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Reduce recipe to Lower alchohol w) similiar flavor/bitterness

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amills

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I have a favorite recipe and I just don't know how to reduce the alcohol in the recipe while still retaining much of the same flavor/bitterness and keepting that balance between the ingredients etc.

I thought about taking the recipe and just adding more water and getting to lower the gravity during the boil.
I also though about adjusting the grain bill x% proportionately until Beer Smith gave the desired alcohol level.

This will be an IPA and I really want to be careful to not loose the sweet/hops balance in the beer.
The idea is to make a similar tasting beer for a more sensitive palette and less alcohol.
I really appreciate any ideas/advice in this area.  Thank you so much.  -AMILLS
 
What you want to do is difficult.  I'd look at it as an opportunity to experiment.  One thing to remember, that with a lesser amount of fermentables in your wort, you might get better hop utilization.  I'd look at the ratio of your starting gravity to your IBU's in your recipe.  If you reduce your grain bill, you'll notice that your IBU's may go up if you keep your same hopping schedule.

You'll already be reducing your hop additions to account for the smaller grain bill, but you might have to adjust it even lower, to get the same perceived bitterness ration.

If you lower it and don't like the loss of maltiness and lowering your hops doesn't help, maybe mashing at a slightly higher temperature might help.
 
I'm thinking pasteurizing.  If you take the fermented beer and give it a short boil, you should boil off some of the alcohol.
It would take some experimenting to get the boil time you wanted and get the hops right but I think that would be the best way to keep the flavor you wanted.
 
The mash temp controls the ratio of yeast food to residual sweetness.

Let's say you made two batches with the same grain, and mashed them at different temperatures.

The one mashed at the lower temp would be thinner while being higher in alcohol, and the one mashed at a higher temp would have more body but less alcohol.

I'm thinking if you mashed less grain at a higher temp, you could get similar body with less alcohol.
 
or....................any combination of all three!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I guess we gave you a lot to think about!
 
Listen to this BeerSmith podcast: http://beersmith.com/blog/2011/09/15/session-beer-with-the-mad-fermentationist-beersmith-podcast-22/
 
Sure did give me a lot to think about and try. Great advice all!  Really appreciated. :)
 
I didn't listen to the podcast, but an often overlooked option is to simply dilute the final beer.  This works really well if you keg because you can simply dilute to taste, "at the tap".  Simply carbonate a keg of distilled water.  Then you can mix "per glass".  Once you have a desired ratio, you can either mix the whole thing, or simply mix by the glass as desired.  One day you want a IIPA, the next you want a IPA, the next you want a session beer.  Multiple beers from one brew. 

No recipe modifications are necessary to follow this approach, other than knowing that everything will dilute "linearly" and "uniformly". 

If you are really clever and understand how sulfate and chloride affect beer flavor, you can even alter the sulfate/chloride ratio of the final product to influence malt/bitterness perception.  EG, perhaps a shift to maltiness is appropriate for a more dilute style.  Bump up the chloride during the dilution step. 
 
Mixing down at bottling/kegging is what the professional breweries do. remember space is a premium to them, especially lager space which is taking time.
So what do they do?
Brew up to say a target of 14% fermentation and lagering. And mix down on the bottling line.

Enjoy
 
tom_hampton said:
I didn't listen to the podcast, but an often overlooked option is to simply dilute the final beer.  This works really well if you keg because you can simply dilute to taste, "at the tap".  Simply carbonate a keg of distilled water.  Then you can mix "per glass".  Once you have a desired ratio, you can either mix the whole thing, or simply mix by the glass as desired.  One day you want a IIPA, the next you want a IPA, the next you want a session beer.  Multiple beers from one brew. 

No recipe modifications are necessary to follow this approach, other than knowing that everything will dilute "linearly" and "uniformly". 

If you are really clever and understand how sulfate and chloride affect beer flavor, you can even alter the sulfate/chloride ratio of the final product to influence malt/bitterness perception.  EG, perhaps a shift to maltiness is appropriate for a more dilute style.  Bump up the chloride during the dilution step.
Click to expand...

I second Tom's post. An IPA turned out too sweet, so I played with carbonated water dilution to get the flavor I wanted, then diluted the keg with a similar ratio. The result was a decent session beer.

If you prefer to plan ahead instead of fixing a mistake, just adjust the temp in your mash profile and watch the alcohol change. Very informative. The decrease in alcohol you see with an increase in mash temp will correspond to an increase in mouth feel. That's the Readers' Digest version of the podcast referenced earlier.
 
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