Gluten Free Brewing Experiment - Introduction and GF Pale Ale Recipe

I’m setting out to do an experiment.  I have a couple of friends who have Celiac disease, and cannot consume gluten, so I am going to try and make a gluten-free beer for my friends. 

For those of you who have never heard of Celiac disease or don’t know what gluten is, I’ll elaborate a little. Gluten is a generic term for storage proteins found in grains such as wheat, rye, and barley.  Eating these proteins triggers an immune reaction in the body, which then attacks the intestines. 

So, since beer is traditionally made from barley, wheat, or rye, it is generally out of the question for those with Celiac disease.  And there is no cure.  Their only option is to avoid all products made with barley, wheat, rye (or any of the other grains which contain gluten – there’s a large list here which shows them).

There are, of course, a few exceptions to the rule, such as Redbridge by AB, but for the most part, these are not shining examples of great beer, and are really more of an effort to loosely simulate mass-produced barley beer.  We don’t want to do that.

Which leads me to the next bit – how do I want to do it?  I’ve decided on the following list of criteria for my gluten-free beer recipe as key elements in designing a recipe for gluten-free brewers everywhere.

The first criterion is that the ingredients have to be readily available.  I don’t want to create a recipe which can only be brewed by people who have access to a single ingredient.  It has to be readily available in most markets, or at least online.  This does assume a U.S. audience, not a worldwide, and it operates on the assumption that if the ingredient is readily available to me, it is readily available to most others.

The second criterion is that it has to be easily made by a relative beginner at brewing.  It shouldn’t be any harder to brew than any other batch of beer, and if a Celiac sufferer is only brewing because they have Celiac disease, I want them to be able to start with this recipe.

The third criterion is that it has to taste like beer.  A lot of gluten-free beers have odd flavors in them which aren’t necessarily bad, but they aren’t very beery.  Making a beer that doesn’t taste like a beer defeats the purpose of doing this for my celiac-suffering friends.

The fourth and final criterion is that it has to taste good and be easily drinkable.  These are actually separate, but both important.  I want the beer to be a delicious example of a beer they could have had if they could have gluten.

Make no mistake; this will be a challenge.  There are a lot of recipes for brewing gluten-free beers which require malting unusual grains.  Malting is a several-day, time consuming process by itself, and would achieve inconsistent results when done by amateurs.  That goes against the second criterion, so I will not be doing any malting myself. 

Because I will not do any malting, my base malt will be sorghum malt extract, which is available through homebrew shops and from Breiss.  You can even find it on Morebeer.com and at the Home Brewery.

In order to add flavor to the beer, I’ll use specialty grains such as buckwheat, amaranth, or quinoa.  I may toast the grains prior to use in order to get different flavors, but I am not sure yet.  I will only use grains and extracts which are available to me locally through the Homebrewery or through our local health food store, Mama Jean’s.

To start, I’m going to try a pale ale.  I may be mistaken, but I think that toasting the grains at a lighter temperature a bit and steeping them should impart a decent amount of grain flavor, and I think by choosing hops with clear recognizable flavors will make the beer more palatable.  Toasting at a low temperature for longer time makes the grain sweeter without adding a bunch of roasty flavors.  I want the grain to add color to the beer, but not make it taste like a porter or stout. 

I’ll be brewing a 5 gallon batch of this on my birthday next week.  I’ll post the recipe and my thoughts after I’ve done the initial batch.  I don’t want to guess on how much toasting I will do without having gotten some kind of result.

The theoretical recipe I am using will be this one:

Gluten-Free Pale Ale

Recipe Type: Extract with Grains
Batch size: 5 gallons
Volume Boiled: 6 gallons
Est. OG: 1.045
Est. FG: 1.013
Est. Color: 8.0 SRM (will vary depending on grain roasting)
Est. Bitterness: 40 IBU
Est. ABV: 4.3%

Ingredients:
5.5 lbs Malted Sorghum Extract
.5 lb Buckwheat groats (lightly toasted)
.5 lb Quinoa (lightly toasted)
.5 lbs Amaranth (lightly toasted)
.3 oz Citra Hops @11%AA = 3.3 AAU boiled 60 minutes
.5 oz Citra Hops @11%AA boiled 30 minutes
.5 oz Citra Hops @11%AA boiled 15 minutes
.5 oz Citra Hops @11%AA at flameout
.5 oz Citra Hops @11%AA dry hopped 10 days
1 tsp Irish Moss (clarifier)
Fermentis Safale US-05
Corn sugar for bottling

Procedure:
Toast your grains in the oven prior to beginning.  I will be toasting them at 200 degrees until I feel they are appropriately toasted. (I’m aiming for 20-40 L, but who can tell?)  Let them cool. Steep your grains in a cheesecloth or nylon mesh bag in 6 gallons of water.  Begin heating the water.  Remove the grains before you reach 170 F.  Turn off heat and stir in sorghum extract.  Bring wort to a boil and add first hop addition.  After 30 minutes, add second addition.  After 15 more minutes, add third hop addition and Irish Moss.  After 15 minutes, add final hop addition and turn off heat.  Cool beer to 70 F as quickly as possible, pitch, and ferment.  After 7-10 days, rack beer to secondary fermenter and add dry hops.  After 10 days, bottle using corn sugar as primer.

*Please note: If you are serious about gluten-free brewing, you should note that dry yeast is cultivated in molasses, and some liquid yeasts may contain gluten.  Check with your home brew supplier before assuming your yeast is gluten-free.  Also, exercise caution when purchasing bulk grains for your gluten-free beers.  You don’t want them to be milled with gluten grains or otherwise be contaminated with gluten.