One the concerns of health conscious home brewers is calculating the number of calories in their home made beer. Since there are many different things that contribute to the calorie count such as the amount of sugar and the carbohydrates from the hops and barley malt any slight deviation in the formula can affect the method of home brewing low calorie beer. The average commercially brewed light beer will have about 150 calories, and that does not count carbohydrates for those counting them as well.

The basic principal of brewing beer is based on the fermentation of the hops and malt and the amount of sugar used in the brew. Different brew recipes will require different amounts of sugar, as will the preference of the person doing the brewing. Some people believe that home brewing low calorie beer can be accomplished by using sugar substitutes or vegetable-based sweeteners instead of sugar, but that can affect the fermentation process as well as the required temperatures for fermentation to occur.

If you are one the ones that have decided to brew your own beer for the first time, chances are you have purchased a kit from which all brews can be made. If the plan is for home brewing low calorie beer the easiest way is to buy a low calorie beer brewing kit.

Reading Labels Is A Good Start

While there are a lot of mathematical formulas involving knowing the specific scientific weight of all of the ingredients to calculate the number of calories in you bottle of beer, one of the easiest ways remains knowing simple addition. When home brewing low calorie beer, simply look on the labels of all of the ingredients in the batch and add up the total calories. Since the product labels typically involve breaking it down per serving, it is usually the amount of calories that will be a 12-ounce serving of beer.

If the calorie count seems too high and you do not plan on doing 150 jumping jacks for every bottle you drink to break even on calories, consider using artificial sweeteners. These products will also have calories, but are generally significantly less that regular table sugar. When home brewing low calorie beer, using other items with lower caloric or carbohydrate counts can also lower the calories in the batch. Just understand that when substituting ingredients, the adjustment may be obvious in the taste and well as the calorie count.