Help with first gluten free beer, buckwheat

Okay, my sister-in-law is trying to go gluten free because of chron's like problems that she thinks could be related to gluten. As a Christmas present I wanted to brew her some gluten free beer. Instead of just making a straight extract sorghum beer, I wanted to add some buckwheat for some nuttiness.

Here is what I was thinking, please tell me if this would work at all

1lb cracked buckwheat roasted at 325 until I get a nice browned color.

Steep the resulting roasted buckwheat in 160F water for 20 minutes.
Bring to a boil, add 3.3lbs sorghum extract. .5oz cascade hops for 1hr, 1oz cascade hops for 15 minutes and .5oz cascade hops at flame out.

2.5G batch. S-05 yeast for 3 weeks and then bottle.

Honestly that won't yield much of anything nutty for you. Buckwheat is such a subtle flavor. You could do a number of things to add character to your sorghum based beer. Honey at flameout, candi syrups, steep toasted oats, or even a cereal mash of malted millet

Toasted oats sound interesting. Can I just roast some regular quick oats? Or a particular variety?

I've also heard there can sometimes be some cross contamination with wheat for oats. Should I worry about this at all?

Yes. Get certified gluten free oats. Oats are often grown and processed with wheat.

I don't have a lot of experience with oats, but my advice would be to stay away from fermentables that have a lot of starch until you have a process you know works for you. For a Christmas present you run the risk of realizing that you don't like the results too late to do another batch.

I would use your original recipe but add a 8 oz Belgian candy syrup, 4 oz maltodextrin. Add water at the end as needed to keep the OG between 1.055 and 1.060. A few teaspoons of yeast nutrient would not hurt.

Can't think of a better Christmas present!

Well, I've decided to jump in with both feet. I browned 1lb of steel cut gluten free oats in the oven at 325 for an hour and then 350 for the last 10 or so minutes it took. I then bagged 3/4 of a pound of it and put the last 4oz back in the oven at 450 for a few minutes to roast them.

Fingers crossed that this gives some vague resemlance to the SRM and flavor profile that something like victory and roasted barley would give.

I won't know the final product until it has fermented out, but I should at least be able to tell if there are any really bad flavor profiles from the oats up front after cooking the wort.

Victory.... maybe. Roasted barley. No. Should still add good flavor and color.

Okay, thanks.

I am going to brew either Sunday or Monday next week. So, hopefully the week to "air out" in a brown paper bag should be long enough.