Sorghum Syrup Comparison

I have been using Brewcraft's Sorghum Syrup to brew all of the GF beers I make. I was wondering if anyone has tried more than one of them and could give a taste description of any differences they have noticed.

When you say "sorghum syrup", I'm assuming you're talking about sorghum grain LME. To southerners, sorghum syrup (aka sweet sorgum) is a delicious condiment similar to molasses.

If you are talking about LME, I can't help you...

If you are talking about sweet sorghum, I would tell you to ditch the store bought and I could probably send you some bootleg samples of some quality stuff.

I just checked their website, the description I got was this and it looks like what you get from Midwest Supplies and Austin Homebrew, unless I am wrong here...

I've only used Brewcraft's as well. Got an oatmeal GF porter/stout working. Toasted some thick-cut oatmeal and cooked it. If it's good I'll post the recipe. I'm still trying to find a way to cut the residual sweetness in pales. The next run will be 30% dextrose to dry it out.

Yes, I am talking about the stuff that casanova was linking to, there is Briess, one from Northern Brewer, and one from Brewcraft. Just wanted to see if there was any difference in the residual sweetness or other tastes.

And David, I recently made a tripel with almost 2lbs of table sugar, and the sweetness was still there. Let me know how corn sugar works out. I am not sure that drying it out will really work though, since it almost just seems like a taste in the Sorghum, not so much a gravity issue.

dkershner said:

I am not sure that drying it out will really work though, since it almost just seems like a taste in the Sorghum, not so much a gravity issue.

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To me, sorghum syrup tastes like a combo of molasses and honey, And, I think the flavor of honey give sthe impression of being really sweet, even if it has been attenuated out pretty good.

I think you may have a good point, dkershner.

Are you using this syrup as the entire fermentables bill? I have a frined who found out a few weeks ago she has a gluten allergy. I might be interested in brewing a GF one day, but I'm not sure I /she could handle one that was too sorghum-y.

Grizzlybrew said:

To me, sorghum syrup tastes like a combo of molasses and honey, And, I think the flavor of honey give sthe impression of being really sweet, even if it has been attenuated out pretty good.

I think you may have a good point, dkershner.

Are you using this syrup as the entire fermentables bill? I have a frined who found out a few weeks ago she has a gluten allergy. I might be interested in brewing a GF one day, but I'm not sure I /she could handle one that was too sorghum-y.

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You need Sorghum, and quite a bit of it, in order to make gluten-free beer. It is basically the only grain widely available that has the enzymes to break down the sugars. You can use Sorghum as the entire bill, or mix with some others, either just for flavor, or for sugar. There are lots of good posts on this board of stuff people have tried.

You can also look at the few I have tried (or am trying) on brew.dkershner.com My GFGF (gluten free girlfriend) has a taste for the sweeter stuff, which may not be the case with your friend though. The ESB was...not so good, but she liked it. The tripel is turning out a little better. The pumpkin seems like it will be very good if it ever fully ferments.

Good luck and let us know what you try!

I used Northern Brewers Sorghum extract, Think thats the brewcraft stuff?

philrose said:

I used Northern Brewers Sorghum extract, Think thats the brewcraft stuff?

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http://www.northernbrewer.com/brewing/nb-sorghum-syrup-6-0.html
and...I cant find brewcraft anywhere online...interesting. It comes in a little squatty twist on container, not a milk jug. I don't think they are the same, but I have never tried any others.

Hi David_42

I would just like to point out that gluten is found in wheat, rye, barley, and oats. So your oatmeal porter will not be gluten free.

There are commercially available Gluten Free oats, I bought some from Bob's Red Mill last week.

Oats are actually gluten free, the problem in the past had been cross contamination by companies using the same equipment to process wheat/barley/etc and the oats

Now certain companies, like the one pictured above, have dedicated equipment to prevent this

I thought the jury was still out on oats? ..in any case I'm avoiding them, though I so hope they are in fact safe. I think the FDA is working on the US standards now though so hopefully we;ll know for sure.

philrose said:

I used Northern Brewers Sorghum extract, Think thats the brewcraft stuff?

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For what its worth I emailed NB a couple weeks ago and this is what I got back:

The sorghum syrup we carry is gluten-free and is made specifically with gluten-free brewers in mind. It is manufactured by Briess, and they answer most of your questions here- http://www.brewingwithbriess.com/Malting101/Gluten_Free_Brewing.htm. This article from BYO has great tips on how to make a more flavorful gluten-free beer- http://***********/stories/recipes/article/indices/34-grains/702-gluten-free-brewing. Good luck, and happy brewing!

Cheers,

Dan
Northern Brewer, Ltd.

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From looking at the breiss data showing they ship their sorghum syrup in everything from buckets to tankers.... I would be surprised if they weren't the main supplier, if not THE supplier for the sorghum used in brewing today including AB's offerings.

I live in Austin about 1 mile from Austin Homebrew, and I can guarantee that they get their sorghum from Briess in 50# batches in 5 gallon buckets. They then split the bucket into 3# bottles and charge $8 each.

It's cheaper for me to buy from Northern Brewer and have it shipped than to pick up some sorghum from them while out jogging.

Soybomb said:

For what its worth I emailed NB a couple weeks ago and this is what I got back:


From looking at the breiss data showing they ship their sorghum syrup in everything from buckets to tankers.... I would be surprised if they weren't the main supplier, if not THE supplier for the sorghum used in brewing today including AB's offerings.

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nice work soybomb.

I'm a briess fan, all their malts and extracts have been excellent in my beer.

As a follow up, I emailed breiss asking them if they could clarify what they meant by gluten free. Is it tested, dedicated facilities, etc. I also asked for some other malts.

Briess said:

Our sorghum syrup is made from grain sorghum. We source gluten free
sorghum but do not guarantee 100% gluten free. Our processing plant runs
products with gluten on the same lines. We do a total change over
procedure and test equipment before start up for gluten protein. Our
finished product is again tested for gluten but is a quantitative test
which is <20ppm the international standard. As far as buckwheat
chocolate or crystal our malting and roasting equipment at this time
would not support an completely gluten free product.

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So the short of it is that there may be some detectable gluten in the syrup but it is under the FDA's set level. I'm going to be careful drinking my first couple bottles for sure because I believe I'm very gluten sensitive. I suspect it also compounds too. I could see a lot of "under 20ppm gluten" food consumed in a week making a person sick too.