Newbie looking for suggestions

[RVAgaffer]

Hello Everyone,

I am brand new here and brand new to brewing, I have wanted to do some home brewing for a long time and finally just took the plunge and ordered probably more stuff than i need... but why not do it right?

So a little background to hopefully help y'all direct me:

I have celiac and was diagnosed my first year in college so my traditional beer experience is pretty lacking. I have tried as many truly GF beers that i could fine, but it has been limited to: Redbridge (meh), Bards new grist (eww), St. Peters (thats when i learned I am not a 'hoppy' beer person) and Greens (like their ales, the triple blonde is my current favorite, but their IPA not so much, again too much hops).

I am pretty goo at figuring things out and learning things on the fly and I am a quality manager for a company that manufactures a consumable flavored product to GMP (good manufacturing practices) standards, so I am very good at "plan the work, work the plan, and if it didn't get recorded, it didn't happen." and my taste buds are pretty sensitive to small changes.

I am waiting for all my gear to arrive but ordered the Brewers Best Gluten Free Ale extract kit from adventures in homebrewing and will probably get that going next weekend or the following weekend.

So what I am really asking here is this: where should I go after this? I don't think i will be ready for all grain brewing for a while but I also don't want to be stuck with extract kits. I read through the No Nonsense Stout post and am thinking about trying one of the variations in that thread possibly. I really want to have the ability to try beer styles that I have missed out on due to GF diet.

oh and to top it off I am also going to play with mead and wine making while I am at it.

Thanks for any suggestions and direction, and sorry for the long post.

 

[billl]

Where you go is completely up to you. Most homebrewers stick with various forms of extract. You can make pretty much any style of beer that way.

Personally, I brew GF beer for friends and family and drink regular beer 99% of the time. IMO, the closest thing to regular beer is millet based GF with rice or buckwheat to round it out. I've made some of those that were just good beer, not good for GF beer.

If you've gotten a normal homebrew kit, you can use that to brew a smaller batch of all-grain with just a simple nylon bag. Once you try a few extract batches, I would try a small AG batch with millet and see if you like it better.

 

[RVAgaffer]

Thanks billl,

I just started the Brewers Best GF Ale kit yesterday, and it went well. Honestly it felt a little too easy haha. I think I am going to try a partial mash for the next round before I jump to all grain. I didn't think about doing all grain small scale with just bags since all the info I have been seeing is using mash barrels and all, but that makes a lot of sense and works for me being in an apartment... I just need to figure out if I can fight my stove enough to get controlled temps.

I really would like to try and come up with some clones for Green's Triple Blonde (aka Quest) and Double Dark (aka endeavor). I think the Double Dark may be simpler to do since, according to a review site, the key ingredients are Candi sugars and yeast.

Since I work in an industry that uses a lot of flavor extracts I think I will also enjoy trying to play with spices and citrus peels.

Hmmmm, that just gave me an idea... a key lime pie ale for summer. Maybe some lime peel, vanilla bean, lactose, and then build the base beer to create the crust side. Is this absolutely crazy or could this work out? I had been thinking about a light beer using lemon and lime peels for summer but the key lime pie just sounds like it could be a killer challenge.

 

[kali]

I started a gluten free beer brewing blog with recipes and how to brew. Feel free to check it out. Let me know if you want to see anything else on it as well good luck!
kalisbeer.com