ive made a bunch of fruit or flavored beers.
most of them have been strawberry, because thats what im partial to.
ive done 3 batches of strawberry blonde (all came out slightly different), 1 ginger brew, and a hazel nut brew
the challenge in fruit beers ive found is that the hops and the sugars we use can be VERY overpowering when it comes to GF beer.
so the first obstacle is to come up with a base recipe that will provide us with the potency we want but not put the fruit flavors on the back burner.
personally i CANNOT STAND the taste of sorghum in about 98% of all the GF beers ive tried. i dont like the metallic citrusy aftertaste it gives off, that might explain the 4 7# jugs i still have yet to use. its just to over powering IMO.
remember that different yeasts impart different flavors, if you really like heffe's, then you might want to find a way to isolate a whit yeast and cultivate it to be GF.
we have some tips tricks and methods floating around the gf section here.
for a good base i, personally, have found the following to work well:
4# millet, toasted to a nice caramel color (this is where a lot of variation occurs, replication of malt toasts gets hard at a home scale). after you toast it let it waft for at least a week in a brown bag, THIS IS CRITICAL. steep at 150F for 1 hour ( i use a grain bag so when the steep is over i just pull the bag from the brew pot, like a giant tea-bag.
the millet soaks a lot of water up. but first i add in my sugar and maltodextrin, my brew paddle is a rubber spatula, its short. so i can make sure i can stir the wort and scrape the bottom so i dont scorch the sugar. when you add the maltodextrin, if your already boiling you WILL BOIL OVER. so thats why i add it when im coming up to temp.
i add 7# of tapioca extract (breiss)
~1# clover honey
10-14oz maltodextrin (yes this is a S..T ton, but i like it, leaves a residual sweetness, add to brewpot slowly while stirring to avoid malto-balls forming like dumplings)
bring h20 up to 4 gal and bring to a boil
hopps:
i use a total of 1.5-2oz czech saaz. 4.0%aa
i break it up like 1 oz at 60, .25 at 30min and .25 at 30min. but this is all personal decisions. do as you will just remember, over hopping will cover fruit flavor.
@ 15min i add my wort chiller, double the recommended amount of yeast nutrient, irish moss
cool to pitching temps and add yeast and pectic enzyme. ive used safale, coopers, and fermentis yeasts, but my favorite final product came from the use of a home isolated heffe yeast.
i also racked over 4# of diced fresh strawberries that i blanched quickly right before adding to to primary
my final volume for my primary is about 6.5 gal. there WILL BE A lot of trub and fruit mess left in the primary. youll lose about a gal when racking to secondary. then youll lose about a half gal when racking to bottle.
if you put the work into isolating a heffe yeast. try to brew the same day as you bottle. you can use the yeast cake you just racked off of to start your next brew.