Single Infusion Mash for Millet? Too good to be true?

[mergs]

I used Diatase enzyme from E C Kraus.

I hesitate to show the grain bill because it looks a little weird. I really wanted to try the new Grouse munich millet and James Brown rice malts. I also had a lot of small amounts of various malts from previous batches that I decided to stitch together. The real goal was to try to get the simple mash to work. Made sure to hold the amount with significant roast to below 25%. Just hoping it will be ok as there is a lot going on in it!

5 lb millet pale
5 lb millet Munich
0.75 lb millet light roast
0.75 lb millet medium roast
1.0 lb rice - James Brown roast
0.75 lb buckwheat munich
0.75 lb buckwheat pale

0.6 oz Columbus (15.6 AA%) 60 minute boil time
1.3 oz Cascade (6.5 AA%) 15 minute boil time
1.5 oz Cascade (6.5 AA%) at flameout

~ 51 IBU

1.25 oz Cascade dry hop planned

OG = 1.061

HAHA. Mine was cobbled together as well, from a variety of recipes and what hops I had laying around that seemed to play well together. How bad can it be!

 

[glutarded-chris]

There's an odd taste to mine. It tastes like sweetness I can't quite identify. I'm wondering if its the crystal malt. I read once that we as brewers should go "easy on the crystal", maybe I over did it. I'll reserve judgement until its carbed, probably by Sunday it will be ready but then I'll want to give it another 1-2 weeks to condition.

Also, Igs suggestion to cold crash seems to be a good one. I racked to secondary simply to do the cold crash and there was a layer of trub on the bottom and the beer was probably the clearest gluten free batch of mine to date. Can't wait til its ready!

Every batch seems to strike fear in my heart when I taste it freshly carbed. Then after a week or two they mellow and I usually end up pleased. Interesting about the "easy on the crystal" thought.

Cold crashing definitely works, but I stopped doing it after I got a conical for double batches and my wife got chapped at me moving stuff around in the fridge for cold crashing batches in better bottles. I find that even if they are a little cloudy going into the keg, they clear up within a week, so I don't bother any more. My goal is to build a fermentation chamber so that I can better control fermentation temps but have not seen a good one yet. I have to accommodate the conical and the cooler options all seem to have big step ups. I don't want to be lifting and moving 11 gallons around and the DIY solutions don't seem like good long term solutions. If I am able to get a proper fermentation chamber, then I could start cold crashing again.

 

[glutarded-chris]

I may try a version of this myself next time. My limiting factor is really my kettle size so I am using the igloo cooler mash tun so I'd need to start there, or start in a kettle, move it to a warmed cooler then add in the amount at the end of the 30 mins to get me to my target temps of 158F or thereabouts. I also use biab mesh bag in the cooler.

If you try something similar to what I did, you can just add more boiling water to get to the last rest if your cooler has enough volume. It will just take a little over 10 quarts boiling water to get the mash up to 158F for the final rest (~1.75 quarts/lb)

I used the heat because the others seemed to keep the ratio at 1.5 quarts/lb and use more sparge volume. Not sure which is the bigger factor, long final rest or generous sparging, but it works.

 

[mergs]

Every batch seems to strike fear in my heart when I taste it freshly carbed. Then after a week or two they mellow and I usually end up pleased. Interesting about the "easy on the crystal" thought.

Cold crashing definitely works, but I stopped doing it after I got a conical for double batches and my wife got chapped at me moving stuff around in the fridge for cold crashing batches in better bottles. I find that even if they are a little cloudy going into the keg, they clear up within a week, so I don't bother any more. My goal is to build a fermentation chamber so that I can better control fermentation temps but have not seen a good one yet. I have to accommodate the conical and the cooler options all seem to have big step ups. I don't want to be lifting and moving 11 gallons around and the DIY solutions don't seem like good long term solutions. If I am able to get a proper fermentation chamber, then I could start cold crashing again.

Roger that Chris. Being in FL doesn't help, eh? I'm lucky that I only have about 14-30 days of really hot weather here in WA. Most of the year I can control the fermentation temps by moving the buckets from 1 of 3 rooms that all have varying warmths. I do have a stand up freezer that I may turn into a fermentation chamber or cold crash chamber. My standard fridge is my kegerator now and I had room in it for 3 cornys and the 5 gal cold crash bucket. One problem tho: the weight broke off the little plastic hooks that used to hold the crisper drawers. I had rigged up a wood shelf in there that was using them to rest the shelf on and cold crashing exceeded the weight spec of these little plastic things and the shelf collapsed. nothing spilled but it could have been a big mess. just thought i'd share... nothing to do with single infusion per se, just the joys of homebrewing! LOL

yep, same here on the run up to conditioning... I stress too. I'll reserve judgement on the taste in 2 weeks. Its either going to be a beer good enough to share, or simply my personal supply. its in no way a candidate for the slop sink drain!! its going to be probably a pretty interesting non bitter but hop aroma heavy strongish pale ale.

 

[max42]

Great news!

 

[max42]

Great news

 

[mergs]

OK, folks... this batch is carbed and I just had my first full glassful pour and its absolutely delicious (IMO). I just made some notes in my brew log and here's a recap:

Beer is carbed as of 4/3/2015 and its actually quite delicious. The head was quite nice and lasted about 5 minutes and the beer has a nice full mouthfeel. The bitterness is probably a 60 IBU or so finish and there's a creaminess quality I've never really had before with extract brews. The hop profile is definitely citrus with some melon and maybe pear. No resin/piney qualities. Color is perfect IPA amber/orange.

This keg won't last long.

I can still taste some sort of off flavor. Its not cloying now, with the carbonation on full and all but as a perfectionist over analytical I still detect it. however, Im not sure anyone else will be able to detect it now, except for beer som's or other really fine tuned beer tasters. I'm just PLEASED! This tastes like real beer y'all and no doping it up with maltodextrin to feebly try and up the mouthfeel. This is viscous like an IPA should and I think would fool a lot of people into thinking this was barley based.

I must go, its time for me to dance the jig, and pour another beer!

 

[PhillyBrewer]

I've been following this thread and it's encouraging to hear about brewers success with single infusion mashing with millet.

What doesn't seem encouraging is the cost to procure millet. Where do you guys source your millet? The only place I could find it is http://www.glutenfreehomebrewing.org and, unfortunately, 10 lbs of millet (5# pale, 5# munich) is $32 plus $28 to ship to PA. That is absurd and completely prohibitive.

 

[Osedax]

I've been following this thread and it's encouraging to hear about brewers success with single infusion mashing with millet.

What doesn't seem encouraging is the cost to procure millet. Where do you guys source your millet? The only place I could find it is http://www.glutenfreehomebrewing.org and, unfortunately, 10 lbs of millet (5# pale, 5# munich) is $32 plus $28 to ship to PA. That is absurd and completely prohibitive.

Sadly, that is what it has come to. When I first started getting millet, I could pick it up for about $1.95 per pound. Then it went to $2.50 and then my LHBS stopped carrying it all together. I now pay about $3 a pound shipped but, I have to buy in bulk. I'm not sure how long that will last and I'm a little worried about it. It is not uncommon for us on the East coast to pay close to $5 a pound. It doesn't seem like any of the suppliers care about the East coast. I hope it changes soon.

 

[mergs]

Same issues here, only not quite as bad since I'm in eastern WA and they ship from sou-central OR. They call this Zone 2 when I add items into the cart and calculate shipping. I just did some fooling around on their website:

As we know, base cost of 5lb of grouse Pale is $13.99. http://www.glutenfreehomebrewing.org/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1&products_id=3

shipping for (1) 5 lb bag to Zone 2 (me) is: $7.60
shipping for 92) 5 lb bags is: $8.88
3 is: $10.42*
4: $13.12*
5: $23.39
6: $25.05
7: $28.33
8: $29.24
9: $40.24

*Look at the price jump from 4lbs to 5lbs and from 8 to 9. It seems that the best deal w/ shipping is probably 3 or 4 5lb bags of grain at a time. At least for me. East coast shipping is probably a bit more.

I'm eager to put in another order, however I want to rethink the whole thing a little.

I might back off on the grain bill and start doing partial mash to stretch the malts. Problem with that is the specialty grain prices are truly ridiculous so savings may be insignificant.

Some of you cereal mash unmalted buckwheat... I could try that to retain the mouth feel I achieved with this AG batch. You may see a post pop up from me on that soon in order to review the process. I want to go back and review previous posts first before I do a duplicate.

Its really a kick in the gut to seemingly dial in a process, get emotionally charged about the success, only to have the costs rise this much. The previous prices I could live with but I am having great pause now.

 

[neumema]

If you've done a successful single infusion mash, can you let me know how much enzyme you used and the type?

What I don't necessarily understand is whether you all are relying on millet's natural enzymes to do any of the work. If I do a single infusion at 168-173 strike, to get to 163 for my mash, am I not denaturing the natural enzymes as soon as they hit the water? In that case, you're relying on the addition of enzymes to do the conversion, right?

 

[Osedax]

If you've done a successful single infusion mash, can you let me know how much enzyme you used and the type?

What I don't necessarily understand is whether you all are relying on millet's natural enzymes to do any of the work. If I do a single infusion at 168-173 strike, to get to 163 for my mash, am I not denaturing the natural enzymes as soon as they hit the water? In that case, you're relying on the addition of enzymes to do the conversion, right?

I don't know how much enzymes you should add because I use different ones. For me, I use 5-7ml on a 10 gallon batch.

Also, enzymes don't denature that fast. At least not as fast as everyone thinks. However, there is some debate. Calcium content, pH, and grist ratio all play a factor on enzyme longevity. There are even some reports that some of the enzymes survive up to the boil albeit briefly. The length of most sparges don't allow that though. Enzyme source also can play a role. Point is, the most important thing is a good mash process and you should be fine.

 

[PhillyBrewer]

FWIW, glutenfreehomebrewing.org just drastically improved their shipping rates.

 

[PhillyBrewer]

That said, it's still over $1 per pound of grain just for shipping for me, plus the $3.40-$5.40+ per pound of grain. Still not sure I can justify spending $50-60 on just ingredients for a single case of beer AND THEN having to brew it... :\

 

[mergs]

I just took a more detailed look at the posts in this thread since it looks like acquiring GF grains will not require a second mortgage now. @igliashon: When you say "use the amylase as directed", you're referring to the instructions from Brian Kolodzinski's article on GFHB, correct? This is where he says to add the amylase to your grain with your strike water (which is hot enough to mash in the high 150s/low 160s). Since the recommended temp on Brewcraft's amylase bottle says 122, I'm basically just wanting to clarify that you're advising to ignore this.

I know you're directing at Igs but I thought I'd reply as well. I used Brewcraft Termamyl Endo-Alpha Amylase. The label says "Use at 152F-pH 6.5" If you're using the same stuff, put your readers on because the text is tiny... I had to re-read 2x myself under bright light. Old eyes Its 152 not 122.

My target temps were 158F for 2 hours in a my mash tun, which is 10 gal, BIAB lined, igloo. I definitely am in the low 150s by the time 2 hours rolls around.

I also used Brian's article on GFHB site as my basis. I'm about to place an order for more grain in fact. Just finalizing my recipe over the next few days.

 

[mergs]

Same issues here, only not quite as bad since I'm in eastern WA and they ship from sou-central OR. They call this Zone 2 when I add items into the cart and calculate shipping. I just did some fooling around on their website:

As we know, base cost of 5lb of grouse Pale is $13.99. http://www.glutenfreehomebrewing.org/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1&products_id=3

shipping for (1) 5 lb bag to Zone 2 (me) is: $7.60
shipping for 92) 5 lb bags is: $8.88
3 is: $10.42*
4: $13.12*
5: $23.39
6: $25.05
7: $28.33
8: $29.24
9: $40.24

*Look at the price jump from 4lbs to 5lbs and from 8 to 9. It seems that the best deal w/ shipping is probably 3 or 4 5lb bags of grain at a time. At least for me. East coast shipping is probably a bit more.

I'm eager to put in another order, however I want to rethink the whole thing a little.

I might back off on the grain bill and start doing partial mash to stretch the malts. Problem with that is the specialty grain prices are truly ridiculous so savings may be insignificant.

Some of you cereal mash unmalted buckwheat... I could try that to retain the mouth feel I achieved with this AG batch. You may see a post pop up from me on that soon in order to review the process. I want to go back and review previous posts first before I do a duplicate.

Its really a kick in the gut to seemingly dial in a process, get emotionally charged about the success, only to have the costs rise this much. The previous prices I could live with but I am having great pause now.

Grouse Pale Millet is now up to $16.99 / 5lb

 

[Legume]

I am price sensitive, and for that reason have avoided using all GF malt in my brewing.

using non malted millet and buckwheat as a base (lots of enzymes needed), works great. I use Eckert specialty malts when I do this.

Using rice extract and mini mashing 5 lbs of specialty rice malts with Termamyl, also works well. I think for many styles as little as 2.5 or 3 lbs of specialty malt would yield a great result with this tecknique.

Both of these methods help me to reduce costs, and reduce my dependance on one supplier.

Anapolis Homebrew carries rice syrup, Termamyl, and AMG-300.

There are a couple of places that carry Eckert rice malts.

 

[mergs]

I am price sensitive, and for that reason have avoided using all GF malt in my brewing.

using non malted millet and buckwheat as a base (lots of enzymes needed), works great. I use Eckert specialty malts when I do this.

Using rice extract and mini mashing 5 lbs of specialty rice malts with Termamyl, also works well. I think for many styles as little as 2.5 or 3 lbs of specialty malt would yield a great result with this tecknique.

Both of these methods help me to reduce costs, and reduce my dependance on one supplier.

Anapolis Homebrew carries rice syrup, Termamyl, and AMG-300.

There are a couple of places that carry Eckert rice malts.

Worth a try! Are you using products like bobs red mill buckwheat and millet?

 

[Legume]

My local grocery store sells bulk millet and buckwheat, they order 20 lb bags for me at about $2 to $3 a pound...I think the buckwheat is a little more than the millet.
you can order 20 lb bags of millet on amazon (great river brand) for a similar price, I have used that as well.
Bobs redmill is fine too, but usually a bit more expensive.

 

[PhillyBrewer]

I am price sensitive, and for that reason have avoided using all GF malt in my brewing.

using non malted millet and buckwheat as a base (lots of enzymes needed), works great. I use Eckert specialty malts when I do this.

Using rice extract and mini mashing 5 lbs of specialty rice malts with Termamyl, also works well. I think for many styles as little as 2.5 or 3 lbs of specialty malt would yield a great result with this tecknique.

Both of these methods help me to reduce costs, and reduce my dependance on one supplier.

Anapolis Homebrew carries rice syrup, Termamyl, and AMG-300.

There are a couple of places that carry Eckert rice malts.

I'd love to see details of your process and recipe if you've had success this way and have time (another thread?).

 

[Legume]

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=511380

PhillyBrewer, have a look at my process in the thread linked above.
I plan to make a Saison next week using this process, I will start a thread to document the recipe and outcome.

 

[EVILEMRE]

I've been malting my own millet for a year now with great results. I can buy a 40lb bag of unhulled millet, it's literally birdseed, for $25. I built a malting machine, and can do about 15 lbs at a time, enough for a 10 gallon batch. I did it out of necessity, since where I live, western Canada, it is ridiculous to try to buy malted millet. I do my best to make crystal malt, and it's obviously not a perfect science, but the beer tastes good, so who cares.

 

[hipturn]

sent this to tim at colorado malting:

I'm I small business manager. We occasionally get criticism for our pricing. Folks don't realize how expensive it is just operationally to keep our business going. Let along our costs of goods sold.

So I understand pricing. Also, I am presuming that you guys have little interest in the homebrew market. It's so small and likely not worth your efforts.

Given the foregoing, you guys are pricing yourselves out of the homebrew market. See https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=511974&page=4

In 2013 you guys were quoting 1.99 / lbs for roasted pale. [a home brew supply company] is now quoting $3.60 per pound. And that's not including shipping.

Crystal that was $2.99 direct is now $5.00.

Folks are turning to unmalted millet + enzymes as an alternative to malted grains.

I am asking that you consider selling directly to the public again.

Folks in the Home Brew Talk forum are making big strides in producing quality single infusion GF homebrew.

We could really nail our processes if you'd reinstate direct to consumer sales.

 

[glutarded-chris]

Excellent! Now send the same message to Grouse.

 

[hipturn]

Kinda Sad: The folks at CMC didn't respond at all to me email. I've never run a business where I had the luxury of not responding to a customer / potential customer. I'm presuming they are doing pretty well. And as I said in the letter, we are a market that probably isn't worth their time.

 

[Osedax]

Kinda Sad: The folks at CMC didn't respond at all to me email. I've never run a business where I had the luxury of not responding to a customer / potential customer. I'm presuming they are doing pretty well. And as I said in the letter, we are a market that probably isn't worth their time.

Unfortunately, this is typical market trend. Large manufacturers always take precedence with new technology/product. The technology and demand need to improve before prices will drop. Don't worry. This is fairly typical. We will just have to wait for the product to prove itself on the marketplace.

So yes, sad face but, also happy face. This means gluten free malt is becoming viable. Or at least, looks like it is.

 

[glutarded-chris]

Back on post #21 and #24 of this thread I shared some details of an AG batch and I figured I would update since it is carbed and has conditioned for a few weeks. This one is toward the amber ale side and I really like it. This was my first batch with the roasted rice malt and I have to say I like it! Others came to this conclusion some time ago, but I think I am now in the camp that base malt will be millet and roasted malt will be mainly rice.

I have noticed with just a pound of rice in a 14 lb grain bill that the yeast cake was more fine and dense. It also took longer to clear but that is not a big thing because I need to be disciplined and let it condition for a week or so before going into it anyway. I am set up now to control fermentation temps and to cold crash, so that should help.

It has been quiet on homebrewtalk lately, at least on the GF side. Hope that means that everyone is busy with the onset of summer and not because the increase in GF malt price has scared everyone off!

 

[hipturn]

Thx Chris for all the help. The prices are steep but it's fun being a part of discovering new techniques. I just placed an order for grouse and CMC malts.

 

[glutarded-chris]

hipturn, I read your post on your plan for you AG batch with your grain order. Looking forward to your results with the "all in - low sparge infusion mash"! Hope you get your temp controlled fermentation rig back in action fast.

 

[mergs]

I've been personally put off a little bit by the prices but the good news is I just ordered and received grouse pale malt and some medium roast and I'm going to try a single infusion version of a grouse brown ale recipe. I'm not giving up homebrewing gf but I don't know if I'll keep 3 corny kegs of beer at a time. we'll see how this one goes and I'll post up the recipe and results if it turns out good. I've been doing IPAs for over a year so it's time to change it up a bit