Gluten-free Graff, a possible workaround?

[RachmaelBenApplebaum]

SO I've been presented with a challenge. My SWMBO's cousin is traveling to my home in a few months and she was recently diagnosed with Celiacs. She really REALLY misses beer and hates commercial stuff, but also likes cider. Problems would be that if I make any cider it will be really dry and I'm not sure if she's down with it, and I've never done GF before, but after a serious research session I've come up with a probable workaround that'll just take a good bit of doing.

So, I'm planning on getting a few pounds (3-4) of buckwheat and malting it at home, then taking a pound of it and kilning it higher than the rest to make a kind of nice brownish crystal-type malt. Then doing a mini-mash BIAB for a total wort of 2-3 gallons, do a normal boil with an ounce of low-alpha Saaz or something similar, and adding the cooled wort to cider up to about 6 gallons in a glass carboy and lettin her rip. Thing is, I have no idea how buckwheat compares in flavor to the real deal though in my imagination it seems very sound in theory. Then we can have the best of both worlds without any nasty allergic reactions.

Thoughts?

 

[igliashon]

In my experience, buckwheat is actually exceedingly mild in flavor, even when malted and roasted. Surprising considering how strong the flavor is when cooked. Millet malt gives a much more barley-like flavor, but it's harder to accomplish at home because it's tough to find millet with the hull intact (which is necessary to get it to germinate). Buckwheat also has a higher gelatinization point, and I'm not sure how much extraction you'll be able to get out of it in a partial mash. There's only one brewer in this forum I know of who uses almost-all buckwheat malt to make beer, but he never does gravity readings so we have no idea what kind of extraction he gets. OTOH, millet can be mashed very similarly to barley and give a decent extraction. A few of us are currently playing around with different ways to mash it to see what works best, but suffice to say I've gotten good efficiency doing a four-step mash with it.

I can't help myself from mentioning that there are two GF maltsters in Colorado right now, Grouse and Colorado Malting Co., so if you want to spare yourself the trouble, you can just call up either of them and order some professionally-made crystal millet or crystal buckwheat malt. I believe they both have minimum orders of 5 lbs, but they both make great products.

 

[RachmaelBenApplebaum]

Maybe I'll look into the millet and maybe go for some buckwheat honey? If you've never had it, it's REALLY strong and that's about the bulk of my buckwheat experience. The other thought was to caramelize a pound or so of honey and make some kind of bochet/gf/graff monster, but we'll see. I was aware of colorado malting co. but figured malting stuff myself is also not much of a stretch if I didn't wanna order anything. I was looking at search results for my particular topic and found somewhat unsatisfactory info, seems like the world of GF brewing is kinda bleak by comparison, though I suppose it depends on your attitude. A few of my coworkers are celiac too and say they don't like sorghum because of the kinda lactic-twang that it imparts, but one of them can actually tolerate Omission. I read that sticky about how it's not really something everyone can handle, so I'm not gonna risk using enzymes. Also gonna be a real stickler on cross-contamination since I know that can effect some folks (plus it's a good excuse to buy some new stuff )

 

[Ash_Mathew]

There's only one brewer in this forum I know of who uses almost-all buckwheat malt to make beer, but he never does gravity readings so we have no idea what kind of extraction he gets.

Hey, I am going to start soon, I promise. HAHA I still say you are on commision for those two... HAHA

Seriously though, if I could, I would buy it already malted. Its just a time consumming pain, to be honest. Plus I get yelled at by SWMBO for it going all over the place and stuff. But, if you want to have a go at it, go ahead. Its good to experiment. Plus, they may have a minimum of 5lb orders, but if you are doing a U.S 5/6 Gallon batch, then you are pretty much going to use most of that up anyway. If not, throw it in with your next "Regular" brew and see what happens.