GF recipe suggestions?

I'm trying to make a GF beer for a friend(the usual story right). I've been making wine for years but have only recently made the jump to beer. I'm shooting for something in the brown ale to stout range a bit on the high gravity side.

What I've got worked out up to this point
I've malted and roasted about 1lb each of
Buckwheat
Red Quinoa
Millet

My plan is to Mash them at 150-ish(I need to improvise a mash tun) and add 1lb of cooked Asian purple sticky rice. Use 5.2 stabilizer and add alpha amylase and let it go for 1hr before draining the wort off and starting the boil.

The extract and fermentables are as follows
6 lbs Sorghum extract
1 lb Molasses
1 lb honey(added to the primary)

Other additives
possibly a couple ounces of bitter chocolate(added at the beginning of boil)
.5 ounce of licorice root(last 5 minutes of boil)
1 quart of coffee added to the primary.

I'm still puzzling over the hop schedule. I've got Hallertauer and Saaz on hand and was planning on using the Saaz for bittering and the Hallertauer for aroma, but I'm completely open to other ideas.

Some of the recent threads have made me question the amount of Sorghum extract I had planned on using. So I'd welcome some thoughts on that.

Lastly I've got some Nottingham yeast.

So what say you guys? Thanks for the help.

Adam

I say go for it and let us know about the mash. I think you will want to grind the malts very fine and try an extendend mash- you never know how well or poorly modifed your home malts are. But I think the bulk of your fermentables will come from the 8 lbs of sorghum, molasses and honey you are adding and mostly color will come from the grains.

Your beer is very experimental, with malting and roasting and mashing and the like, so we cannot help with specifics, but I have a few notes that may help.

As for Sorghum vs Something else, I have been using Brown Rice Syrup to great effect and am going to make a 100% BRS beer in a week and a half. I say lose some sorghum, gain some BRS.

Make sure your bitter chocolate is fat free. The oils if it isn't will give you a hell of a time later, making your beer watery and weird mouthfeeling.

I recommend ground coffee over liquid coffee, but only from what I have read. They are basically the same thing, but I dont like adding water to my beer. I am adding coffee to my coffee stout on Thursday...so I will have first hand experience tomorrow.

For your hops, smell both, pick which one you would like it to smell like, and use that one for aroma. With bitter chocolate in there, go lighter on the IBUs. Those are both low AA% hops, so your bittering addition will likely still be at least an ounce.

Good catch on the chocolate, I totally missed that. I used this since it was fat free but like DKershner said, go lighter on the IBU's the chocolate itself will add some bitterness, believe me.

Lcasanova said:

Good catch on the chocolate, I totally missed that. I used this since it was fat free but like DKershner said, go lighter on the IBU's the chocolate itself will add some bitterness, believe me.

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I am using the same from the same place on the stout, but much less than you.

Thanks for the suggestions.

I picked up some fat free cocoa powder today.

So I'm thinking of cutting back to 3 lbs of sorghum extract. How much are you paying for BRS? I found the exact same stuff I saw pictured in another thread and they wanted 7$ a lb for it. Seemed a little steep when honey is only 5$ a lb. While I was at the store I noticed agave nectar for sale which made me go hmmm...........but then again lots of things make me do that

I hear what you're saying about experimental. The Buckwheat malted good to my inexperienced eye, the quinoa did alright and the millet was nearly hopeless. That coupled with this being my first ever attempt at a mash, albeit a mini one(all my other beers were just steeped grain and extracts) put a big question mark over what the resulting wort will turn out like.

I do love to experiment though

I forget the exact amount, but I pay around $3/lb for some local Brown Rice Syrup...well local to Portland. It comes from a honey farm.

I don't suspect this deal exists everywhere though...although you can try my guys in Portland. It's not on the website, but I buy from them all the time.

http://www.brewbrothers.biz

I think by me about $5/lb is the going price for BRS.

Just started the Mash! roughly 1 lb each of buckwheat, millet, red quinoa, and purple asian sticky rice. Doing it stovetop in a grain bag demonstrated elsewhere in the forum. Timer is set for 1 hr and temp is holding at 165. I hope it turns out nice

So the batch is complete, Nottingham is pitched. The color is not what I had hoped, more of a caramel to cocoa color at the moment. I tasted it and it's obviously sweet, but I didn't notice any offensive flavors at this point. OG=1.056

fermentedhiker said:

So the batch is complete, Nottingham is pitched. The color is not what I had hoped, more of a caramel to cocoa color at the moment. I tasted it and it's obviously sweet, but I didn't notice any offensive flavors at this point. OG=1.056

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I am guessing 1.056 is the OG before the honey is added? If this is the case, your actual OG is 1.063.

This also means you extracted about 1.007 from about 4lbs of grain. I don't know if this is good or bad with gluten free grains, but I just thought I would do the math.

Thanks for the math. I should've mentioned that I altered the recipe a bit. I should've taken an SG on the minimash before adding it to the kettle, but was in gung ho mode. After adding the mash and sparge water to the kettle and bring it to a boil, I removed from the heat and added 3lbs sorghum extract, 2 lbs 10oz BRS, and 1lb Molasses(black strap would've been better, but I used what I had), Then I added 1oz Fuggles and 1 oz organic dutch process cocoa powder. I had intended on a 60 minute boil, but it ended up being more like 75min. @45min I added the second oz of Fuggles. @15 I added the irish moss tab, and @5min added 1oz Hallertau and 1oz licorice root. I had a frozen pot of coffee in the primary along with roughly an oz of heavy toasted oak sawdust. Then added the 1lb of clover honey. The OG I referenced was including the honey, I hadn't even given it any thought about taking it before which would have made sense now that you mention it. I learned quite a bit and I think I'll have a bit better technique the next time around. I did have one major goof. I'm so used to doing 6gallon wine batches that when I had the wort in the primary I thought I had boiled too much volume away and started to add make up water, so now my 5gallon batch is just shy of 5.5 because I caught myself too late. Oh well live and learn right.

Thanks again everyone for the help and suggestions. Now that I've tackled an overly complicated experimental batch that even if it comes out great I won't really know which ingredients did what I think I should take a step back and try some smash recipes to start nailing down some useful information.

fermentedhiker said:

Thanks again everyone for the help and suggestions. Now that I've tackled an overly complicated experimental batch that even if it comes out great I won't really know which ingredients did what I think I should take a step back and try some smash recipes to start nailing down some useful information.

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This is exactly what Logan and I are doing at the moment. Feel free to pay attention to our notes.

First experiment, a lot less Sorghum: http://brew.dkershner.com/2010/blonde-takeover/

Second experiment, no sorghum: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f164/experimental-batches-192814/index5.html

Logan will soon be doing an experiment with how blackstrap molasses affect end flavor with his Brown, doubling the amount IIRC.

I am experimenting with various spices and coffee and chocolate: http://brew.dkershner.com/2010/gf-coffee-stout/
and
http://brew.dkershner.com/2010/gf-merriment/

You will find that our experiments are a little more simple, not because we don't want a complex beer, but because we are trying to measure how things affect the beer. You are more than welcome to help out!

DKershner said:

This is exactly what Logan and I are doing at the moment. Feel free to pay attention to our notes.

First experiment, a lot less Sorghum: http://brew.dkershner.com/2010/blonde-takeover/

Second experiment, no sorghum: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f164/experimental-batches-192814/index5.html

Logan will soon be doing an experiment with how blackstrap molasses affect end flavor with his Brown, doubling the amount IIRC.

I am experimenting with various spices and coffee and chocolate: http://brew.dkershner.com/2010/gf-coffee-stout/
and
http://brew.dkershner.com/2010/gf-merriment/

You will find that our experiments are a little more simple, not because we don't want a complex beer, but because we are trying to measure how things affect the beer. You are more than welcome to help out!

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You are correct, sir. Going from 8 oz of blackstrap molasses to a full lb. I still need to bottle the 100% BRS Blonde

I was planning on doing Lcasanova's brown ale next. I'd be more than happy to do a bit of experimenting.

But being in NZ I don't think I'd be able to send you any for tasting.

celiacsurvivor said:

I was planning on doing Lcasanova's brown ale next. I'd be more than happy to do a bit of experimenting.

But being in NZ I don't think I'd be able to send you any for tasting.

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Well, only one way to do an experiment, and that is to have a control. So, maybe brew one, split the batch and do something differently.

Or, you can brew a recipe you have already brewed and change something.

This is the only way to surely learn, but definitely not the only way to have fun in the GF brewing process. I would encourage anyone to learn from their mistakes and successes, but haphazardly throwing ingredients in could also potentially tell you something, you just never know.

The more of us there are doing either, the more we will learn as a whole.

I had a look through the ingredients I have on hand, and I think I might remove 1kg of sorghum syrup (I usually use 2.8kg) and replace it with 500g of dark candi syrup and 500g of brown rice syrup.

That way I can use the extra 1kg of sorghum with the buckwheat that I just malted and see how that turns out.

DKershner said:

This is exactly what Logan and I are doing at the moment. Feel free to pay attention to our notes.

First experiment, a lot less Sorghum: http://brew.dkershner.com/2010/blonde-takeover/

Second experiment, no sorghum: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f164/experimental-batches-192814/index5.html

Logan will soon be doing an experiment with how blackstrap molasses affect end flavor with his Brown, doubling the amount IIRC.

I am experimenting with various spices and coffee and chocolate: http://brew.dkershner.com/2010/gf-coffee-stout/
and
http://brew.dkershner.com/2010/gf-merriment/

You will find that our experiments are a little more simple, not because we don't want a complex beer, but because we are trying to measure how things affect the beer. You are more than welcome to help out!

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I've been watching those threads with interest, part I what motivated me to go in that direction. I'm waiting to hear the results of your latest test batches to give me an idea of what to try first.

Forgot to mention that when I got home at 5PM that when I checked it I already had visibly active fermentation. There must be something in there that the yeasties like . It even smells like beer.

6 days later and it's down from 1.056 to 1.03. Still has a solid krausen which is currently the color of hot cocoa . I'm getting anxious to see how this will turn out.

I've found that all my GF brews ferment out almost completely, my normal FG is about 1000 -1003

I doubt I'll get quite that low, because of incomplete conversion and using amylase for the mash(my first try malting or mashing). So I expect I'll have a fair amount of unfermentables in the wort. I'll be happy if I get to 1.010 or less.

Adam

My 100% BRS finished at 1.010...I don't see anything wrong with that

celiacsurvivor said:

I've found that all my GF brews ferment out almost completely, my normal FG is about 1000 -1003

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What are you using as your main fermentable when this happens? What kind of yeast?

Took a taste today just to see how it was. It had already dropped to between 1.025-1.027 just overnight. It was fizzy and mildly alcoholic. Nice amount of bitterness up front. A little more than I think it should be, but I'm sure it'll smooth out with a bit of aging. It's certainly no brown ale/porter/stout like I was hoping. Maybe something like an Amber Ale. A bit thin on the mouthfeel for my thinking. Doesn't seem like I got as many non-fermentable sugars as I thought.

Once it drops below 1.020 I'll taste it again and try to decide if I need to make some additions and rack to a secondary.

Any suggestions for what to I should be looking for at this point?

DKershner said:

What are you using as your main fermentable when this happens? What kind of yeast?

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My main fermentable is sorghum syrup, and I normally use S04 or S05 yeast.

This has surprised me too as I have read that the FG should be around 1.010 when using the syrup!

Save yourself a step and leave it in primary

Lcasanova said:

Save yourself a step and leave it in primary

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Ha!, ya I've been doing some reading on the forum about how people aren't using secondaries as much now. I suppose beer just isn't there long enough to pickup the off flavors a wine might(I'm speaking of excessive earthy and yeasty notes, not some sort of bad/dead yeast contamination).

My primary reason for racking to a secondary(if I do it) is two fold. 1) to get the depth of the sediment bed shallower than the "cup" on the autosiphon so I don't have to be as careful when I transfer to the bottling bucket. 2) to make any flavor additions I feel are necessary, ie add more cocoa, more honey, or dry hop a little etc...

So that's what I'm going to be trying figure out this weekend, is do I let sleeping dogs lie and bottle it as it stands or do I tweak?

Adam

fermentedhiker said:

Ha!, ya I've been doing some reading on the forum about how people aren't using secondaries as much now. I suppose beer just isn't there long enough to pickup the off flavors a wine might(I'm speaking of excessive earthy and yeasty notes, not some sort of bad/dead yeast contamination).

My primary reason for racking to a secondary(if I do it) is two fold. 1) to get the depth of the sediment bed shallower than the "cup" on the autosiphon so I don't have to be as careful when I transfer to the bottling bucket. 2) to make any flavor additions I feel are necessary, ie add more cocoa, more honey, or dry hop a little etc...

So that's what I'm going to be trying figure out this weekend, is do I let sleeping dogs lie and bottle it as it stands or do I tweak?

Adam

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I always found the autosiphon sat on top of the trub anyway. Plus, you must either have a skinny fermenter or a big fat beer to get above the plug on a normal autosiphon.

I have been making additions in the primary with great success. The one I use a secondary on is fruit, but not in the way you are thinking. I actually add in the primary, rack to secondary, and then rack again. Otherwise it is really, really cloudy.

As for the fermentability problems, David and I have had similar experiences with Brewcraft sorghum, but Briess does not do the same thing. You can "fix" brewcraft's beers with some Maltodextrin, but don't make your decision until you know your FG. Then you can just calculate how much to add. In the future, look for a source of Briess Sorghum.

Took another taste and gravity check last night. it's at 1.012 and still fermenting strongly. The taste is still much thinner than I was hoping for, and it's now pretty hot with alcohol taste.

I suppose i could get some Maltodextrin to fix the body issue at bottling. I had even considered added some blackstrap has a lot of unfermentables and letting it go for another week.

Well, you might consider letting it finish. The character of the beer can change greatly between now and once it is bottle conditioned. Changing it now might take it a different direction than you want to go.

Yes, I suppose patience is the better part of virtue. Not one of my strongest points

A perfect example is the fact that I periodically go look at my three GF SMaSH's and stare at them as if I could will them into action

I'm guessing that leaving it alone for now is the best choice. I've got to learn what I've made and if I tweak it will change the equation and make it harder to evaluate.

I'll probably pick up some Maltodextrin to have on hand to fix the FG if it seems necessary at bottling.

On the subject of bottling, has anyone ever used Maple sugar for priming?

fermentedhiker said:

Yes, I suppose patience is the better part of virtue. Not one of my strongest points

A perfect example is the fact that I periodically go look at my three GF SMaSH's and stare at them as if I could will them into action

I'm guessing that leaving it alone for now is the best choice. I've got to learn what I've made and if I tweak it will change the equation and make it harder to evaluate.

I'll probably pick up some Maltodextrin to have on hand to fix the FG if it seems necessary at bottling.

On the subject of bottling, has anyone ever used Maple sugar for priming?

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Making a beer thicker is a lot easier than thinner.

You can use whatever you want for priming, the important part is accurate measurement, no matter what you use it will have almost no effect on taste.

DKershner said:

You can use whatever you want for priming, the important part is accurate measurement, no matter what you use it will have almost no effect on taste.

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That's good to know, as I've read(on here I believe) that it can have a huge affect ie using cane sugar vs honey vs corn sugar on the finished product. This means I can use cane sugar for priming instead of shelling out for corn without worrying about altering the character of the beer.

fermentedhiker said:

That's good to know, as I've read(on here I believe) that it can have a huge affect ie using cane sugar vs honey vs corn sugar on the finished product. This means I can use cane sugar for priming instead of shelling out for corn without worrying about altering the character of the beer.

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Unless you are making a light lager (and even in that case usually), you would be fine doing this, although make sure to adjust for cane sugar, as I believe there is a small difference in fermentability.

I taste tested a 10gal batch of a witbier side by side, half was force carbed and half was bottle conditioned. No discernible difference in taste. The difference between two types of sugars would be even smaller.

Bottled it last night. She finished out at 1.008. It's not at all what I was trying for but seemed drinkable even when warm and flat . A bit bitter but not American IPA level hoppy, I'd guess close to an English IPA or maybe just a bit of a Bitter, not sure though a I can't really claim to have my palette calibrated. The Honey overtones have gotten a really strong. Far more prominent than I would've expected for using a single pound. We'll see how it settles out after a couple weeks in the bottle.

fermentedhiker said:

Bottled it last night. She finished out at 1.008. It's not at all what I was trying for but seemed drinkable even when warm and flat . A bit bitter but not American IPA level hoppy, I'd guess close to an English IPA or maybe just a bit of a Bitter, not sure though a I can't really claim to have my palette calibrated. The Honey overtones have gotten a really strong. Far more prominent than I would've expected for using a single pound. We'll see how it settles out after a couple weeks in the bottle.

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If it tastes like an IPA when warm and in the fermenter after a couple weeks, it should be a pale ale or less level in a few weeks. Alcohol fire is also way stronger as are any adjuncts. Beer changes radically in the first few weeks and carbonation and coldness have a big effect too.

Well initial results are in. Not my favorite beer by a long shot but quite drinkable. Color wise I'd call it an amber. Taste wise I'd say it's an underhopped pale with noticeable honey overtones.

Part of the reason for missing my target(a brown ale-stout) was my timidity in roasting the grains. I just never got anywhere close to the darker malts with my GF grains. Their lack of additional bitterness is likely why it comes across as underhopped.

The non GF drinkers enjoyed and it consumed it without hesitation, so I guess that's a compliment. The intended benefactor was VERY pleased(jumped up and down actually) So I'm calling it a win even if it's not what I was trying to make.

History is written by the victors right (really I meant to do that )

fermentedhiker said:

Well initial results are in. Not my favorite beer by a long shot but quite drinkable. Color wise I'd call it an amber. Taste wise I'd say it's an underhopped pale with noticeable honey overtones.

Part of the reason for missing my target(a brown ale-stout) was my timidity in roasting the grains. I just never got anywhere close to the darker malts with my GF grains. Their lack of additional bitterness is likely why it comes across as underhopped.

The non GF drinkers enjoyed and it consumed it without hesitation, so I guess that's a compliment. The intended benefactor was VERY pleased(jumped up and down actually) So I'm calling it a win even if it's not what I was trying to make.

History is written by the victors right (really I meant to do that )

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It's an advanced beer brewing game you are playing, and you did pretty damn well. No shame in making good beer, even if it wasn't what you planned on.

So I got a friend who's a avid beer drinker to write down some tasting notes. He's a fan of IPA's and Belgian trippel's.

Light on the nose, very little aroma, smooth semi-sweet middle with a slight bitter aftertaste. Just a slight molasses presence.

His judgement was that it was good and if I hadn't told him he wouldn't have suspected it was a GF brew. He felt it was lacking in aroma and need more Hops. He thought it was similar to a Newcastle Brown to compare it to a commercial brew.