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Theoretically:

If one were to distill a beer at 172.3-211.9*F with the intention of throwing away the distillate, in order to produce non-(or low-)alcoholic beer, would the remaining beer contain enough viable yeast to carbonate bottles with the addition of priming sugar, or would additional yeast in low quantities be necessary for carbonation?

Secondary question (not necessary for the answer):

Should the yeast be of the same strain as the original yeast, or would a different kind be acceptable due to the fact that the beer has already been brewed and only carbonation is sought?

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    It should be noted here as well that upon heatign the fermented beer, you will greatly accelerate the staling and oxidation process. The beer will very likely be awful after you remove the alcohols via heat distillation. At best its shelf life will be vastly reduced.
    – brewchez
    Commented Aug 20, 2014 at 10:48

2 Answers 2

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In general, yeast will die at temps exceeding 115F.

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    Besides killing the yeast, I would bet that heating beer to distillation temperatures would alter the flavor beyond recognition, making it undrinkable.
    – Glasseyed
    Commented Aug 28, 2014 at 19:15
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    It certainly does. Even heating it to pasteurization temps (around 160) affects the flavor detrimentally.
    – Denny Conn
    Commented Aug 29, 2014 at 15:09
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No way. You will kill everything in your beer at this temperature. The pasteurization process actually uses lower temps, probably with less exposure time, and kills them all.

And its ok to use any beer yeast to carbonation, you don't need the same strain.

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    To add to that, you can add priming sugar and fresh yeast, at bottling.
    – jalynn2
    Commented Aug 19, 2014 at 13:11
  • You'll be taking out more than just the alcohol if you distill- you might get it out at 150 proof from a pot still say. That being said, you could force carbonate in a keg too.
    – mpurkeypile
    Commented Aug 22, 2014 at 3:29

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