1st Gluten Free Beer...need ideas

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Phunhog

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Ok...after weeks of pestering by my gluten- free diet wife I bought some supplies for brewing a GF beer. I have 6 lbs of Sorghum syrup, 1lb of maltodextrin, and a packet of Notty. The hops I have on hand are Magnum, Amarillo, Northern Brewer, Columbus, and Hallertau. I am thinking maybe do an all Columbus Pale Ale/IPA. There is a health food store nearby that sells millet, spelt, and buckwheat. Do those have to be malted for me to use or can they just be used for color, body, etc? I have a mill. Thanks for your help!!:mug:
 
Spelt isn't gluten-free, it's an ancient form of wheat. But no, grains don't have to be malted if you just want them for color and flavor. I'd recommend toasting up 4 pounds of millet to a medium roast, steep that at ~140°F for about an hour, then remove and add extract and proceed as normal.

An all-columbus pale/IPA should be fine, but I'd recommend also adding some honey at flame-out, because the sorghum/millet combo will be lacking a bit of sweetness necessary to balance the beer. 1 lb of honey should be plenty, try to get raw/unfiltered if you can.
 
A couple of suggestions:

1. Substitute part of the sorghum for rice syrup or solids.
2. Add half of the sorghum and the rice at flame out. This will help considerably with the potential off-taste.
3. If you use honey, lessen the amount of sorghum and rice.
4. Not convinced you'll need a pound of maltodextrin.
 
I toasted the millet(3 ibs) last night...do I still need to mill it just like any other grain. I didn't realize that millet is such a small size...maybe it would be better to crush it with a rolling pin? What exactly am I looking for by steeping the millet? It isn't malted so I shouldn't get any fermentables...am I just adding body/color/mouthfeel? Right now my recipe is something like this
6 lbs Sorghum Syrup
3 lbs Toasted Hulled Millet (Steep)
1 lbs Honey (Flameout)
6 oz. Maltodextrin
.75 oz. Magnum 60 min
1 oz Amarillo 10 min
1 oz Amarillo Flameout
Nottingham Dry Yeast

The "style" will be a Honey Pale Ale.....thoughts? concerns?
 
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