Brewing a Raz-Wit

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chilort

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My wife is gluten intolerant so I'm getting more and more into gluten free brewing. I've got a 5gal (about 60lb) bucket of Breiss sorghum extract syrup that I've brewed a couple of beers from already (still about a week away from trying the first of them). I frequently brew a raspberry and blackberry beer but with raspberry season I can easily find cheap raspberries and my freezer is overfull.

I'm looking for help putting a raz-wit recipe together. I've already got the raspberries and the sorghum. I often use at least 1lb of honey in any beer I make no matter if it's called for or not (and would be happy to use more). I also have a nice source for dark rice syrup. I'm thinking something between 5 and 7% ABV so I'm open.

I'm really really really new to making recipes so any and all help would be very appreciated. I'm thinking about basically modifying lcasanova's wit recipe by taking out the orange peel and substituting a few pounds of raspberries and replacing some of the sorghum with rice syrup (a pound or two).
 
What's your source for brown rice syrup?

I would love to have a better source. Would you mind sharing where you get yours?
 
btw, I think your idea of modifying lcasanova's recipe sounds exactly like what I would recommend.

1:1 Sorghum:Rice extract ratio seems to work really well for me.
 
What's your source for brown rice syrup?

I would love to have a better source. Would you mind sharing where you get yours?

I usually go to a health food store- though it can be expensive OR I use rice syrup solids, and that can get expensive too. So, if ANYONE has a good reasonably priced source, please share.
 
My source isn't going to be helpful to anyone outside of Atlanta:
http://www.dekalbfarmersmarket.com/

I don't remember the price. I was so excited to see it I don't think I even checked. I will when I go back next time.

How much fruit should be in one of these? I'm thinking at least 2lbs.
 
I usually go to a health food store- though it can be expensive OR I use rice syrup solids, and that can get expensive too. So, if ANYONE has a good reasonably priced source, please share.

Brewbrothers.biz has the briess stuff. It's about the same price as sorghum.
 
My wife is gluten intolerant so I'm getting more and more into gluten free brewing. I've got a 5gal (about 60lb) bucket of Breiss sorghum extract syrup that I've brewed a couple of beers from already (still about a week away from trying the first of them). I frequently brew a raspberry and blackberry beer but with raspberry season I can easily find cheap raspberries and my freezer is overfull.

I'm looking for help putting a raz-wit recipe together. I've already got the raspberries and the sorghum. I often use at least 1lb of honey in any beer I make no matter if it's called for or not (and would be happy to use more). I also have a nice source for dark rice syrup. I'm thinking something between 5 and 7% ABV so I'm open.

I'm really really really new to making recipes so any and all help would be very appreciated. I'm thinking about basically modifying lcasanova's wit recipe by taking out the orange peel and substituting a few pounds of raspberries and replacing some of the sorghum with rice syrup (a pound or two).

I would recommend going more in the 4-5% ABV range unless you really want to pound the beer with raspberries. I would go for about 40-50% brown rice syrup to lighten the flavor too and dry it out a bit. Then I would drop 4lbs of Raspberries on it for a week or two. Lightly hop, in the range of 10-20IBU. I don't think coriander + raspberries sounds very good, but I am always willing to encourage new things!

Good luck! :mug:
 
Okay, picked up a few more jars of rice syrup. It is $5.00 for a 1lb 5oz container.
4806424062_e1f280c494.jpg
 
Okay, that's the same stuff and same price as I get.

@dkershner, I think I will have to check those guys out for Rice LME, or start playing with flaked rice in the mash.
 
I had been able to get 3lb bags of dry rice malt from my home brew store but they say it is hard to get. Really? I might have to start ordering online unless it really is hard to get. I can't say that I've tried yet (I'm often kind of a lazy beer making/drinking bum).
 
I would recommend going more in the 4-5% ABV range unless you really want to pound the beer with raspberries. I would go for about 40-50% brown rice syrup to lighten the flavor too and dry it out a bit. Then I would drop 4lbs of Raspberries on it for a week or two. Lightly hop, in the range of 10-20IBU. I don't think coriander + raspberries sounds very good, but I am always willing to encourage new things!

Good luck! :mug:

I think I'll leave out the coriander and slam it with raspberries. Right now I can get get a lot of them for a good price. I also got some orange blossom honey and I might double up on the honey (1lb orange blossom and 1lb wild flower) compared to what I normally do to keep the sorghum syrup content down and use both containers of the rice syrup. That should get me where I'd like to be with alcohol content and hopefully flavor too. :ban:
 
I had been able to get 3lb bags of dry rice malt from my home brew store but they say it is hard to get. Really? I might have to start ordering online unless it really is hard to get. I can't say that I've tried yet (I'm often kind of a lazy beer making/drinking bum).

http://www.austinhomebrew.com/product_info.php?products_id=10362

They are expensive.

Re-checked at Brewbrothers, it's not Briess, it is a local organic honey supplier with brown rice syrup. $3/lb.
 
I think I'll leave out the coriander and slam it with raspberries. Right now I can get get a lot of them for a good price. I also got some orange blossom honey and I might double up on the honey (1lb orange blossom and 1lb wild flower) compared to what I normally do to keep the sorghum syrup content down and use both containers of the rice syrup. That should get me where I'd like to be with alcohol content and hopefully flavor too. :ban:

I am about to try a beer with only extracts and only 10-15% sorghum and see what happens. Keep us updated if you do something similar.
 
I am about to try a beer with only extracts and only 10-15% sorghum and see what happens. Keep us updated if you do something similar.

One of the true joys of home brewing .... very slow feedback from your efforts. I'll let you know in a couple of months how it turns out. :drunk:
 
One of the true joys of home brewing .... very slow feedback from your efforts. I'll let you know in a couple of months how it turns out. :drunk:

I am going extract to glass in about 2 weeks, I am just waiting for the ingredients to get here. In which case, I guess I will let you know.
 
Well, I dont want to hijack your thread, I made a new one: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f164/16-sorghum-84-brown-rice-187085/

Feel free to ask me any questions there, not sure what part you are stuck on.


I see now, you have some capabilities I don't (forced carbonation). We just tried the first sorghum beer I tasted and I hate it. :(

It was supposed to be an IPA but tastes nothing like an IPA. I hoped the shizzle (I live in Atlanta, I can use "shizzle") out of it. I used more hops in that beer to try to cover up the sorghum than I've used in anything except for a Barley Wine I made for myself in December. I can't even yet describe it. The reviews from my wife (who has celiac) and her sister (who pretends like it) both thought it was okay (I think they're wrong). My wife likes it better than New Grist, Greens, and Red Bridge but says it isn't as good as Bards. I like the praise but that sorghum flavor is terrible. What the flock am I going to do with a 5gal bucket of the stuff?.......
 
I see now, you have some capabilities I don't (forced carbonation). We just tried the first sorghum beer I tasted and I hate it. :(

It was supposed to be an IPA but tastes nothing like an IPA. I hoped the shizzle (I live in Atlanta, I can use "shizzle") out of it. I used more hops in that beer to try to cover up the sorghum than I've used in anything except for a Barley Wine I made for myself in December. I can't even yet describe it. The reviews from my wife (who has celiac) and her sister (who pretends like it) both thought it was okay (I think they're wrong). My wife likes it better than New Grist, Greens, and Red Bridge but says it isn't as good as Bards. I like the praise but that sorghum flavor is terrible. What the flock am I going to do with a 5gal bucket of the stuff?.......

Keep at it. I've found with time the sorghum flavor goes away and I've used it as the base in ALL of my beers. I haven't tried an all rice beer yet and I don't know if I will but I will try some ratio like the others are doing.
 
What the flock am I going to do with a 5gal bucket of the stuff?.......

Age or cover it, I have done both with great success.

If you need help coming up with spices, fruit, or other crap to go in an IPA to hide something, just let us know some specifics and I sure you will get at least 6 opinions from just Casanova and I.
 
I'm looking forward to the raspberry / blackberry (r/b) beer I made with sorghum to see what it does. The IPA and the latest r/b beer are the only two I've made with all sorghum (I guess both had honey too but at the start of the boil).

To me the sorghum has strong citrus and bitterness and completely covers up all of the hop flavor and smell. This IPA actually smelled great before I transferred it to the secondary. When I went to bottle it, it had changed to all the characteristics I'd heard describe sorghum beers.

I just put icasanova's chocolate stout in the primary (Friday) and it smells great at this point (it was made very close to his recipe but with a touch of coffee, a little less oatmeal, and a novice grain toaster). Should I avoid using the secondary? Or is it chance (or something else) that made my IPA go from great to not great at the transfer into the secondary?

I've heard that aging these sorghum beers helps. How long do they need to sit before they come around (rules of thumb or is it all empirical at this point)? My barley wine is still in the bottle (minus a few samples) and I bottled it in early January. We do know how to hold onto them when necessary.
 
I'm looking forward to the raspberry / blackberry (r/b) beer I made with sorghum to see what it does. The IPA and the latest r/b beer are the only two I've made with all sorghum (I guess both had honey too but at the start of the boil).

To me the sorghum has strong citrus and bitterness and completely covers up all of the hop flavor and smell. This IPA actually smelled great before I transferred it to the secondary. When I went to bottle it, it had changed to all the characteristics I'd heard describe sorghum beers.

I just put icasanova's chocolate stout in the primary (Friday) and it smells great at this point (it was made very close to his recipe but with a touch of coffee, a little less oatmeal, and a novice grain toaster). Should I avoid using the secondary? Or is it chance (or something else) that made my IPA go from great to not great at the transfer into the secondary?

I've heard that aging these sorghum beers helps. How long do they need to sit before they come around (rules of thumb or is it all empirical at this point)? My barley wine is still in the bottle (minus a few samples) and I bottled it in early January. We do know how to hold onto them when necessary.

Age will help get rid of some sorghum flavor. I have a year old tripel that I tasted the other day, and it was pretty much devoid of Sorghum flavor. Aging an IPA will not help though, as it will just become bitter at the same time from the hops. Age "Malty" beers like Belgians and the browns and stouts of the world. Drink the hop heads fast...it is possible you just didnt drink it fast enough, in fact. You can try and age the IPA, but it will always be bitter...well, at least as long as you are alive.

As for primary/secondary, I do not secondary unless there is a reason to do so, like adding dry hops/oak/fruit. Any time you touch your beer you risk infection. It doesn't sound like that happened to you though, chances are good that your beer was destined to taste like this, during fermentation tasting and smelling are only indicative after you have tasted ALOT of fermenting beers.
 
I just put lcasanova's chocolate stout in the primary (Friday) and it smells great at this point (it was made very close to his recipe but with a touch of coffee, a little less oatmeal, and a novice grain toaster). Should I avoid using the secondary? Or is it chance (or something else) that made my IPA go from great to not great at the transfer into the secondary?

I've heard that aging these sorghum beers helps. How long do they need to sit before they come around (rules of thumb or is it all empirical at this point)? My barley wine is still in the bottle (minus a few samples) and I bottled it in early January. We do know how to hold onto them when necessary.

What was the volume of your boil and OG? Mine was 1.081 and was a partial boil. I did a secondary on this one just because I could and so I could rack on top of the vanilla bean. I think coffee was a great addition, I might recommend that if you are doing secondary (which isn't necessary) to do it a little longer to let the vanilla sit a bit more- but you might not want to do that since you added coffee.

Age certainly helps for some beers but not all of them. Try putting one or two bottles away and trying them over time to see what you think so you can get an idea.

Lc
 
We have a large stock pot and generally I boil 2-2.5gal of water. This was closer to 2.5gal. The OG was 1.074. I put just a small amount of coffee (I didn't measure but less coffee than what I use for my 8cup French Press in the morning) in a steeping bag and put it in the boil for the last 10 min. I made a coffee stout for myself and that's how I did the coffee in it (though I used over 1lb in that beer) and it turned out well. The smell of this beer is so nice and so strong I couldn't even smell the small amount of coffee though. I was planning on adding the vanilla when I transferred to the secondary.
 
We're getting ready to bottle the stout this afternoon. It still smells great.

We put the raz-wit in the fermenter last weekend. It smells nice too. I'll have to put my recipe for that one up it really didn't differ much from what I amassed in this bulletin board thread (forgot the sweet orange peel but that's about it).
 
Just transferred the raz-wit to the secondary. My wife and I had just a drop each and it was really good. Keep your fingers crossed. Two weeks in the secondary should help quite a bit more of the raspberry stuff settle out now that the big chunks are gone. Its a lot more pink than any raz-wit I've ever seen. I'm hoping 2lbs of raspberries doesn't dry it out too much and make it too much like another beer I make. I think the 2 lbs of honey at the end are going to help keep it sweet though. If the flavor of the one drop is right, it will be sweet.
 
Just transferred the raz-wit to the secondary. My wife and I had just a drop each and it was really good. Keep your fingers crossed. Two weeks in the secondary should help quite a bit more of the raspberry stuff settle out now that the big chunks are gone. Its a lot more pink than any raz-wit I've ever seen. I'm hoping 2lbs of raspberries doesn't dry it out too much and make it too much like another beer I make. I think the 2 lbs of honey at the end are going to help keep it sweet though. If the flavor of the one drop is right, it will be sweet.

Honey will make it TASTE sweeter, but will actually dry it out more. Taste is the important thing though, and I doubt it'll be too dry with 2lbs of raspberries. I did the same weight with strawberries and it came out pretty normal FG.
 
Just tried lcasanova's chocolate stout. I put maybe 2oz of coffee in it and it just cuts right through. Hopefully a little bit of time may let some of the flavors mellow and work together. It had only been in the bottle a week.


IMAG0013.jpg by chilort, on Flickr


The glass on the right has lacing from a non-gf beer that was in the glass before we decided to open one of the stouts (hey, I'm not gf).
 
Nice! Way over the top chocolate and coffee or what? How was the alcohol? Mine was pretty hot for a while and it has slightly mellowed. But I'll tell you, after the first few sips it really grows on you.
 
I'll have to check on the ABV. It was over 7 but I don't remember exactly what I calculated. I also broke my hydrometer between starting it and finishing it so it may not be all that accurate anyway.

The beer does really grow on me and my wife seemed to like to too.

It bottle conditioned (at least enough to make the right sounding pop) in about a week. We're going to try another one here this coming weekend to see what two weeks does. I suspect it will be better. Then we might just wait a bit until cooler weather comes before we drink too much more of it. I'm looking forward to seeing how the flavors on this one change over time.

It has kind of a thin mouth feel too. I wish there was something to make the beer thicker. I did only use 4oz of dextrin so maybe the called for 8oz would be better. I didn't do it in this beer (would have been a real PITA with the oats) but I've been using about 1/2 - 1lb of rice hulls at the end of the boil in these gluten free beers late to help get more body so that might be something to consider for some of the other ones.
 
I don't feel that the oatmeal added much to mine and I did add 8 oz of malto-dextrin but it is still thin. My ABV was higher than I wanted, around 7.5%. Glad you like it!
 
We like alcohol and flavor in our beer. If we didn't we'd just drink Red Bridge.

We really liked this beer because it tasted like a beer. One of the things I thought was what the beer would taste like if we substituted honey for the black strap molasses. Or cut back on the sorghum content and added the honey while keeping the molasses.

I think I'm going to attempt to do something of an APA next. I want to see how this raz-wit turns out first. The all sorghum pale ale was just citrus flavor, acid, and over-powerful non-hop bitterness. I think with what I'm learning here from you all and the experimenting I've been doing I hope to actually make something that tastes like an APA.

I wish someone were making a GF liquid yeast because the yeast seems to really alter the quality of the flavor. I really don't have time to figure out how to make my own liquid yeast but I wish I did. I'd start with trying to get the yeast from Three Floyds Alpha King and go from there.
 
I wish someone were making a GF liquid yeast because the yeast seems to really alter the quality of the flavor. I really don't have time to figure out how to make my own liquid yeast but I wish I did. I'd start with trying to get the yeast from Three Floyds Alpha King and go from there.
White Labs is still well-under 20ppm when in a full batch, so technically gluten-free. Or if you want to take it up a notch, you could get some White Labs yeast, then make a gluten-free starter out of fraction of the vial and you could easily get to below 10, 5, or 1 ppm from the yeast.

OR

You could make a side business of isolating yeast cultures, then growing and selling them to us :)
 
My father-in-law used to brew. In fact, I've got all of his old equipment and it is what I'm using. He had a neighbor at one time that used to isolate and grow yeast cultures. I'll have to see if my father-in-law is still in contact with him. If it isn't too tedious or time consuming I might have to get into it.

My wife is very sensitive. She's had somethings that contained very low levels of gluten that made her sick still. Though we did have a beer that was in a red 4-pack that had been made with barley but was treated somehow that used the lower European standard for "gluten free" that didn't make her sick. So clearly there's a cut off somewhere.
 
My father-in-law used to brew. In fact, I've got all of his old equipment and it is what I'm using. He had a neighbor at one time that used to isolate and grow yeast cultures. I'll have to see if my father-in-law is still in contact with him. If it isn't too tedious or time consuming I might have to get into it.

My wife is very sensitive. She's had somethings that contained very low levels of gluten that made her sick still. Though we did have a beer that was in a red 4-pack that had been made with barley but was treated somehow that used the lower European standard for "gluten free" that didn't make her sick. So clearly there's a cut off somewhere.

Which beer did she have that she was OK with?

Also, yeast culturing is not hard. Look up slanting yeast on this forum and you'll see. I have a bunch of different slants on hand at any given time. All you need are some vials and a pressure cooker.
 
I can't remember the name of it. I took a few minutes to try to look it up but I couldn't find it right away. I'll see if the local corner store has it tonight (he said he was getting something new in -- we had it from my local home brew shop when we had it the first time).
 
That's it! We got a 4 pack tonight for just under 10 bucks. I'd complain more about the price but my wife can drink it and doesn't then want to die. So I'll keep my trap shut.

I tasted it. Its okay. I'd imagine it is great if you haven't had a gluten based beer in awhile.
 
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