Summer Wit-type ale, Part II

Part II of my summer wit post. This is the re-worked recipe from part one, which I will attempt to brew very soon.

I’m excited about this one because I attempted to malt 2.5# of grain (quinoa, amaranth, and buckwheat) and was successful! I actually only expected to succeed for the quinoa. So we’re starting off this one with 2.5# of malt! The sweet potato and banana made it in for enzymes – I was inspired by Igliason’s enzyme smoothie idea. I’m hoping, given what I’ve learned in the threads of this forum, that I get full conversion one this one.

Sorghum extract has been exchanged for Rice Extract Syrup only because the LHBS was out of it, I do think sorghum extract is a good fit in this style, and would have preferred it. I am using sorghum molasses (Barry Farm) for the first time, we’ll see how that does.

The other changes I’ll highlight relative to the problems I listed in part one:
1. In addition to using my “wort-hogg” style mash/lauter tun, I will lay a folded grain bag on top of the hose, then pour a large (1#) bag of buckwheat hulls on top of that.
2. Malto-dex and much more malt in the bill should help boost head retention
3. More grain (3# this time), with less syrups should boost body and character
4. Yeast nutrient and full conversion will speed fermentation this time, I hope.

Here’s the mash plan:
Prep Enzymes: Shred sweet potato, steep in 1 qt at 110F for 30min. Strain out sweet potato, reserve water and blend in 1 banana and set aside (this is now the “enzyme smoothie”). Also add “enzyme formula” here – I’ve already bought it, and more enzymes can’t hurt, right?
Gelatinization: Combine sweet potato, amaranth, and buckwheat with 3.75Qts, heat to 172F and hold for 30 minutes.
Protein Rest: Let cool to 135F, add enzyme smoothie, and rest of grains (quinoa and oats). Rest at 122F for 30 minutes.
Saccrification: Raise to 158F w/ an infusion of 3.5Q boiling water, mash for 30 minutes (or until full conversion is achieved)
Mash Out: Add 2.5Q boiling water to bring temp up to 168F; hold 10 minutes.
Sparge w/3.5G.

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 4.50 gal
Boil Size: 5.42 gal
Estimated OG: 1.052 SG
Estimated Color: 8.0 SRM
Estimated IBU: 10.5 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.0 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU
0.25 lb Banana (1.0 SRM) Adjunct 3.0 %
3.00 lb Rice Extract Syrup (7.0 SRM) Extract 36.4 %
1.50 lb Quinoa Malt (2.5 SRM) Grain 18.2 %
1.00 lb Sweet Potato (3.0 SRM) Grain 12.1 %
0.50 lb Amaranth Malt, Toasted (35min, 225F) (10.0Grain 6.1 %
0.50 lb Buckwheat Malt, Dry Toasted (35min 250F) (Grain 6.1 %
0.50 lb Oats, Steel Cut (Toasted) (2.5 SRM) Grain 6.1 %
0.50 oz Tettnang [4.00%] (60 min) Hops 8.2 IBU
1.00 oz Strisslespalt [2.00%] (60 min) (Mash Hop)Hops 1.6 IBU
0.50 oz Tettnang [4.00%] (2 min) Hops 0.7 IBU
0.50 tsp Amylase Enzyme (Mash 60.0 min) Misc
0.50 tsp Cardamom (Boil 5.0 min) Misc
0.50 oz Ginger Root (Boil 12.0 min) Misc
0.50 oz Orange Peel, Sweet (Boil 5.0 min) Misc
1.00 tsp Irish Moss (Boil 10.0 min) Misc
1.00 tsp Yeast Nutrient (Primary 3.0 days) Misc
2.00 tsp Seeds of Paradise (Boil 5.0 min) Misc
4.00 tsp Coriander Seed (Boil 5.0 min) Misc
5.00 gm Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate) (Mash 60.0 min) Misc
5.00 oz Malto-dextrine (Boil 15.0 min) Misc
0.50 lb Honey (1.0 SRM) Sugar 6.1 %
0.50 lb Sorghum Molasses (25.0 SRM) Sugar 6.1 %
1 Pkgs Nottingham Yeast (Lallemand #-) Yeast-Ale

Suggestions and comments are welcome! Thanks for reading

Glad you're adding enzyme formula. I haven't gotten anything close to full conversion using sweet potatoes and bananas yet. I'm actually fairly convinced bananas are pretty useless as far as enzymes go and don't plan to experiment further with them.

Oh, no, that's an unwelcome surprise... Have you gotten full conversion adding the enzyme formula?

Dunno, haven't tried it yet. Planning on hitting 5 lbs of millet with the stuff today after cooking it into a porridge, see what happens...I forgot to stir the pot while cooking, though, and burnt a bunch on the bottom. Now the porridge smells like a campfire...might be a lost cause for brewing, but at least I can see what happens with the enzymes. Who knows, maybe it'll come out tasting alright....

Anyway, I'm planning on doing a science experiment on Monday, two 1-gal batches, 2.5 pounds of buckwheat (kasha) in each, where one gets mixed with 2.5 pounds of pureed sweet potato and mashed, while the other gets 1/2 tsp amylase formula and mashed, then mixed with pureed roasted sweet potato before sparging. This will give me the final word on whether amylase and/or sweet potato really make all-grain GF brewing feasible.

Oh yeah, I saw that thread yesterday morning, wanted to reply but didn't have time. I'm heading back now to do so...
Maybe for part of this recipe I should mash 1/4# of the quinoa by itself, see if it will self-convert. Anyone tried that?

Finished brewing this batch yesterday. I didn’t quite get full conversion, but pretty dang close – just a shadow of color change around the iodine drop when I did the starch test. Kind of like when in a barley mash you test at the end of the specified time and it looks like it needs 5 more minutes, which usually does it; this time it stayed there. And actually that is what I expected – since my enzyme water created by soaking the sweet potatoes and reserving the water, there is no way there wouldn’t be sweet potato starch in the water (which was the color of skim milk), and there was no way to gelatinize those starches w/o denaturing the enzymes. But after seeing the iodine test it does truly look like an insignificant amount of starch. A stark contrast to the inky black test result after my last GF mash!

I followed the mash plan above pretty close, with a few exceptions – I soaked the sweet potatoes (shredded) in 1.5 qt for 2 days in the fridge prior to heating it to 110F. Also I mashed at 156 instead of 158. Saccrification took 50 minutes, not 30. I also want to note I was very careful when drying my quinoa malt not to let the oven temps get high – I had it at the lowest setting on my oven, which I estimate is around 130.

One interesting thing of note was to see the potential SG’s of my grain decline with malting and attempting to let them modify, seems all three were about 1.032.

After I sparged what I needed for the boil, I ran an extra 1.5G sparge through the mash I worked so hard on, and froze the sparge. After this time-intensive batch I’m ready for an extract/syrups batch, something easier. I figure I could use the extra sparge in place of some of the water I’ll need in that batch. It won’t provide hardly any sugar, but should add a tiny bit of color and grain flavor…

I will update this thread through racking, bottling and tasting.

How were these results MariposaSouth?

Sorry to revive a dead thread, just interested!

Safa - thanks for asking...
The results were terrible. I ended up pouring the batch down the drain. What's worse is I have no idea why. The taste was very plastic like, what I've read chlorophenols are like. My wife described it as a "thin veil of putridness". Almost all the ingredient I had used with success before, apart from the banana, sweet potato, and buckwheat hulls.
But this batch pretty much killed all the enthusiasm I had going for GF brewing with grains. I was finding an inverse relationship to the amount of work, effort, and research I put into a batch to the end results.
I have since made a batch, and honey-heffeweisen type style (but also dry-hopped) that turned out pretty good - the wife is happy again. It was all extracts (sorghum, rice, also honey) but no grain, neither steep nor mash. Easy easy.
But I recon I need to snap out of it, start malting and experimenting again, because these grain-less brews definitely leave something to be desired. I've been thinking about maybe doing a all-quinoa mash, since it has lower gel temps, so I don't have to do all that pre-gel, enzyme extraction/addition stuff.

Sorry to hear about the disaster!
Glad you are getting back on your feet though!

Does quinoa have enough enzymes to mash without additions? Sounds promising. I was thinking about doing a buckwheat beer sometime soon, there seems to have been some success with it. Good luck!

I believe so - for malted quinoa that's been properly dried (not too hot!). I keep enzymes on hand though, so if the mash is taking too long I add enzymes late in the mash (I've done that with non-GF high-adjunct mashes too). The most important consideration in cases like that is gel temp of the starches - quinoa is 144 if memory serves. Careful w/ buckwheat, it's around 159F. That means you have to mash at the top of the acceptable mash temp range, unless you pre-gelatinize the buckwheat... but I'm probably not telling you anything you don't know.