Three New Brews: Gluten Free Belgian Witbier, Mocha MaryAnn Choccy Porter, Eddie's Small Beer. Double Chilled

Happy Birthday Jerry Garcia!

Where to begin?  I've been kind of busy brewing the last few days.  I have been on a search for millet to roast for my Glluten Free Belgian witbier as millet takes on a look and taste of wheat in the gluten free beer world for the past week or so.  I spent a few days looking all around NE PHilly for millet.  No luck.  Off to Whole Foods on South Street.  $1.30 /lb.  Nice!  Since it was so cheap I got two whole pounds!  Actually, I didn't need a whole lot, just a little to roast and add to my beer for flavor and a little of that wheaty look to it, I hope.

Eventually I'll malt my own grains which entails soaking the grains (gluten free ones like, amaranth, quinoa, buckwheat, and millet), sprouting the grains, drying the grains, knocking off the sprouts, roasting the grains to specific darkness, and cracking them.  This will allow me to take advantage of the sugars that will be converted in the mash as well as the flavors and colors.  But for this beer I am supplying my own sugars with the sorghum malt extract and only need the wheat flavor and color.

So, what I did was rinse the millet 4 or 5 times in a pot and then put it all in my Stainless Steel frying pan.  I'm assuming that non stick is nasty for this and refuse to use that.  I put the pan on low around 200 degrees F and stirred the millet until it was mostly dry.  One pound of millet I moved over to my convection oven and the other I left in the pan to see what works better.  The convection oven worked great!  

I started the temps at around 350 for about half an hour on both.  I then raised it to 375 for 15 minutes in the oven and then to 450 in the oven for another 15 minutes.  The pan was more tricky.  It has hot spots and I had to keep stirring the millet.  I raised the temp off and on trying not to burn it.  A few times I got smoke and a pop corn smell, but not a burnt smell.  All in all, the oven cooked more evenly, but the pan would work if that is all you have.  Check out the pics below:

Most of the way through with the frying pan, you can see the unevenness in colors.

 Crappy pic.

 Not very good lighting on this pic. Let me try another spot.

 There, that's better!  You get an idea of the true color from this pic.

I only wanted a light roast.

 Compare this to the oven baked millet and you can see that it is more uneven.

I mixed them all together anyway.

I then took the millet to Ye Olde Blender and blended on the ice pulse setting.  It seemed to work the best.  I didn't want to powder it, but much of it did.  Oh well.  It went into a super fine mesh bag for the steeping part of the brewing for 3o minutes.  It worked fine.

{{The Cure on WXPN and a Gluten Free Belgian}}

(the Bleeding Gums Murphy Belge is finally starting to taste better)

(If you like Lifebuoy soap that is)

{{Squeeze- Pulling Mussels from a Shell}}

(mmmmm mussels)

Here I am cracking the millet.  I decided to go with just one pound.

I heat and pre-mix and heat all my sugar constituents in water, this time about a gallon.

I add these about 15 minutes left to the boil.

 The Belgian Witbier going into the primary.

Here I am batch sparging my Mocha MaryAnn Choccy Porter.

 Mocha MaryAnn boiling away at Wissinoming Brewing.

Eddie's Small Bier re-using the malt from Mocha MaryAnn.
Recycling!

{{Jimmy Cliff - The Guns of Brixton}}

(this album as well as this song is HOT!  I love it!  Great work from a reggae great!)

I went and added my yeast to this wort from before not thinking anything bad of all the gas it expelled when I first opened it.  After thinking on it for a bit I decided not to use it on my Mocha MaryAnn for it might be spoiled, so I used it on the Eddie's Small Bier instead as I didn't put a lot of money into this small batch.  In the middle of the MaryAnn mash I ran to Barry's Homebrew to get more WhiteLabs English ale yeasties.

All three beers had to be chilled with both my immersion chiller and an ice bath because the tap water is at 80F...

Recipes:

Belgian Witbier

        1 lb. roasted millet steep

60    3.3 lb. Sorghum syrup, briess

        1.o oz. hallertau

10    8.0 oz. Lactose 

        6.0 oz. maltodextrin

        1.0 lb. demerara sugar

        1.25 lb. organge blossum, sage buckwheat blossum, white clover honey mix

        1.0 oz. sweet orange peel

        1.0 oz. dried ginger root

        1.0 oz. hallertau

Danstar Nottingham yeast.

OG= 1.062

Mocha MaryAnn Choccy Porter

2.0 lb. Briess 6 row

6.0 lb. Maris Otter

1.0 lb. Munich

0.5 lb. Black Patent

0.5 lb. Chocolate

0.5 lb. Roasted

60     1.0 oz.  Northern Brewer

30      0.5 oz. Kent goldings

10     whirfloc tab

         2.0 oz. Demerara sugar

         6.0 oz. Dark Molasses

5       0.5 oz. Kent Goldings

2x White Labs English Ale yeast

OG= 1.066

Secondary ferment:  4.0 oz. chocolate nibs, 3.0 oz. Fresh ginger

Eddie's Small Bier

Steep Mocha MaryAnn's leftover grains in 3gal.150 F H2O with one teaspoon Amylase 60 min.

2x batch sparge with 1.o gallon 165 F H2O

2x batch sparge with 1.0 gallon  73 F H2O ...............**too much h2o**

Mixed my sugars in 1.0 gal hot h2o ..............****too much****  6.75 gallon beer yeild

60   1.0 oz. cascade hops

40    8.0 oz. Demerara

        3.0 oz. Lactose

        3.0 oz. maltodextrin

        0.5 oz. Cascade

5      0.5 oz. cascade

OG = 1.024  (6.75 gallons beer)

1.5 Gallons set aside for yeast starters.