glutarded-chris
Well-Known Member
This is my first post and the topic is my first attempts at partial mash with gluten free grain. My goal is to eventually be able to use the partial mash to diminish the sorghum twang but still be able to make 5 gal batches with a 3 gallon boil. I wanted to test the impact of millet and buckwheat separately so I used a pretty tame hop profile and did not add Belgium candy syrup or other flavor additives that I normally use.
I basically followed Powmonster’s “Gluten Free Saison” schedule (https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f240/gluten-free-saison-376455/) except I used a single rest main mash instead of a multi-rest (three stage) main mash. I did this because I used a home made mash tun for my main mash and did not want to try to make big changes in temp once the mash was in there.
Basic recipe (3 gallon batch):
5 pounds pale malted grain from Colorado Malting Co. (batch A 100% millet, batch B 100% buckwheat)
3.3 lb Briessweet sorghum LME (had to use this much because of poor efficiency)
½ oz Cascade T60
¼ oz Cascade T15
½ oz Cascade T0
whirlfloc tablet
Safale US-05 yeast (hydrated)
Mash Water: 3 gallons of distilled water treated with 2.2g Chalk (CaCo3), 1g Gypsum (CaSo4), 1.2g Epsom Salt (Mgs04) and Lactic acid to get to pH of ~5.9
<<EDIT - Made a mistake in formulating water treatment. Result is that Sulfate and Chloride are out of balance and this should not be used >>
Sparge Water: 2 gallon Publix drinking water treated with acid to bring pH to 5.6
Note: I had aquarium pH strips and brewing pH strips purchased on line to test water and they did not work well at all. Don’t really know what the pH was but hope that it was close to target. If I keep doing partial mash batches I am going to have to get a reasonable pH measurement.
Mash Result:
I used a corona grain mill and tried to get a fine grind. Millet was hard to get a fine grind but buckwheat ground pretty fine.
The millet mash ran really well and never got stuck. Used 1 lb rice hulls with the mash.
The buckwheat batch was different. It was extremely thick and gooey. I had a lot of trouble separating some mash water for the mash out step after the protein rest and could not get the full 2 quarts I was shooting for. Even with rice hulls, I got a stuck sparge almost immediately and it never recovered. I had to hand sparge in a mesh bag, which was a huge mess.
For both batches, I got a room temperature gravity of 1.017 to 1.020 for 3 gallons of collected wart. Pretty poor compared to what others are reporting. As a result I had to use more LME then I had hoped.
Both finished primary fermentation in a week and were in secondary for two weeks. Millet was crystal clear even before cold crash for 24 hours before transfer to keg. The buckwheat batch was not as clear.
Both are carbonating and conditioning. Probably won’t be able to wait more than a week or two to crack them open and see what I get.
I basically followed Powmonster’s “Gluten Free Saison” schedule (https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f240/gluten-free-saison-376455/) except I used a single rest main mash instead of a multi-rest (three stage) main mash. I did this because I used a home made mash tun for my main mash and did not want to try to make big changes in temp once the mash was in there.
Basic recipe (3 gallon batch):
5 pounds pale malted grain from Colorado Malting Co. (batch A 100% millet, batch B 100% buckwheat)
3.3 lb Briessweet sorghum LME (had to use this much because of poor efficiency)
½ oz Cascade T60
¼ oz Cascade T15
½ oz Cascade T0
whirlfloc tablet
Safale US-05 yeast (hydrated)
Mash Water: 3 gallons of distilled water treated with 2.2g Chalk (CaCo3), 1g Gypsum (CaSo4), 1.2g Epsom Salt (Mgs04) and Lactic acid to get to pH of ~5.9
<<EDIT - Made a mistake in formulating water treatment. Result is that Sulfate and Chloride are out of balance and this should not be used >>
Sparge Water: 2 gallon Publix drinking water treated with acid to bring pH to 5.6
Note: I had aquarium pH strips and brewing pH strips purchased on line to test water and they did not work well at all. Don’t really know what the pH was but hope that it was close to target. If I keep doing partial mash batches I am going to have to get a reasonable pH measurement.
Mash Result:
I used a corona grain mill and tried to get a fine grind. Millet was hard to get a fine grind but buckwheat ground pretty fine.
The millet mash ran really well and never got stuck. Used 1 lb rice hulls with the mash.
The buckwheat batch was different. It was extremely thick and gooey. I had a lot of trouble separating some mash water for the mash out step after the protein rest and could not get the full 2 quarts I was shooting for. Even with rice hulls, I got a stuck sparge almost immediately and it never recovered. I had to hand sparge in a mesh bag, which was a huge mess.
For both batches, I got a room temperature gravity of 1.017 to 1.020 for 3 gallons of collected wart. Pretty poor compared to what others are reporting. As a result I had to use more LME then I had hoped.
Both finished primary fermentation in a week and were in secondary for two weeks. Millet was crystal clear even before cold crash for 24 hours before transfer to keg. The buckwheat batch was not as clear.
Both are carbonating and conditioning. Probably won’t be able to wait more than a week or two to crack them open and see what I get.
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