mloster

Recipes 

I didn't get a pic of it, but I just tried it last night. I'm happy and sad at the same time. I'm extremely happy because this was one of the best beers I've ever made. It smelled a little like caramel and brown sugar, had perfect head retention, and a a sharp though not overpowering bitterness. Since I used to drink regular beer, I can attest to the fact that it was pretty darn tasty. The sad part though is the limited amount of bottles that 7 lbs of quinoa made. I'm not sure how I'd properly get it to clear up i.e. separate the sludgy part from the cleared part or avoid the sludgy part all together. If you had any ideas, I'd love to hear them. The buckwheat idea is a good one. Maybe you could use pale buckwheat malt as your base, sort of like 2-row and then add malted/ roasted quinoa to get various colors and tastes.

mloster

Recipes 

here's a pic

DirtbagHB

Recipes 

very dandy indeed

MBruno

Recipes 

Do you use a secondary? I've found that's always helped me. That and Irish Moss. Though my focus is on dark GF beers so I may not have as much clarity as I think.

mloster

Recipes 

Nope, I didn't use a secondary. It wasn't even clarity that I had problems with. The bottom 2/3 was just sludge. While the top 1/3 was fine and I could have racked that to a secondary, I was concerned about the bottom part of immovable sludge.

jusware

Recipes 

I wonder if a special mash rest is needed to break down Quinoa properly. I'm thinking about how a beta glucan rest can help break down Rye mashes. I wonder if there is a certain rest that could break down the quinoa better. Seems odd that it made sludge though.

edit: I consulted "Google" and found a recipe where the brewer states the Quinoa should be cooked prior to adding to the mash. I've also seen some recipes that don't say to pre-cook the Quinoa so I'm not sure if this is the missing link or not.

dubiouschewy

Recipes 

I would guess that the other recipe was not using malted quinoa. In this case, cooking the quinoa would denature the enzymes and so keep any conversion from happening.

The other trick is figuring out whether the enzymes necessary for something like a beta-glucan rest is present in the malted quinoa. I've got no idea.

If there's just a TON of sludge, there may have a ton of starch leftover. Starch needs to be gelatinized before the enzymes can break them down into fermentable sugars, and the trick about GF brewing is that most GF grains have very high gelatinization temperatures, whereas barley malt starch gelatinizes conveniently in the same temp. range that our brewing enzymes are active.

One thing to try would be a decoction with some (or all) of your grist to ensure gelatinization. Here's a good overview of the process:
http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Decoction_Mashing

I'd start with the "variation" on the "enhanced double decoction"

Cheers!