Sorghum and diy rice/milet crystal ipa idea

[Miraculix]

Good morning, evening, night.

I am quite curious about the clarity ferm/Sorghum thing going on in the other thread here, so I thought about giving it a go myself.

My idea is to brew a fairly simple ipa with citra on a Sorghum basis. Og should be around 1.05 or slightly lower.

My idea is to spice it up a bit with diy rice and millet crystal made out of unmalted grains. I discussed this topic earlier with legume here in the forum and he gave great advice.

The idea is to boil the grain to gelatinize the starch, let it cool down to appropriate temperature for the amylase, add the amylase with a bit of water and let the amylase do its magic to convert the starch into sugar.

Following that, I would spread the converted grain (hopefully not a pulp at this stage) on a sheet of baking paper and put it in the oven to grill it and caramelise the sugars a bit.

Looks like I cannot get hold on beta amylase, but alpha seems to be easily accessible. Is that a problem?

Would do this with rice and the other run with millet. Then I would create two small 1gal batches of the Sorghum ipa, one with the millet and one with the rice crystal.

Yeast, either safale 04 or saf 05, do not want to keep it too sweet, but do not know if the fake crystal will provide sufficient unfermentable sugars for the saf 05.

I would aim for 10% of the grain bill being crystal. I know it would be a bit much for real crystal malt but I do not know how strong this diy version will be.

After that, some hops at 20 min, some at flame out and some dry (details later).

Before I start this experiment, does anybody have any suggestions on this?

Thanks,

Miraculix

 

[fofusak]

Sounds like a cool experiment. But I'd suggest getting beta amylase too. With just alpha you;ll end up with mostly unfermentables.

I got my bet and alpha as endo-alpha amylase and exo-alpha amylase. It refers to endothermic and exothermic, although I don't remember which ones is which. However I too tought that beta was unavailable. (I believe this is how termamyl is branded)

Cheers

 

[Miraculix]

Thx mate!
Would not be that bad if I would end up with mainly unfermentable sugars, as the main intention was to create a fake crystal that provides body and malty/caramel taste. The fermentables will be provided by the Sorghum Sirup.

BUT I found out that white labs sells the beta amylase under a different name in small numbers, so I will have both, alpha and beta

 

[fofusak]

Im not sure of the kind of unfermentables that one would leave, but there are sugars that are not sweet like maltodextrin. Im not saying you would get those, but I would need to look it further.

For sweetness you could use belgian candy too (I thing it is called that?)

 

[Miraculix]

Aha, Ok did not know that they would not be sweet. OK, I obviously do not want those. Good to know.

I know what you mean with the Belgian stuff, I was thinking about that to but first wanted to clearly understand how much sweetness and body/type of taste I could get with the rice and millet pseudo crystal. If I would add the Belgian stuff I wouldn't be able to tell where the flavour comes from, malt or Sirup as I never used either of them.

 

[Miraculix]

To be honest, I actually would need to create a purely Sorghum based ipa as well... Otherwise I will never know what is what.... Maybe I will just make the rice crystal first and a pure Sorghum for comparison. I only have two small fermenters that's why I cannot make three batches at the same time.

 

[fofusak]

I said maybe you will get unsweet sugars, I'm not sure which ones you'd get

I did a pure sorghum witbier once (or at least an attempt) and it turned out pretty good.

 

[Miraculix]

Did you use the unmalted Sirup? If so, did you use clarity ferm?

 

[fofusak]

I used sorghum malt syrup. A bit of lemon peel, orange peel, coriander and citra for hops. Mangrove jacks M21 yeast. Ill get the exact measures tomorrow and post them. It was clear, but of course I could not use unmalted wheat. But maybe theres a grain we could use for that.

 

[bigplunkett]

If your looking for residual sweatness bribly darker candi sugar. Id say dont use tomuch if its not enough at botling time you could add more as your carbing sugar.

 

[Miraculix]

The malt version is not available in the UK unfortunately.

I think that makes the difference regarding the Sorghum "twang". But looks promising with clarity ferm.

 

[xflibble]

Re:Extract witbier, here (Australia) we have gluten-free weetbix which are a good substitute for flaked wheat...See attachment.

 

[Miraculix]

Long weekend in uk, this means I will start this experiment this weekend (if the shop delivers on time). Did buy 1.5kg bries white Sorghum Sirup, some amarillo and still have some citra left. Will combine those hops and brew one gallon with the pseudo rice crystal and one gallon just with the Sirup, to have a comparison.

15 minute boil, hops will be @ 15 min @ flame out and dry , both beers the same.

 

[Miraculix]

Anybody got an idea what the best temperatures for white labs wl4100 ultra ferm (beta amylase) and ritchies amylase (alpha) are?

 

[Miraculix]

Found it for white labs, it is 60 degrees Celsius max but not for ritchies. Guess I will just throw it in together at 59 and hope for the best

 

[Miraculix]

Just did cook the rice (200g basmati) with twice the volume of water till the water was completely soaked up, did let it cool down to 60 something degree celsius, mixed in 0.2l water half a teaspoon ritchies alpha amylase and a third of a veil of the ultra ferm (bit too much, did slip out of the veil), mixed it all together and put it into a thermos flask to keep the 60 degrees for two hours.

Rice did taste incredebly sweet after 1.5h, but also got liquified. Did add 70g of rice flakes to soak up the water. At the end I had a thick pulp. Did transfer it into the oven where it is now under strong heat (250C upper and lower heat/grill) to caramalize. Let's see how the results will turn out!

Next time I will keep a rice/riceflakes ratio of 1/1... it is way too liquid this time. Next time will be better!

 

[Miraculix]

It came out Ok. Took too much time for the water to evaporate and caramelisation to start, then the temperature was too high so that it did not caramelise evenly... Some rice got burned but the rest is nice. Tastes like caramel. Lets See how the beer will turn out!

 

[Miraculix]

And it is bubbling.

Both beers have an OG of about 1.055 and the yeast is the saf us. The version with rice has a slightly faster start, but that could be due to a bit more yeast to start with (divided the package between both fermenters by eye).

I forgot to buy clarity ferm... did order it today and will add it later during the fermentation.

 

[Miraculix]

Fermentation slowed down. In order to get the protection of the positive co2 pressure of still a bit ongoing fermentation, I will dry hop today with 10g amarillo per gallon.

 

[Miraculix]

I think I should have waited a few days longer with the dry hopping... Fermentation still goes on, meaning some of the hops aroma will be blown out... Won't throw in more, will wait till its done and than bottle.

 

[Miraculix]

I bottled the two batches yesterday. In two weeks I will be able to compare.

So far, the flat beer directly out of the fermenter tasted promising.

In fact it was the best uncarbed beer I had up to now. The version with the pseudo rice crystal had some strong residual sweetness in it, so that experiment worked out pretty well.

I am really curious about how it will taste carbed up and cold.

 

[brewGF]

Nice. Keep us updated with the results.

 

[Miraculix]

Tasting!

I tried both, the pseudo crystal with Sorghum ipa and the pure Sorghum ipa.

To be honest, worst beer I made so far. It is drinkable but not enjoyable. It has no head and feels more like a Cider than a beer but lacking the apple taste.

Nope, not going to use Sorghum Sirup again. I do not really know how a Sorghum twang tastes, so I cannot say if the clarity ferm did help or not, but I certainly do not like the taste of the beer I made.

But, the pseudo crystal version does have more residual sweetness, so this seems to have worked.

 

[brewGF]

Hmm, thats too bad. I find that the Breiss Sorghum syrup is a great product and i have been making terrific beer. I find that it needs 3 weeks of bottle conditioning to be finished and have a good head. It benefits fron some adjuncts but even alone i have not had anything resembling cider. Yeast and fermenting temps maybe?

 

[Miraculix]

Don't know if it was the bries Sirup... Looked to me like the shop did rip open one of those "gone with the wheat" kits and sold me the Sirup without the rest of the kit. Maybe the kits don't sell well and they try to cut losses...

Fermentation was at room temperature (around 20C) and the yeast was us 05. Don't detect any off flavour but I miss everything coming from grain / malt taste wise.

What's left is a Cider ish mouth feeling, which is not bad but also not beer. Maybe the us 05 did dry it up a bit too much... Don't know.

Will let it age and try a bottle now and then to see what happens.

Was an experiment anyway, 1gallon each version, not much lost but gained some knowledge

 

[brewGF]

That temp and 05 yeast was likely fine. The shelf life of the syrup is pretty long so probably ok. I do always add maltodextrin for body, mouthfeel, and head. I wouldnt at all be suprised if it improves with more time.

 

[Miraculix]

That temp and 05 yeast was likely fine. The shelf life of the syrup is pretty long so probably ok. I do always add maltodextrin for body, mouthfeel, and head. I wouldnt at all be suprised if it improves with more time.

As I am not tempted to drink it, it will get plenty of time!