gluten free grains: colorado malting company sells to homebrewers as little as 5lbs

[bluffwallace]

yes, colorado malting company now sells to homebrewers. they have gluten free chocolate malted millet and many other gluten free grains available in 5 lb bags. I purchased 10 lbs and payed 14 for shipping. steep shipping but well worth it.
Millet, buckwheat,amaranthe,teff,sorghum etc.

they do 4 different roasts, even chocolate. Lets keep them busy for us gluten free brewers. their Malted Millet is amazing. really helps keep head retentions and is awesome!

 

[oxpajama]

What would make the best base grain? Is the buckwheat nutty? Looks like they provide munich as a special grain for each type.

 

[BBBF]

What would make the best base grain? Is the buckwheat nutty? Looks like they provide munich as a special grain for each type.

Buckwheat has a very strong flavor. I wouldn't use it as a basemalt, unless you were trying to make a buckwheat beer. I haven't used it, but millet is supposed to be pretty good.

 

[Ash_Mathew]

Depends on how you do the buckwheat. I mostly make mine into crystal and it comes out caramel/chocolate like. If you add it once the water is to temp (I do BIAB) then it tastes nutty if just malted and roasted. Just done one with crystal buckwheat, and malted and roasted millet. Tastes ok, so far. Nutty and chocolaty.

 

[igliashon]

Frankly, I've used the pale buckwheat malt in several beers, and find it to have very little flavor at all. It is easily overwhelmed by things like candi syrup, millet, wild rice, molasses, and even honey. This surprised the heck out of me, because the grain when cooked normally has a very strong flavor. In all the GF beers I've had that use buckwheat (Harvester, Green's, Glutenburg) I can NEVER pick out any buckwheat flavor. It also gelatinizes at a higher temp than millet, so is not a good candidate for a mash done without enzymes added. I do not recommend it.

In my experience, millet is the best base grain, bar none. If you're crushing it using a roller mill, I highly recommend double-crushing. My Monster Mill even on the tightest setting doesn't give a totally sufficient crush on first pass (which I learned the hard way, getting a very poor efficiency on my first batch done with the mill due to insufficient crush).