After Mango Lassi recipe, here's a home brew for gluten free girl or guy on first day of summer from 'True Brews' How to craft Fermented Cider, Beer, Wine, Sake, Soda, Mead, Kefir and Kombucha at Home (Ten Speed Press, Spring 2013) by Emma Christensen.
Gluten-Free Pale Ale
Makes 1 gallon
Target Original Gravity Range = 1.045–1.050
Target Final Gravity Range = 1.010–1.015
Target ABV = 5 percent
Going gluten free means giving up many beloved foods. Beer should not be one of them. Sorghum is the closest gluten-free equivalent to a base malt, though it’s currently only commercially available as a syrup. It tastes like a cross between brown sugar and honey, and it plays nicely with the whole range of hops. Other grains, such as buckwheat and quinoa, give gluten-free beers more depth and character. Be sure to use dry yeasts when brewing gluten-free beers since liquid yeasts are cultured with barley malts.
Yeast Starter
2 tablespoons sorghum extract
1 cup boiling water
2 teaspoons (1 packet) dry ale yeast (such as Safale US-05)
Ingredients
11⁄2 gallons water
11/4 cups / 8 ounces toasted buckwheat groats
21⁄8 cups / 11⁄2 pounds sorghum extract
2 tablespoons / .7 ounce / 20 grams Cluster hops (bittering)
1 tablespoon / .3 ounce / 10 grams Cluster hops (flavoring)
1⁄8 teaspoon dried Irish moss
1 tablespoon / .3 ounce / 10 grams Saaz hops (aroma)
3 tablespoons / 1 ounce corn sugar dissolved in 1⁄2 cup boiling water and cooled, for bottling
Make the yeast starter 1 to 3 hours before you plan to brew. Sanitize a 1-pint canning jar and a spoon. Stir 2 tablespoons of sorghum extract into 1 cup of boiling water until dissolved and cool to room temperature in the jar. Add the yeast and cover the jar with a piece of plastic wrap secured with a rubber band. Give the jar a good shake and let it stand until needed. The starter should become foamy after a few hours, and you will see tiny bubbles popping on the surface of the liquid.
In a large stockpot over high heat, warm 8 cups of water to 155°F. While doing this, preheat your oven to 150°F to 155°F to create a nice, comfy environment for mashing the grains. If you don’t have an oven setting this low, or don’t own an oven thermometer, just warm your oven for about 5 minutes on the lowest setting. Turn off your oven once it has warmed.
Remove the pot of water from the heat, pour the buckwheat into the water, and stir. Check the temperature of the mash with an instant-read thermometer. Stir until it reaches at least 155°F.
Cover the pot and put it in the oven. Set a timer for 30 minutes. Halfway through, pull the pot out, stir the grains, and check the temperature. Maintain a mash temperature of 150°F to 155°F. If the temperature starts to drop below 150°F, set the pot on the burner for just a minute or two to warm it up again. If it’s too warm, stir the mash off the heat for a few minutes to bring the temperature down.
After 30 minutes, the buckwheat is mashed. Place the pot on the stove and heat the mash to 170°F. Hold it at this temperature for about 10 minutes. While doing this, heat the remaining 1 gallon of water to around 170°F in a separate pot to use for the next step.
To sparge the grains, set a large strainer over another large stockpot, your fermentation bucket, or another vessel large enough to hold all the liquid from the mash step, and place this in your kitchen sink. Pour the mashed grains into the strainer. The liquid, now called wort, will collect in the pot beneath. Slowly pour half of the warmed water over the grains, rinsing them evenly.
Clean the stockpot used for making the mash and transfer the strainer with the used grains back to this pot. Pour the wort through the grains again. Repeat this sparging step twice more, ending with the wort back in your original stockpot.
Add 11⁄2 pounds sorghum extract and enough additional warmed water to make about 11⁄2 gallons of total wort, measuring based on the size of your pot (a 2-gallon pot will be three-quarters full). The amount of additional water needed will vary depending on how much liquid the grains absorbed during mashing. Discard the used grains.
Bring the wort up to a rolling boil over high heat on the stove top. This will take 30 to 45 minutes. Watch for the hot break and be careful that the wort doesn’t boil over as this is happening. Stir the wort or lower the heat as needed.
Set a timer for 60 minutes and add the 2 tablespoons Cluster hops for bittering. When 20 minutes are left, add the 1 tablespoon Cluster hops for flavoring and the Irish moss. When 1 minute is left, add the
1 tablespoon Saaz hops for aroma.
Prepare an ice bath in your sink. Cool the wort to around 85°F, changing out the water in the sink as needed.
Sanitize your fermentation bucket and lid, the air lock, a long-handled spoon, a strainer, a funnel, and a hydrometer. Set the strainer over the 2-gallon fermentation bucket. If desired, line the strainer with a flour sack towel or several layers of cheesecloth (sanitized by submerging in the sanitizing solution). Strain the wort into the fermentation bucket. Check to make sure you have at least 1 gallon of wort. Add more water if needed. Take a hydrometer reading to determine the original gravity (see Brewer’s Handbook, page 16).
Pour the yeast starter into the wort and stir vigorously to distribute the yeast and aerate the wort. Snap on the lid and insert the air lock. Set the bucket somewhere out of the way, out of direct sunlight, and at moderate room temperature. You should see active fermentation as evidenced by bubbles in the air lock within 48 hours.
Let the beer ferment undisturbed for at least 3 days or up to 7 days, until fermentation has slowed and the sediment created during brewing has had a chance to settle. At this point, the beer is ready to be transferred off the sediment and into a smaller 1-gallon jug for the longer secondary fermentation.
Sanitize a 1-gallon jug, its stopper, the racking cane, its tip, the siphon hose, and the hose clamp. Siphon all of the beer into the jug. Tilt the bucket toward the end to siphon all of the liquid. Stop when you see the liquid in the hose becoming cloudy with sediment. Seal the jug with its stopper. Sanitize the air lock and insert it into the jug’s stopper. Let it sit somewhere cool and dark for 2 weeks.
To bottle the beer, sanitize a stockpot, a hydrometer, ten 12-ounce beer bottles or six 22-ounce beer bottles, their caps, the siphon hose, the racking cane, its tip, and the bottle filler. Siphon 1⁄2 cup of beer to the hydrometer and use to determine final gravity. Drink the beer or pour it back into the jug once used.
Pour the corn sugar solution into the stockpot. Siphon the beer into the stockpot to mix with the corn sugar solution, splashing as little as possible. Siphon the beer into bottles, cap, and label.
Let the bottles sit at room temperature out of direct sunlight for at least 2 weeks to fully carbonate. Store for up to 1 year. Refrigerate before serving.
( Reprinted with permission from True Brews: How to Craft Fermented Cider, Beer, Wine, Sake, Soda Kefir & Kombucha at Home by Emma Christensen, copyright © 2013. Published by Ten Speed Press, a division of Random House, Inc. Photo credit: Paige Green © 2013)