DFH's Blood Orange Hefe- Gluten Free Style

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Lcasanova

Lcasanova

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Here's the deal- I like to take some recipes I've read about that sound tasty and modify them so that they are celiac friendly...I've no idea how this will turn out but here's the recipe as it stands. Im brewing this next Saturday (April 10, 2010)...any recipe changes are welcome, but here it is. This is for 5.5 gallons


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

6 lbs Sorghum Syrup (60 min)
1 lb Dextrose (60 min)

.50 oz Hallertauer, pellet 4.8% (60 min)
.50 oz Saaz, pellet 4% (20 min)
.50 oz Saaz, pellet 4% (10 min)

4 blood oranges, preparation: Peel oranges and separate sections of fruit. Discard half of the peels. Cut fruit into small pieces. Grate the peel and save the rind only! Heat fruit and peels in 1/2 gallon water to 160-F and then turn off heat. Let it steep as it cools. Pour into fermenter when cooled.

I'll be using T-58 and doing a partial boil.

4 day primary 7 day secondary, carb with 4.2 oz of corn sugar.

:off: This is my last brew until I move into my own place. I'll be living with SWMBO and her family until I find a place to buy. Not sure how they feel about my drinking and whatnot but I guess I'll find out :drunk:

Anyways, here's the recipe as it stands, if it turns out good I'll post it in the recipe section as well.
 
Sounds good! The tanginess of sourghum may go very well with the citrus. I've had success using cascade, amarillo, and summit hops with citrus (sweet orange peel).

I would love to make something like this but I have never been able to find blood oranges anywhere.

Good luck!
 
Just tell your her parents that you're a leader in your field of trying to help provide people with a genetic disorder the opportunity to lead a normal life.

How could they be disappointed by your altruism?
 
Noontime said:
Sounds good! The tanginess of sourghum may go very well with the citrus. I've had success using cascade, amarillo, and summit hops with citrus (sweet orange peel).

I would love to make something like this but I have never been able to find blood oranges anywhere.

Good luck!
Click to expand...

Yea- I am worried I won't be able to find any either but maybe I'll get lucky. The gluten free wit and saison I made both turned out pretty good. There seem to be some styles that sorghum goes well with and others not so well.

aggieotis said:
Just tell your her parents that you're a leader in your field of trying to help provide people with a genetic disorder the opportunity to lead a normal life.

How could they be disappointed by your altruism?
Click to expand...

True, true...but her family doesn't drink and I don't know how they would feel about me taking over their kitchen for an evening to do this.
 
lcasanova said:
Yea- True, true...but her family doesn't drink and I don't know how they would feel about me taking over their kitchen for an evening to do this.
Click to expand...

Who knows...they may find it a very interesting process to watch. You never know; I'm a big believer in "nothing ventured, nothing gained". I've also learned that my preconceptions of things are usually wrong, so good luck!:mug:
 
Doesn't hurt to ask them family.

I am very interested in hearing how this turns out for you.

As for Blood Oranges, I believe we are reaching the end of the season, so they are a bit harder to find. However, I found a good batch of them last weekend and made the Blood Orange Hefe, but not celiac friendly.

Keep us informed!
 
[Update]

I'll be using Tettnang 4.7% in place of the Saaz and Fermentis WB-06 Wheat in place to T-58. According to the Fermentis website all their yeasts are gluten free, so here goes nothing.
 
With the Tettnang, remember if you want a more American Hefe, then go for the bitter; but if you want a more German Hefe, be careful how much and how long you put the Tettnang in the boil.

If used in the same quantities and timing, I believe the Tettnang will up the IBU from 16.2 with the Saaz to 17.4. Personally both are too bitter for a German Hefe, and not quite bitter enough for an American Hefe.


My friends and family prefer a more German Hefe, so I reduced the amount of hops I used and the hop boil time in mine. So far, it tastes great at about 11.0 IBU! Course, it's still fermenting, so we'll see what it is like when it is out of the Fermenter. --- And yes, that is not for the Gluten Free Style, but I think the points are similar. I'm wanting to see how the Gluten Free Hefe comes out. :)
 
10 IBUs is a good number, usually what I hit on hefes.

And good choice on the WB-06, it is the only GF yeast I would use here.

BTW, something I learned about Fruit + Sorghum is that the fruit fades much faster than the sorghum does. Depending on your drinking speed, you may want to add more fruit.
 
I did a quick search on here a week ago about that and I think some others used different oranges. Since this is the first time I've made it I can't really tell you. Try the search or look in the similar threads down there vvvvvv
 
Full disclosure - I've never made an orange beer and did not read the other similar threads.
But today I had a great blood orange. It was sweeter than a regular orange and the fruit and juice were bright red, obviously :)

A different orange will no doubt be different.
I look at it like I do hop substitutions. It should have about the same amount of fermentables ( like A.A.) but could have a different taste.
If you must substitute, then by all means do it and report back!
 
By all means go for it, like midfielder5 said- let us know how it turned out. The air lock smells very much like an orange right now but I think that will be gone in another week. In a few days I am going to transfer to secondary to get the beer off most of the fruit which is floating on top right now.
 
I bottled this yesterday. OG= 1.051 FG= 1.004

Finished a little lower than I wanted but it didn't seem too thin when I tasted the hydrometer sample and wow was the orange up front. I expected that to ferment out and leave a "little" character but there was a ton of the orange. I'll have to see what happens with it after it conditions for a while.
 
51 to 4 is ~92% aa. that doesn't seem right to me, but i don't know anything about brewing gluten free or fruit beers

edit: i missed the 1lb dextrose. carry on.
 
Trying one of these tonight. I had one last Friday, but that was after a couple other homebrews. I remember my co-workers liking it and commenting on the orange. It was nicely carbed but I don't remember anything else :drunk:
 
As promised:

The beer was nicely carbonated and had a pleasing orange aroma. Slightly amber in color (I'll edit this with a picture when I find my camer cords) but no head retention. The orange flavor has gone into the background and the sorghum has come more up front. My saison had this problem too but with age the sorghum flavor seems to disappear. I'll throw this in the basement again for another 3 weeks and see what happens.
 
lcasanova said:
As promised:

The beer was nicely carbonated and had a pleasing orange aroma. Slightly amber in color (I'll edit this with a picture when I find my camer cords) but no head retention. The orange flavor has gone into the background and the sorghum has come more up front. My saison had this problem too but with age the sorghum flavor seems to disappear. I'll throw this in the basement again for another 3 weeks and see what happens.
Click to expand...
Interesting, I think I'm experiencing the same thing with my first batch.

I'm down to just a couple regular size bottles left (thankfully, I still have some 22 oz bombers) and last night, I started drinking one and thought wow, this tastes amazing. I thought maybe it was because I was serving it so cold (in a frosty mug) so I poured another into a room temp mug, and it was great too!

But I'm not sure if it is *just* aging, as one i had on Friday tasted particularly 'tangy'. It might be, though, that I did a crappier job pouring that glass, and kicked up more sediment. I guess this means I'm going to be using gelatin and doing cold crashing before I bottle my next batch (actually, I'm going to do the gelatin and cold crashing further ahead of time!). Perhaps some of the tangy taste is something that settles out given enough time.
 
dorklord said:
It might be, though, that I did a crappier job pouring that glass, and kicked up more sediment. I guess this means I'm going to be using gelatin and doing cold crashing before I bottle my next batch (actually, I'm going to do the gelatin and cold crashing further ahead of time!). Perhaps some of the tangy taste is something that settles out given enough time.
Click to expand...

Aren't Wits similar to Hefeweizens in that they're supposed to have some of the sediment mixed in? I guess you're referring to actual beer-sediment (Vegemite) and not the settled yeast?
 
aggieotis said:
Aren't Wits similar to Hefeweizens in that they're supposed to have some of the sediment mixed in? I guess you're referring to actual beer-sediment (Vegemite) and not the settled yeast?
Click to expand...

Yeah, there is still some yeast floating about in the beer as it should, but there is a significant amount of sediment in the bottles, not all of which appears to be yeast. I think that between moving my carboy up on the counter, not putting my gelatin in early enough for it to do much, and siphoning into my bottling bucket, I just plain stirred up too much sediment, and it got into the bottles. The day after I bottled, I could already see a significant amount of stuff settled out in the bottles (which tells me it was suspended material and not just yeast that had been floating).

I think that the fact that beer was supposed to be cloudy, caused me to just go ahead and bottle, when if I had waited a day, a lot of this stuff would have went back to the bottom of the carboy and never made it into my bottling bucket.
 
dorklord said:
But I'm not sure if it is *just* aging, as one i had on Friday tasted particularly 'tangy'. It might be, though, that I did a crappier job pouring that glass, and kicked up more sediment. I guess this means I'm going to be using gelatin and doing cold crashing before I bottle my next batch (actually, I'm going to do the gelatin and cold crashing further ahead of time!). Perhaps some of the tangy taste is something that settles out given enough time.
Click to expand...

I see what you mean, but I am going to stick with the fact that aging these gluten free beers will help the sorghum tang go away. Maybe that doesn't really fit well with some styles, like a hefe that is supposed to be drank young, but some of the beers that I've put away turn out really great. The best example for me is an ESB from midfielder5 that was I think 6 months+ old. There was virtually no sorghum tang and the beer was fantastic! I really need to get around to making this beer but that "aged" beer really opened my eyes. Try putting away some of your last bottles and see how they age.
 
lcasanova said:
I see what you mean, but I am going to stick with the fact that aging these gluten free beers will help the sorghum tang go away. Maybe that doesn't really fit well with some styles, like a hefe that is supposed to be drank young, but some of the beers that I've put away turn out really great. The best example for me is an ESB from midfielder5 that was I think 6 months+ old. There was virtually no
sorghum tang and the beer was fantastic! I really need to get around to making this beer but that "aged" beer really opened my eyes. Try putting away some of your last bottles and see how they age.
Click to expand...
I don't disagree that aging helps, I'm just thinking that maybe one of the processes during aging, that reduces that sorghum twang, is something settling out.

Unfortunately, that doesn't fit with wit or hefes that are supposed to be consumed young...I suppose those don't age well because the large amounts of yeast suspended in them will die or something?
 
Gluten_Free_011.jpg


Kept a nice head until there was only about 1/4 of the glass left. No lacing, the orange has died down a little and the sorghum has come a little more to the front. Still good and still refreshing :D
 
I brewed this up 16 days ago and am bottling tomorrow. Went from 1.051 all the way down to 1.004, which I was a little surprised by but this is my first GF batch. Sample tasted pretty damn good, overall pretty pleased with my first GF beer and my wife's hopes have been raised considerably. Redbridge blows.
 
dorklord said:
I don't disagree that aging helps, I'm just thinking that maybe one of the processes during aging, that reduces that sorghum twang, is something settling out.

Unfortunately, that doesn't fit with wit or hefes that are supposed to be consumed young...I suppose those don't age well because the large amounts of yeast suspended in them will die or something?
Click to expand...

Yeast flavors are the first to go, followed by hop flavor, followed by malt flavor, followed by bitterness (basically never goes away).

As for what causes that, I have done lots of reading on the topic but nothing seems very conclusive. I relate it to how salsas, soups, etc taste better after the first day, the ingredients just sort of mix in better.
 
DKershner said:
Yeast flavors are the first to go, followed by hop flavor, followed by malt flavor, followed by bitterness (basically never goes away).
.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure I agree about the bitterness...I've had a few beers I've made that have mellowed out in all respects over time, including the bitterness. Maybe it depends on the hops? But these were 6 months to over 2 years old (ones I put away to see how they age). I think the analogy to food is a fantastic one; a good chili is always better after a few days. I would imagine alot of the same things are happening...not only are things braking down and integrating, but then those things are connecting up with other things to make completely different flavor compounds over time.

I haven't brewed a beer in a while (focusing on wine these days), but the next time I do a GF beer I'm going to go a little overboard on the hops and try and compensate for the mellowing effect, but let it age a while to get the integration, smoothness, and complexity.

Good luck with the GF beers doodlebug! I didn't have much success with darker "malty" beers, but made some fantastic IPAs, hefes, belgians, and hoppy citrusy concoctions. :mug:
 
Doodlebug, I know what you mean in attenuation. Mine did the same thing. It tasted great, and even better after it sat in the bottle for an extra week after carbing. There was a slightly warm feeling from the alcohol, but it wasn't that big a deal. My wife was excited to have a good beer to drink. Did you actually use blood oranges? I ended up using navel and I would happily do it again. Also I have Seemingly great head retention for a gf brew

Up next is an easy recipe. Honey, sorghum and one ounce of cascade.
 
Lcasanova said:
Here's the deal- I like to take some recipes I've read about that sound tasty and modify them so that they are celiac friendly...I've no idea how this will turn out but here's the recipe as it stands. Im brewing this next Saturday (April 10, 2010)...any recipe changes are welcome, but here it is. This is for 5.5 gallons


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

6 lbs Sorghum Syrup (60 min)
1 lb Dextrose (60 min)

.50 oz Hallertauer, pellet 4.8% (60 min)
.50 oz Saaz, pellet 4% (20 min)
.50 oz Saaz, pellet 4% (10 min)

4 blood oranges, preparation: Peel oranges and separate sections of fruit. Discard half of the peels. Cut fruit into small pieces. Grate the peel and save the rind only! Heat fruit and peels in 1/2 gallon water to 160-F and then turn off heat. Let it steep as it cools. Pour into fermenter when cooled.

I'll be using T-58 and doing a partial boil.

4 day primary 7 day secondary, carb with 4.2 oz of corn sugar.

:off: This is my last brew until I move into my own place. I'll be living with SWMBO and her family until I find a place to buy. Not sure how they feel about my drinking and whatnot but I guess I'll find out :drunk:

Anyways, here's the recipe as it stands, if it turns out good I'll post it in the recipe section as well.
Click to expand...

Only change i would make is double up or more on the oranges.
 
Riddei said:
Doodlebug, I know what you mean in attenuation. Mine did the same thing. It tasted great, and even better after it sat in the bottle for an extra week after carbing. There was a slightly warm feeling from the alcohol, but it wasn't that big a deal. My wife was excited to have a good beer to drink. Did you actually use blood oranges? I ended up using navel and I would happily do it again. Also I have Seemingly great head retention for a gf brew

Up next is an easy recipe. Honey, sorghum and one ounce of cascade.
Click to expand...

Blood orange season is apparently more towards March/April, so I used some other sweet orange. Probably going to bottle on Saturday and I'll report back in a few weeks! Thanks guys :rockin:
 
Noontime said:
I'm not sure I agree about the bitterness...I've had a few beers I've made that have mellowed out in all respects over time, including the bitterness.
Click to expand...

Yeah, what I really meant was that it never goes away entirely. A hefeweizen after 2 months? What banana flavor? An IIPA after 3 months? What hop flavor? Literally gone. Bitterness mellows by maybe...10-20% over the course of 2 years? Quite the difference.
 
Noontime said:
I haven't brewed a beer in a while (focusing on wine these days), but the next time I do a GF beer I'm going to go a little overboard on the hops and try and compensate for the mellowing effect, but let it age a while to get the integration, smoothness, and complexity.
Click to expand...

Hop aroma is the first to go, remember, then the flavor. I generally compensate for the aroma by dry hopping after aging. As in, let it sit 6 months and THEN dry hop for a week.

Just a thought, overcompensating on hop flavor is a good call too.
 

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