Beer Forum

Ok. I JUST heard from a good friend that she has been diagnosed as allergic to gluten. But she LOVES Guiness.

I just can't let her go the rest of her life without beer. Its simply a moral imperative!! So....

I know we can brew with sorghum extract, but it is usually quite light in color and has no roasty or toasty flavors to it. Cooking it in a pan before brewing with it ought to bring about some Maillard reactions, but that might leave it too sweet.

I can get ahold of raw sorghum kernels, but would need to malt them in order to try and approximate dark malted and roasted barley.

Has anyone tried this before or does anyone have any suggestions?

Me (and my good friend) appreciate any suggestions.

While I am no expert, I wonder if roasted barley has all of its glutens reduced by the heat?
You will want to check with somebody who knows for sure, but I wonder if its possible?
If so, then I'd think you can get pretty close to a nice Dry stout with a simple mix of sorghum syrup as the base malt, with some roasted barley and then you'd need something to replace the flaked barley -- maybe something like quinoa?

just speculating but there may be something there to get you started...

You could try roast chicory/coffee/dark Belgian to add some deeper and roasty flavors to the beer. You could also try oven roasting something like buckwheat or other gluten free grains to get the roast component.

I *just* bottled a gluten free IPA for the wife, but haven't tackled GF stouts yet as she isn't a stout drinker.

I've just started playing around with gluten free beers. No particular reason, just for giggles. But I would avoid any malted barley just in case glutens are present. I have not tried to see how much color you get from cold steeped coffee. I have run across this recipe:

Emma’s Dry Stout
Batch Size: 5 Gallons
Original Gravity: 1.039
Final Gravity: 1.005
IBU: 18.8
SRM: 51.11
ABV: 4.5%
Boiling Time: 60 Minutes
Primary Fermentation: 14 days @ 68 degrees
Bottling: Carbonated with 0.50 cup of corn sugar

Ingredients/Instructions:
3.1 lbs / 1.4 kg Sorghum Syrup (prior to boil)
0.22 lbs / 0.10 kg Sinamar – 3040 SRM / 8100 EBC (prior to boil)
0.35 oz / 10 g Chinook Hops (60 min)
0.18 oz / 5 g Chinook Hops (30 min)
17.6 oz / 0.5 kg Maltodextrin (10 min)
2 Vanilla Beans (1 min)
10.6 oz / 0.3 kg Red Gum Honey (flameout)
0.35 oz / 10g Amarillo Hops (flameout / steep for 10 min)
1 pkg Ale Yeast

I was wondering about maltodextrin for mouth-feel...good suggestion. I'm not familiar with Sinimar. With an SRM that high, it is adding color, but does it add flavor too?

I also like the idea of quinoa (since I have some of that laying around as well). Wonder if I roasted some of that along with some flax seed....

I'd need to use a fining to separate the oils, or there would be NO head though. Suggestions?

I've also heard that a product (its a clairifier) from White Labs has an interesting side-effect. Supposedly it breaks down gluten molecules. I spoke with someone at one of the suppliers and they told me that legally, the finished product cannot be called "gluten free" since there was gluten present at one point, but commercial brewers are already using the product and labeling the beer as "gluten-reduced".

I'm not sure I'm willing to risk it for my friend, but if anyone has measured information on this, I'd LOVE to see it too.

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll keep looking as well and report back.

The enzyme you refer to is Clarity Ferm or Brewer's Clarex. It wasn't designed for gluten, but to remove protein from the chill haze equation. Supposedly it brings gluten below most people's sensitivity thresholds, HOWEVER the Elisa tests they use to check ppm on gluten is formulated for the gliadin protein and not the horadin (sp) protein in barley. Also, the Sinimar is a malt based product, so you are looking at the same sort of issues there. You also will want to use a dry yeast as the liquid ones are cultured on malt.

Here are the deets on Sinamar.