Post-Gluten Prometheus

Yesterday I brewed up a gluten-free beer for the first time. A friend of mine is gluten intolerant and likes the occasional brewski, but the selection of gluten-free brews out there is mostly pretty awful. So, with her input and some of my own ideas, I came up with an interesting recipe which I hope turns out OK.

The Recipe:

6 lbs white sorghum extract
2 lbs toasted buckwheat groats

3 AAU (19g @ 4.5% AA) Willamette @ 60
3 AAU (19g @ 4.5% AA) Willamette @ 15
3 AAU (16g @ 5.4% AA) Cascade @ 15
3 AAU (16g @ 5.4% AA) Cascade @ 0 (flame-out)

Safbrew WB-06 - Wheat Beer

O.G.: 1.047
Est. IBU: 23.1

There were a number of firsts for me with this batch. Most obviously, this was my first extract-based batch. Malted sorghum, millet, quinoa or other such grains just aren't readily available, but I was able to find sorghum extract syrup online. This is an extract from the sorghum grains rather than from the stalks, so it should have a little grainy character to it.

The buckwheat groats were a bit of a disappointment, but I do think they contributed a little to the final product (if not as much as I'd hoped). I toasted them at around 250° for 2 hours, which turned them a little orange. I then took them for a spin in the Cuisinart to crush 'em a little, then steeped them for 45 minutes in ~160° water. The water looked to gain nothing in color or cloudiness, though it was slightly redolent of buckwheat. Next time I'm going to have to toast them more and probably crush them better.

Another first for me was the use of dry yeast. As it turns out, Wyeast's liquid yeasts are not gluten-free; I'm guessing they use some kind of barley extract based substrate. I bloomed the dry yeast for about an hour in about a cup of 80° water and pitched at about 71°. Unfortunately the new carboy I bought for this brew (to ensure no residual gluten) does not have a thermometer strip on it yet, so I won't be able to track the temperature on this brew. It should stick in the low-to-mid 70s, though, I should think.

I used the wheat beer yeast on this in order to see what kind of interesting flavors I can get. I used a hopping schedule loosely based on some Mac & Jack's African Amber clone recipes. In any case, this should be an interesting brew.