Quinoa Pale Ale

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Thank you for sending me this beer, it is impressive. I don't know that I would exactly be able to say this beer is gluten free and I for one will be looking over this recipe and giving it a shot. Want to send some more my way :)
 
I'm not ready to try malting and all-grain just yet, but I'm planning on roasting some grains for some upcoming brews, and one of the grains I've got is quinoa.

If it looks half as good as your picture, and tastes half as good as it looks, I'll be happy!
 
I'm gonna try the toasting ave and see if it comes out the same using added enzymes. Well see what happens with it. Hopefully tackeling in in the next month
 
So has anyone been able to really convert quinoa well? That beer does look great but without gravity readings it's hard to tell for sure.

I've tried a few times now and never get any real conversion. In the latest batch (a 2 gallon batch) I mashed 4# of home-malted quinoa with 2# of sweet potatoes (they have tons of beta amylase, apparently) and tons of the powdered alpha amylase stuff. Still kept failing the iodine test and tasted super starchy but after a 3 hour mash I decided to boil with some hops and ferment anyway.

I got an OG around 1.040 but after about a month it hasn't fallen much. It fermented a bit and actually smells oddly beer-like but it's starchy and gross.

I took an earlier version of my quinoa experiment (100% quinoa, using that pre-sprouted stuff) and dumped in the dregs of a Jolly Pumpkin La Roja -- I figured those bugs would be able to eat the starches. It now smells nicely sour and even has a pellicle! Not exactly gluten free but a quinoa lambic could be tasty.
 
I took an earlier version of my quinoa experiment (100% quinoa, using that pre-sprouted stuff) and dumped in the dregs of a Jolly Pumpkin La Roja -- I figured those bugs would be able to eat the starches. It now smells nicely sour and even has a pellicle! Not exactly gluten free but a quinoa lambic could be tasty.

Lol, I always thought GF sour beer was a good idea, but I didn't have anyone to drink it. Who cares about much conversion when you are dealing with Lacto!

As to answer your question, Dirtbag has found a mix of beta and alpha enzymes in the form of his...blanking on the name but it is earlier in this thread. I have not been able to source it anywhere for sale yet online.

EDIT: The name is Crosby & Baker.
 
As to answer your question, Dirtbag has found a mix of beta and alpha enzymes in the form of his...blanking on the name but it is earlier in this thread. I have not been able to source it anywhere for sale yet online.

EDIT: The name is Crosby & Baker.

Hmm, are you sure it's alpha & beta though? Seems to just be called "Amylase Enzyme Formula" like the stuff sold at austin homebrew...

At least this guy was unhappy about the stuff: http://www.artisan-distiller.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=2550
 
As to answer your question, Dirtbag has found a mix of beta and alpha enzymes in the form of his...blanking on the name but it is earlier in this thread. I have not been able to source it anywhere for sale yet online.

EDIT: The name is Crosby & Baker.

This one looks like it (i.e., Crosby & Baker amylase for sale online): http://www.thegrape.net/browse.cfm/amylase-enzyme-1.5-oz/4,12199.html

Though still not quite convinced it's different than the amylase at austin homebrew, which is what I used.
 
Lol, I always thought GF sour beer was a good idea, but I didn't have anyone to drink it. Who cares about much conversion when you are dealing with Lacto!



I made a gallon of quinoa/amaranth ale a couple years ago. It was my first GF experiment with self-malted grains and I didn't have a mill. I ended up putting 4lbs through a coffee grinder and it was all flour. After the mash, I strained out the larger chucks with a paint strainer, but a lot of flour ended up in kettle and then the fermentor, which lead to multiple racking attempts to remove, which lead to an infection. It tasted like vomit. I decided to bottle it and bring it out on unsuspecting victims. After I ran out of victims, the remaining bottles were put into storage. I decided to open one recently and it isn't bad. I actually like it.




I have some of that stuff. I've tried to convert some rice flour with it, but after 4 hours, I didn't see any results.
 
in regards to the iodine test, my thought, i did do an iodine test on this, it did fail as the iodine stayed mostly black, but wont this be the case unless 100% conversion is achieved? with efficiency we'll never get 100% conversion, most people are glad to get 70, if ive been reading right.. i think i may have a pic of my OG, but im pretty sure i dont have one of FG. ill have to do some hunting around. update to follow.


after digging around the hard drive, i havent a clue where those pictures have gone.....
 
in regards to the iodine test, my thought, i did do an iodine test on this, it did fail as the iodine stayed mostly black, but wont this be the case unless 100% conversion is achieved? with efficiency we'll never get 100% conversion, most people are glad to get 70, if ive been reading right.. i think i may have a pic of my OG, but im pretty sure i dont have one of FG. ill have to do some hunting around. update to follow.


after digging around the hard drive, i havent a clue where those pictures have gone.....

I assumed that efficiency corresponded to how much you were able to extract from the grains. So even if you converted everything that you extracted, you left some stuff (starch or sugars) in the grains.

Not sure about this, but regardless I know the iodine test is used, and when I use it when making a regular beer the iodine-wort solution does not turn black. It is sometimes dark-ish but not like the complete blackness I see during a quinoa mash. Though I see your point that maybe there's been some conversion and that's "good enough" for a reasonable fermentation.

Still have no idea why I can't get quinoa to convert even close to as well as barley.
 
..now im really kicking my self in the arse because i didnt take/cant find OG or FG readings

heres a possibility. when were toasting our grain, is there a chance that were killing any of the enzymes that we may have 'captured' in the malting process. what about adding some pale malt (untoasted malt) to the mash to possibly add some of the natural enzymes to the mash that may have been removed, along with putting in the sourced enzyme mix.

i dont know the enzyme content of quinoa, i dont want to put a fudged number out their either, if i remember previous readings, barley malt has FAR more enzymes than necessary for conversion during the mashing process. and i think (THINK but am not sure) most of the GF grains out there have little natural enzymes.

can some one find this out?
 
I followed a very similar process of malting and mashing with 100% quinoa. I used rice hulls and still had a huge problem with stuck mash. I ended up just pouring though grain bag.

Any info on how you went about the mash/sparge would be helpful.
 
..now im really kicking my self in the arse because i didnt take/cant find OG or FG readings

heres a possibility. when were toasting our grain, is there a chance that were killing any of the enzymes that we may have 'captured' in the malting process. what about adding some pale malt (untoasted malt) to the mash to possibly add some of the natural enzymes to the mash that may have been removed, along with putting in the sourced enzyme mix.

i dont know the enzyme content of quinoa, i dont want to put a fudged number out their either, if i remember previous readings, barley malt has FAR more enzymes than necessary for conversion during the mashing process. and i think (THINK but am not sure) most of the GF grains out there have little natural enzymes.

can some one find this out?

Toasting WILL destroy enzymes from the malting process. I can't remember what the cutoff is, but that's generally a difference between the base malts and the specialty malts. As you go darker, the enzyme content goes down, and at some point, a dark malt simply has no enzymes left.

I think one of the reasons that Sorghum is commonly used as a base for beers (well, as commonly as it is, anyway) is that it has the enzymes to convert itself and perhaps a little left over.

As for your idea, that's what is commonly done for regular barley based beers. I've often heard 'toss in a little two-row to convert that crystal malt' or something along those lines.
 
One of the Brewing Science abstracts on this page has some information about beta-amylase activity with different germination times and temperatures (each batch was kilned at 165 F)...
http://www.mbaa.com/TechQuarterly/pdfs/TQ-45-1-0073.pdf

It concludes that optimal malting occurred with a 5 day germination time, but that was the shortest germination time they tried, so maybe better malting (enzyme activity) would occur with even shorter germination times.
 
If you're not so concerned about it being gluten free, just add some 6 row malt. It is most commonly used to convert starchy adjuncts that don't have enzymatic potential like rice or corn. I've never used 6 row, personally, but I would think as little as one or two pounds in your mash would do the trick.

As far as malting quinoa goes, I think that you are better off not malting it at all, just cooking it before the mash. The malting process, while providing some changes in flavor, as well as breaking down some undesirables (in malt at least) like DMS and beta glucans, can actually take away some of your potential sugars. The grain does break down some starch into sugar, but that tends to be immediately consumed in the sprouting process. Now for the cooking of it:
To be able to successfully mash adjuncts like quinoa, rice, oats, corn, or whatever starch you choose, the grains need to be gelatinized. Malted barley, fortunately, gelatinizes at fairly low temps, I cant remember off the top of my head, but it is lower than your mash temperature. Other grains must be cooked before mashing. Take rice for example: get a bag of rice and chew some grains. It's tough for you to chew through them, and the amylase enzymes have that same trouble.
 
Toasting WILL destroy enzymes from the malting process. I can't remember what the cutoff is, but that's generally a difference between the base malts and the specialty malts. As you go darker, the enzyme content goes down, and at some point, a dark malt simply has no enzymes left.

I think one of the reasons that Sorghum is commonly used as a base for beers (well, as commonly as it is, anyway) is that it has the enzymes to convert itself and perhaps a little left over.

As for your idea, that's what is commonly done for regular barley based beers. I've often heard 'toss in a little two-row to convert that crystal malt' or something along those lines.

Just wanted to confirm that dorklord speaks the truth.

The one change I would make is to say that the lower of temperature that you roast at, the more enzymes will stick around. As in, the longer you roast something to achieve a color, the more enzymes you will have.
 
Regarding the gelatinization requirement, it appears quinoa gelatinizes at 57 - 64C according to here (PDF warning): http://www1.agric.gov.ab.ca/$department/deptdocs.nsf/all/afu9961/$FILE/quinoa_final_report_june_05.pdf . That's 134.6 - 147.2 in Fahrenheit. So maybe you could do an hour rest at 140 before adding boiling water to step up to the amylase conversion range at 149-160?
 
My local food co-op sells black quinoa. I wonder if some if that, cooked to the gelatinous point but not toasted, would give color and some flavor complexity to the brew?
 
In the gluten free malting sticky there's a link to some PDFs that talk about one brewer's GF malting and mashing process. I read there, and other places that millet is the best GF grain for converting and can convert 40% adjuncts when used as the base malt (sorghum is second best). Of course, I think that's assuming it's malted just right.

The gelatinization temperature thing is one of the biggest challenges to successfully mashing with GF grains, as the gelatinization temps are higher than mashing temps. That's probably why people are having such a difficult time getting conversion, even with added enzymes. The guy I mentioned above does his mash by mashing at normal temps and then removing the liquid to preserve the enzymes. He then raises the mash to gelatinization temperatures and adds the liquid with the enzymes back in to convert the mash. It sounds like a PITA, but I think it's probably the only way to get malted GF grains to convert on their own (or with added enzymes for that matter).

I'm looking into trying to malt some millet and buckwheat to make beers for my wife and am planning to using this mashing process. I'll probably be doing a lot of experimentation once I get enough malt made. I'll definitely post about it when I get the project underway.
 
I wouldn't use Quinoa as a flavoring agent - I used it twice, and both beers had an strange off-flavour, that I didn't get when making the same recipe minus the roasted quinoa. If you want to know what I mean, try eating boiled quinoa cold, it tastes bad. I would use millet or buckwheat instead.

Edit: Malted quinoa is probably okay, just using unmalted, roasted quinoa doesnt taste so good... maybe if you just roast it lightly.
 
I just brewed an oatmeal stout with some quinoa in it and I'll let you guys know how it comes out. Hopefully, it doesn't have any strange off flavors like you mentioned. I did include malted millet in this beer and didn't get much of extraction. I did a single decoction and ended up getting about 14 ppg from both the quinoa and millet. Given, I could refine the mashing/ decoction a bit, I could boost that by a few points. Still though, malted GF grains in general don't seem to contribute hugely to a reasonable OG. I have malted and lightly roasted some quinoa before and it tasted delicious. I think roasting brings out a nuttiness to the grain.
 
.. try eating boiled quinoa cold, it tastes bad. I would use millet or buckwheat instead.

I don't know.. I like it hot or cold. Don't eat it plain.. rather as a base with something on top.. meat sauce or ??

I can't picture using it in beer tho... How about Amaranth seeds? Same process.. seeds from same place in Peru??
 
DougmanXL said:
I don't know.. I like it hot or cold.
Don't eat it plain.. rather as a base with something on top.. meat sauce or ??

Ya, and ever eaten plain, cold barley? Probably not so good either :)


I don't know if it's been mentioned here.. but, there is a Quinoa Bitter recipe in "The Homebrewer's Garden" by Fisher and Fisher.

That's awesome! Do you know if it's an all-quinoa brew or is it mostly barley? Can't find the recipe online anywhere.
 
this is way out of my league and equipment to attempt, but its going to be done for next years passover.

this recipe has no grains (.25 of rice syrup can be removed) in it, and it is, by my count, kosher for passover.......quite an accomplishment if it tastes good.
 
The guy I mentioned above does his mash by mashing at normal temps and then removing the liquid to preserve the enzymes. He then raises the mash to gelatinization temperatures and adds the liquid with the enzymes back in to convert the mash. It sounds like a PITA, but I think it's probably the only way to get malted GF grains to convert on their own (or with added enzymes for that matter).

I'm looking into trying to malt some millet and buckwheat to make beers for my wife and am planning to using this mashing process. I'll probably be doing a lot of experimentation once I get enough malt made. I'll definitely post about it when I get the project underway.

This sounds like a stroke of genius, mashing first to get the enzymes, straining them off, gelatinizing the grains, and then adding them back in. Any idea what kind of efficiency he achieves with this? This is the first method I've seen that seems viable and doesn't depend on adding enzymes. If this turns out to be reasonably efficient, this might be reason for me to try an all-grain approach.
 
The Quinoa bitter recipe in "The Homebrewer's Garden" only calls for 6 pounds of raw quinoa with about that much in malted barley. (Extract recipe is only 1/2 pound.)

They do mention several things that are in this thread, from amaranth to home malting, I'd definitely recommend it to anyone interested in non-standard grains or herbs and for the grow-your-own hops and malt-your-own grains. Gruit makers too (especially so you can avoid the old herbs which may be known to be carcinogenic).
 
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