Gluten Free Beer

[barrskimberly]

Anyone here ever brewed a gluten free all grain? I am hoping to give it a try in a few weeks and was wondering if anyone had any tips or tricks?

Thanks,

Kim

[Ozwald]

Spider's been MIA for a couple days, but his lady is GF & he's got a recipe or 2 floating around the forums. A quick search should pull them up.

[Bokonon]

Clarityferm aka Brewers Clarex is worth looking into. Designed to reduce chill haze but also breaks the proteins down that I guess cause the reaction to gluten.

[spiderwrangler]

Spider's been MIA for a couple days, but his lady is GF & he's got a recipe or 2 floating around the forums. A quick search should pull them up.

Yeah, I'm out of town at a conference, so haven't been on in a bit. The recipes I have are extract based, but built to reduce the impact of sorghum extract as much as possible. As Bok said, ClarityFerm is a product that has been used with success to brew beers with standard grain bills and enzymatically digest the glutens during fermentation. If you want to all grain, that is likely the easiest way. The best price I could find (and nice customer service) was with AIH folks, who are also a BN sponsor. If you don't want to go this route (looking for more challenge, super sensitive and don't want to risk it, etc.), you could try using gluten free grains.
The issue with brewing with your own gf grains is that you will have to get viable grain, malt and kiln it yourself. The GF grains readily available from food stores don't contain any enzymes, and the readily available amylase enzyme doesn't function at mashing temps in my experience.

[barrskimberly]

Clarityferm aka Brewers Clarex is worth looking into. Designed to reduce chill haze but also breaks the proteins down that I guess cause the reaction to gluten.

So if I use the Clarityferm I can brew an all grain beer and its Gluten free? Can I serve it to guests at my house or a beer club and tell them its Gluten free or just advise them that I used the Clairtyferm? I have heard of this additive but I have never tasted any beers that have been brewed with it or heard of anyone that had used it.

Spider- what does this additive do to the taste?

[spiderwrangler]

It does nothing to the taste as far as I know, and I personally wouldn't bill it as 'gluten free', but as 'gluten reduced'. The issue is that we are trusting the enzyme to fully digest the remaining gluten, but we don't have an easy test to check complete conversion. For people who are on gluten free diets with less violent reactions, they should be fine. If you've got a friend who is fucked up for 6 months after getting dosed with gluten, I'd make SURE they knew that the beer contained gluten at one point, but that it SHOULD all be gone now and let them make the decision to drink it or not.

[barrskimberly]

Got it...can't wait to try. I will let you all know.

[Lewybrewing]

I've been on a Clarity-Ferm mission the last couple of weeks. In a nutshell it was formally sold as Brewers ClareX as a clearing add. White Labs re-labeled it as Clarity-Ferm. You add it into active fermentation and the enzyme basically chomps the hazing producing gluten protein up. These also produce chill haze, so by chomping them up you are clearing the beer (which the product was designed for) They later found that by eliminating these haze causing proteins it lowered the Gluten level in the final product.

There are problems, after talking to White Labs they have a couple issues with the product that people are not understanding. 1st, this only cuts the links into smaller pieces. The Gluten is still essentially in the beer. It's just in smaller chunks. Most of the time it then falls to the bottom of the fermenter. White labs also stated any over the counter Gluten test will not work in testing Gluten if, alcohol is present. They offer this testing for 90 bucks. They also said the information on the Clarity-Ferm is wrong and they are relabeling the packaging. You need to use double the amount to achieve a gluten reduced product. They still would NOT give this is Celiacs, even with the reduced Gluten.

I have a very detailed post on my blog if you are interested in learning more and to see my beer that is being tested (raising money for it at least)

Lewybrewing Gluten Test and Information