Brewing "Crafted To Remove Gluten" Beer

It's called Clarity Ferm. I have two different brews where I've used the enzyme - one bottled last weekend and one in the fermenter. I know folks who have gluten issues and would like to share my beer with them. Rumor is that it lowers gluten to less than 20 ppm. Stone apparently uses it for their "Delicious IPA". I've spoken to several people who have tried it. The consensus is that it does not affect flavor or other properties of the beer.

I've got two or three gluten intolerant folks willing to act as test cases and will report back once they have given it a go.

 

I've tasted a few beers made with clarity ferm at a brew club meeting. They seemed fine. I had nothing to A/B so I have no idea if it changed anything, or even if it removed the gluten for that matter. They guy who brought the beers swears by it though on both counts.

 

I'm doing a side by side 5 and 5 comparison in fermentation right now. Same batch citra Amarillo IPA curious to see if clarity ferm changes anything

 

I am very interested I. This cause I have attempted 3 gluten free beers using glutin free material. All were drain pours. Just god awful tastin swill.

 

Yep, I had used sorghum as well for some pals. This could be the cure.

 

I have a friend who has a son who is gluten intolerant. I have participated with my friend to brew two beers which were low in gluten so his son could drink it.Both beers were Porters.

One batch the base grain was Sorghum and we used some dark candi syrup to provide some ‘character’. That beer was drinkable but not very good IMO.

The second beer used barley malt as the base grain and we added Clarity Ferm. That beer was tasty and low in gluten so the son could drink that beer.

Cheers!

 

I have used it on 2 occasions to make an IPA for my wife and I to drink. She is gluten-intolerant. In both instances she had a tough time with them. She is not celiac yet still had some stomach discomfort. So much so that she will not try it again. She gets the same reaction from Stone's Delicious but not Glutenberg's IPA. Stone's uses the enzyme while Glutenburg does not brew with gluten. So maybe it was just my wife's sensitivities to something in Clarity Ferm but just wanted to caution you that it is not a perfect solution for everyone. On a positive note, I did not taste any change in the flavor of the beer as a result of using it.

 

That is indeed a good point to emphasize. Clarity Ferm does not result in a totally gluten free beer and whether an individual can drink a beer that was brewed using Clarity Ferm is dependent on the level of sensitivity.

Omission produces gluten reduced beers and you can go to their website and enter a batch code to read the test results for that particular batch of beer.

http://omissionbeer.com/

Cheers!

 

I've used Clarity Ferm to make beer on three occasions, and two of those batches were tested by my very sensitive celiac friend. The details are in this thread, but the short version is that a double-dose of Clarity Ferm brought gluten levels down to about 5 ppm and didn't seem to have any negative impact on the flavor. I'm a big believer in the stuff now, and my friend is impatiently awaiting the next batch. I've never had a sorghum-based beer that even came close to what you can do with this enzyme, although I haven't tried them all (because they're usually really gross and I'm not allergic, myself).

 

@MCBanjoMike , thanks for posting the link to that other thread.

@Mohican88 posted there:
"OP, I feel as if I could've written this same post as I have a friend that will end up in the hospital for days if he consumes gluten. For our first clarity ferm batch we brewed 5 gallons of 10% RIS, obviously with a lot of grain.

We sent a sample to white labs to ensure that the clarity ferm had worked, and the results showed <5 ppm. We now use at home testing kits just to make sure everything is as expected, but if it works on a beer with that much grain and gluten I have to believe any beer treated with clarity ferm will be essentially "gluten free."

That sure does seem to indicate that Clarity Ferm is pretty effective at reducing Gluten levels.

Cheers!

 

They're really expensive! Like $50 for two tests.

 

As an update to this previous post we have tested at least a dozen more beers at home and all have been below the 10 ppm threshold detected by the EZ-gluten. We've been purchasing them in the the 10 packs which are $110, which isn't all that much additional per batch for a some peace of mind. A 2 pack is $25, so the price has gone down in the last year or so.