1st Attempt at a GF Porter

[igliashon]

When I could drink normal beer, porters were always my favorite, so naturally my first priority when getting into gluten-free brewing would be to try to brew something porter-esque. After much reading of this forum, this is what I came up with for a 3-gallon batch:

2# dark belgian candi syrup
2# rice syrup
1# chestnut honey at flameout
1 c molasses
.5# dark pan-toasted sprouted (malted?) quinoa
.5# dark oven-roasted GF quick-cooking oats
1 oz cascade 45 min
1 oz kent goldings 30 min
Danstar Windsor yeast

I didn't take any gravity readings, and probably never will because it's a PITA and I'm not that meticulous. It fermented actively for a solid two weeks, though, and went straight from primary to bottles. At 1 week after bottling, it tasted totally stupid: it was cidery, yeasty, with a vague roasted bitterness, no hop presence and strong "wet forest" overtones from the chestnut honey. Not remotely porter-like, much to my chagrin. I was ready to call it a total loss, but decided to let it age anyway and see what it might turn into.

Turns out, aging made *all* the difference. After another 10 days in the bottle, it still wasn't remotely like a porter, but the cidery sweetness and yeastiness died down, the hops came through, and a pleasant earthiness was all that remained of the chestnut honey. The candi sugar added definite belgian-style overtones--it was probably closest to a dark dubbel in taste. It was nice and dark, probably closer to a brown ale than a porter though, and it elicited much praise and approval from all who tasted it--in fact, most of the batch disappeared over the course of only a few days, as all my guests couldn't get enough of it.

Despite that it was delicious in its own special way, it wasn't what I was aiming for, and here are some things I learned from it:

1) 1# of honey in a 3-gallon batch adds a LOT of honey flavor
2) belgian candi sugar does not taste like malt, and is not appropriate in a stout or porter recipe
3) 1# of adjunct grains is NOT ENOUGH!
4) GF beers need more hops
5) 1 c of molasses for 3 gallons is a bit weak

If I were to modify the recipe, I'd increase the hops to 1.25 or 1.5 oz each, and/or add some finishing hops at 15 min to flameout. I'd double the grain bill, double the molasses, halve the honey, halve the candi sugar, up the rice syrup to 3# and maybe try scorching it with a creme brulee torch to get more roasty flavor, and bottle-condition longer. I'd probably also do a secondary fermentation to clarify it a bit more. I've still got 4 bottles set aside of this batch for long aging, we'll see what a full year in the bottle does!

On the plus side, this beer lacked that metallic sorghum tang that all the store-bought GF beers have, and once the hops came through to balance the honey sweetness, it was very nice to drink. This leads me to hypothesize that the darker honeys (chestnut, buckwheat, tupelo) could go well in GF beers if the hops are increased accordingly. Also, the oats came through surprisingly well in the mouth-feel, and I think they're going to be a mainstay ingredient in most of my future GF brews.

 

[gypsyhead]

If you can find sprouted buckwheat (or if you're down for malting your own), it made for a nice base malt on a gf porter that i did, though I didn't roast them long enough to get the proper color, the flavor was spot on. But regarding the haze, the quinoa and oats wouldn't have had the proper enzymes for starch conversion on their own, so you've likely just got a bit of residual haze. You could try adding amylase enzyme to your mash/steep, or even to the fermenter (though these little guys will continue breaking things down and could result in a very dry brew).

 

[mloster]

Was it pretty dry? Most of your fermentables in there are simple sugars. I'd suggest more malted grains (if you can) and maltodextrin. The cider-y flavor does not have to do with adding sugar, but, instead, has to do with fermentation temps etc.

 

[dorklord]

Yeah, something like dark candi sugar can add some chocolate, roasty type flavors, but isn't going to give it that backbone...and I don't think rice syrup does either.

My oatmeal stout went over pretty well with my stout-drinking friend:

5 Gallon batch:

Steeped 1 lb of lightly toasted rolled oats.
3 lbs sorghum extract
1 lb cooked honey (black)
2 lbs cooked sugar (burnt).
4 oz maltodextrin
1 oz Fuggles (60 minutes)

 

[igliashon]

Was it pretty dry? Most of your fermentables in there are simple sugars. I'd suggest more malted grains (if you can) and maltodextrin. The cider-y flavor does not have to do with adding sugar, but, instead, has to do with fermentation temps etc.

Maybe "cidery" isn't the right word...it's a taste I've noticed in previous (non-GF) homebrews and in some belgian styles, not exactly that fruity/estery taste from the belgian yeasts but a weird kind of sweetness that's extremely hard to describe. Almost "artificial" if that makes any sense. It wasn't dry, quite the opposite actually.

The maltodextrin is a great idea, though...it was a bit lacking in body (though not nearly as bad as commercial GF beer).

 

[igliashon]

If you can find sprouted buckwheat (or if you're down for malting your own), it made for a nice base malt on a gf porter that i did, though I didn't roast them long enough to get the proper color, the flavor was spot on. But regarding the haze, the quinoa and oats wouldn't have had the proper enzymes for starch conversion on their own, so you've likely just got a bit of residual haze. You could try adding amylase enzyme to your mash/steep, or even to the fermenter (though these little guys will continue breaking things down and could result in a very dry brew).

Great idea! A few questions though:

Is "sprouted" the same as "malted"? I haven't been able to find a source that differentiates the two terms, so I've been treating them as equal, but I want to make sure. I've been using sprouted quinoa because I can get that in bulk at Whole Foods (and my girlfriend works there so I get a discount ), but I haven't seen sprouted buckwheat. I'm sure I could get it online, though. When you say you used it as a base malt, do you mean that you did an all-grain brew where you mashed and sparged the buckwheat?

If I wanted to try the amylase, I'd probably do it in the steep, since I really don't want a dry brew...but where can I find directions/proper proportions/temperatures/times/etc. to make it work best? I thought about amylase myself after reading about how people used saliva in traditional brews, but there's so little literature out there on GF brewing and I really don't know enough to experiment on my own, so I'm kind of hesitant.

Also, FWIW, I've got a heather braggot bottle-conditioning right now that I brewed with sprouted quinoa AND flaked quinoa and a bit of red rice, which was quite hazy in primary but cleared up immaculately in secondary...all I used was a little irish moss in the boil, so it seems like doing a two-stage fermentation does a lot to help the final clarity.

 

[igliashon]

Yeah, something like dark candi sugar can add some chocolate, roasty type flavors, but isn't going to give it that backbone...and I don't think rice syrup does either.

My oatmeal stout went over pretty well with my stout-drinking friend:

5 Gallon batch:

Steeped 1 lb of lightly toasted rolled oats.
3 lbs sorghum extract
1 lb cooked honey (black)
2 lbs cooked sugar (burnt).
4 oz maltodextrin
1 oz Fuggles (60 minutes)

Ah, that's a great-looking recipe! I had a feeling burning the sugars would help achieve a stout-like color and flavor. How did you blacken the honey? Just pour it in a pot and crank up the heat? Do you think the same process would work on the sorghum extract, too?

 

[dorklord]

A couple things:

Sprouting and malting are essentially the same process, the question is the end goal. When a brewer malts grain, they are trying to allow the germination process to run until an optimal point for brewing.

Sprouted grain may have been made just to turn the basically inedible grain into something edible, so they may stopped the germination process either earlier or later than would be optimal for brewing.

As far as blackening the honey goes, I think that I diluted it with a bit of water, mostly so that I wouldn't scorch it right away, and I just followed the usual method for making dark candi syrup, I let it start boiling and then would add water to keep it between hard ball and soft crack.

The sugar, though, we didn't do a good enough job of watching it and let it get really hot at one point, I was worried it was going to be disgusting as it was a little bitter and burnt tasting, but it actually worked out well.

I suppose you certainly could try something like that with sorghum extract, I don't know that it would result in anything like what you would get from a more highly roasted malt.