I’ve got a friend with celiacs disease and I wanted to brew her a batch of gluten free beer.
I’ve been brewing for ~2 years (have a pretty solid all grain setup), but I have never ventured into the gluten beers. Its a little odd, but she really misses good beer. I want to help her out and brew something flavorful but gluten free.
I was going to base it off some liquid Sorghum extract. For color/flavor I was going to use some dark Belgian candy sugar. Planning on using 3 oz of pellet hops (a mix of cascade and vanguard). Probably use a basic ale yeast.
Has anyone tried something similar? I don’t really know what to expect when not using grain AT ALL.
Here’s a link to a friend’s blog about one of the gluten free beers she’s been brewing. I’ve tasted it and it’s surprising drinkable for using no barley. Good luck!
.5 lbs oats (steeped at 140 F for 30 min)
6 lbs Briess White Sorghum Syrup
1 lb D2 Belgian Candy Sugar
Boiled with
2 oz Vanguard pelleted for 60 min
.5 oz Hollertau pelleted for 15 min
Fermented with Nottingham Ale Yeast.
I tried it before bottling and it was a bit heavy. In attempts to lighten the body, I decided to bottle it with 1/4 cup of honey. Before bottle conditioning it definitely tasted different than regular beers at that stage… not bad, but very different. We’ll see how it turns out.
Looking forward to that. I’ve committed to brewing a gluten free beer for the office Christmas party and am considering what spices to add, and what special flavors will already be present.
Its alright. Tastes like a fairly hoppy cider with slight chocolate undertones. I am guessing that the sorghum syrup gives it the sugary cider like taste. My recommendations would be to just go with the cider type taste of the sorghum syrup and avoid over hopping. If you want to add complexity, maybe use rice, oats, or different types of candy sugar.
In short too much sugars make a cider type beverage (that conflicts with heavy hopping). Either reduce sugar load + increase oat/rice quantity or reduce hopping and embrace the cider.
