National Homebrew Club Ireland

Brewing Discussions => All Grain Brewing => Topic started by: Maher0032 on May 18, 2021, 09:28:37 AM

Title: Any Gluten Free Brewers?
Post by: Maher0032 on May 18, 2021, 09:28:37 AM
Just wondering if there are any active gluten free brewers around these days?

Iv been doing it for a few years but just with mangrove jacks pale ale kits.

Understand that some people use the white labs enzyme to make beer gluten free (including 9 white deer in cork commercially) but its a myth really for coeliacs and people with a higher intolerance. It's recently been made illegal to label that beer GF in the US.

There are two main dedicated GF malt houses both in the US, one that does primarily rice malt and the other millet. The millet producer only very recently got a EU distributor in the Netherlands and I'm chatting with them at the moment to get some in.

There is a Facebook group of people (again based mostly in the states) dedicated to this kind of brewing "zero tolerance gf home brewing" who have been a big help to me and have shown you can definitely produce brilliant beers with alternative grains, it's just much harder and much more expensive.

Would be great if there were any others in Ireland in that space to compare notes or if anyone is interested you can hit me up, Iv done a lot of research in this area in the last few years so should be able to help.

Cheers,
Maher0032


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Title: Re: Any Gluten Free Brewers?
Post by: Pheeel on May 19, 2021, 07:36:06 PM
Not a gf brewer but I've drank in GhostFish brewing in Seattle on a number of occasions (friend is coeliac). Great tasting beers but I found the beers a little thin. The DIPA was dangerous because of that!
Title: Re: Any Gluten Free Brewers?
Post by: Maher0032 on May 20, 2021, 05:56:30 PM
That area around north west USA, south west Canada seems to be the Mecca of GF brewing. Loads of dedicated breweries. Initially it seems that Gf beers were quite thin but in recent years allot of progress has been made to increase body and head retention by adding buckwheat malt, oats and even more recently lintels and quinoa to the grain bill.

Interesting stuff even for the regular brewer i think.


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Title: Re: Any Gluten Free Brewers?
Post by: DEMPSEY on May 20, 2021, 06:27:32 PM
I suppose if you are a genuine coeliac and not like the many "worried well" who think they are then using white labs enzyme might not be fine. The thing is a lot of beer is close to GF as the brewing process removes most gluten. I seem to recall reading once that Coors Lite is pretty much GF although since it also is nearly water that's no surprise.
Title: Re: Any Gluten Free Brewers?
Post by: Maher0032 on May 20, 2021, 09:03:57 PM
Yes you're right, and it's complicated more by the fact that coeliac seems like a poorly understood condition. Some people react to wheat only, barely but not beer, even oats and symptoms can vary hugely from person to person so it's hard to tie down.

I used clarity fern in a home brew before and actually tested it for gluten and came back just as positive as a non clarity fern control. Maybe in a more controlled commercial set up it would have better results but wouldn't trust it to do much at home brew level.


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