Gluten Free Saison

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powmonster

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This was my 5th grain batch. My efficiency has improved and so has my understanding of how to deal with the grain (all grain from colorado malting company, specialty was roasted at home except the Teff, that came as a munich roast). Creating crystal malt from GF grains is difficult, they don't fully convert like barley due to higher gel temps, so I call it a partial crystal and use more of it than one would otherwise. I spike with extracts at the end of the boil to boost the gravity simply because my setup won't really allow me to use more than 10 lbs of grain.

Mash Ingredients:
7.2 gallons starting water, w/ mineral/acid additions
5.0 lbs pale millet
1 lb pale buckwheat
3.6oz partial crystal millet
3.0oz partial caramunich millet
9oz munich millet
.5 lb munich teff
.5 lbs oats
1.6 lb rice hulls incorporate into mash before lauter

Boil Ingredients:
1 oz perle pellets – T60
.3 oz saaz flowers – T60
.7 oz saaz flowers – T15
Yeast nutrients – T15
1.25 lbs sorghum syrup – T5
5 oz honey – T5
1tsp Irish moss – T5

Post Boil Ingredients:
WLP 566 saison II

Grind: super fine

Mash Regimine:
1. Treat 7.2 gallons to get Calcium to 125-150ppm and ph of 5.9
2. Take out 3.8 gallons and place in the bottling bucket, adjust to ph of 5.6 (sparge water).
3. Heat 1.8 gallons water to 111F remove from heat and mix in crushed malt.
4. Beta-glucan rest @ 104F for 25 minutes, stir every 10 min.
5. Test Mash pH, it should have settled out to 5.4.
6. Infuse mash with .8 gal of boiling water (and applied heat)
7. Protein rest @ 125F for 25 minutes, allow it to settle for last 15 min
8. Decant off .8 gal of clear liquid from the top of the mash (enzymes)
9. Place the decanted liquid in the fridge.
10. Infuse mash with .6 gal of boiling water (and applied heat)
11. Partial conversion @ 150F and hold for 20 minutes
12. Gel Starches: raise temp to around 175F-190F for 5mins and stir
13. Cool mash to 160F
14. Add decanted liquid containing enzymes to mash to achieve mash temp of 140F, hold for 30 mins
15. raise to 147F for 30 mins
16. Starch test
17. 153 for 30mins
18. Line the LT with rice hulls, then incorporate rice hulls in mash and transfer to the LT and put the lid on and put into position
19. Heat all sparge water to 190 (165F is ideal for when it runs in the mash)
20. Recirculate while sparge water heats
21. Transfer sparge water back into bottling bucket
22. While sparging collect in the boiling pot, stir grist down to 2 inches above the false bottom.

Update: Ferment warm - hot with this yeast. I went from 72 - 82 degrees over the course of ten days... 72 the first 24 hours, 75 for the next 24 hrs, 80 for 3 days, then 82 for 5 days.
 
How did you know to incorporate all these specific temperatures and holds into this recipe?

Are these steps specific to brewing gluten free?

And can you possibly give me any suggestions on where to read up on such things?
 
The hold temps are well-known resting temps in brewing for the breakdown of various materials in the grain. Get the book How to Brew, it can teach you a lot about the more technical aspects of grain brewing as well as good reference for just about every other part of the process (not just the mash). I also see you had a couple other questions to folks about how much priming sugar to understand how much CO2 etc., there are great graphs in there for that too. As far as GF brewing goes... The key thing is Gelatinization Temps vs. Enzymatic activity. Most GF grains have Gel Temps above the point where enzymes are denatured. That is the biggest problem GF Grain Brewers face... Well that and grain availability/malting. You probably want to malt your own grain, find a way to clean the roots and shoots off it, get a corona mill to grind and of course the necessary equipment... When you do that, follow the recipe above. Depending on what grains you use (and their enzymatic potential), you may be able to skip steps 8,9,12, etc. as you can avoid decanting the enzymes and gelling the starches at high temps. Oh and truly GF will require different yeast/cultivating the strains from White Labs using yeast nutrients that are also GF...
 
Well thank you for the in depth answer.

I unfortunately haven't read a lot of any of the wonderful books I own past recipe formulation and basic processes for AG

I was mostly curious because I had felt that these temperatures were rather different from those for AG w/ gluten, and have been trying to venture into some GF beer for the Celiacs in my life.

And I hope some of the malts come up a little in availability. I can't imagine cleaning multiple pounds of malt.
 
One last thing on this recipe folks, I would never use sorghum syrup again. Just use cane sugar.
 
Did you take readings for OG and FG? Have you found a source for (sorry if terminology is off) potential numbers for any of the GF grains?Trying to use brew assistant for recipe planning but without potential can't get a predicted OG. Thanks for the detail on mash schedule.
 
I believe I ended up with 4 gallons (post boil) from ~8 lbs grain and ~1.5 lbs syrups...
Roughly:
OG was 1.063 adjusted for temp (1.061 without adjustment):
1.05 OG w/o honey and sorghum
0.009 sorghum
0.002 honey
I think the FG (for some reason I did not record it) but it was high, leaving what I recall as 6.4% abv.

I also haven't been able to find extract potential for these. I have been comparing one batch of beer to the next to see if I am getting better results, not really knowing what is possible. I imagine that it would change with varieties of the grains and different growing seasons/conditions as these grains have not been standardized for Brewing, but certainly your extract potential for Buckwheat is much higher than Teff and Millet.
 
I have brewed a bunch of extract batches and one chestnut batch but am now planning a partial mash to get further away from the sorghum LME aftertaste. I plan to basically use the schedule at the beginning of this thread.

I have a few questions:

How about adding additional enzymes (amylase) when you add the decanted liquid back into the mash?

This will be my first real partial mash and have been reading up on water. I have Palmer’s How to Brew, and everything I can find on this forum but still don’t have a good feel. I live in Florida near the coast, so our water is not very good. I want to brew a light colored beer and am struggling to get the RA low enough. I am planning on using distilled water and building up the chemistry, but I end up having to add a pretty good amount of acid to get the RA low after getting the Ca up and balancing the chloride and sulfate. Any advice?
 
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