Is Malted Rice Gluten Free?
It’s an excellent question in today’s climate with so many people opting out of gluten. Is malted rice gluten free? After all, if it is, you can brew with it and offer a gluten free beer to your loyal fans. It also helps to understand the nature of gluten so you can join the conversation with the increasing number of people choosing to cut it from their diets. Let’s begin at the beginning.
What Is Gluten?
Gluten is the protein found in grains like wheat, barley, rye, oats, and triticale. It is essentially what creates the thickening effect when you add flour to a sauce to make gravy. It is the element that lends mouthfeel to beer. It is what makes bread dough sticky. It is a gummy element that holds things together, which is why cakes made with wheat flour hold together so well, and those made with almond flour tend to crumble apart.
Also read:
What Type of Beer is Gluten Free? Your Complete Guide
Does Non-Alcoholic Beer Contain Gluten?
Is Malted Rice Gluten Free?
Rice is one of the grains that does not have this gummy effect. Rice is naturally gluten free. In fact, if you think of sushi rice and how well it holds together to form sticky rice, it helps to know that producers of sushi rice actually add gluten to the rice to give it that effect.
To malt a grain simply means to sprout or germinate it by soaking it in water and then drying it out in the sun.
This malting process unlocks the sugars in the grain to allow better access to it for the yeast cells during fermentation. It does nothing to add gluten to the grain.
As a result, the answer is yes, malted rice is gluten free.
As such, beer brewed with malted rice will also be gluten free as long as you don’t add any other grains that contain gluten.
Why Does Gluten Matter?
So, why do we care? Why does gluten matter?
There is a small percentage of the global population that has a severe gluten allergy. When these people consume gluten, they can become violently ill to the point of vomiting and even calling for a visit to the emergency room.
This allergy has come to be known as celiac disease, and it affects approximately 1 percent of people in the world.
At the same time, many, many more people have what you might call gluten intolerance. They will not react so violently, but they may feel discomfort, bloating, and even experience anxiety or depression.
Much research has been done on these gluten intolerant people, and while the symptoms are very real, the exact cause is not precise.
Is It Gluten or the Chemicals in Gluten?
In fact, recent studies have pointed not to gluten but to the chemicals sprayed on wheat and other grain crops.
Glyphosate is the most common chemical sprayed on wheat fields in the United States to control pests and inhibit the growth of weeds. It has been sprayed so liberally among non-organic crops that researchers have been able to definitively connect this chemical to a wide range of health problems, including leaky gut syndrome.
Leaky gut syndrome causes many of the same symptoms as celiac disease, and so is often mistaken for a serious but rare condition.
Leaky gut is also associated with nervous system issues and mental health problems.
Thus, the problem, in this case, is not gluten but the glyphosate sprayed on the wheat.
To Rice or Not to Rice
As a brewer, you can offer a gluten-free option to your customers, of course. This option is a wonderful way to include those with celiac disease and other people opting out of gluten in their diets.
At the same time, you can also brew beer with organic wheat, barley, and oats, and still maintain the mouthfeel, flavor, and aroma of grains that contain gluten. You truly can have the best of both worlds.
Here, you have the potential to invite a whole new sector of clients into your brewery — ones that are not only health conscious but also interested in organically grown crops.
It is a niche audience, to be sure, but one that is increasingly vocal about their global concerns.
Cheers!
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