Has anyone made a beer using unmalted GF grains and just enough 6 row to convert it? Purely to get an idea of how each grain will taste. Not to give to someone that is GF, but for your own information in coming up with future GF versons.
For those of you that are not GF and brewing GF for someone else...
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yodalegomaster
Well-Known Member
It's not going to be Gluten free if you add malt to it. According to my friend with the problem any amount of gluten is too much.
Sorry, I didn't mean to imply it was intended for someone that is GF. I updated my original post.
Well, I certainly haven't tried this (being as I'm the one who needs GF beer).
But I don't understand how this would achieve your purpose of discovering what the grains taste like.
By that I mean I don't think you are going to get the same result, from trying to convert unmalted grain in a mash with barley, as what you'd get from either malting those grains and doing a mash, or even the same (though this would be closer) as using those unmalted grains in some kind of 'artificial' mash with enzymes.
I mean, I guess the primary difference between doing this and just malting and mashing or doing an artificial mash is that this way, you can be assured of getting a 'full' conversion...but I would think that the amount of barley necessary to ensure that full conversion would significantly alter the flavor.
But I don't understand how this would achieve your purpose of discovering what the grains taste like.
By that I mean I don't think you are going to get the same result, from trying to convert unmalted grain in a mash with barley, as what you'd get from either malting those grains and doing a mash, or even the same (though this would be closer) as using those unmalted grains in some kind of 'artificial' mash with enzymes.
I mean, I guess the primary difference between doing this and just malting and mashing or doing an artificial mash is that this way, you can be assured of getting a 'full' conversion...but I would think that the amount of barley necessary to ensure that full conversion would significantly alter the flavor.
yodalegomaster
Well-Known Member
There's a reason these grains were not used in traditional beer brewing over the last 1000 years. They don't make beer that tastes good. So, I don't think you will learn anything. May I suggest that you might try test brewing the known good ingredients.
I wouldn't say that. There's many ingredient's that weren't used for over 1000 years because they just weren't in the area. Barley and wheat were used in europe predominantly because they were there and plentiful. They also possessed the right nutrients and eventually the right alpha and beta amylase amounts necessary to convert to fermentable sugars.
We're in this subsection of the forum, because we (or someone we know) needs gluten free. Some people aren't gluten free and they have the luxury of further experimenting with things some of us cannot. I'm curious too in how the gluten free grains will taste when properly converted with alpha and beta, and that's the purpose, to learn things.
Should people people mash gluten free grains, yes with barley as the amylase contributor, then there's a good chance a person who knows the outcome of barley will be able to detect what flavor contributions come from properly converted gluten free grains. It's a darn sight easier than malting grains like we're doing now.
If we only brew with "the known good ingredients" (barley and wheat) then we gluten sufferers wouldn't be able to drink it now, would we? Thats why we ask people like you yodalegomaster who can experiment freely with both, to see if they have.
We learn from history, yes, but we have to try new things. We could still be using only regular mail, after all, why bother with email or forums? Paper mail has existed for hundreds of years. You won't learn anything by trying out this new fangled email, or facebook or twitter.
Why bother drinking beer? We could be drinking gluten free vodka or wine. Why bother creating new beer recipes, aren't the old ones good enough?
No, the purpose of the question is because we want beer for any number of reasons, and we want good beer. Thus we have to research and experiment and test and break down the flavors as best we can to create something that's better than what we have now. We don't want to feel like second class citizens where people don't want to taste our beer because it doesn't taste good. We want to make beer that any person, gluten free or non, will want it because it tastes good. We want people to go to a place and say.."out of all the beers here, the gluten free one is my favorite".
I'm glad that Jolly Pumpkin's gluten free beer gets that from people I talk to. It means that it can hold its own against normal "traditional" beer.
We're in this subsection of the forum, because we (or someone we know) needs gluten free. Some people aren't gluten free and they have the luxury of further experimenting with things some of us cannot. I'm curious too in how the gluten free grains will taste when properly converted with alpha and beta, and that's the purpose, to learn things.
Should people people mash gluten free grains, yes with barley as the amylase contributor, then there's a good chance a person who knows the outcome of barley will be able to detect what flavor contributions come from properly converted gluten free grains. It's a darn sight easier than malting grains like we're doing now.
If we only brew with "the known good ingredients" (barley and wheat) then we gluten sufferers wouldn't be able to drink it now, would we? Thats why we ask people like you yodalegomaster who can experiment freely with both, to see if they have.
We learn from history, yes, but we have to try new things. We could still be using only regular mail, after all, why bother with email or forums? Paper mail has existed for hundreds of years. You won't learn anything by trying out this new fangled email, or facebook or twitter.
Why bother drinking beer? We could be drinking gluten free vodka or wine. Why bother creating new beer recipes, aren't the old ones good enough?
No, the purpose of the question is because we want beer for any number of reasons, and we want good beer. Thus we have to research and experiment and test and break down the flavors as best we can to create something that's better than what we have now. We don't want to feel like second class citizens where people don't want to taste our beer because it doesn't taste good. We want to make beer that any person, gluten free or non, will want it because it tastes good. We want people to go to a place and say.."out of all the beers here, the gluten free one is my favorite".
I'm glad that Jolly Pumpkin's gluten free beer gets that from people I talk to. It means that it can hold its own against normal "traditional" beer.
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They may not have been used in Europe, where barley and wheat were the predominant grains, but 'beer' has been produced by nearly every civilization, everywhere in the world, with the grains native to those regions. Additionally, Europeans colonists often made beer with locally available grains before significant barley and wheat cultivation occurred in regions they colonized (or, in some cases, when barley and wheat cultivation didn't work out very well).
Somewhere, I think I've heard that typically plain 6 row can convert at least 2x its own weight in rice, and top-quality stuff even 3x, though the less barely, the longer it is going to take.
Even if I got top stuff, that is still 25% of the grist and certainly noticeable tastewise...
