Wierd Idea..?

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CDGoin

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OK my uncle in North Dakota raises Winter wheat and Lentil beans..

Could you make a brew from beans..?

I assume winter wheat is a no brainer for making beer from..
 
Anyone..?

These are the beans I am talking about.. they are grain size.

lentil%20seed_green_cup.jpg


I will just have to try once I go to full grain to see.. I figure if you can do it with corn you maybe able to do it with lentils..?
 
I think you can make a brew from almost anything edible. I bet bean-beer would taste terrible. Well, I don't like beans very much anyway.
 
I'm guessing you are wanting to use it as an adjunct? You could always put it in with your steeping grains and see what happens. I am curious as to what kind of flavor they have? I'm not really familiar with lentils. I can't get the idea of a beer that tastes like pea soup out of my head though...
 
I read that if Kidney Beans have an alpha amylase inhibitor which is partly why Kidney Beans can be toxic if improperly cooked, or raw.

That leads me to believe that beans would stop the conversion of carbs to sugar.

Don't know how accurate this is.
 
Lentils are not quite a bean and not quite a grain.. They are lightly sweet so I would think they have sugars in them..

They have a light flavor (Again more like a grain than "pea soup")

So I was thinking of throwing into a mash once I get good at it just for the sheer heck of it..

Sounds like I maybe the first.. or unless radical brewing is right.. the second :)

Thanks guys..
 
I think you would need to cook them first, like with cereal adjuncts. The only thing I would worry about is the fat content affecting the head retention.
 
Interesting.. I found recipes online for Lentil bread, and where they are being used as a substitute for those with wheat allergies.

Also some kind of fermented treat as well.. so it can be fermented.. That I guess is a start.
 
Hmm.. Bean and Barley Beer.. :)

Once I get my All-grain legs under me I think that will be the beer I try.

I think you would need to cook them first, like with cereal adjuncts. The only thing I would worry about is the fat content affecting the head retention.

Fat is a very small portion of Lentils..

Not being a grain expert by ANY MEANS.. here is the simplest of breakdowns

Lentils - Carb 70% / Protein 27% / Fat 3%
Yellow Corn - Carb 83% / Protein 7% / Fat 11%
Barley - Carb 82% / Protein 13% / Fat 5%
Wheat - Carb 80% / Protein 14% / Fats 6%

If anything Lentils have less fat than grains, but a bit more protein..

Also

Lentil - 2% of weight in sugars - Sucrose (75%), Fructose (25%), Maltose (25%)

Barley - .08% of weight in sugar - (No breakdown given - I would assume heavy in Maltose :) )


So.... hate to sound like the noob I am.. whats that mean in beer production terms ?
 
I would think that in the history of humankind, if lentils made good beer, there would be lentil beer

that shouldn't stop you from trying, though.

good luck!
 
Thats a VERY good point..

At minimum even if it wasn't good.. it would be a local tradition somewhere..

Kind of like the chewed up and spit out corn brew.

Humans will drink about anything with alcohol in it.. and do it long enough it becomes a local traditional drink..

That said.. might try anyway.. won't cost much to try.
 
Well, now you have to try it. I am curious. I still don't want to taste it though. Let us know how it turns out. If people didn't act on their weird ideas we wouldn't have beer at all.
 
True..

I did find 3 articles referencing turning beans into alcohol but they only mentioned it, didn't say how to do it. :confused:

Another blog I found specifically mentioned Lentil beer.. stops after he sprouts the lentils.. and he never finished the blog.. :mad:

Also just found a OLD BB posting from 1998 where someone mentioned it and again no reply.

I AM GOING to HAVE TO TRY this.. just to see if it can be done or not. And to document its triumph or failure.
 
I think the challenge will be in the mashing... barley comes up as only 0.08% sugar because it's mostly starch until you mash it.

Your guess is as good as mine as to whether the lentils have enzymes to convert their starches into simple sugars, whether the amylase from the barley will convert the starch in the lentils, whether the lentils have amylase inhibitors like kidney beans which will mess up your ability to convert either the lentils or the barley....

Heck, worst case, you've got beany starchy beer; let us know how it tastes!
 
With more protein and less sugar, it might be like adding oats, giving you body and head retention. You might use beano as an enzyme to break up the oligosaccharides... On second thought, just don't.
 
OK.. I have a ways to go to learn all-grain and such first..

So figure I have to do these thigns first:

1) Get easiest all-grain recipe and do it

2) As Oats may provide a similar expreince second all-grain would be an Oat Stout or something like that.

3) Try malting my own barley and make a beer with that.

Then if #1-#3 are succesful time to dive into Lentils.

Now understand a lot of people are not familiar with these. As mentioned these are more like a grain than a bean. There flavor is also mild and almost neutral.

Now as far as amylase inhibitor - I found the answer on a website:


Lentils are easy to sprout, lentil seeds are soaked 6-12 hours and sprouted in a jar, sprouter or bag. Rinse seed 2-3 times a day and use sprouts when 1/2 -2cm long. Do not use hulled seed for sprouting, as seed may be split and the germ embryo injured. Soaking lentil seeds for 12 hours and then sprouting 3-4 days has been found to completely remove all haemagglutinin and amylase inhibitor.

After I do all this, I think it maybe possible to roast them and get some additional grain like flavor qualities from them.

Anyway.. hopefully this thread doesn't die like the others I found and the answer can be found.

If successful I imagine a cloudy beer like a wheat, with a soft and smooth drinking palate. Similar to Makgeolli (A Korean Wheat and Rice brew..) , but carbonated like a beer.

I think it will be unique no matter what, and NOT be some off flavored Bean Beer that others are envisioning.
 
I think you basically just described the malting process. You might look in to other adjuncts in successful recipes, and substitute the lentils for one of those for your best chance at a great bear.
 
Yep.. Thats why I mentioned #3... Malt my own barley and the brew with it.. :)

If I can get that right then I can trust what I am doing with the lentils.. So if they work or don't I cant blame my inexperience with malting grain.. :)
 
Ok yea weird idea. However I was drinking a Samuel Smith Organic Lager today, and the earthiness in it made me think it would be great to try to do a beer themed around that flavor. The beer reminded me of a fresh summertime garden salad.... spicy notes reminiscent of fresh greens, and a touch of sweetness that made me think of sweet peas and bell peppers, and earthiness that just made me long for summer garden season again.

Maybe you're onto something with these lentils.... Why not try making some lentils and tasting the water you boil them in?
 
This article from BYO is about Al Capone's Prohibition Lager.

It uses soybeans.

This article compares soybeans and lentils - if you trust unsourced soybean-lentil info.

Which, if you choose to, seems to indicate that using lentils in good ol' Al's beer recipe might work, based on lentils having more carbohydrates, less fat, etc.

If no one else on here wants to try it...geez, this has got me curious, I might have to hit Bulk Barn up for some lentils!
 
Before I read this I didn't think there was any way my home brew farts could get any worse. Not the first time I have been wrong.

I'm really looking forward to results.
 
Before I read this I didn't think there was any way my home brew farts could get any worse. Not the first time I have been wrong.

I'm really looking forward to results.

I believe the OP is single...no one around to inform him about the quality of his home brew farts.

I will be staying away from this one.
 
I believe the OP is single...no one around to inform him about the quality of his home brew farts.

I will be staying away from this one.

Nope. Married

That said, wife hasn't experienced them yet. As my homebrew hasnt come out of bottles yet, and mainly my work buddies were the only ones to enjoy the aroma after my visit to the local home brew group meeting last month. :)
 
So.. after a little more poking around on the net.. using legumes in beer was done in the past.

I also found a tid bit on the aforementioned great lentil adventure blog, in his postings that I had originally missed. So I will post them here in order so its easier to follow. I will pick up where he left off one of these days.

Sept 12 2009

Lentil beer anyone? That's right. The final goal. So, lentils contain carbs, which are just long sugars. Yeast ferment sugar to turn it into alcohol. Therefore, yeast should be able to ferment lentils into alcohol. Right? I haven't seemed to be able to find anyone online who has done it, but it should work. I briefly thought about it the other day, but one part was missing: amylase. In order for yeast to more easily ferment carbs, they need to be first turned into sugar. This can be done with amylase, the same enzyme in your saliva that helps break down carbs while you chew them. So while I could chew some lentils, spit them out and then ferment them, it didn't seem like the most appealing idea. (Although that is how some types of alcohol are made around the world). In the brewing industry, this is done by sprouting the barley, activating its natural amylase, before continuing with the brewing process. So in order to make lentil beer, I would need to sprout lentils. Possible? Turns out people do it all the time. All you have to do is soak the lentils in water overnight, and then rinse them twice a day and keep them open to air (via cheesecloth or something similar) for about three days. So I bought a nice big mason jar, soaked about a pound of lentils and hopefully in a few days they will be sprouted. In the mean time, I will try to develop a protocol for lentil fermentation. Wish me luck.

Sept 13 2009

Update on lentil sprouting: So three days was a lie. The lentils had started to sprout by this morning. Also, the sprouted lentils have probably increased in size by about five times, and are about to take over the mason jar. After flipping through the old homebrewing books, I'm still trying to figure out how to approach this lentil beer situation. Hopefully I will figure out exactly what I will do soon.

Oct 27 2009

Lastly, as promised, a lentil beer update! I have consumed now consumed...lentil beer, sort of. And lived! Let me explain.

As I have discussed many times, the seemingly ultimate challenge to test the versatility of lentils I decided to try was lentil beer. Rather than an individual hurdle like many of the other recipes contained, lentil beer required utilizing multiple novel techniques as well as detailed planning. The steps:

1) Traditionally, beer is made from wheat or barley malt, hops, yeast and water (adjunct grains, like rice, are used in mass-quantity, domestic beers as filler). The alcohol comes from the fermentation of sugars in the malt by the yeast. Therefore, in order to make lentil beer, I would need to discover how to make lentil malt.

2) Research regarding malts led to lots of cool tidbits on the only part of brewing I had yet to try (I have always used canned malt extract when making batches of beer). The most helpful realization: the barley or wheat must first be sprouted in order to cause the grains to release amylase, which breaks the long starch molecules in the plants down into smaller components that the yeast can ferment. (Tangential fun fact: another source of amylase is saliva, so technically I could chew the lentils and spit them into a container to provide the amylase, which is the traditional technique for the Latin American, corn-based drink, Chicha.) So now the questions is: can I sprout lentils?

3) Anyone who has read the sprouted lentil stir fry knows that I found out the answer is yes. And that it is done quite commonly. So I decided that in theory if I were to mash the sprouted lentils and heat them in a pot of water at around 170F and a pH of 5.5, activating the amylase, then I should be able to get a sugary wort from the lentils to use in fermentation. So that is what I tried. Unfortunately, my specific gravity did not go up. In brewing, the amount of sugar is usually measured by specific gravity (which is the density of the liquid with respect to water). Larger specific gravities mean more sugar in the solution. When the beer ferments, the sugars turn into alcohol, which is lighter than water, so the density goes down. Measuring specific gravity allows you to both calculate the fermented sugars (and thus alcohol percentage) as well as verify that the fermentation process is completed so that it does not start up again after bottling, resulting in exploding bottles. Since my specific gravity didn't go up, it meant that I didn't have significant amounts of sugars in the wort to facilitate brewing. At this point I had consumed a few beers and began to get frustrated, so I started grabbing handfuls of brown sugar and throwing them into the wort. And this is where the recipe begins to deviate from ideal. With the sugar added, there was now fermentable material, so what I needed was yeast.

4) For yeast I had planned on using Chimay Belgium Trappist Ale yeast. This is one of my favorite tricks in brewing. Anytime you buy a bottle-conditioned beer (Belgian trappists, German hefeweizens, etc. are popular options), the yeast used to brew the beer are still in the bottle. Since there aren't sugars left for them to digest, they lay dormant; however, if you decant most of the beer and then add the last yeast-rich slurry to a little sugar, voila!, they awaken and begin fermenting anew. Thus if you ever want to brew a beer closely in the style of a Belgian trappist, what better way than to use the exact same yeast strain? So I decanted most of my bottle into a glass and then added the rest to my one quart of wort, hoping it would ferment. I put it in a mason jar and added an airlock to the top.

5) Sure enough, the beer fermented and after I measured the specific gravity, I was able to determine that I had made 6.4% alcohol beer! I added a little bit of sugar to be fermented for carbonation and bottled the mixture into two bottles: one 12oz. and one 22oz. After waiting a week, I chilled it in the fridge and gave it a try. It is....interesting. It is very bright with heavy apple and citrus notes. Having had the Chimay, I know that most of these tastes were produced by the yeast itself as it fermented the brown sugar; however, there is an underlying body and almost earthy taste that comes from the lentils. It may not be a beer that I would want to drink in endless glasses but it was good enough to make me want to try to make it again for real.

6) Which brings me to my last point. Lentil Beer: Part Deux. I'm still not sure exactly how I will fix the wort-making process, but I am currently sprouting two batches of lentils that hopefully I will be able to turn into sugary goodness. I will keep you posted on the status, but the fact that the first batch was more-than-palatable makes me excited that I might be able to create an enjoyable lentil beer. And that would be a feat for this project.

So he did it.. ! Sort of.. Part Duex never seemed to have happened.. but at least now I have an outline.. Two others on his blog over the years were attempting the same thing and asking for more. So I know I am not alone in wondering..

Anyway, back to cleaning the garage to make room for Brew Equipment. Going to attempt my first all-grain soon as its done.

BTW if any others out there are looking to attempt Lentil Beer.. feel free to hijack this thread with your experiments and results.
 
I found that blog the other day, hadn't gotten around to posting here yet.

I bought some lentils last night, to attempt malting them. Manitoba and Saskatchewan grow a lot of lentils, if this works out, it might make for a cool local adjunct.

I must say, though...the guy writes about the beer, and doesn't seem to blog again...or answer comments...I find it hard to believe that lentil beer is bad enough to kill, but the bloggers silence is deafening.

Are you thinking full 5 gallon batch? I'm thinking 1-gallon, using Al Capone's recipe, substituting malted lentils (that still looks weird!) for soy grits.

Thank-you for sharing your idea - this is not a direction I would have explored otherwise!
 
I was thinking 5 gallon, but may do 1 Gallon.. havent tryed one gallon yet. I could probably get the equipment to try that..

Got to get the garage cleaned first :) if I want to do 5 gallon all-grain though.

3 things I was thinking.

1) He went from Malting to brewing.. didnt say if he dried them (In cooking he wouldnt have had too) or roasted them.. So that maybe part of his original problem getting them to take.

2) If you malt them and then try varying roasting methods for chocolate or caramel malting.. might get a different result.

3) If you just dry them, the profile should be REALLY close to oatmeal.

Let me know how it goes.. I was thinking of malting then trying to roast them and replace the oatmeal in a stout recipe with them.

At minimum if successful, could be onto a local specialty brew for the Canadian and North Dakota region :)
 
Y'see, this is why I love this forum!

Call me uncreative, but I hadn't even thought about going chocolate or crystal/caramel lentil malt - just sprout, grow, couch, dry...maybe kiln or toast a little, but that was it. Your lentil stout idea's sorta at the opposite end of the spectrum from my Cream Ale/CAP idea...

If, in fact, malted, dried lentils are oatmeal-ish - they could add some body to a lighter beer, and roasted would be pretty awesome in a stout.

I'll keep my progress posted!
 
As lintels have a naturally occurring amylase inhibitor, that would (or does) inhibit fermentation. YOur right you could use Beano.. but I rather not go that route at first. I am not sure about Boreal, but I want to try to keep this as all natural as possible.

Also according to a horticulture website

Soaking lentil seeds for 12 hours and then sprouting 3-4 days has been found to completely remove all haemagglutinin and amylase inhibitor.

Which would seem to indicate if we malted them, we should be able to get them to ferment on their own.

So note to Boreal, the "standard" sprouting of a barley or something.. may not work. We may have to wait longer before stopping the growth of the seedling. As noted in my comment above.

The Original Experiment may not have let the beans sprout long enough. As we know the only thing that truly fermented in his batch was the Brown sugar.
 
Could you not just try them as an adjunct first (20-30%), say with some six row, and a stepped mash.
 
Does the information that shows that sprouting them removing the amylase inhibitor also show they have a natural source of amylase? I would sprout and dry the lentils in the oven at low heat and once dry crack them or mill them to break up the size to increase the lauter and conversion effects. If they do not have their own amylase then you will want to convert them with some two row or six row, unless you want them to add only unconverted starches. The post on that blog did not mention milling the lentils after drying which could have caused the majority of the starches to be stuck inside the lentil.
 
Hi guys!

I'm sprouting them using this site as my guide - def. not a beer making/malting site...but little do they know they're aiding and abetting this experiment...

I thought about beano mashing when this thread started up - but, much like the OP, I'm going for something as natural as possible. The recipe I plan to use will use them as an adjunct, accounting for ~15-20% of fermentables...they're taking the place of soybean grits, which would have no enzymatic activity...so I'm guessing this should work.

I realize to use the lentils this way, I probably don't have to malt them. Malting is fun, though, and really, "lentilmalz" sounds so cool....

Here, for the world to see, is my plan for the lentils:

1. Sprout according to the Lentils.ca guidelines. Kinda. I'm not messing around with a mason jar and screen, I'm using a 4L bucket I sprout barley in for malting.

2. Allow the sprouts to grow for 2-3 days, depending on how they look and taste. I want a brewing adjunct, not salad fixin's!

3. Dry @ 95F for 4h. Then, kiln at ~200F for 1 hour. I've made some decent pale malt this way in the past.

4. Split batch, and continue kilning a small portion @ ~200F for a few hours, with spraying (I can't resist making Munchenlentilmalz - the drafters of the Reinheitsgebot will spin in their Teutonic graves!)

5. Grind in a mortar and pestle until the lentil malt is in about 2-millimetre sqaure chunks. Why 2mm? That's slightly bigger than the holes on my brewing bag, and this is definitely going to be a stove-top, 1-Gallon BIAB experiment!

6. Brew this beer, scaled for 1-gal, using lentil malt in place of soy grits. Soy grits can't taste that much better or worse than homemade amateur lentil malt, right?

The Munchenlentilmalz will stay out of the initial batch. It might get eaten, if it tastes good, before it makes it into a beer, necessitating more experimentation. Or, it might get used in subsequent batch.

Step 1 is underway. Step 2 is a matter of time, and really, in the lentils hands.

I'm open to suggestions, though, folks. Let me know if you see any glaringly obvious holes in my ideas, please!
 
Could you not just try them as an adjunct first (20-30%), say with some six row, and a stepped mash.

That's what I was thinking..

Use them as a replacement for the oatmeal in a oatmeal stout..

Boreal was looking going the other side of the equation..

Thanks for all the tips guys..

On a different subject.. but also a weird idea.. but one I could do easily.. What do you think of this use of the 2L growler from deep woods and some ingenuity ?

minikegpump.jpg
 
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