Another style-twisting recipe to restart beer making

[jswordy]

I have not made beer (or wine, for that matter) for 3 years! That is hard to believe, but the dates do not lie. Anyway, I heard through the grapevine that there is demand for bottles of my gluten free beers if I made some more, so I whipped up a batch today. Think adjunct lightened Irish red meets kolsch yeast. The only hops are a bittering late Centennial. Now resting in the primary. We'll see!

 

[BernardSmith]

What sugars do you use to make a gluten free beer?

 

[RevA]

Nice, glad you got back into it. Also started brewing again after not brewing anything for more than a year. New kid took alot of time.

 

[jswordy]

What sugars do you use to make a gluten free beer?

The key is to use Clarity Ferm, originally developed as Brewer's Clarity for the industry (https://www.mr-malt.com/media/upload/pdf/Brewers_Clarity_Datasheet.pdf). It's an enzyme that breaks the gluten bonds and vastly improves the clearness of unfiltered beer. After Clarity Ferm, the beer should test at 20 ppm gluten, which qualifies as gluten free. Since Clarity Ferm became available in vials, every beer I make is gluten free. I have a huge demand for bottles from family and friends. Just too busy otherwise to do that much brewing the past couple years.

https://www.whitelabs.com/sites/default/files/Clarity Ferm Spec Sheet.pdf

 

[BernardSmith]

So that means you can make gluten free beer while brewing barley or wheat? THAT must make for fantastically flavored gluten free beers. (I have no problem with gluten - in fact as a vegetarian my main source of protein , apart from nuts and legumes, is seitan which is essentially wheat gluten)

 

[jswordy]

So that means you can make gluten free beer while brewing barley or wheat? THAT must make for fantastically flavored gluten free beers. (I have no problem with gluten - in fact as a vegetarian my main source of protein , apart from nuts and legumes, is seitan which is essentially wheat gluten)

Absolutely! The brand Omission has been doing it now for several years (as have I, back when I was brewing more). Just shop around and pick up some Clarity Ferm. I do have a problem with gluten and beer without it does not make my joints ache like beer with it does. A dark beer is the worst for me, and I love Guinness. I never make beer without Clarity Ferm now.

 

[jswordy]

BEER UPDATE: The beer is in secondary now. I am still playing around with Belgian Debittered Black as a reddening agent, and apparently I don't have enough in it yet. It is coming out yellow. I may boil again this weekend, and I'll add more to that batch.

I used K-97 yeast at a very low temp and it still tasted pretty fruity-tooty right out of primary. I hope that tones down with aging.

The krausen produced by this yeast is exceptional and sticky, so it holds a protective coat over the liquid. Due to the sticky and very elastic krausen, K-97 would be a great candidate for open fermentation.

I used bittering hops only and I used Centennial, so it will have to rest to cut that sharpness down. I am still looking for my ideal hop after years of trying different kinds.

I may bottle this one or the next batch by krausening it instead of using priming sugar. That would be ideal for my next effort, which will be a lager that I want to go dry if I can manage it. This is the season to make natural lagers that comply with the calendar set forth in the German Purity Laws!

 

[jswordy]

Long boil equals low yield. Only 39 bottles even though I was adding water as the boil went along. Bottle with dot is not quite full so it'll be the carb tester. Next time I will mark my initial level on the pot. Upside is that it should have excellent head retention.

Boy am I out of practice bottling. It was a mess early on.

We are looking at cooler lager-loving weather week after this one, so I hope I have time to boil again. It is so warm that might be my only chance at lager.

 

[jswordy]

Test bottle shows good carb and good head retention but OMG it is IPA hops forward. That should die back in a few weeks, I hope.