I'm malting away! Gluten free Sorghum, that is...

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casebrew

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I turned allergic to gluten. No more wheat or barley for me. So, hard core AGer that I am, I've got to malt my own sorghum. I put 11 pounds in a grain sack/paint strainer, in my mash cooler. Then soak for 6 hrs, and drain for 3. Go through the cycle 5 times. Use 30c water, the cooler keeps it about that warm. That took 2 days. Today, I made a couple trays with fibergalss indow screen bottoms, put them in my 'fermenter/fridge'. They already had acrospires 1x the length of the seed. I put them in the fridge, with my thermo-controlled heater- an old water bed thermostat hooked to an old Mr. Coffee, with a pot of water on it. Set at 80f, it keeps it within a couple degrees of 30c. Pretty fail safe tooo, if the thremostat screws up, you just have a Mr Coffe left on.

My five gallon bucket of Sorghum was about 33#, so this is 1/3 of my supply. My first batch of GF. I'll roast about 2-3#, hoping for a red brew.

Mashing will also a bit more complicated, with a late-mash step of heating to 180 for gelatinizing. Wish me luck. I'd love to be able to get as good as Dragon's Tale Gold. Someday. $10 a sixer kills me, after 35 cent Flat As Tire.

Hers's some links, if anybody wants to try GFing:

Sorgum source, if you can't find it at a local feed store: <http://www.twinvalleymills.com/pages/order.html#shipping> Came to about $1/lb, with UPS and a 5 gallon bucket. Or 20 cents for the grain... My county has some 2,000,000 bird egg ranchs, but I couldn't find Sorghum locally. The feed stores said "Huh? Whats that?"

Malting directions: <http://www.sillyyak.com.au/gfb/gfmalt.html>

Mashing directions: <http://www.sillyyak.com.au/gfb/gfbrew.html>

The Most interesting recipes: <http://oz.craftbrewer.org/Recipes/> Scroll to section 14, gluten free beers. I'm going to try a not-so-dark "Old Black Sheep", it seems the simplist to learn on.

PS, you'll have to try popping some sorghum too- little bitty baby popcorns!
 
Good luck! Look forward to hearing how it comes out.
 
Hey, I can buy Tapioca starch at the oriental food market. I think it was 89 cents per pound. Plus, I bought some "spring roll wraps" of pure tapioca starch. Looked like tortillas in the pack, but were almost like plastic inside. Moisture sure softened them.

There sure are lots of sugar substitutes. But the only GF beers available today seem to be all Sorghum. I guess there must be a reason, probably flavor oriented?
 
Sorghum has more flavor than the others, plus since it can be malted, less processing is needed.

How does the popped sorghum taste?
 
I only popped about a tablespoon of it, in a bowl in the micro. Seemed even blander than corn, but i didn't salt or butter it either.

Back to google to look into more thoughts.
 
Okay, I've fininished the 'malting'. I dried it at 30c, for a day or so, and 'kilned it' at 40c for for this morning, about 6 hours. I started with 11 pounds, after soaking/draining cycles for 2 days, it was up to 18 pounds. I thought I would weigh it at this point, to be sure I dried it enough. It's down to 9.5 pounds. My guess is that the malting changes give off gas? I wouldn't think there was 15% excess moisture in the grains?

It does taste better now- more grainy, less grassy. With a bit of an acidy bite.

Next step is to put it into the grain bag (5 gallon paint strainer) and toss it into the chlothes dryer, on cold. The idea is to break off the dried acrospire and rootlets, sine they tend to have cyanide in them. The I guess I'll have to winnow it, if the dryer doesnt' allow the bitts to blow out the lint trap. I'll remove the screen there.

More later.
 
15% water weight for grain isn't out of line, much lower & it would be dead. Some of the weight loss is due to the acrospire's growth & the CO2 given off during respiration.
 
How are you going to remove the acrospire? I was going to malt some grain, but I couldn't figure out how to remove the acrospire.
 
I don't think you have to remove the acrospire from Barley. The prob with Sorghum is that it makes cyanide in the acrospire and rootlets. So I tumbled it in the clothes dryer, set on air only. About 25 minutes, in two grain bags, each with about 5 pounds. It made quite an a-rythmic thumping, as the drum would launch the bags one at a time. very nerve wracking. Anyways, it seemed to knock off most of the protuberances. I think most of them worked their way through the mesh of the bags, and disappeared to wherever I suppose lost socks end up. I'll have to try the fan box* for winnowing the rest away- I'm hoping the screen trays I made for the malting process will help. I suspect I'll have to put just a pound or less in the tray, and shake it over the fan, hoping to blow away the debris that was broken off of the grains.

I didn't mention the fan box yet. I used a 6" muffin fan, mounted to the bottom of a hunk of Melamine, with a box above that holds the screen trays. The fan blows air upwards, through the grain. The whole stack goes into the (what do ya call it?) ferment box/unplugged fridge with a small space heater underneath. The hot air from the heater is blown upwards by the muffin fan. To heat for malting, close the fridge door. To dry later, I taped a 6" wide board to the open side of ther fridge, so air can come in at the bottom, get heated, blow through the trays of grain, then exit out the top.

Next step, I'll have to roast some of the grain. Pobably about 1-2 pounds, trying for red-to-brown beer. I suspect I'll have to add some corn or sumthin to boost the sugars. I like about 6% beer. Sorghum malt is supposedly 1.035, but I'm assuming that is per pound per gallon, in what is otherwise totally metric specs.

I won't know how good of a maltster I am until I brew...

Mashing is also more complex- they recomend a decoction mash, with the added gelatinization steep after the mash. Something like allowing the wort to settle, then syphon the water off the top, leaving the starch, then put the grist in the brew pot and bring to 180 and simmer- apparently sorghum has a high gel temp. Then, back into the mash tun, add the water you drew off earlier, and mash some more. You hope the water has all the enzymes in it. You also add some amylase then. Finally, sparge and boil- almost like making beer!
 
Okay, got my brewmeister hat back on today. My research said to wait a couple weeks after malting to let the malt mature. er something. I've not been wasting my time, I've been restoring my 53 Power Wagon.

I brewed a batch with flaked maize as an adjunk. I tried browning some of the maize, about 1/2#. It smelled like corn chips, so it may add some grainy-ness. Something that sorghum lacks. Anybody ever try that in other beers? I browned it til it looked sort of like chile pepper flakes- some dark, some yellow still, some brown.

The biggest PITA is the boiling step after the first two rests. It seems Sorghum needs to get to near boiling to gelatinise. So, drain off some water, hopefully with lots of amylase in it, then boil the mash. From the looks of the way it thickened up, it sure did gelatinise. Cool to 65c, and add the water back to it. Plus 1t amylase. Now ad the rice hulls. Mash for 2 hours.

Anyhow, what with the extra boiling step in the middle of the mashing, it took me 8 hours instead of the usual AG time of 4. It would have gone faster if I had an immersion cooler. I used to , but I made it into a counter flow. Plus I added the rice hulls before the boil step, so I had to add more water to get the rice hulls liquidificated. Then I had to boil off all the extra water, it started at about 8 gallons to finish with 5. Plus, took more propane. First tank went dry, swapped to the 'empty' one and pitched the aroma hops. Meanwhile, 2 gallons boiling on the stove, to save propane. Worked out fine, 5 gallons in a 6.5 carboy.

My rough recipe:

11# Sorghum, lost some weight due to malting, I think 9 # actual
1 3/4 flaked maize
1/2 roasted maize

1.5 oz Northern Brewer at boil
1 oz EKG aroma, 15 minutes, both pellets.

Nottingham

OG 1.050 Brix 14.2

But, at this point it is opaque, olive drab. Maybe apprpriate for my Power Wagon, not good for beer. I don't know if Maize makes cloudy beer, like wheat? Or if it is something in the Sorghum? Or did I screw up the malting? or the Mashing? or the two rests at 40 & 50c? Or.... Plus the Brix is supposed to be about 1:4 with the SG, but it ain't. Protein? Starch? Steep learning curve here.

But it doesn't have the acid taste of the commercial Sorghum beers- yet. I'll know more as soon as the bubbling slows in a couple days. Yes, I'm gonna rush to sample!

Edit, after I went and looked at it. 2 hours in the carboy, it is bubbling. And there is already 1/2 inch of clearing at the top.

Reminds me of Fred Astaire- Flocculating rhythm, la-la-da-la-da-ta....


Further edit- Anybody think I ought to try a hydrometer reading later tonight? Of the clear beer, to compare to the opaque?
 
casebrew said:
Further edit- Anybody think I ought to try a hydrometer reading later tonight? Of the clear beer, to compare to the opaque?

First of all, I'd like to say congrats on your experiment!

I think the more information you can gather at this point the better. Since it would seem you are tied to this path, you should do everything in your power to optimize.

So is Buckwheat next? (Actually Buckwheat is very very easy to grow)
 
I finally tried some Buckwheat pancakes. Blech. I was hoping for something special. Plus, there is a flavor problem with too much buckwheat in beer. I don't remember what. But it is used for roasting, to add color. Plus some grainy-ness?

Anyhow, I do wonder why use sorghum at all? Other beers (BMC?) use rice or corn as adjuncts. Do rice and corn not have enough enzymes, so can only be adjuncts to barley? I notice my spent grains seemed to have lots of Flakes of Maize still extant.

I seem to tolerate oatmeal pretty well. Apparently, it does have gluten in it, but a more tolerable type. I'd bet there is a recipe for Oat beer, from Scotland maybe?
 
Progress report:

After 60 hours, the bubbling has about stopped. 1.012, so it could be about done. Lots of settling, now that the turbulence of fermentation has stopped. So the darker green is settling out to about 1/2 way, but the top is still very cloudy.

The hydrometer sample is quite hoppy, to be expected. And has a cattle-feed-like flavor. I think it needs more aging....
 
It's BEEER! Quite good too.

I bottled it today, and drank one ..er so. Actually pretty good, Does not seem to have the bitter-acid taste of so many of the commercial/micro sorghum beers. Kind of sweet too- I was hoping so. Very cloudy, even after 16 days in secondary. I dumped almost 4 inches of trub from the primary, so I only ended up with 40 bottles. FG of 1.012. Brix 8. Anybody got the program to figure OG backwards? My OG was 1.050, 14.2 Brix, but with all that protein/starch/trub, I don't trust my Hydrometer to have been true...

ETA: Okay, found the calculator. Dunno what to make of it, nothign seems to add up.

Elesewhen, I wonder if the flaked maize did something good for the sorghum? I mashed it all together, boiled it to gelatinize the sorghum, and then mashed some more. Still had flakes of maize in the grist. But no bitter acid flavor in the beer. Hmm, I roasted the maize to get some flavor, maybe I had a happy accident?
 
Sounds like you need to make several more batches. If you can duplicate the flavor, great! If not, you have several recipes. Flacked maize does seem to lend a creamy sweetness to ales, at least to my taste buds.

Good to see someone on the board actually making GF beer.
 
Congrats! Can we get some pics of your malting setup, the process, and of the beer? Cuz that would be sweet. ;)
 
Wow, very interesting read. I too would like to see some pics, especially of the malting process.

Good luck with the next baches!
 
I made a GF beer for my brother with Sorghum, Buckwheat, and honey. I used the same process with the sorghum but with the Buckwheat I kilned 1 lb with quite a bit of moisture still in it at 180 degrees to get a caramel flavor. Then I kilned 2 lbs completely dry at 300 degrees to get a darker color and more flavor. Then with one more dry pound, I cranked the oven up to 450 to get a really dark roast and put it in a grain steeping bag once all mash was collected before the boil like steeping grains in an extract batch. The second I pulled it out, rich dark color drained out and immediately darkened the drab color. Next time I'll just ad it to the mash but I really wanted to see what difference the dark roasting made. I pitched with Wyeast ringwood without smacking the pack and added 1 lb honey to the secondary. As I was carbonating it, I went out and got some commercial GF beers like red bridge and all that for comparison. There was no comparison. I hopped mine like an IPA and it actually came out with flavor. . I shipped a case to my brother. I kept the rest for myself and actually drink it over real beer sometimes. Its true that you cant call GF brew "beer" but it is a completely different beverage that somewhat resembles beer. I am not gluten intolerant but cant wait to try my next batch because there is a lot of unknowns. It is open to exploration and interpretation where beer is simply water, malt, hops, and yeast. It is just more exciting. Next batch, I will use wild rice and molasses. There are many possibilities.
 
Sounds like it really worked out for you. As far there being no comparison, do you mean yours turned out far superior then the commercial GFD samples you tried? I'm guseeing yes, since you kept a case for yourself.

Thanks for the input, I'm going to resume the design of my GF beer.
 
I tried browning some of the maize, about 1/2#. It smelled like corn chips, so it may add some grainy-ness. Something that sorghum lacks. Anybody ever try that in other beers?


some african beers, like kilamanjaro lager, use corn starch as an adjunct. it's an "interesting" flavor - dry and crisp. I didn't like it at first, but then began to enjoy it.

I've been meaning to try it in a blonde ale recipe, maybe do it as 25% of the mash to start.
 
I would like to buy the briess Tapioca syrup but where do you get it from???
I have called briess and went to their website but they only sell to food companies. you can not place an order through briess.

Any ideas? It appears that David 42 has found some...
 
I would like to buy the briess Tapioca syrup but where do you get it from???
I have called briess and went to their website but they only sell to food companies. you can not place an order through briess.

Any ideas? QUOTE=david_42;296012]Saw this for the first time at the 25th Homebrew Fest yesterday:
Tapioca Syrup 45DE High Maltose http://www.briess.com/foodbev/productssyrups.shtml#tapioca

Joel had a recipe for a Pale Ale using it.[/QUOTE]
 
Be careful Malting sorghum. I have heard that some strains of sorghum produce hydrogen cyanide in the rootlets and could be dangerous. please google this prior to malting.
 
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