Gluten free homebrewing: background reading

Why gluten-free homebrew?

Many people can't or choose not to eat gluten. The most common reason is celiac disease, which causes a serious reaction to even tiny amounts of gluten. Others are intolerant to larger amounts of gluten or choose not to eat it for other reasons. Regardless of the reason, these folks can't drink normal barley-based beer.


I have a couple friends in this category, and figured that I could easily homebrew them up some gluten-free beer. After all, someone must have done this before, right? Apparently, not so much. There's a gluten-free brewing forum on HomebrewTalk.com, but there are more questions than answers.


A warning

I am neither a doctor nor a professional brewer. It's possible I may be wrong in something here - use your brain. Talk with your doctor about any questions. Do not consume anything that you think will make you sick. Also, be aware that the standard for "gluten free" allows very small amounts of gluten. I try to make everything here truly free of any gluten particles at all by using naturally gluten-free ingredients, but you never know.


What's known so far?

There are many gluten-free grains that can be used in homebrewing, but they all suffer from one problem or another. Generally, they have low starch content, low diastatic power, or a taste that doesn't go well in beer. Here are the options I'm aware of:


Corn, rice: Corn, corn syrup (which is essentially just wort made from corn), rice and rice syrup are used by commercial and home brewers to add fermentable sugars to the brew. They work really well at adding sugars and producing a more alcoholic beer. However, they do not contribute much taste, so they tend to dilute the flavor of a beer and aren't really suitable as the main flavoring ingredient. They might work in some pale styles, though. They do not have any enzymatic (diastatic) power which means they must be malted with a high-enzyme grain.


Oats: Oats contain a substance similar to gluten that is banned for some people. Also, the typical method of growing oats contaminates them with wheat. However, gluten-free oats are available, and since oats do have enzymatic power they might be sufficient to convert other grains. They contribute a lot of protein, which will make the beer cloudy, and a fair bit of flavor, which could be overpowering in high doses.


Sorghum: This is the main base malt for most commercial gluten free beers. It's an African grain with relatively high diastatic power and a flavor somewhat like barley, though with a floral and sour taste that some find off-putting. Breiss makes a sorghum extract that is the primary way people have homebrewed gluten-free beer to this point. The primary downside to sorghum, other than the taste, is that it is not widely available in raw or malted form in the US.

Millet: Millet is another African grain traditionally used for brewing on that continent. It also has relatively high diastatic power and has a fairly neutral flavor. Hulled millet is widely available and inexpensive, but millet suitable for malting is not.

Quinoa: Quinoa is used in traditional American beverages. However, it lacks enzymes and was traditionally chewed to break down the sugars. Although it is widely available, it is relatively expensive.


Buckwheat: Buckwheat, despite the name, does not contain gluten but does contribute a wheat-like taste, which may be useful to constructing beer that tastes "normal". It is low in diastatic power.


Yeast

Dry yeast is propagated on a gluten-free medium, but liquid yeast is not. White Labs yeast vials have sufficiently low gluten that they will meet the technical standard for gluten free when diluted into a 5 gallon batch of beer, but there will still be some gluten in there, which many people can't tolerate. If you need to use a yeast strain that's only available as a liquid yeast, the best way to do it is to isolate some in a growth medium like gelatin or agar (both GF), then grow it into a starter using a gluten-free substrate.


Where to start and where to go

The easy way to do this is to use the Breiss sorghum extract, adding other GF grains as steeping grains. The hard way is to obtain and malt grains for an all-grain brew. The reason to go the hard way is to vastly expand the possible flavors you can create.

Here's the game plan: beer #1 went in the fermenter a few weeks ago and beer #2 went in a couple days ago. Both beers will be described in upcoming posts. Both are sorghum extract beers. I am going to explore the possibilities of sorghum extract over the next few weeks, while trying to find sources for maltable grains. Target styles include brown ales, IPAs and buckwheat ale. Then I'm going to explore all-grain brews, where the sky's the limit. I'll keep you posted throughout - the goal is to expand the knowledge of the GF homebrewing community. Thanks for listening and talk to you soon!

Dave