I did my first gluten free batch yesterday. It was a Grapefruit IPA from Igliashon's new brewery Ghostfish IPA. The grapefruit zest had me at hello.
One of the things that was new to me (well a lot was new), was getting the right amount of fermentable ingredients into the kettle. For example, from the recipe:
http://ghostfishbrewing.com/ghostfishblog/gfhomebrewing-grapefruit-ipa/
Fermentables:
5 lb liquid white sorghum extract
27 oz D-45 Amber candi syrup
21 oz raw unfiltered buckwheat honey
0.5 to 1 lb of maltodextrin, depending on how full of a body you want
My sorghum extract came in a 6 lb jug, so I guesstimated and poured about 5/6th of it into the kettle when instructed (actually it was 2.5 pounds at boil start, then the rest at flameout). I ended up with 1/6th leftover or thereabouts. What are people typically doing to measure this out accurately?
Next was the d-45: it came in 2 16oz packages, so I poured 1 in (16oz) and then poured out 11 oz of the 2nd (by measuring 11 oz into a pyrex measuring cup). I think I botched this since there was almost nothing left. Was I correct that the d-45 was a fluid oz measurement?
Now to the honey. Boy was I stymied by this at first. I scooped 12 oz into a pyrex cup, then dumped, then scooped another 9oz into the pyrex. That seemed to be way too much since it came into a 5 lb plastic container. I then found a weight to volume converter for honey;
http://www.traditionaloven.com/conversions_of_measures/honey_measurements.html
putting in 21oz converts to 1.75 cups (which is what i did, in the pyrex measure). I don't know how accurate I was but was I on the right track?
Suffice to say, I was a little confused about weight measures vs. volume and not having a scale handy had to improvise a little. My accuracy must have been a little off somewhere (probably the honey) because my SG was 1.065 whereas the recipe was calling for 1.057.
Can anyone offer any helpful tips on what they do for measuring out these sorts of fermentables?
One of the things that was new to me (well a lot was new), was getting the right amount of fermentable ingredients into the kettle. For example, from the recipe:
http://ghostfishbrewing.com/ghostfishblog/gfhomebrewing-grapefruit-ipa/
Fermentables:
5 lb liquid white sorghum extract
27 oz D-45 Amber candi syrup
21 oz raw unfiltered buckwheat honey
0.5 to 1 lb of maltodextrin, depending on how full of a body you want
My sorghum extract came in a 6 lb jug, so I guesstimated and poured about 5/6th of it into the kettle when instructed (actually it was 2.5 pounds at boil start, then the rest at flameout). I ended up with 1/6th leftover or thereabouts. What are people typically doing to measure this out accurately?
Next was the d-45: it came in 2 16oz packages, so I poured 1 in (16oz) and then poured out 11 oz of the 2nd (by measuring 11 oz into a pyrex measuring cup). I think I botched this since there was almost nothing left. Was I correct that the d-45 was a fluid oz measurement?
Now to the honey. Boy was I stymied by this at first. I scooped 12 oz into a pyrex cup, then dumped, then scooped another 9oz into the pyrex. That seemed to be way too much since it came into a 5 lb plastic container. I then found a weight to volume converter for honey;
http://www.traditionaloven.com/conversions_of_measures/honey_measurements.html
putting in 21oz converts to 1.75 cups (which is what i did, in the pyrex measure). I don't know how accurate I was but was I on the right track?
Suffice to say, I was a little confused about weight measures vs. volume and not having a scale handy had to improvise a little. My accuracy must have been a little off somewhere (probably the honey) because my SG was 1.065 whereas the recipe was calling for 1.057.
Can anyone offer any helpful tips on what they do for measuring out these sorts of fermentables?