My brother-in-law just found out he is allergic to barley. I am tinkering with a sorghum based beer to get around this. This is not a gluten allergy, so I am free to use wheat and rye. Has anyone ever tried a recipe with a combination of sorghum/wheat or sorghum/rye? All of the wheat and rye extracts are out of the question due to the presence of barley. But a partial extract could be done I assume. Any advice would be appreciated
You can brew a beer out of 100% wheat but it's a pain to vorlauf. A lot of rice hulls are needed. It tastes as you'd imagine it. You could add rye to that as well, which I've never done but seems like a great idea. I've never been a fan of the flavor of sorghum myself so I never bothered. Corn, buckwheat, oats, rice, spelt, quinoa, starchy vegetables (pumpkin, agave, cactus, potatoes, etc.), and sugar/fruits are also options. In fact, it doesn't seem like you're really that limited at all but you will have to keep an eye on diastatic power.
I've only made one sorghum based beer, and it was a gluten-free extract. I was afraid of the potential bite of the sorghum syrup, so I subbed in a pound of rice extract syrup and a pound of honey. I verified that the rice extract didn't use barley to convert (it was an Amazon purchase) before using, but I think Briess makes brown rice syrup specifically for Gluten free beer which may also be useful to your circumstance.
Brew in a bag technique allows you to brew 100% wheat and rye beers without the problems that come from trying to lauter wort from hullless grains.
I'm sure that's true. But I'd add that if one already has a mash tun, it's not difficult to add rice hulls to the grist.
