Stout Question

Any suggestions on what to add to a GF recipe that will give it that ink black color of a stout? I'm trying to work up a GF Stout recipe - I plan on toasting my own oats and some buckwheat, also using some buckwheat honey.... I am missing an element in that list of fermentables though. Suggestions?

PS this will be my first attempt at a GF homebrew so any other pointers are appreciated

Gf?

gluten free

GF = Girlfriend? Your first attempt at a Girlfriend homebrew? Dang... that would be a first for me too

Are you looking for something like this?



Steeped 1 lb of lightly roasted rolled oats.
3 lbs sorghum extract
1 lb cooked honey (black)
2 lbs cooked sugar (burnt).
4 oz maltodextrin
1 oz Fuggles

S-04 yeast.

The honey turned black fairly quickly, the sugar (dissolved in water to make simple syrup, of course, probably also added some citric acid) was cooked for quite some time. You could probably use something like D2 candi syrup as well (I used a pound of it in a recent mild ale recipe, and it made that fairly dark). I would say to take some honey or simple syrup and cook it on the stove, and take some taste tests (I just let a drop fall of the spoon onto a plate, and wait until it cools a bit) until you feel it hits the roasty flavor you want.

Coffee can also help, particularly if you want that flavor (though it doesn't seem to make as much color impact as you would expect).

Haha - I assumed GF was read as Gluten Free in a forum dedicated for that, but for the record it's for my GF GF

Great tips and thank for the recipe - I hadn't thought of cooking the honey or sugar to ramp up the dark color.

What size batch is this recipe for?

5 us gallons. I always forget to include that...

Dorklord, when you added that much sugar and honey did the beer turn out cidery?I've always heard that the cider flavor becomes pronounced if you go over about 20% of the fermentables.

Or does caramelization of the sugar prevent that flavor? ...Wow, the more questions I ask the more I come up with... If you burn the sugar, is it still fermentable?

Flatspin said:

Dorklord, when you added that much sugar and honey did the beer turn out cidery?I've always heard that the cider flavor becomes pronounced if you go over about 20% of the fermentables.

Or does caramelization of the sugar prevent that flavor? ...Wow, the more questions I ask the more I come up with... If you burn the sugar, is it still fermentable?

Click to expand...

I definitely don't think the beer is cidery. My guess would be that caramelizing the sugars makes a difference. And I do believe that cooking the sugar reduces the fermentability a small amount...but it is still going to be very highly fermentable.

your first batch ever or just first GF batch? either way i cant say more of this" START SIMPLE"

we get lots of people in here on the subject of "First gluten free brew" "new to the gluten free world of brewing" either way start simple. to many people come here that havent brewed before and are like i have come up with this recipe, some 4 pages long, and are like how will this work. most of the time we havent a clue, we can just base it on our past experiences. but if its your first brew, theres a good chance youll get over whelmed and F IT up some how or another. if your just new to GF brewing, theres a good chance GF ingredients wont work the same as normal ingredients. why doesnt my GF-X taste like my normal-X..... (facepalm)

i can say, keep it simple stupid (KISS). figure out the process, keep records, then figure out the ingredients, keep records, then manipulate away, and keep records.

its very hard to duplicate batches. but if you can start getting close youve got something!

I've got to second DirtbagHB's comments. My stout recipe isn't particularly complicated except for the cooked sugar and honey, but I would definitely recommend something simple for someone's first GF brew.

I have thought about doing my stout recipe using dark candi syrup, but for a first brew, I'd recommend something simple like a British Mild or Belgian ale, where you can just use sorghum syrup and 1 hops variety...