New Gluten Allergy

my cousin was recently diagnosed with a gluten allergy and is asking me about brewing gluten free beer. I've been extract brewing for about a year or two, but have no idea where to even begin for brewing gluten free beer. I would search this forum, but honestly, I'm not even sure what to search for. Are there any seminal threads that people know of for a newbie to this type of beer? Sorry if this is such a basic question...just looking for a jumping off point! Thanks in advance...

Between the General Techniques and Extract Brewing topics, there's a Gluten Free Brewing topic.

Welcome to HBT!

Not a lot of difference between GF brewing and barley brewing except for the ingredients. One of our GF brewers should be able to direct you to some recipes and methods.

You are a nice cousin!

Thanks, Nurmey. I guess knowing which ingredients will allow the beer to remain GF would be great. I know i can use sorghum and i've been told to steer clear from liquid yeast. beyond that, i'm lost

Grains you *can* use include buckwheat (despite the name); quinoa (pronounced keen-wah); millet and oatmeal - but only if it is labeled as "gluten-free" as some oat fields are contaminated with wheat as they rotate them.

Sorghum syrup and dried yeast are the best place to start. Sorghum has its own unique taste, so your first batch will give you a feel for what it's going to taste like. I kept mine nice and simple so I could easily figure out what the sorghum was contributing for flavors. I think I did 6# of sorghum syrup (same idea as LME), half an ounce of cascade for 60 minutes, then a half ounce of cascade for 5. I primed with spiced cider in an attempt to fight the sorghum bitterness. I hate the taste of the beer unless I pour the yeast into the glass or just drink straight from the bottle. I used safale s-04 yeast.

There are a few different commercial gluten free beers, I've only tried RedBridge, though. See if you can find one in your area and try it out so you have a bit of an idea what the sorghum's going to taste like.

Scan this GF Brewing section and look at some of the recipes in here. Some are more involved than others. Mine turned out great, but it does involve roasting of grains in your oven. My recipe is in my dropdown if you're interested. There are quite a few around here though.

I agree with O'Daniel, look through the topics in the Gluten Free brewing forum to get a feel for what you are going to be doing. There are recipes around in some of those posts and I also have some in my dropdown. Good luck, if you have any questions, just search around the forum or ask it.