Gluten for Clarifying Agent

[JustusLiebig]

I read Scott Janish's recent blog post ( http://scottjanish.com/researching-new-england-ipa-neipa-haze/ ) about unmalted nonkilned adjuncts helping clarify haze caused by polypeptide-polyphenol complexes. In which, he experiments with using oatmeal flour to reduce haze in a hazy IPA. If this is correct, maybe the addition of about a tablespoon gluten per pound of wort may go a long way to clarify a beer with a lot of polyphenols.
Not sure what amount would do the trick, but maybe 1 TB/pound would be a start, because baking recipes short on gluten often add about a tablespoon of gluten per pound of flour. It would stand to reason that adding just the gluten, one could forgoe other flavor additives of flour. In general, it may lead to less of a flavor effect in modifying a recipe than by using a 10% grain bill of flour.

Anyone have any documentation or links to people using gluten in recipes? I tried searching and the results are flooded with people trying to make gluten-free beers. General comments are welcome as well.

 

[RPh_Guy]

Most popular search engines (Google, Amazon, etc) let you excludes terms by preceding the word with a hyphen.
https://lmgtfy.com/?q=gluten+beer+-free

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1094/ASBCJ-61-0063
I found that pretty much immediately but it's already cited by Janish's article. Did you look through his references?

 

[JustusLiebig]

Yes, but sometimes these papers do not crossover into brewing real styles. In their paper, they went all the way to 40% wheat!
I still get swamped with gluten free recipes when using a hyphen before free, and I had already tried that.

 

[RPh_Guy]

I think you have your answer then, in my opinion.

Anyone have any documentation or links to people using gluten in recipes?

 

[JustusLiebig]

In the paper you referenced at 40% unmalted wheat the researchers obtained 1 EBC Haze units. Which is incredibly low. They do not list in the methods how much hops were added. However, a beer around 5 EBC is considered bright. The full article is behind a paywall and in a different language, but maybe some assumptions can be made to approximate a good test batch.

All-purpose flour is kind of an average flour for gluten content. It contains about 11% gluten. A 10 pound grain bill for a 5 gallon batch would need 4 pounds unmalted wheat to hit 40%. That's about equivalent to 0.44 lb (200 gram) of gluten. 1 cup gluten is roughly 120 grams. So about 1 3/4 cup gluten would be needed.
Mileage could vary depending on the grain bill and hops used, but that sounds like a pretty good starting point.

I think I might split a 10 gallon APA batch with a decent hopstand and dry hop addition. Everything being equal, I'll drain 5 gallons off the kettle around 160 F and remove the hops from the kettle for the control, and then add a grain bag filled with 1 1/2 cup of gluten to the kettle to rest for an additional amount of time. Thoughts?

 

[JustusLiebig]

Maybe a cereal mash for the gluten instead?

 

[bucketnative]

Maybe a cereal mash for the gluten instead?

If you're using gluten powder; it is a protein, not a starch. Would not need to be mashed, since you're not converting it to sugars.

Perhaps it should be added as a clarifying agent, similar to Isinglass or gelatin. I don't know what the rate of binding or precipitation would be. Note that in the paper "Ambiguous...", they mention centrifugation. If you are solely relying on Earth's gravity, the precipitation may take a while longer than you think.

Here's a paper on gluten use for wine: https://www.researchgate.net/public..._as_clarifying_agent_of_musts_and_white_wines

Here's a review of plant-based protein as clarifying agents: https://www.mdpi.com/1420-3049/24/11/2186/pdf

Try searching without the word beer... like "gluten as a clarifying agent"

 

[JustusLiebig]

If you're using gluten powder; it is a protein, not a starch. Would not need to be mashed, since you're not converting it to sugars.

Perhaps it should be added as a clarifying agent, similar to Isinglass or gelatin. I don't know what the rate of binding or precipitation would be. Note that in the paper "Ambiguous...", they mention centrifugation. If you are solely relying on Earth's gravity, the precipitation may take a while longer than you think.

I'd agree with that. I wasn't planning to do a mash so to speak, but doing the process of a cereal mash in order to help dissolve or suspend the gluten proteins.

I'm not too worried if the gluten precipitating carries over into the fermenter, and may actually want it to since it may continue to help precipitate polyphenols from the dry hop. If the gluten can settle out in the kettle, I would think it can do so in the carboy.

 

[bucketnative]

I'd agree with that. I wasn't planning to do a mash so to speak, but doing the process of a cereal mash in order to help dissolve or suspend the gluten proteins.

Note that the gluten used in those studies was modified through partial enzymatic hydrolysis or deamidation in order to solubilize and target the haze-causing molecules. Also, from the review article (2nd link): "This means that gluten is generally processed before being used as fining agent, but also the extent of the modification due to the processing adopted affects its action on wine, as can be seen in the contrasting results reported above."

 

[JustusLiebig]

Hmmm... interesting.
I'll have to take a closer look when I have time. Maybe addition to the mash would be wiser as the proteolytic enzymes would create more hydrolysis reactions; however, that may not be correct if malted wheat leads to turbid beer. Maybe there's a sweet spot there upon partial breakdown.

 

[JustusLiebig]

I am reading in the literature that partially-hydrolyzed glutens work better than non-hydrolyzed. Also, non-deaminated works better than deaminated. So, it seems pretty clear that a mash addition would be best, but a mash-out or a short mash could maybe work better.
It's hard to apply wine to beer from these studies to determine meaningful additions. The first link provided uses 20 and 40 g gluten/hL wine to clarify and this paper ( https://doi.org/10.1021/jf0105539 ) only used up to 18 g gluten/hL wine. That would be on the range of ~3.6-8 g/ 5 gal batch or 1.5-3.2 teaspoons per 5 gallon batch.
From what I gather, wine users may use similar amounts of gelatin to clarify than in beer.

Another comparison one could make is that Janish's recipe used about 2 lb of oat flour. Since oat flour has only slightly higher amounts of protein per serving, let's assume that would be roughly 2 lb of wheat flour. 2 lb wheat flour at 11% gluten leaves us with about 100 grams gluten. Using the conversion factors I listed in a previous post, that lands somewhere around 40 tsp or a little under a cup of gluten.

That leaves a hell of a lot of space to play around with (1.5 tsp - 1.5 cup gluten).

 

[JustusLiebig]

I'll be brewing an APA this weekend. I don't want to risk screwing up the batch, but maybe a modest amount of gluten couldn't hurt, maybe a half cup. Anyone have a recommendation?

 

[bucketnative]

That leaves a hell of a lot of space to play around with (1.5 tsp - 1.5 cup gluten).

Well, the manuscript title starts with, "Ambiguous Impact..."

 

[JustusLiebig]

Well, the manuscript title starts with, "Ambiguous Impact..."

Maybe that's something lost in translation?

 

[JustusLiebig]

This is a very interesting article:
Recent developments on polyphenol–protein interactions: effects on tea and coffee taste, antioxidant properties and the digestive system
https://doi-org.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/10.1039/C2FO00006G
It has a model for how these aggregates work. Essentially how a partially denatured protein forms a complex with many polyphenols. This forms an aggregate that in the presence of other polyphenol-protein complexes will bridge bonds to form larger aggregates. The paper is on coffee and tea, so they do not go further with even higher amounts of proteins and polyphenols, but I assume that at even higher protein and polyphenol concentrations seen in wort, or with larger protein molecules in general, that the complexes become sufficient enough to precipitate out of solution using the same model.

 

[JustusLiebig]

It is also interesting to note that the paper states that higher proline proteins bind polyphenols better, and a quick Google search suggests that gluten is a proline-rich protein.

 

[day_trippr]

This all likely explains why - and it might have been Janish - too much wheat in an neipa can actually reduce the haze...

Cheers!