Brewing Free the Glutens! again

You may recall that the Beer Model and I have a kid-swapping arrangement with another family. We take care of their two boys on weekends when the parents want to get away from the kids and they repay the favor by taking our two boys on other weekends.

The matriarch of this family (whom I have decided to name "Gretchen" on this blog and on the SheppyBrew website to protect the innocent) has a gluten sensitivity. This gluten intolerance sort of sucks (really really really sucks) as she likes to drink beer from time to time. After I rudely gave "Gretchen" and her husband beer as a thank-you after they had taken care of our boys over the 2011 GABF weekend, I decided to design and brew a gluten-free beer. I called it "Free the Glutens! APA".  You can read about it on this blog on the posts "Free the Glutens!" and "Tasting Free the Glutens".

Apparently "Gretchen" likes the Gluten-free beer. As I still had half the base ingredient (brown rice extract syrup) left, and "Gretchen's" birthday is coming up, I decided to make another batch this weekend.

Steeping the oats.

I had to change up the recipe a little bit because I had a little less than half the original amount of brown rice syrup. Bad planning on my part, but not really that huge a deal. So, the new recipe (which as always you can see on SheppyBrew.com: Free the Glutens! APA) contains a little less of the syrup. I added a bit of honey, but not quite enough to get the OG and ABV up to the same level as batch 1.

I had some of my Stone Soup IDA while brewing.

I also modified the hopping of the recipe a bit. Instead of just adding the first hop addition at the beginning of the boil, I steeped that addition in the wort for 30 minutes before starting the boil. This technique is called "first wort hopping". Theoretically it makes the bittering addition more flavorful and less harsh. Not sure how much of a difference it make on a short boil, but it is something I tried out nonetheless.

Different looking than any of my gluten-filled beers

The OG on this batch turned out much closer to the designed value. My potential that I am using in my software has to be high, because the original batch was real high, and this one is still a few points high.

So, the Free the Glutens! APA is in the fermentor. "Gretchen's" birthday is mid-March, so I am cutting this a little close. Since we have her boys that weekend, I may use them to help me bottle up the beer and let her carb them to drink when they are actually ready. We will see.