Gluten free IPA

So I'm ready to take the GF plunge, and like others here I'd like to share my recipe and take any suggestions that people might have for improvements. I am planning it to be sorghum based and with citra hops. I have a fridge and can do true lagering, but for the first try at GF I thought I'd do an ale since the fermentation time is shorter. If this turns out to be a good beer, I can always do it again, but as a lager.


Here's my recipe:

Volume: 5.00 gal
Estimated Original Gravity: 1.050
Estimated Final Gravity: 1.013
Estimated Alcohol% (ABV): 4.85
Estimated Bitterness (IBU): 93.34
SRM: 11.4
Style: India Pale Ale or American Pale Ale

Ingredients
Grain/Extract

LME - White Sorghum Syrup 3.0 lbs Boil for 60.00 min
LME - White Sorghum Syrup 3.0 lbs Boil for 30.00 min
Maltodextrin (87.00% ) 1.00 lbs Boil for 60.00 min
Rice Syrup Solids 0.5 lbs Boil for 60.00 min
Candi syrup amber, D-45

Hops

Summit (18.20%) 0.50 oz Boil for 60.00 min
Citra (13.20%) 0.50 oz Boil for 30.00 min
Citra (13.20%) 1.00 oz Boil for 15.00 min
Citra (13.20%) 0.50 oz Boil for 10.00 min
Amarillo (8.50%) 1.00 oz Boil for 5.00 min
Summit (18.20%) 0.50 oz Boil for 5.00 min
Citra (13.20%) 1.00 oz Boil for 1.00 min

Amarillo (9.50% ) 0.50 oz Dry Hop for 5-7 days
Citra (13.20%) 0.50 oz Dry Hop for 5-7 days

Yeast

S-04 Safale - English Ale (75% ) 1.00 pk


I was also thinking of adding some GF oats, toasting them and then steeping prior to boiling. I'd like to get some general feedback about the recipe and also how do you think the citra hops will play against the sorghum base? I don't want to make a beer that is too citrusy. Will it be a good combination? Also should I add the oats? What do you think about making a GF lager vs an ale?

thanks!

Well, it's gonna be citrusy, but what's "too citrusy"? I made a grapefruit IPA which, when young, pretty much tasted like alcoholic sparkling grapefruit juice; it was hopped with columbus, cascade, and centennial, dry-hopped with centennial, and also had the zest of half a grapefruit added late in the boil. However, it's also been universally enjoyed...by people who don't identify as "beer drinkers."

You might also check this thread, where Satisfaction brewed a citra/amarillo pale ale that's not too dissimilar to yours. Oats can be good when steeped, just don't add too much--maybe 1.5 lbs at most, for 5 gallons of IPA....

How much D-45 are you adding? I'd recommend adding some buckwheat honey to the mix, too. Maybe 8-12 oz at flame-out. Maybe instead of the rice solids?

Obviously it's subjective, so "too citrusy" for me may be perfect for others. I don't think I'd like a grapefruit juice beer, I'd like something that tastes more like regular beer. I actually have a Zombiedust clone in secondary right now (with citra hops) so I'll be able to make direct comparisons. I'm brewing this GF batch for a friend who I felt sorry for since she could only get Redbridge at the bar!

I'll probably stick to this recipe more or less, although I thought about adding some honey as well, so I may do that. I'm also planning a small amount of licorice, maybe half a stick at most. I also plan to add some yeast nutrient at 15 minutes.

I thought I had the amount there for the D-45, I'm adding 1 pound.

For the second half of the sorghum, is it better to add it at 30 minutes or at flame out?

That looks like something I would make. Nice recipe.

If I were brewing it I would replace 3lbs of sorghum with BRS, but the citrusy hops do trend to compliment the sorghum well so I think this will still be a very nice beer.

I don't tend to steep grains because I don't have ready access to non-glutenous, non-cross contaminated grains so I can't speak to that.

Good luck, and let us know how it turns out!

I haven't done any side-by-side trials on adding sorghum at different stages of the boil, but many advise adding half of it at flame-out; I've never seen any recommendations to add half at 30.

1 pound of D-45 should be good; one thing I've noticed with candi syrups is that while they do add a caramelly taste, they do seem to thin the body a wee bit. So it's good that you're adding a pound of maltodextrin as well.

I've never brewed with citra, but I know amarillo does add some very fruity notes (more like passionfruit than citrus, from my experience). I expect this will be a very fruity beer--with sorghum beers, there is usually not much malt flavor, just a kind of generic sweetness with a slight-to-moderate "twang", so hops really come through. That said, I've yet to brew a beer I found too bitter, even those that calculated out to being over 70 IBU, so it's not so much a problem of a lack of balance. It's more that there's just not much "grain" flavor, even w/steeping grains. You can recognize it when you taste a GF beer side-by-side with a barley beer--the barley beer will have a kind of nutty/biscuity/chewy/bready flavor that will be absent in the GF beer. That can be good if you really want to showcase the hops, but it's generally bad if you want a malty beer.

I recently read a BYO article that talked about IBUs from extract batches. In particular, for the point of this article, the issue was that extract brews tend to be darker than the all grain counterpart. So brewers were putting part of the extract in at the end of the boil. The point made was that the IBUs were higher when the extract was split. They showed the math in the article.

My point here is that adding part of the sorghum at the end of the boil will lead to a higher IBU, so keep that in mind. This might also explain my pale ale batch tasting more hoppy than expected.

@OP

A couple of points to note.

* Adding sorghum at the start and the end of the boil has a couple of benefits. The amount of brewing sugars in the boil can reduce bitterness and hop oil extraction if it is too sweet. Also it's been said to reduce sourness by adding half at the start and half at the end. I've found this to be the case in my testing. And I'd advise against adding it 30 minutes from the end, because it will essentially stop the boil while it gets back up to temperature.

* Have you used that hop combo before? I find using a tried and true glutenous beer recipe is a good base to use for a hopping guide.

* I'd go US-05 over S-04. S-04 is more an english ale strain and it can be slower than US-05. US-05 is also a very clean yeast

* Always put 1 tsp of yeast nutrient in every batch. I also recommend a teaspoon of calcium carbonate in the last ten minutes of the boil.

Good luck.

spaced said:

@OP

A couple of points to note.

* Adding sorghum at the start and the end of the boil has a couple of benefits. The amount of brewing sugars in the boil can reduce bitterness and hop oil extraction if it is too sweet. Also it's been said to reduce sourness by adding half at the start and half at the end. I've found this to be the case in my testing. And I'd advise against adding it 30 minutes from the end, because it will essentially stop the boil while it gets back up to temperature.

* Have you used that hop combo before? I find using a tried and true glutenous beer recipe is a good base to use for a hopping guide.

* I'd go US-05 over S-04. S-04 is more an english ale strain and it can be slower than US-05. US-05 is also a very clean yeast

* Always put 1 tsp of yeast nutrient in every batch. I also recommend a teaspoon of calcium carbonate in the last ten minutes of the boil.

Good luck.

Click to expand...

Thanks for your advice and input. I haven't used this exact hop combo before, but have something similar in the secondary right now. I'd have to wait for two weeks or so to try it, but I'm confident it will be good. This batch I have going actually is US-05, but I was going to try US-04 for this GF batch just to try it and get another strain in my inventory. I've read the spec sheets on both types, and it looks like 04 has slightly less attenuation and a little higher flocculation. I guess that means it would make a slightly sweeter beer than 05. If I use my 05 strain, I believe it's in a vial that came from a yeast starter that had a little bit of barley malt in it. Therefore if I made a new starter from this material, it would have a very small amount of gluten in it which would go in the batch. I believe this is small enough that it couldn't possibly make a difference, but I might just as well stick to using the 04 since it will be 100% GF.

I usually add some gypsum (Calcium sulfate) in the last 15 minutes of the boil, I think that serves the same purpose as the CaCO3, to harden the water a bit. If I'm not mistaken?

Thanks again, and I'll let you know how it turns out in a month or so!

igliashon said:

You might also check this thread, where Satisfaction brewed a citra/amarillo pale ale that's not too dissimilar to yours. Oats can be good when steeped, just don't add too much--maybe 1.5 lbs at most, for 5 gallons of IPA....

Click to expand...

I brewed this as well, and it turned out to be one of my favorite beers so far. Thanks for linking it igliashon.

I brewed this a couple days ago, and it's going strong now in the primary. I was able to find some GF oats at Whole Foods; they didn't have them at my regular grocery store. I got the steel-cut kind and toasted them in the oven for 12 minutes at 350F, then steeped them prior to the boil when they were removed.

Here's the final recipe I used:

Volume: 5.00 gal
Original Gravity: 1.062
Estimated Final Gravity: 1.013
Estimated Alcohol% (ABV): 6.42
Estimated Bitterness (IBU): 92.33
SRM: 11.4
Style: India Pale Ale or American Pale Ale

Ingredients
Grain/Extract

GF Steel-cut oats, toasted, 12 oz, steeped
LME - White Sorghum Syrup 3.0 lbs Boil for 60.00 min
LME - White Sorghum Syrup 3.0 lbs Boil @ flameout
Maltodextrin (87.00% ) 1.00 lbs Boil for 60.00 min
Rice Syrup Solids 0.5 lbs Boil for 60.00 min
Candi syrup amber, D-45, 1.00 lbs Boil for 60.00 min

Hops

Summit (16.00%) 0.50 oz Boil for 60.00 min
Citra (14.10%) 0.50 oz Boil for 30.00 min
Citra (13.20%) 1.00 oz Boil for 15.00 min
Citra (14.10%) 0.50 oz Boil for 10.00 min
Amarillo (9.30%) 1.00 oz Boil for 5.00 min
Summit (16.00%) 0.25 oz Boil for 5.00 min
Citra (13.20%) 1.00 oz Boil for 1.00 min

Amarillo (9.50% ) 0.50 oz Dry Hop for 5-7 days
Citra (13.20%) 0.50 oz Dry Hop for 5-7 days

Yeast

S-04 Safale - English Ale (75% ) 1.00 pk

Additions:

1/2 stick licorice (0.37 oz) boil for 30 minutes
2 tsp Gypsum, last 15 mins
1/2 tsp Yeast nutrient, last 15 mins

That's pretty much it! We'll see how it turns out in a few weeks. Thanks for everyone's input.

Just a quick update: I racked the beer after about 14 days in primary, gravity was 1.021 at that point. Today I took a sample to force carbonate for a taste and the gravity was about the same, 1.020. I have to say that this beer is tasting great! I'd say its about ready to keg or bottle. I'm still trying to decide which one to do, but I think I'll keg it. It tastes a lot like the zombiedust clone that I have on tap right now.

One thing I noticed is that it's very hazy. Is this common with GF beer or will this clear up? Here's a pic. Thanks.