All Grain Amber Ale (my first ever homebrew)

6lbs Pale Millet Malt
9 ounces Pale Buckwheat Malt
60grams Munich (of sorts) Millet Malt
226 grams Crystal Millet Malt

10g Challeger Hops @ 60 mins
10g US Golding Hops @ 60 mins
10g Challenger Hops @ 10 mins
10g US Golding Hops @ 10 mins

Yeast: 9 grams Safale US-04

12.75 Liter Batch (3.4 Gallons)

Last night I completed my first homebrew session and I'm pretty stoked about it so I figured I'd share.



I ordered my pale malts from from Grouse. I had an incredible experience dealing with their company. I called the number on their website and within two days the owner Twila called me back. I was all set to just give her the information of what I wanted to order but she started off asking me what my experience was and talking about various different mashing methods and what I planned to do. I was really impressed that she took the time to talk to me about all of this and continued to do so through our ordering process. If anyone is debating trying them out I would highly highly recommend this company and their products.

I wanted to make the munich and crystal malts myself even though Grouse offers them. This may have been a negative. I have heard that after you make roasted malts you need to let them sit a few weeks to get rid of any burnt flavors. This is one of biggest things I'm worried about in the finished beer. The munich malt smelled pretty burnt after roasting, but the crystal smelled really nice. The flavor may come off as nicely toasted or as burnt in the finished beer.

I ground my malt with a German made grain mill that I already have for making flour for bread. It was a pretty fine flour, but not the finest setting they have.

My Mash Regiment (modified from Andrew Lavery's "Gluten Free Malting" 2006)
- Heat 5.25 liters of water to 109°F and mix in ground malt
- Rest the water at 104°F for 25 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes
- Infuse the mash with 2.25 liters of boiling water
- Rest the water at 131°F for 30 minutes
- Decant 2.25 liters of clear liquid from the top of the mash, and place in the fridge. (this turned out to be more like 1 liter of clear liquid after the sediment cleared, and i had turned my heat up already so I couldnt take more)
- Infuse mash with 1.5 liters of boiling water.
- Heat mash to 163°F and hold for 60 minutes to achieve conversion
- Cool mash back to 156°F. Add decanted liquid to achieve temp of 149°F and hold for 90 minutes.



This all went pretty smoothly. Now for the fun part.

Stuck sparge

I'm fairly certain that I used wayyy too many rise hulls and the grain bed was just way to deep. I have a 10inch false bottom lauter tun that I converted from a stock pot with those weldless kits.



I added a small amount of water under my false bottom and added about 3/4lb of rice hulls on top. I mashed out at 75°F and poured everything on top. I mixed in the rice hulls and waited about 10 minutes. I vourlafed and started my sparge. It went fairly well for about 10 minutes and then slowed down drastically until it completely stopped. I made a couple slits in the (extremely high) grain bed and this for a bit. I wasnt able to finish my first batch, and the temperature dropped quickly, so I heated my sparging water to 168 added it in, waited 10 minutes and did the same thing. Between the very slow speed and it occasionally getting stuck, it took me a few hours to finish sparing. At least 3 if not more. After I get my target of 13.5 liters I cleaned the lauter tub and added a small amount of rice hulls and ran it through again to help clear it up. This worked pretty well and was fairly painless and quick.

Then on to the boil.
90 minutes total.
Hops (in hop bags) @ 60 minutes
Hops (in hop bags) @ 10 minutes
Flame out

I measured my wort and had 9.5 liters.
I added enough ice to bring this up to 12.75 liters and start to cool it down.

I then filled my sink with a bunch of ice and water, and place the pot in it, stirring constantly. I was surprised at how well this got me to down to pitching temperature. It took maybe 10-20 minutes.

While my wort was chilling i rehydrated my yeast. I added 10x the amount of water to yeast at 85 and let it sit for 30 minutes. I then stirring for 15. I was expecting to get cream (thats what I've heard) but it never did? I though I maybe messed it up somehow, but my fermentor is happily bubbling away this morning.

Siphoned into a sanitized 5 gallon glass carboy. Aerated. Pitched Yeast. Airlock on. And now the wait...



Next time I do this, I need to start much earlier. By the time my crystal and munich were finished in the morning and I went to the store to get water, it was about noon. Thinking it would only take me 8 or so hours at worse, I began. Little did I know, 14 hours later and I was finishing up.

The chickens who got my spent grain at the farm I work at were much excited to be awake than I was this morning.



I'd love any advice, suggestions, criticism, etc!

Thanks for reading!

Here is the finished product:


It has a great head, the malted millet taste incredible, and the flora notes of the hops from the dry hopping make it very aromatic.
The two biggest problems are it is definitely water-y, and it is a bit astringent. Both of which I am fairly certain are because of the issues I had with lautering (i.e. not washing enough sugars out and not filtering effectively enough and getting grain into the boil).
All in all I'm extremely happy with how it came out, especially for being my first homebrew.

oh and what is everyone's opinion on primary fermentation time? I'm not using a secondary so I was thinking between 1 and 3 weeks before I bottle. I've read a few opinions for barley brewing but I'm curious what you all have experienced with GF brewing?

I typically leave mine in the primary for 2 weeks and am within a point or two of the FG. I always do a 2ndary due to the high vol of trub. But really take a gravity measurement to know if it's done.


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My chickens love millet mash! This is pretty adventurous for a first brew. On my first stuck sparge I believed yelling at it would help. I'm confident that it did.

Stuck sparges are fairly common with millet. Even when I think I have my process down I still get one every once and a while. My advice is to line the mash tun with a large strainer bag. That way if it sticks you can just pull all the grain out in no time.

All in all it looks good. Thumbs up! Let us know how it turns out. Did you take gravity readings?

They devoured it!

Thanks! Truthfully I didn't want to start with extract brewing because I've had Sorghum syrup brews and am really unimpressed. I also really like the idea of using grains over extracts. I spent a while reading up an all grain gluten free before I attempted it.

Thats a great idea! I'll definitely try that. I think having a much large lauter tun will help me a lot so I'm going to fabricate something before I do my next batch.

I didn't take gravity readings. I dont have a hydrometer (yet) so I was going to calculate it using weight but by it was so late at night by the time I ready to finish I didn't bother doing it.

My carboy vigorously bubbled away for 3 days and now has pretty much stopped. I'll probably wait another week and then bottle it. The suspense is killing me to see how it is!

I just tasted it. Seems pretty dry and a bit watery (which I've read shouldnt be the case after it sits in the primary longer and then carbonates and bottle conditions after), but still really good. Reminds me a lot of Greens Amber Ale. I wasnt planning on it but I added an ounce of hops to the primary to dry hop the beer.

With a grain bill of about 7.2 lb and assuming pretty good yield with a step mash, grouse grain etc. I would expect your OG to be around 1.030. If you up the grain bill or supplement with some other fermentables like belgian candy syrup, buckwheat honey, etc. you will maintain the malt flavor and get out of the watery territory.

This is great. I just followed Andrew's brew schedule myself. Today in fact. I didn't stray far from his recipe; my biggest unknown was water PH. My lauter worked, probably because I used my old mash tun (big rectangular cooler) as my lauter. It has copper tubing and I added 20% rice hulls to the dry lauter tun first. I gently stirred in my mash then mixed them together. I waited a few minutes and had no stuck sparge, which amazed me. I think it was due to my large lauter ton and therefore shallow grain bed. Andrew made a point of mentioning this so I took his word for it. I collected 6 gallons of wort.
My OG is 1.042. The iodine test was perfect too, my first time ever seeing no black. So very happy about that. Anyways, that's my story.
On a side note, I malted my own millet so this was a double victory for me. No matter what it can't taste worse than my last batch of rice beer.

Mmmm... rice beer. That sounds... I'm not going to lie it doesn't sound great. Good thing you had better luck with millet!

EVILEMRE Congratulations!! I'm glad it worked so well for you. I know that I definitely need to change my lauter tun before I brew another batch. From a size perspective copper tubing and a cooler appeals to me, but the plastic factor is making me hesitate. How many lbs of pale malt did you use per your 6 gallons of wort?

Don't fear the plastic cooler. A huge number of home brewers mash in a cooler, as did I before becoming a celiac. I haven't tried all grain yet with GF grains. I use a bazooka screen, worked great.


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I know what you mean about the plastic tub. I just wanted to get into all grain and didn't want to drop a ton of money until I knew I liked it. I'd like to know if the plastic is leaching into my brewing, not sure how I'd go about it though. I think if you eat things out of a can or drink out of aluminum cans they're all sprayed inside with a coating of questionable plastic on so.....I might as well just relax about.
As for how much grains used. I upped Andrew's recipe to 7 lbs of pale malt and 1/2 pound of specialty malt. I roasted my specialty malt for a few hours. I also used cascade and northern brewers for hops.

So I bottled on Saturday morning and I just opened a bottle to check on it and it started gushing violently out of the top. Did I use too much priming sugar and I should I crack all of them open so they don't explode in the bottle or is this normal?

Did you refrigerate for 48hrs before opening?

Ha nope I didn't. Would that be why?

I didn't think I over-carbonated (it was 3.5 ounces of honey to 10 liters of beer) but I figured I'd make sure this wasn't a symptom of that so I didnt get exploding bottles all over the kitchen.

I primed with honey once and had good results. Others warned me after that honey is a temperamental beast when it comes to priming because the actual weight of sugar is variable in honey and you need it to be relatively accurate for priming. I now use my honey close to flameout and leave it to the primary fermentation.

When I bottle I always put each case in a plastic storage bin with weight on the lid just in case I got too much prime in a few bottles and they decide to head for the moon.

You should be alright. You may have overcarbed a bit but, I would throw one in the fridge for a few hours at least. Should work.

The CO2 needs time to dissolve into the liquid.

I exclusively use honey for priming, no reason why other than I love honey, and have had nothing but great results. I always, impatiently, wait two full weeks before I have a peak. I'm going to bottle my millet beer tomorrow. I'll let you know how it all turns out.

I just used the same, modified to my 11.5lb grist of millet malt, buckwheat malt and rolled oats. Used 9gal pretreated water to get 7gal boil and 5.5gal to carboy. No stuck sparge, even with a pound of rice hulls. I used a copper pipe manifold I made since the holes on my false bottom are too big to work for this fine of a grind. The manifold was to tight to the bottom of the kettle and scorched some grains during the boil. Next time I'll use the false bottom and use a grain bag to keep everything together, like the brew in a bag idea. Love Grouse malts though, no more sorghum extract😝

My first millet beer turned out surprisingly well. Nice colour, a light amber, and a decent taste. I've been told there's an after-taste that sneaks in after a few gulps. I don't taste it, but I've been drinking GF beer for 6 years, so my pallette is bias. My brewhouse efficiency wasn't great, at 54%. But I have to malt my own grain so to get anything out of it is almost a miracle to me. I still had 4.5 % alcohol in the end. The after-taste might have to do with roasting some of the grain and not letting it mellow out for a few weeks before brewing with it. I did it the day before the brew.

Millet can lend a vegital, almost brocoli like taste. That might be what it is. I think millet is like a grass or something similar.

Either way, congrats to both on the successes!