PHAT Tire Gluten Free Ale

PHAT (Pretty Hopped And Tempting) Tire Gluten Free Ale

Disclaimer: Fat Tire is one of my wife’s favorite beers and she wanted me to try something in that direction. I did a batch version with influence from other posts on HomeBrewTalk. Our preferences are very very different. I don’t care for it and she LOVED it, so I am posting it. I like pilsners, pale ales etc., what I would call “simple beers”. She likes sharp complex flavors, ambers, darks and super hopped beers. Sorry, no fancy tasting notes. If you are more in the same camp as my wife, you might like it. Here it is:

3.5 Gallon Batch (did this size batch so that, after racking off the trub, I would fill 3 gallon carboy and limit air space in neck)

0.7 lb Millet Crystal from CMC steeped in 3 quarts water at 160F for 30 min.

Full volume boil

3.3 lb Briessweet gluten free sorghum syrup at 60 min
1.0 lb Belgian Candy Syrup (45L) at 60 min
6 oz Maltodextrin at 60 min
1.5 oz Grandma’s old fashioned unsulfured molasses at 20 min
1 lb Buckwheat honey at 0 min

All Cascade hops (7.1% alpha acid)
O.73 oz at 60 min
0.35 oz at 15 min
0.70 oz at 0 min (allow hops to steep 15 min before active temp reduction)
1.25 oz dry hop in primary after 4 days

1 whirlfloc tablet at 0 min
3 teaspoons yeast nutrient

Safale US-05 yeast hydrated in 100F water for 20 min

Note: added water at end to compensate for boil off and to hit desired OG

OG = 1.060
FG = 1.010

Fermented at 75F
1 week in primary
2 additional weeks in secondary

Ok, I spoke too soon. I made the first assessment when the beer was still too green.
I split this batch: 16 bottles and the rest into a 2 gal keg. After it conditioned for a week, the edge is off and I really like it. Not as much as my wife does, she has mandated that I keep brewing this without drastic modification. Good thing that I ended up liking it. Still might sneak in some roasted something next time! Can’t resist tinkering.

Sill a newbie so I have a few questions on this recipe.

How crucial is the millet crystal? I found millet but without the husks so I can't even try to crystallize it myself.

I'm confused on the additions because they say at xx min. Am I to first boil for 60 min and then add the briessweet, then wait 60 and add the candi, then another 60 and add the malto dextrin, etc, or do all these go in at 60 together? Then do I wait 20 min after adding the molasses or how does that timing work?

Your help here should help me with almost every other recipe so I appreciate it!

The steeped crystal malt does not add many gravity points so it is not absolutely necessary. You could leave it out. If you can get your hands on some I recommend it. You can purchase it from Colorado Malting Company or from Grouse. It really doesn't add much time or complexity to your brew day because while it is steeping you can prep other stuff. You just need a fine mesh bag for the steeped grain and then you can just rinse it out and use it for the hops in the brew kettle.

The additions are usually given for the time they are boiled. Therefore "O.73 oz at 60 min" was the first hop addition and it boiled for 60 minutes total.

I just brewed a 5 gallon batch of this same recipe so if you like, I can post that. The only difference beyond scaling up the ingredients is that my current brew kettle is too small for a full volume boil on a 5 gallon batch. I split the additions of fermentables to keep the boil gravity between 1.040 and 1.060.

Thanks, this makes more sense now and I think I'll give it a shot with the millet I found. I'll start with the 3.5 gallon recipe but if it goes well ill probably brew it again so if you could share the 5 gallon version I'd appreciate it.

5.25 Gallon Batch (I do this size batch so that it is about 5 gallons after racking off the trub)

1.0 lb Millet Crystal steeped in 1 gallon water at 160F for 30 min.
- contributes about 2 gravity points to the final volume
- if this is omitted, then it just leaves a little less volume at the end

2.5 to 3 gallon boil

5 lb Briessweet gluten free sorghum syrup
- 3.3 lb at 60 min (one can)
- 1.7 lb at 0 min (1/2 can)
8 oz Maltodextrin at 60 min
2 oz Grandma’s old fashioned unsulfured molasses at 20 min
1.5 lb Belgian Candy Syrup (45L) at 0 min
1.5 lb Buckwheat honey at 0 min

Note: If using an immersion wart chiller, I would make sure all of the syrups (LME, candy syrup, molasses and honey) are in the kettle before adding the wart chiller to the kettle. Therefore if you usually add the wart chiller 15 minutes before the end of the boil, move up the late additions to just before that.

All Cascade hops
1 oz at 60 min
0.5 oz at 15 min
1 oz at 0 min (allow hops to steep 15 min before active temp reduction)
1.5 oz dry hop in primary after 4 days

1 whirlfloc tablet at 0 min
5 teaspoons yeast nutrient at 0 min

Safale US-05 yeast hydrated in 100F water for 20 min

Note: added water at end to hit desired OG

OG = 1.060
FG = ~1.010 (6 to 6.5 % abv)

Ferment at 70 to 75F
1 week in primary
2 additional weeks in secondary

My method of dry hopping:
- boil a muslin bag in a few cups of water for 15 minutes
- add hops and tie end of bag
- put bag in primary fermentation bucket trying to minimize the disturbance of CO2 in the bucket. If pellet hops are used, the bag just sinks on its own. If it is leaf hops then it has a tendency to float (made that mistake in one batch). In this case you would have to have a sanitized spoon and push it down until the hops are soaked before leaving it. I don’t use leaf hops for dry hop any more.

Just opened my first bottle and it turned out great. I gave my GF buddy a 12 pack and he loves it. Best GF beer he has had (so far). On to the 5 gallon batch, thanks for the recipe!


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Frosty mug!

Glad you liked it!

Hello I found this tread quite interesting. I am a celiac and I tried Omission and I knew right away that I couldn't drink it. So far I have just been drinking Glutenburg from Quebec. I am looking forward to trying Harvester. It's not available in Alberta yet.

Anyway I just bottled my first GF beer batch. I had a little taste bottling and it was pretty yummy. I am looking at the next step. Larger batch or just more experimentation? I found a recipe in a book called True Brews. My beer was a toasted buckwheat GF pale ale using sorghum syrup, cluster hops and Saaz hops. It says to sit for a few weeks before it's ready I can't wait that long!
Have you tried making an oatmeal stout or IPA?
Thanks!


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I have not yet tried an oatmeal stout, but when I do I will start with a version of this:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f164/no-nonsense-stout-323755/

I can't say that I have gone all the way to an IPA, but I learned pretty quickly that brews made with sorghum syrup taste better to me with a strong hop flavor and aroma. I always use a healthy amount of finishing hops and dry hops.

Chris when you say "3.3 lb Briessweet gluten free LME", is that sorghum or brown rice syrup?

That is sorghum syrup. I will edit the original posts. You could offset some of the sorghum with rice syrup or with dry rice solids. Others have gone completely without sorghum by either all grain or by using fermentables like rice solids or syrup. On this one the gravity contribution from sorghum syrup is about 54%. For those of us not ready to go all grain, I think it is useful to have some sorghum for FAN.

Ah I see. I have been using half sorghum and half rice solids and I've had great attenuation. So you don't subscribe to the idea that sorghum or honey should be added at the end of the boil? Just curious.

My usual strategy is to keep boil gravity from 1.040 to 1.050 which is a practice I keep from reading How To Brew by John Palmer. This helps with hop utilization for the bittering hops. Final gravity I keep around 1.060 because my experience is that with gluten free fermentables, less then that just seems a little thin.

And yes, I add things toward the end of the boil that I want to preserve the flavor. That is why the molasses and especially the buckwheat honey is added toward the end on the boil. Next in line would be the Belgian candy syrup. If I add some of the sorghum syrup at the end of the boil it is to keep the gravity lower at the beginning (usually for partial volume boil).

If you try this recipe, I hope you like it. I just put my 4th batch of this in the fermenter yesterday. I varied some elements in batches 2 and 3 but am returning the the original.

Cheers

Hey Chris, I just wanted to let you know that I finally got a chance to brew a slight variation of your recipe last weekend.

Its 7 days into primary and I'm troubleshooting a slow or stuck fermentation. I think I was a little too mellow on oxygenation, so considering a super gentle stir (trying to minimize new oxygen of course) or just saying "damn the torpedoes" and pitching another packet of US-05 tonight.

I also made the mistake of using Bob's Buckwheat Cereal (dry pan toasted) and not groats (I couldn't find groats locally). What a mess that made, but I kind of figured it would, LOL.

Tastes good tho.

Bummer on the slow ferment! Is it on the cold side or do you think you got a yeast packet with low viability? I have read other threads on this forum where people pitched more yeast to restart fermentation.

I am interested in your version. How much roasted cereal did you use?