Quinoa Pale Ale

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DirtbagHB

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i just cracked the 1st

bottle of my home malt quinoa pale ale.

i looks like beer. it smells like beer. it has head like beer.
 
I too am looking forward to hearing about the actual taste. I'm guessing it was left out for a reason?

It does look pretty!
 
ok so heres my recipe:

8# white quinoa total, home malted, toasted 6# to a caramel color in oven @ 300 stirring every 5 minutes for ~1.5-2 hours. 2# left as pale malt. i mashed this with 3.5 gal of water with a strike of 150F, added amalyse enzymes and left it for 1hour. raised temp with 1 gal of water with a strike temp of 180 and left it for another hour. sparged. ect
3#clover honey @ 60
4oz maltodextrin @ 60
.25# rice syrup solids
1 tsp irish moss at 15
2oz domestice cluster @ 60
1.5 oz domestic sterling @ 30
1.0 oz domestic sterling @ 15

i am lazy and dont usually record gravities. so i cant give any of that.

the beer its self, is very clean and smooth. and it drinks really easy. the quinoa is hard to describe. and ill try again tonight when i crack open another one. but this beer reminds me of something like in between sierra nevada and stone ipa
 
How much amalyse did you use? I have coworker who developed an allergy to gluten and she really misses good beer. This seems intriguing to me and would like to attempt your recipe.
 
Couple of questions, since the times I've made quinoa I ran into these issues:
1. Isn't roasting anything above 180F going to destroy any of the enzymes for conversion?
2. The #2 grain you did mash, per lcasanova, did you grind it in any way?
3. How did you prevent it from being like oatmeal?
4. Did you have trouble rinsing the grain after the mash because of a stuck sparge?
5. Taste...how'd it do?

Personally I really like quinoa in beer, and yours looks perfect, would just love to know more.
 
sorry. i got lost........ stoopid college.. anyway. i just did another batch of this.sparged 10 gallons and did a dark and a session.. im out of money and need to stretch things.

any who.. as for the enzymes. ive been using Amalyase Enzyme Formula from Crosby & Baker. the bottle calls for 1tsp per 5 gal. i been adding an eyeballed 1.5 tsp. to the mash figuring the quinoa has ~0 enzymes for conversion. this is also the reason i add the extra sugars and not rely heavily on starch conversion. i hope for conversion, but since i cant find enzymes structured specifically for quinoa i know im not getting anything close to complete conversion.

now on to the malting aspect of things. my process is a bit of a pain in the ass. so i get my quinoa in 4lb bags as costco. i dump 2 of them into one of my 7 gal primary buckets. i rinse and strain the grain once. then fill the bucket to maximum. the quinoas a f-n sponge. so i check it a few hours later and add more water. skim the foam off the surface and let it sit with the lid and air lock. at this point ill strain and refill with warm water 2x a day. morning and evening. so here comes the ambient temperature variability. if its warmer the quinoa sprouts faster. if its cooler it takes longer. quinoa is really nice. it sprouts under water! i wait till the quinoa is sprouted to about 2x the length of the grain. at this point drain and strain the quinoa.

its time to dry. i made a hammock out of a bed sheet and hung it in the back yard, placing the grain in it to dry. several times a day i went out and stirred things up with my hands. take the grain inside before rain ect. so after several days the grain is dried.

toasting time. i used 2 large brownie sheets. splitting the grain between them. i preheated my oven to 250F. placed the grain in oven. wait 10 minutes. stir the grain (i used a hand potato masher, pay attention to the corners) stir every 5 minutes. after 20 minutes (total time) bump the temp up to 300- 350. total times and what not are all relative. just keep stirring when it smells a lot like grapenuts its in range. your eye your color. but i might note, there is a VERY VERY SLIM LINE BETWEEN GOOD AND COAL. after i cool the grain i put it in a brown bag for a few days. let it waft.

i dont have a roller or a mill. so i use the vita mix blender. i prepare my mash ton by lining it with a large nylon (5 gal capacity?) bag. add heafty layer of rice hulls (2-4ish). so in the blender place 1-2cups of quinoa at a time. run it for 30sec or so. cracked and battered but not dust. this may take several cycles with the blender.. usually takes me about 5 runs. after i crack the grain i add it on top of the rice hulls. blend,dump, blend, dump....
heat sparge water to 140ish, and heres what i found.. quinoa is a sponge. +2 gals. sit. then add more. the oatmeal standard didnt work. so i go more for the cream of wheat standard, then make it a bit more soupy. wait 45-1hour. then top the cooler/mashtun up with 170F water. wait another hour. open the ball valve and let it flow into my boil pot. for stuck flows the nylon bag is really neat. just grasp it firmly at the top directly above the outlet and lift ever so gently. just enough to shift the bag so the nylon isnt clogged. no more stuck mask.

brew and enjoy!..
 
Good stuff, sounds like the process could be refined a bit, but I am glad you found something that gives good results.

The malting process also sounds a bit easier than I expected actually.
 
refinement comes with an influx of cash....... so it might be a while... was using a 6 lb cannon ball and a steel mixing bowl to crush my grain. after 3 hours to crush just half.. gave up on that idea and moved to the blender.

any ideas about refinement.. i find tring to use a false bottom is guarentee for getting stuck. the quinoa is just tooo little
 
You should try mixing a whole bunch of rice hulls in there to make a bit more of a filter bed.

AHS - http://www.austinhomebrew.com/produ...d=132&osCsid=bb69b3f5b560369b696efe12f29ec0e1

I actually see that he is using a strainer bag and rice hulls, I dont think that there is a better option than that.

There are some drying options that use a box fan and window screens for the grain. Not sure it would work for you, but it's an idea. Search on 'drying hops'.

Grain mills can get pretty cheap, Corona mills are only about $40 new. Sounds like it would save you LOTS of time too.

All in all, I was just thinking about some time savings you could implement, but your process sounds like a good one. I really think you are onto something.
 
I tried something similar to this to try to make a 100% quinoa beer.
Did you try an iodine test to see if the starches were converting? After a couple of hours (first at temps near 140 then at temps around 150) it looked like I still had very little conversion. Boiled it up anyway (concentrated quite a bit -- OG of 1.065) but I'm worried it's mostly starch. This is the second time I've tried and just can't get the damn starch to convert. Anyone have similar trouble with quinoa? Maybe there's enough sugar in there to make beer?
 
I tried something similar to this to try to make a 100% quinoa beer.
Did you try an iodine test to see if the starches were converting? After a couple of hours (first at temps near 140 then at temps around 150) it looked like I still had very little conversion. Boiled it up anyway (concentrated quite a bit -- OG of 1.065) but I'm worried it's mostly starch. This is the second time I've tried and just can't get the damn starch to convert. Anyone have similar trouble with quinoa? Maybe there's enough sugar in there to make beer?

Not many have tried, but I doubt there is enough sugar just lying around in Quinoa to make a decent beer. After all, if this were the case, people probably wouldn't use it as a replacement food for grains, but rather as a sweetener or sugar substitute.

Let us know how your experiment comes out, did you add any enzymes?
 
Not sure what you mean about it not having enough sugar -- I mean 100% barley beer is delicious and isn't used as a sugar substitute...
But anyway, ya, used tons of amylase enzyme, though, like I said, the iodine test kept coming up positive for starch.

Here's what I did in more detail:
I used pre-sprouted quinoa grains, toasted in the oven for ~30 mins.
Mash-in was 12oz quinoa and 1/2gallon of water at 125F, then stepped up (using combination decoction and infusion) to ~140.
After an hour or so raised to ~150 and left it there for another hour and half maybe.
After all that it still seemed starchy, but anyway I sparged with another 1/2 gallon and then boiled for an hour with 1/2oz noble hops of some sort that i found in the freezer. Ended up with 3 cups of wort at 1.064, tossed it into a growler with a packet of champagne yeast. This morning it looks like it's somewhat active, so we'll see.

Don't really know what I'm doing, only do partial mashes so don't have all the equipment for more complicated stuff, but got any ideas for improving conversion?
 
Not sure what you mean about it not having enough sugar -- I mean 100% barley beer is delicious and isn't used as a sugar substitute...
But anyway, ya, used tons of amylase enzyme, though, like I said, the iodine test kept coming up positive for starch.

Here's what I did in more detail:
I used pre-sprouted quinoa grains, toasted in the oven for ~30 mins.
Mash-in was 12oz quinoa and 1/2gallon of water at 125F, then stepped up (using combination decoction and infusion) to ~140.
After an hour or so raised to ~150 and left it there for another hour and half maybe.
After all that it still seemed starchy, but anyway I sparged with another 1/2 gallon and then boiled for an hour with 1/2oz noble hops of some sort that i found in the freezer. Ended up with 3 cups of wort at 1.064, tossed it into a growler with a packet of champagne yeast. This morning it looks like it's somewhat active, so we'll see.

Don't really know what I'm doing, only do partial mashes so don't have all the equipment for more complicated stuff, but got any ideas for improving conversion?

I was talking about the grain itself, unconverted from starch to sugar. Barley beer would take like soup without conversion.

It'll be interesting to see what happens with yours, how much it actually converted. But if anything is reasonably converted at all, the champagne yeasties will get it. With a bunch of amylase, you will probably end up with a full bodied beer, but nothing out of line. The decoction should help too, so who knows, this could come out good.
 
I see, ya, might end up with quinoa soup, which could good too I guess.
But what do you mean by "With a bunch of amylase, you will probably end up with a full bodied beer...?" This is my first time using it, and my brewing chemistry knowledge is very basic, but i thought amylase converts starch to sugar, making it a dried beer...
 
I see, ya, might end up with quinoa soup, which could good too I guess.
But what do you mean by "With a bunch of amylase, you will probably end up with a full bodied beer...?" This is my first time using it, and my brewing chemistry knowledge is very basic, but i thought amylase converts starch to sugar, making it a dried beer...

Well, my beer chemistry might be a little better than basic, but I certainly am no expert, but here goes. Also, my knowledge is really limited to Barley, so I will have to explain it that way.

In a normal barley mash, the temperature determines how fermentable the wort ends up, essentially ranging from very dry at 148 to very full bodied at 160. The reason for this is the enzymes at play. Beta amylase enzymes are more "excited" at the lower end of the range, and they make the beer very dry. Alpha amylase enzymes are more excited at the high end of the range, and while they still convert starch to sugar, they do less, leaving a more full bodied beer.

Hope that helps, at least somewhat. You essentially only had alpha, and therefore only converted what alpha would take care of, similar to a 158-160F mash.

This is also why we talk a lot about beta.
 
Interesting, thanks a lot. I kept the mash at the lower end temp-wise because I had heard it would make it drier, but I guess if I was only adding alpha amlylase that wasn't super useful.
I saw from searching the forum it sounds like the easiest way to add beta is to use sweet potatoes, so maybe I'll try that next time -- quinoa sweet potato ale sounds pretty good, no?
thanks again
 
Interesting, thanks a lot. I kept the mash at the lower end temp-wise because I had heard it would make it drier, but I guess if I was only adding alpha amlylase that wasn't super useful.
I saw from searching the forum it sounds like the easiest way to add beta is to use sweet potatoes, so maybe I'll try that next time -- quinoa sweet potato ale sounds pretty good, no?
thanks again

Sounds like it could be good to me. I am in process of designing a system that I should be able to mash GF beers with. I will be experimenting with them then.
 
Not many have tried, but I doubt there is enough sugar just lying around in Quinoa to make a decent beer. After all, if this were the case, people probably wouldn't use it as a replacement food for grains, but rather as a sweetener or sugar substitute.
http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/cereal-grains-and-pasta/5705/2

Quinoa is 70% carbs, 15% protein and 15% fat...very similar profile to Oats. While not sweet, with the right amount of enzymes and starch conversion it can likely yield a decent beer. There's at least plenty of carbs for making alcohol.
 
You mentioned "pre-sprouted" quinoa...was it purchased that way? When I think of pre-sprouted I think of a grain that has gone a little further than I would want it to have gone for brewing, meaning not much sugars left behind for conversion.
 
You mentioned "pre-sprouted" quinoa...was it purchased that way? When I think of pre-sprouted I think of a grain that has gone a little further than I would want it to have gone for brewing, meaning not much sugars left behind for conversion.

Well, it looked like it was sprouted about as much as you would if you did it yourself -- i.e., the sprouts were about twice as long as the grains.
I used this: http://www.truroots.com/p.aspx?cont=Products&id=9

Like I said, with 12 ounces I got 3 cups of 1.064 wort. Could be mostly starch, but there was something in there...
 
http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/cereal-grains-and-pasta/5705/2

Quinoa is 70% carbs, 15% protein and 15% fat...very similar profile to Oats. While not sweet, with the right amount of enzymes and starch conversion it can likely yield a decent beer. There's at least plenty of carbs for making alcohol.

Yeah...any ideas how to convert the starches though?
I guess a related question is: am I right to be using the iodine test for a 100% quinoa mash, or is it never going to all convert and I should just hope for some sugars? Any way to know how much of the gravity is coming from fermentables?
 
Yeah...any ideas how to convert the starches though?
I guess a related question is: am I right to be using the iodine test for a 100% quinoa mash, or is it never going to all convert and I should just hope for some sugars? Any way to know how much of the gravity is coming from fermentables?

Iodine test is the only easy way I know.

Taste what it tastes like, we can worry about converting the sugars or even compensating with other sugars after we know if quinoa's taste is worth the effort. :cross:
 
Why do you want to malt Quiona? Why not just toast it for flavor?
It seems to me that if you sprout something, something else gets used up, like starch/sugar. If your adding enzymes and not getting any enzymes from the grain, why bother?
 
Why do you want to malt Quiona? Why not just toast it for flavor?
It seems to me that if you sprout something, something else gets used up, like starch/sugar. If your adding enzymes and not getting any enzymes from the grain, why bother?

So I could use it in a mash since I can't really go out and buy gluten-free base malts or specialty malts. But otherwise, what you said above.
 
If you toast raw Quiona and grind it, you can use that in a mash as well.

How do you think Sake is made? I don't think they malt the rice before they put it through saccharification.

I was under the impression that only reason to malt anything is to activate the enzymes which allow for self conversion. If your going to add enzymes, why bother?
 
If you toast raw Quiona and grind it, you can use that in a mash as well.

How do you think Sake is made? I don't think they malt the rice before they put it through saccharification.

I was under the impression that only reason to malt anything is to activate the enzymes which allow for self conversion. If your going to add enzymes, why bother?

With sake the starch conversion is done with mold.

Koji is rice that has had aspergillus oryzae (koji-kin) mold grown on it. This special mold has an interesting property: it secretes enzymes that convert starch to sugar. If you add it to a soupy mash of rice, water, and yeast, the result is fermentation.
 
Vlax is right, and to fully answer the question, it is because only some of the enzymes are readily available to us.
 
one thing I've been wondering about the whole malting/ vs a. amylase question. I've been reading a book on raw food which had some info that go me thinking. According to the book the nutritive value of a see/grain increases greatly after germination(notice where not even talking about getting although way to sprouted yet) so more than just enzyme production is taking place. Makes me wonder if it's not possible to reproduce the same flavors qualities using unmalted grains and mashing with added enzymes? I'm willing to concede that it's entirely possible that the changes have an insignificant affect on flavor in beer, but..............not knowing is not knowing if you know what I mean :)

Second thought was that since germination is much easier to do efficiently than full on sprouting. We could easily germinate then dry and roast GF grains which would encompass many of the changes in the seed/grains and then add enzymes to do the actual conversion. Just a few thoughts that I've been mulling over.
 
Second thought was that since germination is much easier to do efficiently than full on sprouting. We could easily germinate then dry and roast GF grains which would encompass many of the changes in the seed/grains and then add enzymes to do the actual conversion. Just a few thoughts that I've been mulling over.

I think for the time being, I'm always going add enzymes, despite malting my grain. I'd love to say I was able to get a full conversion on my own, but with all the time and work put into malting and a GF brew day, I'm more interested in getting something out of it. And I'll continue to malt until I find a place that I can buy beta amylase... Or any future sweet potato experiments provide good results.
 
ive been gone for a while but now im back. from what ive read, getting full starch conversion, even with glutenous brewing it is still some of a holy grail (from books and peers). though i could be compeletly full of S but most people strive for70-80 percent conversion, i havent read much about 90%+ conversion . so if were getting conversion from either home malted or pre sprouted (havent tried nor seen presprouted) it would just be a matter of refining the process. getting better milling consistencies, consistent mashing temps. consistent boil temps. consistant ferm temps ect. ect. not to say that it cant be done but that it can be challenging.
 
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