Golden Ale

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toorudez

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Looking to do a GF Golden Ale. The regular non-GF recipe I'm basing this on uses 0.5kg of wheat in it, which I haven't figured out what to replace it with so am just going with Buckwheat.

3.5kg Pale Millet
0.5kg Buckwheat
0.5kg Flaked Oats
0.8kg Rice hulls
0.75kg Clover Honey @ 10 minutes
30g Magnum @ 60 min

Any comments on this?
 
Seems sound to me. I'm not sure what color unroasted buckwheat will impart, but if it isn't dark, I think the ale will still be on the light side. Please keep posting your results as there are quite a few of us that are still learning the ins and outs of GF all grain brewing, me included.
 
I think using buckwheat as a substitute for wheat is reasonable, I do the same. Both contribute to body, head retention, and opacity (when a protein rest is not done).

When trying to convert a standard recipe to GF, I make the following substitutions.
pale malt = millet
wheat = buckwheat
corn = corn
any specialty malt = its closest equivelent rice malt from Eckert.
 
I made a Summit Ale from glutenfreehomebrewing.org that used Millet and Buckwheat and it turned out fantastic! The colour of if was a bit of a darker golden ale which was very pleasant to drink.

Although I will say that the mash schedule is a chore. It made for a long brew day.
 
Although I will say that the mash schedule is a chore. It made for a long brew day.

I know how you feel there for sure. My typical brew day is 8hrs with clean up. I'm experimenting on a four hour day to see if the results are as good so far it works but the Gravity is lower. My 8hrs day yields 1.050-1.048 while a four hour day is more like 1.024-1.022. I don't use other enzyme just the naturally occurring ones from the millet being malted.
 
I know how you feel there for sure. My typical brew day is 8hrs with clean up. I'm experimenting on a four hour day to see if the results are as good so far it works but the Gravity is lower. My 8hrs day yields 1.050-1.048 while a four hour day is more like 1.024-1.022. I don't use other enzyme just the naturally occurring ones from the millet being malted.

If you want to lower your brew day time, consider using the enzymes. I'd like to be an enzyme free purist too but 8 hours vs. 4 hours trumps that sentiment. My last batch's orig gravity was ~1.050 with 14 lbs of grouse malts (9lbs pale + 6 specialty) and liquid amylase added to the mash (2 hours at 158F). ~$9 for a bottle of enzymes basically saves me hours of step mashing and mistakes along the way. Today is day 5 of dry hop so I'm cold crashing and kegging this over the next few days.
 
I think using buckwheat as a substitute for wheat is reasonable, I do the same. Both contribute to body, head retention, and opacity (when a protein rest is not done).

When trying to convert a standard recipe to GF, I make the following substitutions.
pale malt = millet
wheat = buckwheat
corn = corn
any specialty malt = its closest equivelent rice malt from Eckert.

Legume, do you do a separate cereal mash of the buckwheat, as Glutarded_Chris describes in other posts? If you're not familiar he is cereal mashing in a separate mash tun at a higher temp than the millet, etc. and then combining these later. I don't remember the mash schedule but it seemed doing it in parallel was the way to go since it saves time and the buckwheat cereal mash was a higher temperature (and above the denature temps of amylase). I'd love to hear your technique.
 
Hi Mergs,

Most of my grain bill is unmalted grains, so there is little amylase to preserve.
I rely completly on the enzymes I add to the mash.
For a 5.5 gal batch, I typically use about 8 lbs unmalted millet, 2 lbs unmalted buckwheat, and 4 lbs of Eckert rice malt (a mix of crystal, biscut, James brown, etc...depending on style).

The milled grains are added to cool water and thermamyl enzyme is added.
I apply high heat and stir constantly untill the temp reaches 175 or 180 F.
The mash is held for 90 min at 175 F, with ocasional stiring.
I then drop the temperature to 140 F, and add gluco amylase and protease that are active at that temp. The mash is held at 140 F for 2 hours with ocasional stiring.
From here I sparge and boil as usual.

This is working really well for me, in that I am now consistantly making very good beer... but it is not all that fast or easy. It is probably similar in time and effort to most other all grain GF brewdays.
 
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