Seeking Advice...NA brewing carbonation question

[Joe Callender]

For better or worse, I recently learned that an NA brew that was available was essentially hopped wort that was carbonated. People seemed to enjoy it.

Setting aside opinions about what is truly a beer and what is not, I have a question.

In this experiment I'm trying to see how close I can get to expected flavor profile without having to remove alcohol via boil off or other method.

If I were to brew a "hopped wort" and being able to get good clarity via various available methods without fermentation, I want to explore conditioning it in a bottle. I want to bottle some of the batch to see what happens over time with an NA brew only carbed in a bottle.

The Question...

Could I pipette some liquid yeast into each bottle along with some sugar just for the purpose of creating natural carbonation? Could I expect the same or similar results as priming a regular brew in a bottle?

 

[Nosybear]

A friend of mine from Venezuela gave me a bottle of Malta once - essentially the same thing. Rack it to your keg while it's still 160 degrees or above and you shouldn't have any contamination problems but I'd still put some potassium sorbate in it as a precaution. Your packaging method should work as well but no sugar is needed - the wort is full of it. Use plastic bottles, you can either add yeast to the cooled wort or as you said, pipette it into the bottle, cap, let ferment a few days then store cool. The plastic bottles will hold enough pressure you shouldn't have bottles bursting and if one does, it will split, no shards produced.

 

[Joe Callender]

A friend of mine from Venezuela gave me a bottle of Malta once - essentially the same thing. Rack it to your keg while it's still 160 degrees or above and you shouldn't have any contamination problems but I'd still put some potassium sorbate in it as a precaution. Your packaging method should work as well but no sugar is needed - the wort is full of it. Use plastic bottles, you can either add yeast to the cooled wort or as you said, pipette it into the bottle, cap, let ferment a few days then store cool. The plastic bottles will hold enough pressure you shouldn't have bottles bursting and if one does, it will split, no shards produced.

Oh yeah, I've had Malta. Any changes to suggestions if I sub a 50/50 mix of Vienna and Munich instead of pale for base malts? Plastic bottles is a great suggestion for this first attempt. Thanks!

 

[Nosybear]

If memory serves, Malta was pretty dark - I'd add in a bit of Carafa I or II to give the color and a nice dark chocolate flavor. I don't see anything wrong with your suggested grain bill. I was thinking of stabilizing it but that would rule out bottle conditioning but hey, I condition grandson's root beer the way I suggested, no bottle bombs yet.