How does Pinnacle Low Alcohol™ compare with other maltose negative yeast strains?

Pinnacle Low Alcohol™ is:

• a Saccharomyces cerevisiae strain
• POF- (unlike other maltose negative yeast strains), so the resulting beer is neutral and clean and can therefore be used in a wide variety beer styles
• available in a convenient dried form and does not require specific process steps like aeration during fermentation

Does beer with remaining maltose taste sweet?

• In alcoholic beer, alcohol contributes to sweetness and mouthfeel, without alcohol, maltose will compensate for the sweetness of alcohol. This is in general beneficial
• Maltose is relatively less sweet than other sugars. The beer will therefore not be noticeable sweeter.

Why is pasteurization required?

Remaining maltose is fermentable by other brewing strains, wild yeast, and bacteria. Pasteurization stabilizes the product and prevents microbial activity in the packaged product.

Is flash pasteurization sufficient?

We don’t recommend flash pasteurization since the bottles or cans will not be pasteurized and there is risk of contamination during filling.

Can Pinnacle Low Alcohol™ also be used for non-alcoholic beer?

• Pinnacle Low Alcohol can deliver a beer below 0.5 % ABV in a well managed process and with a beer of 4-6 °P.
• To increase your success of <0.5% product, we highly recommend adjusting your mashing regime (high temperature) to limit the fermentable profile of the wort. This also minimizes residual maltose sweetness in the finished product.
• <0.5% is generally considered low alcohol beer, but it will depend on the local legislation for whether this may qualify as non-alcoholic beer

How long do you recommend to ferment?

• We recommend to ferment between 1 and 4 days.
• Typically, a fermentation takes 1 day to consume all glucose and reduce diacetyl, however, longer fermentation can clean out the beer by reducing aldehydes
• Shorter fermentations will however give lower chance for contaminating microbes to grow, including maltose-positive brewing yeast.

How should I adjust the pH of the fermentation?

• We recommend to add a food grade acid up to pH 4.8-5.0 at the end of boiling.
• The yeast will further acidify the wort up to pH 4.2-4.5, ideally 4.2
• Adjust the pH in the wort for subsequent batches if it turns out that the target pH is not reached

Can I carbonate my beer with bottle conditioning?

• No, bottle conditioning yeast may consume the remaining maltose and lead to serious issues
• We recommend forced carbonation

Will dry-hopping affect the final ABV?

• If dry-hopping is done cold, then impact will be minimal
• If dry-hopping is done warm, it may increase the ABV by 0.1-0.2%, due to hop creep
• Warm dry-hop also increases the risk for contamination due to microbes from the hop

Dry hopping: which dosing rates can you apply and is there biotransformation?

Since the solubility of many of the aromatic hop oil components in low-alcohol beer is equivalent to their solubility in regular beer, standard dry hopping rates can be applied. Do consider that hops can be a source of contamination and have a serious impact on beer losses. Using enriched hop pellets and/or advanced hop products is a good strategy for adding hop character to your low-alcohol beer. The yeast will do hop biotransformation, but there are no indications that fermenting longer than 1 day increases terpenes and thiols.

Maturation: how long should maturation last?

From industrial trials, we know that sedimentation of Pinnacle Low Alcohol is good, so the exact maturation time will be more dependent on dosing rates of raw materials that impact colloidal stability like high protein adjuncts and hop pellet quantity. In general, the beer can be processed after 10-14 days with good results (centrifugation, filtration).

Processing: should finings be used?

Finings that assist in the sedimentation of yeast are not necessary for Pinnacle Low Alcohol but can help in shortening the maturation time. When high percentages of adjuncts are used or a high content of polyphenols can be expected, there is a high risk of creating a chill haze that can become a permanent haze after pasteurisation. Finings that help in lowering protein and/or polyphenol levels can help to reduce the problem.