Reducing Sorghum Twang

I've made a few gluten free beers now, and all of them seem to end up with the same sorghum 'twang'.

I was just looking around tonight and saw that someone commented on Midwest Brewer's site that some of that twang can be reduced by adding calcium carbonate. Has anybody ever tried this one? I am really looking for a way to keep using sorghum syrup, but I just can't get past the off flavor!

I've had trouble reconciling this method with a syrup in my personal notes. I've considered it, because it does react with tannins, however, I can't chemically figure out how it affects my water (other than increasing ph, which I don't know if I want to do), or what it does when it reacts to the carbon dioxide.
(Calcium carbonate is insoluble in water, but will dissolve once co2 is added.) Or may dissolve if added during the boil.

If I were to use it, I'd have to eliminate any dissolved co2 in the secondary, so that it drops out as a salt.

....the only real answer we seem to have come up with, as this has been addressed here in the forums already, often, often, is to eliminate sorghum.
ive cut sorghum with the following either separate or in combination: rice syrup, honey, agave, tapioca extract, molasses, partial mash with: quinoa, rice flakes, corn, millet, oats. and ive had a pumpkin spice aging for over a year and the 'twang' is still there.
i can honestly say from my experimentation, you can only mask the twang so much. best to just eliminate it. i was happy using tapioca as a base and steeping grain for flavor initially. then i discovered chestnuts (chestnuttrails.com) from AG batches with this it has given me the most beery/ least watery GF beer ive had. my non-gf homebrewer friends say my last batch (chestnut scotch ale) tastes like a real non-GF scotch ale.

so if theres an ingredient you dont care for, eliminate it!

I second Dirtbag. I avoid sorghum completely now. It makes for more work, but you don't end up with crappy beer.

I think there may be some other answers that we haven't tried yet. I'll be trying a few once I have time and supplies.

My water is somewhat hard, so I suppose I don't need to add calcium carbonate, as it's already present. I have not really have a harsh sorghum twang, like I would taste in a bottle of redbridge or bards. In fact, the craft beer testers I've pushed beer onto either haven't detected the flavor, or had to look real hard to find a difference.

If you check your water report and find that you are using soft water, it would be worth using a few spoons of calcium carbonate to increase the mineral content to react with the tannin should you still wish to use the sorghum syrup.

i have yet to brew a GF beer completely free of sorghum. i have plans to brew a recipe i've been working on with about 40-45% sorghum in hopes of cutting the twang.

i know i wont eliminate it completely, but i was hoping that with a lower percentage and some aging (i plan to lager this) that it will be much less detectable. do any of you have much experience with sorghum making up less than 50%? is the twang still really present?

I have always used sorghum for the majority of my fermentables in GF beer. I'm planning to make a beer using oat malt and rice syrup sometime soon, and will try to post the recipe later tonight. There is some debate about whether oat malt is really GF, but I tried a couple pounds in the last beer I made with no negative effects.

My biggest concern is getting decent efficiency from the grains with a partial mash. I've been meaning to buy the equipment for an all-grain system but keep spending it on ingredients for more beer!

OK, here is the recipe for a cascadian dark ale I'm planning on making in a week or two. I replaced the sorghum syrup with rice syrup.

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 3.00 gal
Boil Size: 2.50 gal
Estimated OG: 1.064 SG
Estimated Color: 32 SRM <- I’ll believe it when I see it!
Estimated IBU: 46.6 IBU
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------

3 lbs Oat Malt
2 lbs Toasted Oats (GF oats toasted at 400F for 2 hours)
2 lbs Rice Extract Syrup
8 oz Buckwheat, roasted
8 oz Sprouted Quinoa
4 oz Maltodextrin
.25 oz Centennial, pellet 9.5% (FWH)
.5 oz Sterling, pellet 7.0% (FWH)
.25 oz Centennial, pellet 9.5% (20 min)
.25 oz Centennial, pellet 9.5% (10 min)
.5 oz Sterling, pellet 7.0% (5 min)
.25 oz Centennial, pellet 9.5% (1 min)
1 tsp Irish Moss (10 min)
1 pkg SafAle English Ale (S-04)

I'm a little concerned about using rice syrup for such a high percentage of the fermentables, so even though there are a bunch of oats I added a little maltodextrin for body.

The idea of using chestnuts sounds interesting, I've never thought of using them before. Is there any reason why you chose to use chestnuts over other types of nuts? I'd imagine most nuts would be prohibitively expensive for brewing, but now you've got me thinking...

Flatspin said:

My biggest concern is getting decent efficiency from the grains with a partial mash. I've been meaning to buy the equipment for an all-grain system but keep spending it on ingredients for more beer!

Click to expand...

For what it's worth, I have given up on using my mash run for GF beer. It always ended up becoming BIAB, so now I just start with that. You might want to give that a shot before buying all your equipment.

if you dont want to push the funds for AG, you could do steeps.
for some of my non-AG brews i take the grain that i want the flavor from and steep it like a giant A$$ tea bag. then i use tapioca syrup for the ferment-able sugar (its has an incredibly neutral flavor) and brew per extract rules.

remember that tapioca and rice syrups dont have te flavor profile that sorghum does, so youll want to minimash/steep/ find some vague way of adding grain flavors

for AG, aim high, AIM REALLY HIGH, i get sub 50% effeciency. ( typical run 5lbs of chestnuts+ 2-3lbs rice flakes+ 1-2lb honey=4-5%abv

i use chestnuts, because i found a source for roasted chips. they are more fruit than nut, that being the case there is less oils/protein than that of oh say peanuts. you could also add pectic enzyme, should clear the chestnut brew haze up a bit (like i said more fruit than nut)