I know there are several recipes on here, and several people have tried this - but does anyone have suggestions for ones that went well? I'm attempting to date a girl who's a celiac and says she misses beer, I'd like to impress her! ;D
Gluten Free Recipes?
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I know someone posted one... was it Akuek and a gf lambic?
<quick search> Yep, here it is. How the heck do I remember this stuff when I can't recall my own postal code and I've been living here 7 years
There were other topics when I did a forum search on "gluten free", probably worth checking out and requesting follow-ups. This one looks promising too.
There actually are a few gluten-free beers on the market, a friend of mine has a sensitivity and says the LCBO sells a few.
My mom's celiac too and a gf beer will eventually go on the to-do list. Once I learn how to make beer
<quick search> Yep, here it is. How the heck do I remember this stuff when I can't recall my own postal code and I've been living here 7 years
There were other topics when I did a forum search on "gluten free", probably worth checking out and requesting follow-ups. This one looks promising too.
There actually are a few gluten-free beers on the market, a friend of mine has a sensitivity and says the LCBO sells a few.
My mom's celiac too and a gf beer will eventually go on the to-do list. Once I learn how to make beer
I suggest going the sorghum syrup and/or rice syrup route. I've experimented with malting my own grains and it is a lot of work to do and much more difficult to mash than barley. I prefer to use both sorghum and rice syrup, because sorghum alone as a bit of a twang to it.
What kind of a beer are you looking to make/what she likes? IPAs are nice because the hops take center stage and can hide the sorghum twang. You can roast some gf grains yourself if that is the flavor you are after. I've been happy with the taste, but the it is hard to get a dark enough color. I'm planning to make a wit soon. That would be my suggestion.
What kind of a beer are you looking to make/what she likes? IPAs are nice because the hops take center stage and can hide the sorghum twang. You can roast some gf grains yourself if that is the flavor you are after. I've been happy with the taste, but the it is hard to get a dark enough color. I'm planning to make a wit soon. That would be my suggestion.
I'm trying to find out what she likes right now - I'll remember the sorgum and rice extract thing though. If she likes a darker style I was thinking of attempting to roast some rice to a nice colour, then do a partial mash kind of thing with some alpha amylase added.
Sounds like you might have a GF GF! I've tried a GF Belgian ale and a GF IPA/pale ale, and I greatly preferred the Belgian Ale. My issue with the hoppy IPA style was that normally IPAs have a pound or so of crystal malt to provide sweetness that balances the bitterness. You can't use those malts in gluten-free brews, unless you malt them yourself from gluten-free grains. So my version came out unpleasantly bitter. Here is the Belgian recipe, which was enjoyed by a lot of folks, for 5 gallons:
6 lbs sorghum syrup
1 oz tradition hops at the start of the 60 minute boil
1 oz Hallertau at 10 minutes from the end
1 oz Saaz at flameout
Ferment with T-58 dry yeast
I boiled about 2 lbs of sorghum syrup in 2 quarts of water for 20 minutes to start, then added the rest and brought up to a boil. Then boiled for 60 minutes with the additions listed above. 2 weeks primary, 2 weeks secondary, then kegged.
6 lbs sorghum syrup
1 oz tradition hops at the start of the 60 minute boil
1 oz Hallertau at 10 minutes from the end
1 oz Saaz at flameout
Ferment with T-58 dry yeast
I boiled about 2 lbs of sorghum syrup in 2 quarts of water for 20 minutes to start, then added the rest and brought up to a boil. Then boiled for 60 minutes with the additions listed above. 2 weeks primary, 2 weeks secondary, then kegged.
I'll second cutting the sorghum with rice. Sorghum isn't bad, but it is different and diluting it with rice makes it basically unnoticeable as a GF beer. I used about 60/40 if I remember correctly.
Adding in some toasted grains (even unmalted ones) helps a lot with body and overall interestingness. Buckwheat is pretty easy to work with and you can get it to sprout in just a day. I've heard it goes really well in IPAs (it also has a distinct taste).
Not sure if you can get it up there, but the GF beer by the Lakefront Brewery in Milwaukee isn't bad. New Grist? Something like that. It's rather light and has a bit of that sorghum twang, but if you can find it it's nice to have a baseline taste in mind for your beer.
The chocolate coffee GF beer I made was really well received. Recipe is up here somewhere...
Adding in some toasted grains (even unmalted ones) helps a lot with body and overall interestingness. Buckwheat is pretty easy to work with and you can get it to sprout in just a day. I've heard it goes really well in IPAs (it also has a distinct taste).
Not sure if you can get it up there, but the GF beer by the Lakefront Brewery in Milwaukee isn't bad. New Grist? Something like that. It's rather light and has a bit of that sorghum twang, but if you can find it it's nice to have a baseline taste in mind for your beer.
The chocolate coffee GF beer I made was really well received. Recipe is up here somewhere...
We do have a few GF beers up here, but I can't impress her much by just buying it!
She said her favourite is honey lager - so BAM, honey, I think I can handle that!
We're probably looking very low hops, not anything toasted.
My worry is whether I'm equiped to make a lager at all with my bathtub cooling system...
EDIT: maybe I should just skip the lager idea, and just do a dry ale, cool ferment kinda thing. Seems wiser than me trying to tackle a whole new technique here.
She said her favourite is honey lager - so BAM, honey, I think I can handle that!
We're probably looking very low hops, not anything toasted.
My worry is whether I'm equiped to make a lager at all with my bathtub cooling system...
EDIT: maybe I should just skip the lager idea, and just do a dry ale, cool ferment kinda thing. Seems wiser than me trying to tackle a whole new technique here.
You can get a pretty clean lager-like beer if you use a yeast like San Fran lager or Kolsch and ferment around 60F. It must be colder than that up there by now, right?
Another good trick, which you can use with the above yeasts too, is to cool the wort to about 53-55F before pitching the yeast. Then you can let the fermentation warm the beer up naturally, though I'd still keep it below 65F as a max and try to let it warm up slowly if you can (no more than 1-2F per day). You'll need to pitch more yeast than you would if you were pitching at 65F, but that isn't too difficult. The cool start, slowly warming fermentation will give you a more lager-like beer without the hassle of trying to keep it around 50 the whole time. I did something like this with the last beer I made (in Feb
) and it came out very smooth. [I pitched on a yeast cake, so that was my extra yeast.]
Another good trick, which you can use with the above yeasts too, is to cool the wort to about 53-55F before pitching the yeast. Then you can let the fermentation warm the beer up naturally, though I'd still keep it below 65F as a max and try to let it warm up slowly if you can (no more than 1-2F per day). You'll need to pitch more yeast than you would if you were pitching at 65F, but that isn't too difficult. The cool start, slowly warming fermentation will give you a more lager-like beer without the hassle of trying to keep it around 50 the whole time. I did something like this with the last beer I made (in Feb
) and it came out very smooth. [I pitched on a yeast cake, so that was my extra yeast.]
Sounds like a plan to me, I'll try to get one of those yeasts or something similar, chill the wort way down, then use my usual ice water bath (in the bathtub) method to keep it below 65F, it should take a while to get up to that temp if I go hard on the ice, but probably will be faster than 2 degrees per day honestly. If I find a way to do this in my cold room (you saw it, I keep that mead room cool) it might help.
Right now I'm thinking of aiming for about 6% ABV, with 2% of that coming from honey, and then the rest roughly half and half sorgum and rice (I'll just use straight up syrups with no fancy toasting of anything this time).
I was thinking for hops, since if she likes lagers she probably isn't exactly a hop-head - find a really citrusy low AA hop, and only boil the hops for about 10-15 minutes. I'll have to figure out the amount based on what I get and the batch size, but I think I'll have to keep the IBUs low since this'll be really dry - maybe 10-15 IBUs.
Right now I'm thinking of aiming for about 6% ABV, with 2% of that coming from honey, and then the rest roughly half and half sorgum and rice (I'll just use straight up syrups with no fancy toasting of anything this time).
I was thinking for hops, since if she likes lagers she probably isn't exactly a hop-head - find a really citrusy low AA hop, and only boil the hops for about 10-15 minutes. I'll have to figure out the amount based on what I get and the batch size, but I think I'll have to keep the IBUs low since this'll be really dry - maybe 10-15 IBUs.
I brewed a GF beer recently for some friends that came out fairly well. Here is the recipe for 5 gallons
6.6 lbs Sorghum syrup
2.0 lbs Rice syrup
1.0 lb. Buckwheat honey
1.0 oz. Cascade hops boil 60 min.
0.5 oz Palisade hops at 15 min.
0.5 oz Palisade hops at heat out.
2 tsp. DAP at the end of boil.
11 grams Danstar Munich dry yeast
.
Prime bottles with maple syrup or force carbonate in keg.
I think the next version of this recipe is going to get a 1.0 lb of Dark Belgian candi syrup to help darken it up a bit.
Cheers,
Jon
6.6 lbs Sorghum syrup
2.0 lbs Rice syrup
1.0 lb. Buckwheat honey
1.0 oz. Cascade hops boil 60 min.
0.5 oz Palisade hops at 15 min.
0.5 oz Palisade hops at heat out.
2 tsp. DAP at the end of boil.
11 grams Danstar Munich dry yeast
.
Prime bottles with maple syrup or force carbonate in keg.
I think the next version of this recipe is going to get a 1.0 lb of Dark Belgian candi syrup to help darken it up a bit.
Cheers,
Jon
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I speak from experience - this was a very tasty beer. A bit like Midas Touch in that it reminds you a little of wine.
Thanks, I'll factor this in to what I come up with! I think I'll have to make something to her tastes, with lower hops - and I wouldn't mind using a lot more honey to help showcase that aspect of it.
I know eh? It's funny, after my ex I'm so on top of this I immediately think of "oh, she can't have the cheap/common soy sauce, need the best stuff without wheat" can't have this can't have that - I'm an expert now at this kind of thing!
Then there's the other girl I'm trying to date, who doesn't drink
(but I respect that decision 100% and she couldn't care less if I drank) and is into BDSM... so maybe I just like a challenge?!?!
I know eh? It's funny, after my ex I'm so on top of this I immediately think of "oh, she can't have the cheap/common soy sauce, need the best stuff without wheat" can't have this can't have that - I'm an expert now at this kind of thing!
Then there's the other girl I'm trying to date, who doesn't drink
Bragg makes a soy sauce without wheat that I've seen in the higher-end grocery stores, my mom also uses tamarind sauce which tastes similar to soy sauce (tastes the same to me) but contains no wheat.
And I totally understand the challenge of cooking for diet restrictions, just in my wedding party we had a celiac, a diabetic, a religious pork restriction, two milk protein allergies, a lactose intolerance and two nut allergies... my xmas baking always includes some sugar-free stuff, some gluten-free stuff, some milk-free stuff and I make sure I don't accidentally contaminate anything with nuts if it doesn't already contain them.
Safe-words. Always establish them even if you don't think you'll use them. ;D
I know eh? It's funny, after my ex I'm so on top of this I immediately think of "oh, she can't have the cheap/common soy sauce, need the best stuff without wheat" can't have this can't have that - I'm an expert now at this kind of thing!
Then there's the other girl I'm trying to date, who doesn't drink
Walmart's soy sauce is gf, but I know what you mean. I used to tell my girlfriend/now wife that if we broke up, I'd date another celiac because I would be able to amaze her with homemade GF pizza, beer and mead.
.
Do you mean "tamari" sauce? Tamarind is super sweet and sour, and very Indian, but tamari is the actual Japanese word for soy sauce - and anything labeled as such is usually gluten free.
;D
Stupid fingers, my brain knows better. Yes, that's what I meant, although I was not aware of its meaning. And I was told that traditional soya sauce is always made with wheat, for some reason tamari isn't.
I just did some digging, apparently tamari is just the oldest version of soy sauce in Japan, it's thicker and darker and does in fact sometimes contain wheat, but usually less and often none - so I was incorrect that it's "the" japanese word for soy sauce, more correct to say it's "a" word for a specific style of soy sauce in Japan.
Then there's the other girl I'm trying to date, who doesn't drink
I'm confused, then why are you trying to brew a gluten-free beer for her?
Atta'boy!
You said she has Celiac's, so I'm assuming cross-contamination is a concern, but they do make oat malt and oat crystal malt just so you're aware. I'm of the mind that between mashing and yeast metabolism, any little bits of gluten are gonna be taken care of, but then I don't have Celiac's disease, so I can't really talk. Either way, I think an all oat beer would be pretty cool, and have been meaning to brew one up, just haven't got around to it; lemme know if you do try it.
