Sorghum malt

Hi

In South Africa one can buy sorghum malt in supermarkets. The product is for traditional sorghum beer. I sometimes brew a base beer with this product for 'shining and gives it a large sugar head to get higher ABV. Traditional recipes does not call for mashing and it is fermented on the grain with maize meal as adjunct, no hops. It gives a prety sour opage brew. I found that if I mash and sparge the beer is more western and my teenage son and freinds will have a few pulls from the fermentor without making faces.

So here is my question. Will it be viable to use this as a base malt for GF and non GF beers? I can also aquire fine powder sorghum and maise malt from a commercial maltster in my home town.

Setsumi

Setsumi,

As far as the science shows, Sorghum Malt works well as a base malt and can be used for converting adjunct grains, though the amount of adjuncts needs to be carefully planned.

The sour note that you mention seems to be a natural flavour of Sorghum coming through. Most on here either mask it with adjucts and other fermentables, hide it with other flavours or use specific hop schedules to compliment the flavours. It has also been noted that extended aging seems to take the edge off the sour bite and mellow the flavour.

Have you used hops or other herbs for bittering, aroma, etc? or are you just fermenting the sorghum and sugar?

BrewCanuck said:

Setsumi,

As far as the science shows, Sorghum Malt works well as a base malt and can be used for converting adjunct grains, though the amount of adjuncts needs to be carefully planned.

The sour note that you mention seems to be a natural flavour of Sorghum coming through. Most on here either mask it with adjucts and other fermentables, hide it with other flavours or use specific hop schedules to compliment the flavours. It has also been noted that extended aging seems to take the edge off the sour bite and mellow the flavour.

Have you used hops or other herbs for bittering, aroma, etc? or are you just fermenting the sorghum and sugar?

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Thanks for the reply.
Traditional beer recipe does not use hops and it is more like a thin porridge, I brew it as base for spirits and the sugar is to get to higher start ABV, the traditional recipies usually top at 3%. For beer I used to do kits, mostly Coopers but it is getting expensive and I sit in the middle of nowhere so I am contemplating doing western beer with sorghum as base as I can buy it locally. To get a kg or 2 spez malts and hops to me will not be to expensive. I will prolly do a IPA with Carramunich and hops will be Southern Promise and Cascade for a start.
Setsumi

It will only be gluten free if you keep the other grains away, but yes it can be used as a base malt for beers.
A good quick one to do is use sorghum as the malt, add a little honey at the end of a boil and cascade hops.