I Just Got the Death Sentence? What next?

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MarshmallowBlue

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Hey everyone. Just got the call yesterday on some blood work and I am in fact... Allergic to Gluten. I'll know more details when some other biopsies and blood work come back but the fact is. No more gluten.

What are some of your guys' tips for making gluten free beer, ingredients, process changes etc? I am capable of all grain brewing, as far as set up goes.

Also there's a lot of talk about clarity ferm. I asked my dermatologist about it and he said 20ppm is really low and is worth trying to see if it works for me.

cheers everyone.
 
I heard some report that clarityferm actually dropped gluten to undetectable levels. Can't remember where though.
 
Clarityferm has been shown to reduce gluten levels in beer below the government standard for calling a food-stuff item "Gluten-free". All is not lost my friend. It sucks a little you have to spend extra for each batch of beer.

I've also had some very interesting sorghum based beers though that were very delicious so you can expand your dabbling in the dark arts.
 
Yeah, I told the doc about clarity ferm and he said to try it. If it doesn't work, I'd like to know my options. Looks like Brown rice syrup and sorgum extract are common base malt replacements?
 
Good luck with your gluten free lifestyle. In my area there are little gluten free markets. Supposedly they sell nothing with gluten. Hopefully you can find one near you..
 
I live in Northern NH. Theres a specialty grocery store that has a lot of gluten free products, for a price, but beyond that it's pretty limited. Nothing wrong with meat, vegetables, and chex cereal though.
 
Check these guys out. They use no sorghum and do all grain GF beers. I bought some for my celiac FIL when in Seattle. You might get some good ideas here. http://ghostfishbrewing.com/

Clarity ferm reduces gluten to less than 20ppm, what the FDA considers good enough to be called GF. As its likely to leave some other gluten-related peptides behind, some people still can't tolerate it. Hopefully it works for you. Good luck!
 
I'm going to have to go ahead and chide you a little for your choice of thread title. After glenn's news that his wife had fallen ill, I thought I was going to open this thread and discover another of my "friends" on the forum had been hospitalized and thought "oh no".

Sorry about the gluten allergy though, that stinks.

Edit: Ok, its my fault, I should have realized this was in the gluten free brewing forum. Still glad it wasn't quite as serious as I feared.
 
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I have heard that beer (and gluten in beer) exacerbates psoriasis*, so I have toyed with the idea of trying several commercial GF beers .. just to see if I like it at all. If I liked it, I might try making some. But I also enjoy apfelwein and ciders, so if I had to go GF I could switch my homebrew options to hard ciders and hard lemonades.

* I'm not in any hurry right now, because I recently started using a home made ointment (friend made it) with calendula oil (have used it before with modest results) and cannabis oil ! It's not magic, but it's damn close. And my understanding is that cannabis oil is pretty much legal nationwide .. or soon will be. If your issue is dermatological, you might want to try to find some cannabis oil. Just MHO.
 
They did a whole issue dedicated to gluten free brewing. It's that "new" craft beer and brewing magazine. Mead, cider, gluten free and it's various derivatives and explanations were discussed. There are some small specialty maltsters popping up making non traditional malt from gluten free grains. They had an article about one of them.

As an aside, there are lots of blood tests that can indicated that you react to certain things. Have you been diagnosed with Celiac disease (also known as sprue)? Do you have the blood tests that confirm your body has antibodies to the protein constituents of known as "gluten"?
There is a big difference between being "allergic" and having celiac disease. Some of the so called blood tests aren't tests that confirm presence of antibodies. Some ARNPs, and PAs, and other pseudo- or quasi- "doctors" (non-MD, DO) are running clinics spouting all sorts of bull****, which may or may not have some shred of truth to it, but has not been studied, proven, peer reviewed, published by multiple people in respected literature confirming the evidence, etc. not to say they don't help people, but I think they are making a living off people selling the modern equivalent of snake oil or advising the equivalent of it.

Also, the commercial beer Omission, is brewed with clarity fern according to that magazine issue. You could try that. Also, some other beers, mostly light lagers, they report the gluten levels. Corona light and corona, and some other light beers also close to or meet the 5ppm level.

I'd find out the facts about your diagnosis, experiment with some low gluten commercial beers to see if they cause problems, and seek out that back issue which will be invaluable to you I suspect. There are always options: mead and it's variations, cider, perry, and low gluten and Gluten free options for malt, and don't forget wine!

Good luck

TD
 
I also have heard good things from people who have used clarity ferm (including someone from white labs) and on top of that at least you will have really clear beer too
 
As an aside, there are lots of blood tests that can indicated that you react to certain things. Have you been diagnosed with Celiac disease (also known as sprue)? Do you have the blood tests that confirm your body has antibodies to the protein constituents of known as "gluten"?

There is a big difference between being "allergic" and having celiac disease. Some of the so called blood tests aren't tests that confirm presence of antibodies. Some ARNPs, and PAs, and other pseudo- or quasi- "doctors" (non-MD, DO) are running clinics spouting all sorts of bull****, which may or may not have some shred of truth to it, but has not been studied, proven, peer reviewed, published by multiple people in respected literature confirming the evidence, etc. not to say they don't help people, but I think they are making a living off people selling the modern equivalent of snake oil or advising the equivalent of it.

TD
Basically, last September i moved in with the in laws as my wife was super sick while pregnant, we couldn't afford the rent on just my paycheck. They eat a lot of bread in that house. I broke out in a serious rash around the same time. I had to live with it since i moved and didn't get insurance til December. Went to the new primary care, "you have hives", gave me a load of steroids and sent me on my way. Once i tapered off the roids, it came back, went back to primary care, more steroids. Finally told him to give me a referral to a Demotologist. Just got in couple weeks ago. As far as I know he's a real dermatologist. His prediction is Dermatitis Herpetiformis

So for tests that were run, I had 2 skin biopsies and 2 blood tests. The one blood test that came back confirmed the presence of gluten anitbodies, like you mention, confirming some form of gluten allergy (not necessarily celiac).

But i also never said I had celiac. I think you need to have a gut biospy to test for that and I haven't had that yet.

Any who, still waiting on the other blood test and two skin biopsies to see whats what. He already said he's going to start me on Dapsone next time I go in.
 
Duck Foot (http://duckfootbeer.com/) here in San Diego uses Clarity Ferm and has all their beers tested by White Labs for gluten. If it is not gluten free, they will not serve it. Been there a number of times, not because I have any problems with gluten, but because they have great beer. Many people there have no idea their beer is gluten free.
 
You live in a great apple area, I'd say its time to get into cider making and cider drinking. You can make your own with any flavor you can think of, even use hops in it. Make it dry, off dry or sweet. Look around for old farmsteads, they usually have some old apple trees. You tube videos have all kinds of DIY apple shredders and presses or just buy gallons of apple juice and get fermenting.
 
You live in a great apple area, I'd say its time to get into cider making and cider drinking. You can make your own with any flavor you can think of, even use hops in it. Make it dry, off dry or sweet. Look around for old farmsteads, they usually have some old apple trees. You tube videos have all kinds of DIY apple shredders and presses or just buy gallons of apple juice and get fermenting.

Yeah all the apples up here are great for cider. Even the nastiest apples like macintosh are tart and punchy. (PS I like tart apples).

A cider press is always on my list, just need to find ~200$ to buy one.

I already make mead and a couple ciders. If the Clarity ferm works out, I guess there's not too much reason to panic. Cake though. Can't have cake.
 
MarshmallowBlue,

Obviously I'm not your doctor. So don't take this as medical advice.

I've looked into gluten sensitivities/allergies/celiac sprue a lot since I've developed issues with gluten. We don't really know all that much about how it all works yet. Blood tests are a great initial indication that you should be looking into going off of gluten. Personally, I've done so twice - the first time for about a month, after which I went back on and experienced no difference. The second time, at the urging of my doctor, I went off for three months before trying to re-introduce, and gluten - even the tiny amounts found in beer - made me very sick.

Just thought I'd give my anecdotal account before you go off for a little bit, try beer with Clarex, and assume everything's OK if nothing happens, ha. It's cool stuff, but not foolproof. As one poster noted, it does break down the protein into pieces, but some of those pieces can still be reactive for some people. It's all in the vagaries of how your specific immune system is reacting to it. Personally, I find that I react to beer treated with Clarex about half the time, so it's kinda an edgy thing for me. Probably has to do with the state my immune system happens to be in when I drink it, but like I said before we don't fully understand this stuff yet. So I have to stay away from it.

I'd stay away from rice syrup and sorghum, it'll turn ya right off to GF brewing. We've been getting great results in this forum using millet and rice malts from small GF maltsters like Eckhardt and Grouse. Unfortunately they're kinda expensive, but it's great for the occasional batch.

Re: cake, you can now get GF flour mixes, cake mixes, cookie dough, etc that will make very passable baked goods. They tend to go stale fast. But past that, the difference isn't too noticeable. Not that going off cake and cookies would be any trouble for your health, lol.
 
MarshmallowBlue,

Just thought I'd give my anecdotal account before you go off for a little bit, try beer with Clarex, and assume everything's OK if nothing happens, ha. It's cool stuff, but not foolproof. As one poster noted, it does break down the protein into pieces, but some of those pieces can still be reactive for some people. It's all in the vagaries of how your specific immune system is reacting to it. Personally, I find that I react to beer treated with Clarex about half the time, so it's kinda an edgy thing for me. Probably has to do with the state my immune system happens to be in when I drink it, but like I said before we don't fully understand this stuff yet. So I have to stay away from it.

I'd stay away from rice syrup and sorghum, it'll turn ya right off to GF brewing. We've been getting great results in this forum using millet and rice malts from small GF maltsters like Eckhardt and Grouse. Unfortunately they're kinda expensive, but it's great for the occasional batch.

Once I got the first test results form the dermatologist i brought up Clarity ferm, and he said go for it. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work.

As far as the millet and rice malts. Are they similar to regular all grain amounts as far as efficiency and amount of pounds I should plan on using?
 
"As far as the millet and rice malts. Are they similar to regular all grain amounts as far as efficiency and amount of pounds I should plan on using?"

Similar, though not quite the same. We're still actively experimenting, but something like 80% of the efficiency you'd get with barley seems to be a reasonable assumption, though I've been getting more like 90% some of the time. Typically the bigger hurdles are needing a good grain mill (they don't come pre-crushed just yet, and you need a different gap setting for these grains), and the fact that we don't have varieties of these grains bred for diastatic power, so conversion is tricky. So you have to adapt mash schedules a bit, and a lot of us use a bit of Diatase by E.C. Kraus in the mash, which is an amylase enzyme.

So it's not quite just straight replace and go. But the results can be a hell of a lot better than the weird thin, sour, cidery stuff you get from just fermenting some sorghum and hops.

If you decide to go for that, or if the Clarex doesn't end up working for you, browse the GF forums and there's a lot of ideas banging around here. We have yet to reach a full consensus on best practice, which is actually pretty fun if you're a tinkerer, not so much if you're a perfectionist lol. One pretty common thing you'll see is that a lot of people have settled on using millet malt as a base, with rice malt used for most of the specialty grains. The millet has better diastatic power than the rice, but the rice roasts and caramelizes more similarly to barley - likely due to its similar husk. Using buckwheat for body is common also.
 
My personal experience has been that Sorghum has a noticeable flavor you have to work with instead of fighting. Search for No Nonsense Stout for one of the several good recipes.

I've only brewed one AG malted rice beer, and while I didn't get it right on the first try, there is promise to it. Your ppg is 50-75% of barley depending on efficiency and process. If you like big beers, rice as the base malt is a nightmare due to malt:water ratio.

A lot of work has been done on the board with millet. It's a smaller grain, so you need a mill that can adjust small enough. ppg is close to barley. Since it has no hulls, you'll need enough rice hulls or rice malt adjuncts to prevent stuck mash.
 
Yeah all the apples up here are great for cider. Even the nastiest apples like macintosh are tart and punchy. (PS I like tart apples).

A cider press is always on my list, just need to find ~200$ to buy one.

I already make mead and a couple ciders. If the Clarity ferm works out, I guess there's not too much reason to panic. Cake though. Can't have cake.

Fellow gluten free-er here. you can have cake. if you make it... Bob's Red Mill 1-1 Baking Flour Mix. Substitute for regular flour in any recipe, and reduce whatever fat (oil, butter, etc) the recipe calls for by 25-30%, and bump up any rising agent like baking soda or powder. Works like magic. Also this cookbook: http://bit.ly/1l6caWT

I've been brewing with Clarity Ferm for a bit after having a diagnosis of Celiac. I find that it works pretty well for me, most of the time. I'm looking right now at beginning to brew GF AG batches though, just to be on the safe side. Hear there's some pretty cool stuff to be done with millet/buckwheat/rice malt bills.
 
My blood work came back confirming a gluten allergy, but my skin biopsies came back as "excema" so I have patch allergy testing in March. I think the rashes do have something to do with Gluten though as they have subsided quite a bit on a gluten reduced diet. I find I am still able to have a beer or two. during the week. It looks like Clarity-ferm will do well enough for me.
 
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