GF English Pale Ale (First time brewer)

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rlbois1

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I recently discovered that I am very sensitive to gluten. I am glad not to be sick anymore but I am not impressed with the selection of GF beers available in my area (I WANT MY IPA; GIVE ME HOPS), so I decided to take matters into my own hands. Bought some equipment and brewed my first batch this past Friday. It is a kit (and not an IPA), but I figure that I've got to start somewhere. The brew is currently in the fermenter bubbling away. Hope it doesn't suck...

5 Gallon Recipe:
6.6 pounds BriesSweet Sorghum Extract
1 pound Amber Belgium Candi Syrup (@15 min)
1 ounce UK Kent Goldings hop pellets (@ 60 min)
1 ounce UK Challenger hop pellets (@ 5min)
Nottingham Ale yeast
5oz. Priming Sugar

Rick
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I haven't been doin this for long either, but I have learned some things that might be of help to you. First as you read here sorghum crates a "twang" flavor so be prepared but with my first batch of GF beer which was for my daughter (she is the gluten sensative person in the family) when I tasted it after 3 weeks that flavor is there but it was 2 months before I could get the beer to her and it was still there but not as bad. So the longer you can let it condition in the bottle the better. Second GF beers tend to be cloudy so so you will want to get some war flock tabs to help with clearing it some - to late for this batch but be ready for your next.
 
I think the recipe looks spot-on. The "twang" of sorghum comes from the fact that sorghum is extremely iron-rich, and it can actually go well in some styles, especially (IMO) British styles. A gluten-free Guinness clone might actually be easier than it sounds, because of the metallic "bite" that Guinness tends to have. The candi syrup is a great addition, I've found. Really rounds out the sorghum and adds some caramel notes. It's good that you're starting simple, because when I started I tried going hog-wild and brewed at least four batches of terrible beer. Let us know how it comes out!

Also FWIW, my beers have all come out exceptionally clear, with the exception being my 2nd porter attempt (though it's only been bottle-conditioning for a week at this point). Even the ones with a ton of adjunct grains that end up with 2" of trub in the primary! And I don't use whirlflock or anything, sometimes a touch of irish moss in the boil but not always.
 
Thank you both for the feedback. I've tasted the sorghum twang in the store bought GF beer I've tried. My ultimate goal is to brew a super hoppy GF IPA with ~8% ABV; but first baby steps.

My freshman effort been 3 days now in the fermentation bucket, and the bubbles from the airlock are slowing. I am planning on waiting until Saturday to bottle (PartyPig, actually...).That will have been 8 days in the fermentation bucket; enough time to clear? Should I wait longer? I've got about 8oz in a "satelite fermenter" (so I can check gravity without opening the pail), and it is pretty cloudy.

Rick
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That will have been 8 days in the fermentation bucket; enough time to clear? Should I wait longer?
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:drunk::drunk::drunk: You're planning on bottling after 8 DAYS? SLOOOOOW DOOOOOOWN, homey. The general rule of thumb is 1 week in primary, 2 weeks in secondary, 3 in bottles at 68°F (though I usually do 2-1-3, or just a 3-week primary and then bottle). If you bottle after one week, you're going waaay too soon. There will be lots of sediment and it will be very cloudy indeed, and worse, your beer will be very immature and you'll just have to let it sit longer in bottles anyway before the taste settles down. I'd say at LEAST give it another week in primary, even if the gravity is stable. Lots of stuff continues to happen after target gravity has been reached, y'know. Patience is a virtue, perhaps more for the homebrewer than anyone else!
 
I'd say at LEAST give it another week in primary, even if the gravity is stable. Lots of stuff continues to happen after target gravity has been reached, y'know. Patience is a virtue, perhaps more for the homebrewer than anyone else!
"A patient man has great understanding, but a quick tempered man displays folley." -Proverbs 14:29

Glad I asked. I will chill out. Don't have a secondary (yet), so three weeks?

Check out the "instructions" that came with the kit... They seemed a little weak to me, but I am a guy who's never brewed any beer... until now.

Rick
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The general rule of thumb is 1 week in primary, 2 weeks in secondary, 3 in bottles at 68°F (though I usually do 2-1-3, or just a 3-week primary and then bottle)...
Igliashon, took your advice to heart. After two weeks in the primary, I intend to rack to my secondary fermenter today (a 5 gallon bb carboy which is currently on a fedex truck out for delivery to my house along with some ingredients for my next batch). Did a gravity check this morning and the temp corrected reading was 1.012. Corrected OG was 1.050 which gives me a nice 5% ABV. Smells good too. Please keep up the dialogue on the GF "big" and hoppy beers...
 
Good show, mate. Keep us updated! Did you taste your hydrometer sample?
I did not taste the hydrometer sample, however, yesterday while racking to the secondary, I grabbed a sample and tasted it. Not sure what to say about the taste... except I hope it improves. I have zero experience tasting unfinished beer; it wasn't terrible, but did have a distinct and somewhat sharp, tinny, twangy, something or other taste to it. It will settle down, yes?
 
I just read the directions that came with your kit--they had you do a partial boil. Doh! Yeah, I'm afraid you're not likely to see big improvement with time. My first three or four batches were partial boils (1.5 gallons for a 3 gallon batch), and there is a very specific and peculiar taste common to all partial-boil homebrew I've ever tasted (even non-GF ones). It does improve with (a lot of) time, but it never quite goes away. Switching to full-boils brought on an ENORMOUS improvement to the quality of my brews. If you don't have space for a 7.5-gallon kettle and a propane bayou burner, you could always just shrink your batch-size and do 3-gallon batches. That's what I do, since I live in an apartment and my stove is too weak to boil 5 gallons of water.

Also, adding the sorghum at the beginning of the boil is kind of a no-no; it's better to add maybe 50% at the beginning and 50% at the end, if you're using sorghum as the main source of fermentables. That seemed to help a lot for me, as well.

I'd say bottle it, and stick up the back of the cupboard, ignore it for a few months (if you can bear it) and then check in with it. I've got a few batches with which I'm doing exactly that (incidentally, they're my 3rd and 4th GF batches ever, the last of my partial boils).
 
In any case, I've pretty much found that the hydrometer samples are a pretty good indicator of how it's gonna taste. If the hydrometer samples are nasty, there's not much hope, unless you're up for a really long aging (in which case, there still may not be any hope, depending on how nasty it really is). Lotsa people say never dump your batches, but this is the gluten-free forum, and sometimes we make just really bad beer. It's okay to dump if it really, really sucks (IMO).
 
FWIW, I have a 7.5 gallon pot, did a 5 gallon boil, and used a wort chiller (yes, I ignored the "do a partial boil" portion of the instructions). Other than that, I followed instructions with the kit and used "best practices" from this site and other resources. Maybe I'm just being a overly critical with the taste test.

I have been reading your perspective and experiences with the partial sorghum at boil and partial at flame out helping with the sorghum twang, and am playing around with different quntities/timings on BrewTarget as extract timing does seem to affect overall bitterness. I am already looking forward to brewing a second batch, but having this first batch be at least drinkable is important to me. Thanks again for your help (and patience).
 
FWIW, I have a 7.5 gallon pot, did a 5 gallon boil, and used a wort chiller (yes, I ignored the "do a partial boil" portion of the instructions). Other than that, I followed instructions with the kit and used "best practices" from this site and other resources. Maybe I'm just being a overly critical with the taste test.

Oh, well then! You should be fine. Well, what kind of water did you use? Tap? Filtered tap? Bottled/spring? I have a feeling mineral content of water may have some effect on the sorghum twang, which (IIRC) is due to the relatively-high iron and mineral content of sorghum extract. I usually use spring, but I'm switching to reverse-osmosis because it's cheaper, and will eventually switch to in-home filtration.
 
Well, what kind of water did you use? Tap? Filtered tap? Bottled/spring?
I used 2 gallons tap water (well water, pretty hard) and 3 gallons of bottled water (Polar purified drinking water from BJs Wholesale, do they have those in the west coast?). In hind sight it was probably a bad call on using the well water. From here on out I intend to use the bottled water only with a little gypsum; good call?
 
Yeah, it could be the well water, but I really couldn't say for sure. Try another batch without and see how it goes. A little gypsum would probably be just the ticket for hoppy British styles; I've never tried it, but I've got a bunch of US Goldings and some Phoenix hops beckoning me to make an English IPA, and I reckon on adding some gypsum to that and see how it goes. Will probably brew that one in two weeks; I'm looking to make every Thursday a brew day for the next couple of months (the beauty of doing small batches and having 4 fermenters!). I'm planning to rotate between a stout, a light summery herb/spice thing, and an IPA, to progressively hone each one until I'm satisfied...and then I'll start attacking the BIG styles!
 
I'm looking to make every Thursday a brew day for the next couple of months (the beauty of doing small batches and having 4 fermenters!)
Brew day every Thursday; that sounds like fun. Speaking of fun, just for fun I threw an ounce of Liberty hops into the secondary yesterday...
 
Just sampled my first batch of homebrew... success! It tastes like beer, like pretty good beer actually. Two weeks in the primary, one week in the secondary, and two weeks of bottle (pig actually) conditioning, and it's already the best GF beer I've ever had. Can't wait to taste the "Lucky 13" (13 hop editions) Imperial IPA I brewed today... yum.
 
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