Gluten Free Brews?

[Gigantorus]

Hi All, Got a mate who is gluten intolerant (can't consume wheat products). Are there any tasty gluten free beer recipes out there that I can brew? Appreciate any advice thanks. Cheers, Pete

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

Gluten free is a bit of a challenge to brew as the flaovours of the base ingredients are different. You can buy sorghum extract and rice extract. You can also look at millet, but you will need to mill that yourself as I have not seen anywhere that has it extract.

Milletman, who runs Obrien's Brewery brews glutten free beer, you may be able to have a chat to him. He pops in froom time to time

It is most definatly possible

 

[donald_trub]

White Labs makes a product called Clariferm. It's used to drop proteins out of beer to clear them up. There's evidence that suggests that this is the silver bullet for gluten intolerance as it supposedly removes a large amount of the gluten to the beer to the point where those with coeliac disease can even enjoy wheat beers! Blind tastings also suggest that there's barely a detectable difference in the end product.

There was a recent Basic Brewing episode with a professor who has been researching:
September 4, 2014 - Clarity Ferm Gluten Reduction Experiment
Dr. Chris Hamilton of Hillsdale College talks about his experiment attempting to make practically gluten free beers using Clarity Ferm from White Labs.
http://traffic.libsyn.com/basicbrewing/bbr09-04-14clarityferm.mp3

There's also 3 articles up on beerandwinejournal.com right now discussing the findings:
http://beerandwinejournal.com/clarity-ferm-i/
http://beerandwinejournal.com/clarity-ferm-ii/
http://beerandwinejournal.com/clarity-ferm-iii/


I also read an article recently that says that studies have proven that gluten intolerance (besides coeliac disease) is all in the head... but I'll leave that one alone

 

[Not For Horses]

Is he wheat intolerant or gluten intolerant?

 

[philmud]

Great links Donald!

 

[mofox1]

Hi All, Got a mate who is gluten intolerant (can't consume wheat products). Are there any tasty gluten free beer recipes out there that I can brew? Appreciate any advice thanks. Cheers, Pete

There's a couple of posts around on this forum regarding ClarityFerm. I used it in one batch for a mate who is gluten intolerant and aside from scoring free craft beer, he was also able to drink it with no ill effects. I wrote it up here... somewhere.

I think he rates pretty low on the gluten intolerant scale though, as he can and will consume beer/wheat products as long as he's prepared to have hay fever / itchy symptoms for the next day or two.

Try it out, but don't go offering it as gluten free to someone with life threatening allergies.

Edit: It's fairly cheap too - around $6 to dose a batch (less than 20c a longneck). Check our friendly site sponsors.

 

[klangers]

The other issue with gluten free grains is that their gelatinisation temperature is higher than the mashing temperature. This means mashing is a massive pain in the arse as you have to pre-mash, take out some of the liquor (containing the enzymes), boil, cool, and then add the isolated liquor back in and mash as normal.

Millet is also really tiny.

 

[Gigantorus]

Thanks everyone. Really helpful info in all that. Very much appreciated indeed.

Cheers,
Pete

 

[Gigantorus]

Also just found this post in one of the other areas here.

http://aussiehomebrewer.com/topic/81430-gluten-free-brews-the-experiment/

Cheers,
Pete

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

Millet is also really tiny.

Its worse than Rye

 

[mckenry]

Pete,
I brewed a GF beer for a celiac mate. It was simply 2kg sorghum syrup, Cascade and amarillo through the boil and dry hopped with cascade. Fermented with US05. Made to 20L. Bottle primed with white table sugar.
I did a lot of reading and asked a lot of questions at the LHBS. It seems it is better to make hoppier beers with sorghum and you *need* to use dry yeast.
This beer was really good and no way could I tell it was any different to a barley APA. In fact, I reckon it was brighter than a beer made from barley.


*need* - not always the case. more reading required.

 

[Gigantorus]

Thanks, Mac.

Was the sorghum syrup easy to find? Was it something your LHBS had in stock/carries?

The GF mate actually like the pale ales and APA's - so I'm sure this would be to his liking.

Do you have the recipe you used which you could share with me thanks?

Thanks,
Pete

 

[Forever Wort]

Briess Sorghum is very easy to find, it is in most LHBS.

 

[mckenry]

Thanks, Mac.

Was the sorghum syrup easy to find? Was it something your LHBS had in stock/carries?

The GF mate actually like the pale ales and APA's - so I'm sure this would be to his liking.

Do you have the recipe you used which you could share with me thanks?

Thanks,
Pete

I'll pm you over the weekend. Not much different to what I said above, except I dont remember the hop quantities. I boiled for a full 60, and my usual APA schedule is C hops at 5mins and whirlpool, so it will be something like that. I boiled in 10L water and used another 8 or so of tap water to bring temp down. US05 then dry hops.

 

[Tahoose]

Brewed a batch for a mate at work who is a coeliac, used clarity ferm.

He said it hasn't given him any problems so I'm happy with that.

 

[mckenry]

Pete,
I brewed a GF beer for a celiac mate. It was simply 2kg sorghum syrup, Cascade and amarillo through the boil and dry hopped with cascade. Fermented with US05. Made to 20L. Bottle primed with white table sugar.
I did a lot of reading and asked a lot of questions at the LHBS. It seems it is better to make hoppier beers with sorghum and you *need* to use dry yeast.
This beer was really good and no way could I tell it was any different to a barley APA. In fact, I reckon it was brighter than a beer made from barley.


*need* - not always the case. more reading required.

I'll pm you over the weekend. Not much different to what I said above, except I dont remember the hop quantities. I boiled for a full 60, and my usual APA schedule is C hops at 5mins and whirlpool, so it will be something like that. I boiled in 10L water and used another 8 or so of tap water to bring temp down. US05 then dry hops.

OK - so it seems my memory aint a good as it used to be.
I checked beersmith and what I actually did was;

3kg (not 2) of Briess Sorghum syrup
Columbus to 16 IBU 60min boil
Simcoe to 10 IBU 10min boil
Cascade flameout 0.5g/L
Cascade dry hop 2 days prior to packaging - a touch over 1g/L
US05
19L gave me OG 1.041 4.3% alc 8 EBC

Note - the pot I used was 20L, so I boiled in 13L for an hour, which reduced to roughly 12L, topped to 19L with cold tap water.

 

[JDW81]

White Labs makes a product called Clariferm. It's used to drop proteins out of beer to clear them up. There's evidence that suggests that this is the silver bullet for gluten intolerance as it supposedly removes a large amount of the gluten to the beer to the point where those with coeliac disease can even enjoy wheat beers! Blind tastings also suggest that there's barely a detectable difference in the end product.

There was a recent Basic Brewing episode with a professor who has been researching:
September 4, 2014 - Clarity Ferm Gluten Reduction Experiment
Dr. Chris Hamilton of Hillsdale College talks about his experiment attempting to make practically gluten free beers using Clarity Ferm from White Labs.
http://traffic.libsyn.com/basicbrewing/bbr09-04-14clarityferm.mp3

There's also 3 articles up on beerandwinejournal.com right now discussing the findings:
http://beerandwinejournal.com/clarity-ferm-i/
http://beerandwinejournal.com/clarity-ferm-ii/
http://beerandwinejournal.com/clarity-ferm-iii/


I also read an article recently that says that studies have proven that gluten intolerance (besides coeliac disease) is all in the head... but I'll leave that one alone

They are nicely laid out articles, with pretty graphs and pictures, but have they been peer reviewed and have the results been replicated?

I'm not trying be to a naysayer, but I'm not willing to concede until some more evidence comes to light. I don't know many full-blown coeliacs who's be willing to risk it until there were commercial brewers who were willing to stake their reputation on this product and call their grain-based beers gluten free. Is there evidence promising? Yes, but I'm not willing to hang my hat on one study presented in beer and wine journal, which has bugger all references.

I also read an article recently that says that studies have proven that gluten intolerance (besides coeliac disease) is all in the head... but I'll leave that one alone

Care to share that article?

JD

 

[pk.sax]

It was all over fb

 

[donald_trub]

Here's an article on it - http://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2014/05/gluten_sensitivity_may_not_exist.html

I was just taking the chance to make a jab, I haven't even read it so I have no stance on the matter.

There's also this essential watching which I just love:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdJFE1sp4Fw