Favorite gluten free recipe?

I haven't seen any threads like this yet. Anyone care to share their tested and approved gluten free recipes yet? I haven't gotten any batches in the bottle yet and I'd like to hear from some people that have brewed real winners.

Also, whats the hardest style to brew gluten free versions of? I'm guessing porters and stouts are real challenges since we don't have easy access to roasted/toasted grains. Early samples of my IPA are promising though. I'm considering a mild next but am concerned if it will be able to be carried on a sorghum backbone or not.

Since I'm relatively new to this I can't really say I have a favorite but honestly, I've like every gluten-free beer I've made thus far, especially the pumpkin ales. The beer I bottled today, which I am telling my father is a Blue Moon clone, tasted phenomenal at bottling. I have one I am transferring tomorrow to secondary adapted from ChshreCat's Double Chocolate Oatmeal Stout that seems promising.

Sorry to ramble on, but I'm looking to try an IPA out next.

Thats great to hear though! I only made 2 extract batches before I was disappointed in the taste and went AG. That coupled with tasting a large number of poor gluten free substitutes (bread I'm looking at you) made me a little apprehensive about what I'd get as an end product with gluten free beer. So far though I'm still pretty optimistic. The last thing that was bothering me is that there are a lot of threads in this forum talking about beer and what might work but there's very few that say "this beer kicks ass, here's the recipe." It'd be nice to have some verified really good ones. Its really encouraging to hear that you like everything you've made so far.

If you want to make them, they are in my drop down shameless self promoting.

Can't call it "favorite" because it's my only batch, but it came out very well, satisfying to me and other "regular" beer drinkers. It's real simple, just 6.6 lbs of sorghum LME, five ouces of hops (from memory, I believe it was Columbus at fifteen minutes, Cascade at a half hour and Amarillo at 55 minutes, but use whatever combination you like). Obviously no steeping grains. Safale 05 for yeast. I made a special effort to "cold crash" after the boil to try to drive as much clarity as possible.

The final product came out very nicely. When it was young, it had a definite orange flavor but that's faded, as has the aftertaste. Now it stands nicely on it own. It still retains a nice sort of a Belgian white ale character, is a pale golden color, slightly cloudy and with a decent head and acceptable (but not great) head retention. This surprised me since I expected that the end product would be like Coca Cola - carbonated but no head retention.

This lager that I made was pretty good, definitely the favourite amongst my non GF beer drinking friends. You will need a way of keeping it cold though ~4-8C.

Ingredients.

2.8 kg Sorghum Malt
0.5Kg Honey (I used clover honey)
28g Saaz Hops – Bittering (60min)
15g Saaz Hops – Flavouring (20min)
7g Saaz Hops – Aroma (10min)
7g Saaz Hops – Aroma (end of boil)
(I used Czech saaz hops from Nelson 4.4%AA)
5g Irish Moss

Primary - 3 weeks
Secondary - 2 weeks
Bottles - 3 weeks

Soybomb said:

... there are a lot of threads in this forum talking about beer and what might work but there's very few that say "this beer kicks ass, here's the recipe." It'd be nice to have some verified really good ones.

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IMO, the gluten free beers we are making (i have done 3) simply don't "kick ass." They are better than the commercial GF options, but that is still not very good. The sorghum taste is my main limitation.


thread-jack: I'd be up for a swap though. I have a GF porter. I'd like to try lcasanova's pumpkin (or ?)

cheers,
wendy

Hey would you guys mind posting or sending me your Oatmeal Stout or GF Porter recipes? I've been looking for a stout or porter recipe and haven't had much luck so far. Thanks!

Camnavo19 said:

Hey would you guys mind posting or sending me your Oatmeal Stout or GF Porter recipes? I've been looking for a stout or porter recipe and haven't had much luck so far. Thanks!

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I'll need to taste it first- I don't want to post a recipe that hasn't at least been tried. For the moment though- it looks like I'll need to change the title to Porter rather than stout.

I've brewed the following styles as GF beers with Sorghum syrup and Rice Syrup/extract with good results:
Wit, Pale Ale, IPA, Brown Ale, American Lager, Pumpkin Ale

The one style I found didn't turn out well was a high-gravity Trappist-style ale...I also read elsewhere that the Trappist strains don't really like sorghum.

GF Porter -- 2.8G batch (for 3G primary)

partial mash.

1# home toasted millet ("vienna" sub, looking for 3L color);
1# home toasted millet or buckwheat (medium crystal sub, looking for 60L color);
8 oz home toasted millet or buckwheat (patent malt sub, looking for 200+L color);
+ 3# sorghum extract to the boil.

hops:
Boil 60 mins 0.25 Nugget leaf 15.4
Boil 60 mins 0.5 Cascade pellet 5.4
Boil 15 mins 0.5 Tettnang pellet 5.1
Boil 1 min 0.125 Tettnang pellet 5.1

S-05 dry yeast.

1# home toasted millet ("vienna" sub, looking for 3L color);
1# home toasted millet or buckwheat (medium crystal sub, looking for 60L color);
8 oz home toasted millet or buckwheat (patent malt sub, looking for 200+L color)

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Thanks for the recipe! Can you clarify what you mean by the 3L, 60L, and 200+L color? I assume that the higher means darker color and roasted longer, right?

Thanks again, I look forward to trying this recipe out soon!

midfielder5 said:

1# home toasted millet

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Hi does 1# mean 1lb or 1kg?

L refers to color on the lovibond scale.
# is a pound (lb.).