lcasanova, your double IPA is next!

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chilort

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My first attempt at a sorghum GF beer was an IPA and I hated it. I thought long and hard about trying to grow what I'd done but then I found lcasanova's double IPA recipe. I liked it more than what I started with and I've modified it some (mostly in the base malts). I welcome any suggestions. :mug:

4lbs sorghum syrup (60min)
4lbs brow rice syrup (60min)
2.5oz Nugget, pellet (90min)
0.5oz Chinook, pellet (90min)
1.0oz Simcoe, pellet (45min)
1.0oz Columbus, pellet (30min)
2.25 Centennial, pellet (flameout)
1.0oz Simcoe, pellet (flameout)
1tsp Irish Moss (10min)
1 tsp yeast nutrient (10min)
10oz corn sugar (90min)
1lb clover honey (flameout)
1pkg Windsor (they didn't have Nottingham) dry yeast
1lb rice hulls (15min)

Dry Hop (1/2 each of the below @1wk and @2wks)
2.5oz Columbus, pellet
2.5oz Simcoe, pellet
2.5 oz Centennial, pellet

1Tbsp gelatin at bottling
5.0oz corn sugar at bottling

It'll be a week or two before I get to this because my next beer is actually a wheat wine for myself (I'm not GF). But once the wheat wine gets going then it'll be the double IPA for the wife (she has celiac). I'm looking forward to this one.:rockin: I've never made a double IPA even for myself and I love IPAs.
 
I would consolidate your dry hop to 1 addition and halve the amount. I know the Pliny hype at the beginning, but even Vinnie has dropped it down. It won't make a difference in the beer.

You definitely don't need Rice Hulls. Rice Hulls are tasteless, aromaless, sugarless empty husks that you add to a mash you think might get stuck.

Windsor yeast seems like it will leave this beer quite a bit sweeter than intended, but if you think you would like that, go for it. Think Lagunitas instead of Pliny, but not as extreme.

I am assuming the Nugget and Chinook are just what you have sitting around or something. It looks fine, but watch your IBUs, you haven't included AA%'s, but I am guessing that this is well over 100, in which case you can probably just lose some of the bittering addition to no ill effect (wort is limited to 100 IBU unless you do some special procedures).

Otherwise, it looks like a very hoppy, interesting beer!
 
I like Lagunitas so that could be very interesting. My wife found out about her celiac before she ever drank any of the Lagunitas so that could be cool for her.

Most of the hop additions are right from lcasanova's recipe. The Nugget was a substitution for Warrior though since the shop didn't have nay Warrior.

I've been told by the local shop to use rice hulls in the last 10-15min of the boil to add body, which is something I think these gluten free beers need a lot more of.

Thanks for the dry hop advice. I've never dry hoped a beer. As written this is 2/3 of what lcasanova wrote up in his recipe. I'm happy to save the hops for another beer though.
 
I like Lagunitas so that could be very interesting. My wife found out about her celiac before she ever drank any of the Lagunitas so that could be cool for her.

Most of the hop additions are right from lcasanova's recipe. The Nugget was a substitution for Warrior though since the shop didn't have nay Warrior.

I've been told by the local shop to use rice hulls in the last 10-15min of the boil to add body, which is something I think these gluten free beers need a lot more of.

Thanks for the dry hop advice. I've never dry hoped a beer. As written this is 2/3 of what lcasanova wrote up in his recipe. I'm happy to save the hops for another beer though.

It will just be fruitier, not crazy fruity like Lagunitas. Like I said, just realize the difference it will make, it sounds like a good one in this case.

Indeed Warrior is in the original, I would just use Columbus over Nugget though. And like I said, after 100 IBU I really, really doubt you will be able to tell any difference in a bittering addition.

Rice Hulls...body... I want to call complete BS here, but the suggestion is so insane that I find myself having trouble calling shenanigans. Anyone feel like this could possibly work?

You can ignore what I said on the dry hops, but Vinnie has scaled his down by 1/3 since his original homebrew recipe. He now does something like a 1.25oz addition of each, and then a .25oz addition after 4 days. I went whole hog and the hops ate a gallon of my pliny. I will never forgive them.
 
I'd like to know more about the rice hulls too. I've used them before in beers but I have made no back to back beers of the same thing to even attempt a double blind test. They are kind of a PITA because I used a grain back to hold them in the end of the boil and the hops gets all over it. It makes a real mess. .... multiple brewers at the local home brew shop (including the guys that work there) swear by it.

....of course, they use the same container to hold and scoop barley as they do the rice hulls. My wife was with me the other day and she noticed it. I'd never caught it. So their rice hulls are cross contaminated. But she's had beer I've made with the rice hulls before so it must be a very low level contamination. If I don't need them I'd rather not use them though.
 
I'd like to know more about the rice hulls too. I've used them before in beers but I have made no back to back beers of the same thing to even attempt a double blind test. They are kind of a PITA because I used a grain back to hold them in the end of the boil and the hops gets all over it. It makes a real mess. .... multiple brewers at the local home brew shop (including the guys that work there) swear by it.

....of course, they use the same container to hold and scoop barley as they do the rice hulls. My wife was with me the other day and she noticed it. I'd never caught it. So their rice hulls are cross contaminated. But she's had beer I've made with the rice hulls before so it must be a very low level contamination. If I don't need them I'd rather not use them though.

I cant even find anyone who has ever tried it. It literally makes no sense whatsoever, so I doubt anyone would try it unless they had a financial interest in selling more rice hulls. Rice hulls are completely devoid of both sugar and starch, and one of those would be necessary to increase body at all. Not to mention Rice in general LIGHTENS body in all forms I know of.

Maltodextrin on the other hand...
 
I've used maltodextrin too. But never back to back. One thing about rice hulls, if they work to increase body, they are really cheap.
 
I've used maltodextrin too. But never back to back. One thing about rice hulls, if they work to increase body, they are really cheap.

I have 20lbs just sitting in my garage...I may go home and boil some and just some water to see if it actually does anything, but my time is probably better spent staring at the wall.
 
If you are that bored I'll send you some of the grading I have to do.

Not bored, currently at work...although I am a bit bored at work...

When I am at home and have the means to boil rice hulls it is a different story. I would rather boil something else.
 
Wow...that talk about the rice hulls is interesting but I'd say it's BS too, all your going to do is add some starch to your beer and that would just make it hazy, right?

I agree about the dry hopping- all of those hops will soak up your beer and I also damn near lost more than a gallon to the hops. I think it is a pleasant beer as it is, just needs to be drunk young. Myself- I don't like my IPA's to have any semblance of sweetness but I can see where that makes some sense.

Good luck, let us know what you do and how it turns out...and someone let us know about the rice hulls
 
Wow...that talk about the rice hulls is interesting but I'd say it's BS too, all your going to do is add some starch to your beer and that would just make it hazy, right?

Actually no, or else it would do the same thing in a mash. I don't think it does anything whatsoever except make a nice grain bed.
 
Okay, brewed it up today.

I only put in 3.5lbs of sorghum. But I added two liquefied bananas at 60min to go (it was really neat going in, I had a near boil over) .

I used 1lb of rice hulls at the end too. I really hope they don't work and someone will tell me for sure that they don't because I had to put on two sets of gloves, one set of rubber and one set of cloth, to squeeze the wort out of them. If I wouldn't have done that I would have lost half the wort.

Corrected OG is 1.076.

What do I call this? GFDIPA?
 
Okay, this beer spent two weeks in a primary and two weeks in a secondary. We're going to bottle it today or tomorrow (probably today). I've never used gelatin. My wife has 1/4oz packets, which look to be about a tablespoon worth. So I just boil that up with my priming sugar, dump it into the carboy, stir, let things settle for a half hour or so, and then bottle just like I always do?
 
No! Don't do that!!!

Usually when you use gelatin it is about a week or two before bottling, not on bottling day. You need to give it time to work! I can't remember the specifics on gelatin but I do not think I boiled my water, I think I heated it and poured the gelatin in to let it bloom and then poured it into the carboy. I let that sit for 6 days and on the day before bottling I threw the carboy in my fridge to help drop everything. I lost a whole lot to the hops and gelatin mix at the bottom and it wasn't easy to siphon either.

To that end you might just want to rack through a paint strainer or some cheesecloth for now. Add the priming sugar into the bucket and rack onto that. Siphon. Let it sit for a few minutes to settle anything that made it past the paint strainer or cheesecloth, then bottle away.

How's the color and aroma? I bet it smells awesome.
 
The aroma is very nice but I get a little bit of the sorghum citrus. The color and haze is about what I'd expect from something like Blue Moon or Sam Adams Summer Ale. We'll try a little bit of it during bottling to see what it is like.

Well, my bottles are in the dishwasher so it looks like gelatin is out.

Thanks for the tips. I would have fouled that one up.
 
It's hazy because of the hop particles in suspension, it will probably pour very clear once it has been bottle conditioned and cooled. I think our hops were a little different but mine was very pineappley
 
Everything I've ever made with sorghum has had haze even after bottle conditioning. Though I've only tried one beer with Irish Moss and that was the copy of your double chocolate stout that I made. It was hazy but I kind of expected it. I've got some plans for that beer. The ones I've made with all rice have come out very clear. I used Irish Moss in this beer so we'll see what happens.
 
Though I've only tried one beer with Irish Moss and that was the copy of your double chocolate stout that I made. It was hazy but I kind of expected it. I've got some plans for that beer.

Let me know, I just posted some revisions to that beer and I plan to brew it in November (I think).
 
I actually liked roasting the rice and the millet. And so far it is the only gluten free beer I've made that has held a head worth a darn. I think the grains may have had something to do with that but I'm not a beer recipe expert, I'm just going with my limited experience.

I certainly like where you are going with that recipe. I think when I do it again I'm going to do more of the roasted rice, cut down on the chocolate like you have done, add a pound of honey at the end, maybe a little cardamom (I put some in a wheat wine for me and if I use it again I'll add it to the secondary and not at the end of the boil like I did with my wheat wine because it is overpowering). I used some coffee last time and I'm going to ditch that entirely. And I think I might go with two bananas in the boil like I did with this IPA. I'm also trying to figure out how to make it darker. I want it nearly black. I've seen some people using tea so I wonder about some black tea we have sitting around here that never gets used.
 
So we cracked open one of the Double IPAs and it reaches up and hits you in the face with hop aroma. If I had to describe the taste though, I would call it "Hop Soup." There's nothing behind the hop flavor to me. I hoping it chills out after another couple of weeks. The flavors in the first GF-IPA I tried to make several months ago has actually mellowed a bit, which I didn't expect. Now I'm sorry that I gave it away to everyone left-right-and-crooked thinking it would be no good.

So I'm still working on exactly what I want to do with the double chocolate stout the next time I make it (and that will be very soon). I am planning to add the cocoa powder into the secondary this time. Last time I added it in at the end of the boil. The local home brew shop suggested that I add it in when I transfer to the secondary the first time I made it and I didn't listen to them. They seem to think this will bump up the chocolate flavor quite a bit.
 
I posted a pic of my latest tea based GF, so you can take a look at the color if you want to. That batch was 40 cheepo tea bags in 5 gallons. (I'm planning on getting good tea for this project for the next try, but for now I'm brike and using up stuff left over from various parties!)
 
I think my next GF beer will have tea in it too. My wife is a tea drinker so I'm going to look for her help when it comes to the tea selection but the advice in the tea post is very helpful.

We tried another of the double IPAs and it still tastes like hop soup. I hope by adding tea to these it will help to balance it all out. Though I know that by playing like this I'm just an empiricist. I'd like to know more about how it all actually works.
 
Hop soup is one way to put it. I actually really liked this beer fresh, I thought it was fantastic and the aroma was amazing. If I were to brew it again I'd probably make some changes and not dry hop as much as I did.

What did you think it was lacking? Maybe we can collaborate on this one.
 
I had a few friends try it tonight as part of a tasting. First we did some gluten full wheat wines then we did my gf beers and then we did some gluten full barley wines. The winners in the gf category were my raspberry and blackberry beer with all rice and the double chocolate stout of yours. A couple people took home the double chocolate stout because it reminded them of bakers chocolate that they like so much. I'm going to try to sweeten in up though to get it to appeal to a wider audience.

The part that is lacking from the double IPA is any malt characteristic to balance out the hops. The sorghum makes beer but it doesn't make a malty flavor at all (I'm not sure what it makes exactly) and BRS makes next to no flavor at all. So I think something that tastes like malted barley would be very helpful. I'm thinking of using some of the teas that others have suggested. I did actually add two bananas to this beer when I made it and it helped the mouth feel like you wouldn't believe (and doesn't taste like bananas at all). So anything that would add a malt character I think would be a good step. I'm even thinking some toasted millet might help too.

Sadly though, out of all of this, I'm just shooting in the dark because I'm not a beer chemist. I'm just an empiricist hoping to stumble across the right stuff.
 
The part that is lacking from the double IPA is any malt characteristic to balance out the hops. The sorghum makes beer but it doesn't make a malty flavor at all (I'm not sure what it makes exactly) and BRS makes next to no flavor at all. So I think something that tastes like malted barley would be very helpful. I'm thinking of using some of the teas that others have suggested. I did actually add two bananas to this beer when I made it and it helped the mouth feel like you wouldn't believe (and doesn't taste like bananas at all). So anything that would add a malt character I think would be a good step. I'm even thinking some toasted millet might help too.

Sadly though, out of all of this, I'm just shooting in the dark because I'm not a beer chemist. I'm just an empiricist hoping to stumble across the right stuff.

No malt, that is exactly what comes to mind when you said hop soup, and I can definitely see that being how this beer tastes (I got it when the hops had died down quite a bit). Even Pliny the Elder uses a malty backbone of maris otter for this beer because they felt they needed the extra malt flavor.

Good luck on your experiments, its really what we are all doing after all.
 
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