Brewing with buckwheat

I'm looking to make a beer using buckwheat as an ingredient. I've seen some information online about actually malting buckwheat, so that there is some measure of fermentables garnered from it. However, at this stage, I'm just going to try a simple ale with buckwheat as a flavor component in the mash. Anybody try this before? Any thoughts about how to proceed?

No idea, but I'd be interested in anything you find out. Rogue makes a buckwheat beer -- maybe there's something on their website?

CJ--while I didn't find a recipe for a Rogue buckwheat ale clone (and I'm not too terribly interested in cloning it anyway), I did find some information about the ingredients. Bless Rogue's little heart for posting the malts and hops used and all the beer stats on every bottle of their beer! I'm doing a little reverse engineering from that information to come up with a basic recipe, and then tweak as I go.

Mostly, what I want to find out is how the buckwheat needs to be handled. I've found some information on gluten-free brewing that gives directions on how to malt buckwheat and use it as a base grain for a beer. While this is an interesting prospect, it's not something I want to attempt at this time.

I found just a tiny bit of information about gelatinizing buckwheat by cooking it like you would flaked grains. This may be a possibility.

In the case of the Rogue Buckwheat ale, it sounds like the buckwheat is simply toasted/roasted without being malted. I think that this will be the way that I first attempt a buckwheat brew. As I'm not looking at the buckwheat as a big source of fermentables, I'm much more interested in getting flavor and/or aroma from it. I think that the toasted/roasted method will be my safest bet for now.

Stay tuned, because I'll post my progress and results!

Colin,
 Let me know how the experiment goes - I have used both malted and unmalted wheat extensively before but never buckwheat.

 Perhaps another ingredient to add to the database - do you have any stats on it?

Cheers!
Brad

Brad--

I'm brewing this beer tomorrow. The recipe is pretty simple--just pale malt, some Munich, and CaraVienne, a couple pounds of the buckwheat (which is already toasted), and one hop variety for bittering (no flavor or aroma). I'm going to crush the buckwheat and either pre-cook it or just add it to the mash... haven't decided yet.

Unfortunately, I don't have any stats on buckwheat. Buckwheat isn't a grass grain, actually... it's the seeds of a plant in the rhubarb family. Weird, huh? It does have malting potential, and one site I read talked about getting about 15 points per pound... that's if it's malted, of course. For this go-round, I'm simply going to use it as a roasted/toasted grain, I guess somewhat similar to roasted barley, in that the buckwheat isn't malted. I may try a malting experiment once the weather gets a bit warmer, though, so I'll try to give more statistical input then.

I did just add it to the grain list, but again, simply so that I could see that it's in the ingredients... I don't have any numbers for it.

I'm looking forward to this brew... I'll keep you posted.

Buckwheat?

I married into a Russian family. They would eat buckwheat for breakfast - tasted like bad porridge, that's if porridge could taste worse than it normally does.

Why do it man - save yourself and move away from the precipice ;D

Trev

'Cuz I like it  ;D  It definitely has a different taste, so I can certainly understand how it may not be for everyone. But, I'm into crazy things so it works.

Incidentally, this beer has been in secondary for about a week now. The OG was 1.072   and it dropped to about 1.020. Good enough for me. At racking time, it was very hazy and yeasty; however, it appears to be clearing up nicely in secondary. If it does get to the point where it's perfectly clear, it'll be my lightest beer yet. Another week/week and a half, and I'll bottle it.

Another guy who brewed a buckwheat beer suggested priming the bottles with maple syrup, in the thought that it would taste like buckwheat pancakes!  

Another guy who brewed a buckwheat beer suggested priming the bottles with maple syrup, in the thought that it would taste like buckwheat pancakes!  

Click to expand...

It won't. But, that's no reason not to try it. Just be careful how much you prime with -- check out the sugar content on the bottle and adjust accordingly, or you may end up with wildly overcarbonated beer.

Yeah, I actually had no plans to use the syrup. Not on this brew, anyhow. As I mentioned in the thread over at the Brew Board, the buckwheat flavor at present is minimal, at best. I'm hoping that with proper conditioning, it comes more to the forefront, but I really don't want to introduce any competing flavors--especially those that would easily crush the buckwheat.

OK I'm hooked. How did the buckwheat turn out.
I' m a sucker for something different and i like the taste of buckwheat. I thought the idea of a maple buckwheat beer sounded good also. Please post your results and thoughts on that brew

Jerry

Jerry--

The buckwheat beer is great! It's definitely a beast of a beer, and it's probably the most unique one I've brewed so far. I roughly patterned it after Rogue's Buckwheat/Soba ale, because frankly, that's about all the information i could find about using buckwheat in a brewing application.

Somehow, my efficiency was either very high that day, or the buckwheat contributed far more gravity points than I anticipated. I used three pounds of kasha, which can be found at a health food store. Kasha is nothing more than toasted buckwheat groats that have been "peeled"--no skin. They're little tiny things, maybe the size of a BB, and almost shaped like little pyramids. I crushed them quite fine with my grain mill, using a different setting than I ordinarily would for barley.

The beer turned out to be almost 7% alcohol, very bubbly, light colored, and a little hazy. It almost has a Belgian aroma and flavor to it, which is interesting as I used regular ol' Munton's dry yeast. I guess it's kind of got a wit profile, which again is interesting as buckwheat really isn't a wheat or grass--it's actually a member of the rhubarb family. I hopped it very lightly to give the buckwheat complexities a chance to play out.

Hmm, don't know what else to say.... if you're interested, I could put up the recipe in BSM format for download. Let me know!

colin

Hmmm...
 Rhubarb beer - now there's a thought!

 I'd love the recipe - I'm kind of partial to rustic grainy beers myself.

Brad

Funny thing... back in college, a guy I knew actually tried to make rhubarb beer using a Mr. Beer kit, I believe. He said it tasted like ham. Somehow, that didn't sound very refreshing to me.

Brad--I'll email you the recipe as a BSM file this evening... stay tuned!

Well, I've always thought bottled Guinness tasted like ham. Never found a soul to agree.
I made a gluten-free beer once - just a 6-er's worth (anybody want the other five?) -  and besides the blood taste from the millet (I think), there was an intriguing baby-spitup aroma I contributed to the buckwheat, based on how it smelled as I sprouted it, pre-malt.
It could very well be that some bacteria grew in the sprouting, though I did "all the things," but I'll say I'm done with that one.
Some toasted grains in the mash, maybe. When the pain has subsided.

PS, before you all start PM-ing me to send you a bottle, I actually threw them out. Sorry. After supressing my vomit reflex on the first bottle, I did what any brewer does with bad beer: let it age. About two months later, I found that the complexities of the sour-milk-barf had organized themselves into a much cleaner profile, allowing some insight into what the baby's mother was eating while producing the milk - a bit of hamburger with grilled onions, I believe, and a strawberry milkshake. McD's likely. The blood finish was still quite prominent, unmoving as the Washington Monument, teasing the tongue with memories of schoolyard bullies, and evoking desires to lick my cat's butt for relief.
Oh, and carbonation was excellent.

I can pm the Rx to any interested parties.

That's hilarious. Disgusting, but hilarious ;D

I didn't malt buckwheat when I made this beer, so it ended up actually tasting like beer, versus some of the delicious compounds you mentioned. I used regular ol' pale malt for a base, and buckwheat more as a specialty grain.

cmbrougham said:

Jerry--

The buckwheat beer is great! It's definitely a beast of a beer, and it's probably the most unique one I've brewed so far. I roughly patterned it after Rogue's Buckwheat/Soba ale, because frankly, that's about all the information i could find about using buckwheat in a brewing application.

Hmm, don't know what else to say.... if you're interested, I could put up the recipe in BSM format for download. Let me know!

colin

Click to expand...

I would like to try this as well, please, if you still have this forward to me too.
Thanks

Hi guys,

this topic started 12 years ago, are you still active?

I am very interested about this buckwheat beer. I tried to prepare it many times but there was never buckwheat-specific aroma. Did you solved this problem?

Any information would be helpful. Thank you in advance!