer). Then cool the mixture to room temperature and let it brew for 24 hours.

After this, in a large vat or wooden barrel, mix the bread infusion and malt infusion with herbs and stir well. Then strain it through cheesecloth and leave to infuse in a dark and cool place for a week. Pour the finished beer into bottles.

Non-alcoholic honey beer

Required:
1/2 l barley malt,
200 g hops,
12 liters of boiled water,
500 g sugar,
3 kg oats,
2 tbsp. l. salt, 1 kg of flower honey.

Cooking method. Rinse the oats, place on a baking sheet and dry a little in the oven at medium temperature. Pound the dried grain, pour boiling water over it and leave overnight to swell. In the morning, drain the infusion and strain. Add hops and simmer over low heat for 1 hour. Then strain the broth again and add barley malt to it. Stir, place on the stove and cook over low heat, stirring constantly, for 2-2.5 hours.

Leave the finished broth to steep in a cool place for 7-8 days, after which heat the mixture over a fire to 70°C and add sugar, honey and salt. Mix thoroughly. Bring the beer to a boil, remove from heat and cool. It is better to store such beer in a wooden keg, which should be very tightly sealed. At least for the first month. And then you can bottle it. But they should also be kept in a dark and cool place, then the taste of the beer will be more aromatic and rich.

Very often you can see the “0” sign on the labeling of beer bottles. This means that this foamy drink is non-alcoholic and has no strength. This is actually true. Even the most ordinary lemonade has its own percentage of alcohol. The strength of non-alcoholic beer can range from 0.2 to 1%. Such a product can be an excellent substitute for strong drinks for those who are having difficulty trying to get rid of alcoholism or do not want to get involved in it.

Cooking technology

Non-alcoholic varieties of hop products are prepared according to a more complex scheme than traditional ones. This explains the high price of those manufactured at industrial enterprises.

A special feature of the preparation technology is the use of special varieties of yeast in the preparation process that do not ferment maltose into alcohol.

You can also remove alcohol from a drink by boiling the beer at low temperatures. Thus, the alcohol contained in the product gradually evaporates. The disadvantage of this method is the change in taste. The most effective way to reduce strength in industrial enterprises is a membrane method. It is based on osmosis or dialysis. When using it, sulfuric acid is used.

Heat treatment

There are various options on how to make non-alcoholic beer at home. One of them is the use of a brewery. The cooking process in it is carried out in the traditional way until fermentation. Fermented homemade beer undergoes additional heat treatment. It is an evaporation process that is carried out at a temperature of 78 o C. It is the boiling point of ethyl alcohol.

You can carry out the evaporation process in a regular saucepan. To do this, you need to put it in the oven. On an open fire it is very difficult to maintain the desired temperature throughout the entire process.

When a drink overheats, it loses its taste. After the evaporation process is completed, the non-alcoholic product is cooled under a closed lid. During the process of evaporating beer at home, the active yeast in it dies. To “invigorate” the drink, special yeast starters are added to it. After this, it is bottled, corked and stored for several weeks.

Membrane method

In order to understand how to make non-alcoholic beer at home using this method, you need to remember the process of one-way diffusion. Removing alcohol from the product using this method is carried out using a special membrane. It is a very thin product made of cotton. Sometimes cellulose acetate is used as a material.

The essence of the technology is to pump liquid through a membrane structure. It consists of several pipes. They are built into each other. Beer is passed through the inner pipes, and distilled water through the outer pipes. The flows have the opposite direction in a looped circuit. In this process, the alcohol from the beer turns into water. The result is non-alcoholic beer.

In the process of membrane purification of the hop product, its strength is reduced, but fusel oils and phytoestrogens are not purified.

You can buy the membrane in stores that sell beer raw materials.

Non-alcoholic beer recipes

Very often, at home, technologies not related to the use of malt are used to prepare non-alcoholic foamy drinks.

Non-alcoholic recipe

An American pharmacist has come up with a way to prepare a foamy drink based on ginger. His name was Thomas Cantrell. It tastes more like kvass than beer, has a cloudy brown color, a ginger aroma and a sweet taste. The drink recipe includes:

• 2-2.5 cm of peeled ginger root;
• 2 tbsp. spoons of granulated sugar;
• medium lemon;
• mint sprig;
• 1-1.5 slightly carbonated mineral water.

Sugar and lemon juice are added to the ginger root grated on a medium grater. Everything is mixed and infused for 5 minutes, after which cold mineral water is added to the ingredients, everything is mixed and filtered. To filter the resulting mixture, you can use regular gauze. Add mint and lemon slices to the glass of the finished drink.

Beneficial properties of non-alcoholic beer

The foamy soft drink has medicinal properties. It is believed that it helps protect humans from cancer and increases resistance to carcinogens. The experiments of many scientists have shown that it is carcinogens that cause the development of cancerous tumors.

Another property of non-alcoholic beer is the improvement of digestion processes. Very often the drink is used for cosmetic purposes. It perfectly softens and cleanses the skin.

How non-alcoholic beer is produced:

Preparation of moonshine and alcohol for personal use
absolutely legal!

After the collapse of the USSR, the new government stopped the fight against moonshine. Criminal liability and fines were abolished, and the article banning the production of alcohol-containing products at home was removed from the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. To this day, there is not a single law that prohibits you and me from engaging in our favorite hobby - preparing alcohol at home. This is evidenced by the Federal Law of July 8, 1999 No. 143-FZ “On the administrative liability of legal entities (organizations) and individual entrepreneurs for offenses in the field of production and circulation of ethyl alcohol, alcoholic and alcohol-containing products” (Collected Legislation of the Russian Federation, 1999, No. 28 , Art. 3476).

Extract from the Federal Law of the Russian Federation:

“The effect of this Federal Law does not apply to the activities of citizens (individuals) producing products containing ethyl alcohol for purposes other than sale.”

Moonshining in other countries:

In Kazakhstan in accordance with the Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan on Administrative Offenses dated January 30, 2001 N 155, the following liability is provided. Thus, according to Article 335 “Manufacture and sale of home-made alcoholic beverages”, illegal production of moonshine, chacha, mulberry vodka, mash and other alcoholic beverages for the purpose of sale, as well as the sale of these alcoholic beverages, entails a fine in the amount of thirty monthly calculation indices with confiscation of alcoholic beverages , apparatus, raw materials and equipment for their manufacture, as well as money and other valuables received from their sale. However, the law does not prohibit the preparation of alcohol for personal use.

In Ukraine and Belarus things are different. Articles No. 176 and No. 177 of the Code of Ukraine on Administrative Offenses provide for the imposition of fines in the amount of three to ten tax-free minimum wages for the production and storage of moonshine without the purpose of sale, for the storage of devices* for its production without the purpose of sale.

Article 12.43 repeats this information almost word for word. “Production or acquisition of strong alcoholic beverages (moonshine), semi-finished products for their production (mash), storage of apparatus for their production” in the Code of the Republic of Belarus on Administrative Offenses. Clause No. 1 states: “The production by individuals of strong alcoholic drinks (moonshine), semi-finished products for their production (mash), as well as the storage of devices* used for their production, will entail a warning or a fine of up to five basic units with confiscation of the specified drinks, semi-finished products and devices."

*You can still purchase moonshine stills for home use, since their second purpose is to distill water and obtain components for natural cosmetics and perfumes.

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