Last Thanksgiving, I was in Praha celebrating the holiday with my best friend, John, and a childhood friend Jordan over local beers.
Thanksgiving 2010 - Jon, Jenna and Jordan
This year, my brother and I will be heading to his friend’s house, Kelsey to celebrate with her family. The past year I’ve had a lot to be thankful for, an awesome family, amazing friends, a good job, opportunities to travel and good health.
My co-worker sent me this great article from the Wall Street Journal, What did George Washington Drink? which had a Homemade Harvest Ale, no special beer equipment needed!
HOMEMADE HARVEST ALE
Despite the modern conveniences, this remains a very rustic recipe, and makes a rough-around-the-edges brew.
1 small pumpkin
Handful malted barley
1/8 ounce spices (I used a mix of fresh ginger, licorice, anise, and cinnamon)
1/4 cup molasses
1 pound malt extract
1/8 ounce hops (I used Fuggles)
1/2 packet dry ale yeast
1 ounce brown sugar
A few raisins
TOOLS YOU’LL NEED:
Mesh bag
3-gallon pot
1-gallon glass jug
Strainer
Funnel
Diluted bleach (for sanitizing)
Plastic wrap
Empty beer bottles, caps and capper, or re-sealable bottles
1. Split pumpkin in half and roast in oven at 350 degrees until soft and caramelized, about 30 minutes.
2.Put malted barley in mesh bag (or wrap in cheesecloth), and steep in 1½ gallons water as you bring it to a boil. When it boils, remove malted barley. Boil hops and spices in water for a few minutes, then add pumpkin pulp, molasses and malt extract. Boil for another minute. Cover pot and let it cool to room temperature. You can put it in a sink full of ice water to speed this up.
3. Sanitize the jug, strainer and funnel by rinsing them with diluted bleach, then with water. Pour liquid through strainer and funnel into jug, add yeast and cover tightly with plastic wrap (poke a few holes in it to let CO2 out). Leave in a dark corner for a few days. It’ll bubble and foam as it ferments.
4. When beer stops bubbling and starts to clear, sanitize bottles and pour in beer, leaving dead yeast sediment in jug. Boil brown sugar in 1/2 cup water to sanitize it. Let liquid cool, and use it to top off bottles. Drop a raisin or two into each bottle; cap and wait. This is an old trick: When the raisins float, the beer is carbonated and ready to drink.
What are you thankful for this Thanksgiving? What is your favorite beer to go with Turkey?
I’m probably going with Ninkasi Sleigh’r with my turkey dinner, though I’ll be finishing the evening with a snifter of ’10 vintage Deschutes Abyss. Happy Thanksgiving!
Love it! Thanks for sharing!
Hello, I started beriwng Gluten Free last year, in fact my beer was the 1st I had tasted for 18 yrs I haven’t stopped beriwng since! Anyway I have just finished up malting about 5-8LBs of Millet and I am working on some more Buckwheat at the moment. I too am longing for a total grain brew, versus working with Briess Sorghum syrup. I just wish to say I can do it! Anyway I have never been able to get any of my partial mashes to pass the Iodine starch test before adding to the brew pot. Have you ever tested using Iodine to see if your mash is ready to brew with? It’s simple to do,I’m anxious to hear how your all grain batch turns out! I have searched and searched for other beriwng Gluten Free there has to be more of us? Surely!I have several recipes that all of my friends love, Blackberry beer, Pumpkin Beer and a Coffee Beer. All Gluten Free.Thanks, Greg TaborS.W. Missouri
Derin, Let me know if you have any other gluten free beer recipes I could try. I’m trying to help my friend out.
Last night at dinner, 100% Washington beers. Saturday at Belgianfest, 100% Washington beers. Over the last sevearl days, not so much: Green Flash, North Coast, Slaapmutske/De Proef, New Belgium too. For the consumer, So Much Choice. For the Washington brewer, So Much Competition.
Sam Adams Winter is my go to this time of year. I enjoyed a fancy 22 oz bottle yesterday.
This time of year I’m thankful for family, good football, and just relaxing over the holidays.
So good! I still need to try that this year! Happy Thanksgiving!
Hello, I wouldn’t know what I do if I coludn’t purchase Briess Sorghum syrup? I love it, but I don’t use it alone, I have to do a partial mash with Oats, or Buckwheat or something else. I usually use at least 7 lbs of it per batch. As for the coffee I add 4 double shots of espresso (8 O’clock Brand) at bottling time along with my priming sugar or honey. In about 4 months it is fantastic! As with the pumpkin and blackberries I add when I rack over to the secondary and give it about 21 days, then bottle. Again in about 3-4 months it tastes wonderful! With the 3lbs of blackberry puree I add about 2 inches of licorice stick crushed to the carboy. My favorite yeast is White Labs English Ale (which is gluten free). I recently made my first lager using Wyeast 2206 (which is gluten free) using just sorghum syrup. At bottling time I wasn’t impressed you could say, but I’ll give it a few weeks and then try it. Would love to come visit your store! Not too far away for me. Another favorite of mine is Apple Cider! Can’t wait until Apple season comes again! Greg Thanks for letting me know about the starch test results, not sure what I am doing wrong there?
Do you have any other gluten free beer recipes? I know someone who can’t have gluten and I’ve been trying to find some good beers for her.
Desiree,So I thought I would give your recpie a try (at least pretty close). I found the (5 lbs) malted oats on line at rebelbrewer, and the (3lbs) of Sprouted Quinoa at Whole Foods along with the (1lb) of Toasted Buckwheat (also called Kasha). I couldn’t find sprouted rice, so I used (3lbs) of Flaked Rice from my homebrew shop instead. I ground the toasted buckwheat and then pre-cooked it (used 1.5 qts of water, but this ended up pretty thick, so next time I’ll probably pre-cook it with at least 3qts). I ground the malted oats and this gave me some husk material, but after also grinding the Quinoa and Rice it didn’t look like it had enough husk material to sparge well, so I also stirred-in 2 lbs of Rice Hulls. Mashed all the grains (including the pre-cooked buckwheat) at 154F for an hour then lautered even with the added Rice Hulls, I still had my sparge stick a couple of times; but it sparged out pretty well to about 7.5 gals for 1.044 (after adding in the 1 lb of Dark Candi sryup), which after boiling for an hour, cooling and draining into fermenter gave me 5.25-5.5 gal at 1.052 OG. Aerated and pitched a pack of dry American Ale yeast and fermentation was going well within 12 hrs. At 12 days, I transferred to my secondary today, the SG is down to 1.019 and it seems to taste pretty good; however, I did have a full gallon of sediment that I left behind, giving me a bit under 4.5 gal in my secondary. I’ll let this settle out for a few more days before priming and bottling.My questions did you have this much sediment in your fermenter? Have you experimented to see which of the ingredients is the major contributor to this sediment?John
Great recipe, Rajeev! Thanks for sharing.