Homebrew for the non drinker

[Archie1978]

Ridiculous question but if I wanted to make homebrewed real ale for someone who can no longer drink alcohol, would the usual mash/boil/ferment ritual apply, now i know that alcohol evaporates @ 70 degrees celcius, so would an hours boil post ferment remove said substance from the beer but leave the flavour intact, or would dry hopping add a little something to the process?

[oldbloke]

Low- and non-alcohol beers aren't made by boiling off the alcohol - it would do horrible things to the flavour and kill the yeast so you couldn't then carbonate naturally. I don't think the methods that are used could be emulated at home, but I might be wrong.

[Archie1978]

blast, i'll have to dig into it further............

[bigdave]

Commercial non alcoholic beer IS made by boiling off the alcohol! The secret is that under a vacuum, the boiling point of alcohol drops meaning less heat is needed and less damage is done to the final beer. In theory, if you could get a strong enough vacuum you could boil the alcohol off at room temp without the need to heat the beer at all.

[Archie1978]

I have a small volume (approx 5l) pressure cooker, for a small batch, say 3l would that work? the reason i ask is my father in law no longer drinks alcohol, could i cook off the intoxicating matter while retaining the flavour that way?

[bigdave]

It'd certainly cook the booze but with no way to test it for alcohol content afterwards, the results would likely be hit & miss.