On the way home today to celebrate Mother's day, I stopped off at my brewing supply store to pick up some sorghum syrup.  With the last batch, I had used up my last 7 pound container and will be attempting another lager soon.  So I knew I needed more.

Actually, I picked up a rather dated, yeast vial of a wyeast Czech yeast at my local-local supply store, and I'm seeing if it's still possibly viable.  I could get a newer vial I suppose, but unfortunately, wyeast does not really have a gluten free yeast, so what we have to do, is dilute the yeast to a point where it becomes more gluten free.  That is to say, that the initial vial of yeast and growing medium (was wort, is now beer, or maybe it's just distilled water), is normally said to produce under 2ppm of gluten in a 5 gallon batch.  This meets the European standard of being gluten free, but not the American.  Also, many people have to go on a 0ppm gluten limit, which is why I prefer the strict limit over the relaxed one. 

I'm actually surpised that Europe would designate it this way, especially since many things in Europe have more of a purity rule than the US would.  For example:  Chocolate.  For many european countries, chocolate had to show that it used some other fat source other than cocoa butter, if anything other than cocoa butter was used.   And the German Reinheitsgebot, beer purity law, and the modified version which is still pretty strict in it's additives.  The original law, which is still emphasized as being followed as a matter of pride, though not enforced, said that to be beer, it had to contain barley, water and  hops (and yeast).  Nothing more.  

In any case, what gluten free, or at least gluten reduced brewers have to do, is to create what is known as a yeast starter.  Adding the vial of yeast to a gluten free wort (combination of water and a sugar source, usually sorghum syrup or brown rice syrup) that has a gravity of about 1.040, which the yeast will reproduce and feed off of.  It will ferment like normal beer, and the beer will be drawn off, taking with it some of the gluten protein from the original vial.  This is repeated several times. 

The media used to propogate the yeast uses a 120ppm gluten amount (as reported by Wyeast in 2009).  This is why we gluten free brewers tend to use the Fermentis brand of Safale, Saflager and Safbrew, because Fermentis uses a non-gluten media.  Unfortunately, Wyeast has a larger selection of yeast strains.  So a 50ml vial at a concentration of 120ppm would be normally diluted in a 5 gallon amount of gluten free wort, giving an ordinary dilution of:   120ppm * 50ml=? * 18927ml giving us a 0.31ppm amount.  Not a lot, but still, it's present. 
In a half gallon dilution it becomes: 120ppm * 50ml = ?* 1892ml giving us a 3.17ppm amount.  The beer is disposed of, leaving us with just the yeast.  So again:  3.17ppm * 50ml = ? * 1892.  This now gives us a 0.08 concentration of gluten.
Now:  0.08 ppm * 50ml = ? * 18927ml gives us 0.0002ppm.  So a safer, and lower, concentration of gluten in this gluten free(ish) beer. 

I will still relate this information to anyone who needs to be gluten free, and wether or not they trust the math and feel safe about it.  Knowing my tolerance level, I would be comfortable with the lower concentration, especially since it opens up the option of using a different yeast that may possibly give me a clearer, crisper lager with less diactyl flavors.

This ends the explanation of what I'm doing for the next beer, and why I need the sorghum to produce the next beer.  It will also undergo a gelatin clarifying test.

In the meantime, I picked up another picnic tap.  This way, I can attach it to my 3 foot hose, and then to the keg that I currently have filled with my first kit wine.  Or rather, wine cooler.  I also picked up another wine kit.  I saw it sitting there, in a stack, with a sign that said 50% off for this one day only.  Today happens to be the National Homebrewing Day.  Since the normal price is 135, this means that I get to save almost 70 dollars on a limited production wine.  It will be a Italian Primitivo wine, and requires aging from 6 to 12 months. 

After some consideration, I will still be aging this in a keg.  A keg is a stainless steel vessel.  Many wine producers age their wine in stainless steel vessels.  It is then placed into bottles and shipped out when it's ready to drink.  I will do the same.

Prior to going home, I drained the last of the beer from my first keg.  I tried to fill two bottles and a half-gallon growler jug.  One bottle burst as I was trying to cap it, or more accurately, the neck broke, so I had to toss the bottle.  (I was already doing this in the sink because filling from a keg was kind of messy, and required counterpressure otherwise foam would fill the bottle and come running out.).

Once at home though we finished up the beer and tried the wine cooler.  The wine cooler was pretty good.  Light and sweet, though I think it would have benefited if the day was warmer.