GF Scottish 60

This may or may not be my first post to this sub-forum. I have often read posts in it about malting grain.

Although, AFAIK, I do not need gluten free beer, either by necessity or fad, people I know are interested. My interest is simply in brewing anything I want.

So i recently brewed a Scottish 60 w/home malted grain (barley) in an attempt at an 1868 Scottish 60 recipe. My invert sugar was way to light but it turned out quite nice.

I noticed my LHBS is carrying Sorghum extract so I wondered what I could do with it. After some thought the Scottish 60, with flavor from both the invert sugar and hops, seemed like a good candidate.

So I am thinking, 5 gallon batch, Sorghum extract, either homemade invert sugar or commercial if I don't get dark enough again, Fuggles hops, Nottingham yeast.

This is a few weeks away. Just wondering about anyone's experiences brewing something similar.

You could try but, sorghum doesn't really have the malt backbone for a scotch beer. I think I am going to try an 80 or a wee heavy with millet and buckwheat. I don't do extract so I can't give much advice. Other than, its going to be tricky.

Yeast is a critical component, as well. Get the Mangrove Jack's "Newcastle Dark" dry yeast. I believe Rebel Brewer has it. It's supposed to be good for Scottish styles, I've got a brown fermenting with it right now that shouldbe done in another 10 days. Notty will almost certainly be too clean.

But yeah, I second Osedax. Sorghum extract is rubbish for malt-heavy styles. Would you attempt a Scottish 60 with just ultralight or pilsen LME? If not, then why attempt it with sorghum? Sorghum is like a very light LME but with even less malt flavor. It finishes very dry and a bit spicy/acrid, even at high gravity. I'd say using all rice extract produces a maltier beer than an all-sorghum extract, if that gives you a benchmark. There's a reason why many of us have moved to all-grain using home-malted or custom-produced GF malts.

igliashon said:

...many of us have moved to all-grain using home-malted or custom-produced GF malts...

Click to expand...

The couple comments made me read further about this. I see that Briess makes a couple of Sorghum extracts one closer to malt extract and one more like an adjunct addition.

I think I will instead consider this recipe with actual malted grain. Either when the weather cools and I can do some home malting or otherwise.

Any suggestions on the best grain to use if I do home malting? Millet, Quinoa...

Millet. But make sure you get it with the hull intact--you may have to special order it somewhere. You could give quinoa or buckwheat a try as well. But I might recommend just buying some GF malts from Colorado Malting Company if you intend to do more than one beer. You could also try Grouse Malting Co., though they're a bit harder to get a hold of.

Both do a range of specialty grains. Its kind of awesome. I finally got ahold of Twila at grouse co. Very nice. I hope their malt is what I'm looking for. Malt should be here in a few weeks. I will be able to do a comparison between the two as well.

Would tapioca syrup be too light for this as well? I've used it in a Belgian, but not scottish