GF Chestnut Beer

I've been doing a lot of reading on GF beer on this site and decided to give Lee's chestnut beer a go. The recipe is at http://www.chestnuttrails.com/pages/chestnut-beer. I've seen some older posts on this but was wondering if anyone has brewed this, or a variation of this recently and has any tips or suggestions for me? I'm new to brewing (this will be my third batch!) and am still trying to figure everything out.

It seems like people before have either mashed in a cooler or an oven...any word on which one works better for the chestnuts?

And this is probably a stupid question but I am guessing that if I was going to do a yeast starter, I shouldn't use regular DME to stay GF. If so what should I use instead, or should I just skip the starter?

I plan on brewing on Monday, so any input would be appreciated

I just brewed a variation on Lee's chestnut beer a few weeks ago. (Added 2 lbs of sorghum syrup, and lots more hops)

I mashed the chestnut chips on the stove in my brew kettle. (A lousy electric stove). With the stove on high, I was able to get it up to mashing temp, and then I put the cover on, dropped in a thermometer, and turned it down to low/medium-low, which was good to keep my temperature fairly stable for 24 hours with some slight adjustments throughout the day. Overnight, I put the stove on its lowest setting, and it only went down to about 140. I didn't wrap the brew kettle with anything to insulate, but I've read that others have tried that as well.

DME is no good for a GF starter. I went without a starter, but I suppose you could make a sorghum syrup starter.

When you added the sorghum syrup did you subtract any of the corn sugar or just leave that part unchanged? what are you planning on bottling with when you get to that point?

Sorghum was in addition to corn sugar. Mine was similar to mattinboston's at the beginning of this thread: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f164/gf-brewing-chestnuts-157826/

I'll be kegging mine, but if I were bottling, I'd use corn sugar.

thanks Ill give it a go

Heres the recipe I ended up going with:


2.5 Gallon Batch

2.5 lbs medium roast chestnut chips
2.5 lbs corn sugar
1 lbs white sorghum syrup
2 oz Columbus hops

2 oz Cascade
Whirlfloc tab
Safale us-05 yeast

Steeped 2.5 pounds of Light Roast Chestnuts for about 18 hours. Added 1.5 tsp of Amylase Enzyme and Pectic Enzyme at beginning. Bring to 160 degrees for 30 minutes then sparge grain bag.
I removed chips then added some water to compensate.
Bring to boil then add the corn 2.5 pounds of Corn Sugar and 1 pound of Dry Brown Rice Extract. 30 Minute Boil
Add 1.5 oz Cascade hop pellets
Boil 30 mins
Add .5 oz Cascade mid-hops
Boil 15 mins
Add 1.5 oz Target hops continuously for 15 mins while reducing temp to below boiling

I plan on dry hopping in a week or so with another .5 oz of Target hops.

My SG ended up being 1.110, which is higher than I was expecting...should I plan on adding more yeast when I rack to secondary or just let it ride?

Dont no if this is the rigth tread.
I have some chestnuts, how do i turn them in to chestnut chips.
Im thinking dry then slow in the oven and then grind them, an then againg in the oven too be roastet, is this wrong ?

Check out post #141:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f164/gf-brewing-chestnuts-157826/index15.html (that thread is very long, but was very helpful for my chestnut brew)

That being said, I don't see why you couldn't grind them first, and then dry/roast them. Seems like it might be a worthwhile experiment for a small batch.