Follow-Ups to Answer from Expert Scott Jamerson

---

ragheadbrewster wrote at 2011-01-06 14:30:03
Actually, I live in a country where alcohol consumption is strictly forbidden by law, but I have made many batches of beer from NA "beer", table sugar, and various types of yeasts (baking yeast, Danstar Nottingham, Red Star Champagne, etc). Surprisingly, the results have varied from passable to quite good, but never "BAD". (By the way, I've made even more batches the right way: either all-grain, extract, or the combination.)



The reason we brewers don't use table sugar in real beer is because it is taking the place of malt, but NA beers already contain malt (to varying degrees) and hops (also to varying degrees). The secret ingredient the OP obviously didn't know about??? TIME! Yep, had s/he waited about 2 weeks, the beer would have been ready to prime and bottle. (I use plastic soda bottles since they are made to withstand the pressure and if 1 does explode, shards of glass don't go flying around the apartment.)



As for the many types of NA, I have found that Holsten is the hoppiest, Bavaria is the maltiest, and Budweiser is made from concentrated camel urine. Everything else is somewhere in the middle, but will make passable beer. The basic recipe for a 5-gal batch is 50 (330mL/12oz) cans of NA, 1lb (500g) table sugar, and 1 tablespoon of yeast. Of course, an airlock is absolutely necessary unless you're trying to make hopped malt vinegar. Yuck!

---