Flatspin

Recipes 

I've made a few gluten free beers now, and all of them seem to end up with the same sorghum 'twang'.

I was just looking around tonight and saw that someone commented on Midwest Brewer's site that some of that twang can be reduced by adding calcium carbonate. Has anybody ever tried this one? I am really looking for a way to keep using sorghum syrup, but I just can't get past the off flavor!

KevinM

Recipes 

I've had trouble reconciling this method with a syrup in my personal notes. I've considered it, because it does react with tannins, however, I can't chemically figure out how it affects my water (other than increasing ph, which I don't know if I want to do), or what it does when it reacts to the carbon dioxide.
(Calcium carbonate is insoluble in water, but will dissolve once co2 is added.) Or may dissolve if added during the boil.

If I were to use it, I'd have to eliminate any dissolved co2 in the secondary, so that it drops out as a salt.

__________________
Primary: Sake
Secondary: GF Czech Lager
Waiting to be kegged, Italian Primitivo
Kegged&Ready: GF Orange&Coriander, GF Honey Lager, GF chocolate ale, GF English ale, Island mist (zinfandel), Island mist (cbry malbec).
Bottled: Infected Mead, Dry Hard ciders, Accidental Sorghumwine, various unnamed.

DirtbagHB

Recipes 

....the only real answer we seem to have come up with, as this has been addressed here in the forums already, often, often, is to eliminate sorghum.
ive cut sorghum with the following either separate or in combination: rice syrup, honey, agave, tapioca extract, molasses, partial mash with: quinoa, rice flakes, corn, millet, oats. and ive had a pumpkin spice aging for over a year and the 'twang' is still there.
i can honestly say from my experimentation, you can only mask the twang so much. best to just eliminate it. i was happy using tapioca as a base and steeping grain for flavor initially. then i discovered chestnuts (chestnuttrails.com) from AG batches with this it has given me the most beery/ least watery GF beer ive had. my non-gf homebrewer friends say my last batch (chestnut scotch ale) tastes like a real non-GF scotch ale.

so if theres an ingredient you dont care for, eliminate it!

mloster

Recipes 

I second Dirtbag. I avoid sorghum completely now. It makes for more work, but you don't end up with crappy beer.

KevinM

Recipes 

I think there may be some other answers that we haven't tried yet. I'll be trying a few once I have time and supplies.

My water is somewhat hard, so I suppose I don't need to add calcium carbonate, as it's already present. I have not really have a harsh sorghum twang, like I would taste in a bottle of redbridge or bards. In fact, the craft beer testers I've pushed beer onto either haven't detected the flavor, or had to look real hard to find a difference.

If you check your water report and find that you are using soft water, it would be worth using a few spoons of calcium carbonate to increase the mineral content to react with the tannin should you still wish to use the sorghum syrup.

__________________
Primary: Sake
Secondary: GF Czech Lager
Waiting to be kegged, Italian Primitivo
Kegged&Ready: GF Orange&Coriander, GF Honey Lager, GF chocolate ale, GF English ale, Island mist (zinfandel), Island mist (cbry malbec).
Bottled: Infected Mead, Dry Hard ciders, Accidental Sorghumwine, various unnamed.

jman

Recipes 

i have yet to brew a GF beer completely free of sorghum. i have plans to brew a recipe i've been working on with about 40-45% sorghum in hopes of cutting the twang.

i know i wont eliminate it completely, but i was hoping that with a lower percentage and some aging (i plan to lager this) that it will be much less detectable. do any of you have much experience with sorghum making up less than 50%? is the twang still really present?

Flatspin

Recipes 

I have always used sorghum for the majority of my fermentables in GF beer. I'm planning to make a beer using oat malt and rice syrup sometime soon, and will try to post the recipe later tonight. There is some debate about whether oat malt is really GF, but I tried a couple pounds in the last beer I made with no negative effects.

Flatspin

Recipes 

My biggest concern is getting decent efficiency from the grains with a partial mash. I've been meaning to buy the equipment for an all-grain system but keep spending it on ingredients for more beer!

Flatspin

Recipes 

OK, here is the recipe for a cascadian dark ale I'm planning on making in a week or two. I replaced the sorghum syrup with rice syrup.

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 3.00 gal
Boil Size: 2.50 gal
Estimated OG: 1.064 SG
Estimated Color: 32 SRM <- I’ll believe it when I see it!
Estimated IBU: 46.6 IBU
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------

3 lbs Oat Malt
2 lbs Toasted Oats (GF oats toasted at 400F for 2 hours)
2 lbs Rice Extract Syrup
8 oz Buckwheat, roasted
8 oz Sprouted Quinoa
4 oz Maltodextrin
.25 oz Centennial, pellet 9.5% (FWH)
.5 oz Sterling, pellet 7.0% (FWH)
.25 oz Centennial, pellet 9.5% (20 min)
.25 oz Centennial, pellet 9.5% (10 min)
.5 oz Sterling, pellet 7.0% (5 min)
.25 oz Centennial, pellet 9.5% (1 min)
1 tsp Irish Moss (10 min)
1 pkg SafAle English Ale (S-04)

I'm a little concerned about using rice syrup for such a high percentage of the fermentables, so even though there are a bunch of oats I added a little maltodextrin for body.

The idea of using chestnuts sounds interesting, I've never thought of using them before. Is there any reason why you chose to use chestnuts over other types of nuts? I'd imagine most nuts would be prohibitively expensive for brewing, but now you've got me thinking...

BBBF

Recipes 

For what it's worth, I have given up on using my mash run for GF beer. It always ended up becoming BIAB, so now I just start with that. You might want to give that a shot before buying all your equipment.