The following page contains information about grains, seeds, nuts, beans and other edible materials that I have researched for use in homebrewing. The intent was to discover ingredients that were appropriate for brewing a gluten-free beer.
If anyone is aware of a 'grain encyclopedia', or reference material that describes grains in detail, especially the more exotic varieties, I would greatly appreciate it if you could inform me of its existence.
I recently discovered the
NewCROP HomePage, and
excellent resource for information about some of the grains listed below. Many
thanks to the folks at Purdue University.
Any member of large genus Amaranthus of family Amaranthaceae; coarse herbs native to tropical America and Africa; some species widely distributed weeds in waste places and tilled land throughout Europe and America; cultivated for ornamental colored leaves or red or green flower spikes; in Asia some grown as green vegetables or for edible seeds; members include love-lies-bleeding (A. caudatus), prince's feather (A. hybridus erythrostachys), Joseph's-coat (A. tricolor), pigweed (A. retroflexus), and tumbleweed (A. albus); some species are potential high-protein grain crops.
A cereal grass (Hordeum vulgare and related species) with dense, bearded spikes of flowers, each made up of three single-seeded spikelets.
Buckwheat belongs to the family Polygonaceae, related to rhubarb and the common weeds sorrel and dock. It is not related to the cereals, which are members of the grass family. The scientific name of common buckwheat is Fagopyrum esculentum and that of tartary buckwheat, grown for feed and rutin, F. tataricum. The name may come from the Dutch word boekweit or from the German Buchweizen. Both mean "beech wheat," so called because the three-sided seed resembles the beechnut.
The flour for buckwheat pancakes comes from the seed of a plant native to Central Asia, where it still grows wild. In Europe buckwheat is used to make heavy bread, gruel, puddings, cakes, and beer. In the United States the flour is usually mixed with other, lighter flours. Two thirds of the crop, however, is used for livestock and poultry feed. The flowers provide bees with pollen and nectar for honey. Another by-product is rutin, a drug that strengthens the capillaries. It is prescribed in the treatment of high blood pressure.
The plant grows in poor soil with little cultivation. It grows so rapidly that it crowds out weeds and deprives them of sunlight. It is therefore used to clean up old fields and is plowed under while still green to restore good texture and plant nutrients to the soil. It is also used as a cover crop to prevent soil erosion.
The corn plant is a large member of the grass family (Gramineae). It has a fibrous, woody stalk that may grow to be from 6 to 20 feet high. At the top is its spiked tassel. This part produces the male flowers of the plant. (For explanation of male and female flowers, see Flower.) Farther down, the stalk grows one or more spikes which develop into ears. Each one grows out from beneath the base of a leaf, and at first it is completely wrapped in leaves. The spikes bear threadlike filaments (silk) which are the female flowers. Each filament grows from a germ on the spike called an ovule.
The ovules are arranged in rows along the spikes. Each one will produce a seed, or kernel, if the filament of silk is fertilized by a pollen grain. To catch pollen, the green, tender tips of silk protrude from the top of the leafy wrapping around the spike.
All these parts appear after the stalk and leaves are well grown and the plant is receiving plenty of summer sunshine. When the flower parts develop, farmers say that the corn is tasseling out. Soon the tassels produce yellowish dustlike grains of pollen. Each grain of pollen contains two sperms.
How Fertilization Takes PlaceNow summer breezes gently shake the pollen-laden tassels, and billions of the tiny, sperm-bearing pollen grains jar loose. The wind carries them to the silk of neighboring plants. Tiny receivers, called stigmas, at the ends of the silks, catch the pollen. Promptly the pollen grains send tubes growing down through the silks to the ovules. Then the sperm cells pass down the tubes and fertilize the ovules. Thereupon the spike grows into a large, pithy structure called a cob, while the ovules grow and ripen into seeds (kernels).
The growing seeds are made up of a soft yellow hull filled with milky liquid. Corn at this stage is in the milk. The milk has a sweet flavor, and field corn in the milk stage may be used as roasting ears. When field corn is ripe, the kernels are hard, firm, and starchy. Sweet-corn kernels do not get as hard.
Any of a genus (Linum ) of the flax family; esp. a slender, erect annual plant (L. usitatissimum) with delicate, blue flowers: the seeds are used to make linseed oil, and the fibers of the stem are spun into linen thread.
Kamut Association of North America
In the United States, Canada, and Australia the term corn refers to maize, or what is sometimes known as Indian corn. The rest of the world calls this grain maize. (This grain is known in South Africa, however, as mealies.) In England the word corn refers to wheat, and in Scotland and Ireland it refers to oats.
Including Barnyard or Japanese millet (Echinocloa frumentacea); Ragi, Finger or African millet (Eleusine coracana); Teff (Eragrostis abyssinica); Common, Golden or Proso millet (Panicum miliaceum); Koda or Ditch millet (Paspalum scrobiculatum); Pearl or Cattail millet (Pennisetum glaucum); Foxtail millet (Setaria italica)
Small-grained cereals that include a large number of different botanical species. Originated by the domestication of wild African grasses in the Nile valley and the Sahel zone, millets were subsequently taken to China and India. These cereals tolerate arid conditions and possess a small, highly nutritious grain that stores well. Used locally, both as a food and as a livestock feed. In all areas where they are cultivated, millets are used in traditional beer brewing. Also used as a feed for birds.
A cereal grass, most commonly (Panicum miliaceum) whose small grain is used for food in Europe and Asia. A wide variety of millets are grown as forage crops and as food cereals. Millets were probably first cultivated in Asia or Africa more than 4,000 years ago. Millets are a major food staple in much of Asia, Eastern Europe, and the western part of Africa. In the United States and Western Europe they are used chiefly for pasture or to produce hay, though they were frequently raised grains in Europe during the Middle Ages. Pearl millet, or cattail millet, is suited to soils of low fertility and limited moisture and is a popular food crop in India and Africa.
Some of the more widely cultivated millets include proso--the common, or broomcorn, millet; foxtail varieties; finger millet, or koracan millet, also called raggee; little millet; Japanese millet; and browntop. The millets are somewhat strong in taste and cannot be made into leavened bread but are mainly consumed in flatbreads and porridges or prepared and eaten much like rice.
A hardy, widely grown cereal grass (Avena sativa). The edible starchy grain of the oat plant is cultivated widely in the temperate regions of the world. Wild oats were first found growing in Western Europe, apparently as a weed mixed with barley, and spread from there to other parts of the world. Common oats are grown in cool, temperate regions. Red oats, which are more heat tolerant, are grown mainly in warmer climates. Among cereals, oats are second only to rye in ability to survive in poor soils. With sufficient moisture, oats will grow on soils that are sandy, low in fertility, or highly acidic.
Although oats are used chiefly as livestock feed, some are processed for human consumption, especially as breakfast foods. Rolled oats, flattened kernels with the hulls removed, are used mostly for oatmeal; other breakfast foods are made from the groats, unflattened kernels also with hulls removed. Oat flour is not suitable for bread but is used to make cookies and puddings. The straw is used for animal feed and bedding.
Annual plant (Chenopodium quinoa) of the goosefoot family, native to w. South America; grows to 5 ft (1.5 m); seeds large, red or white, according to variety; it is closely related to the common pigweed.
Ragi, Finger or African millet (Eleusine coracana), See Millet.
An annual Old World plant (Brassica napus) of the crucifer family, whose seeds yield an oil and whose leaves are used for fodder. (From Latin rapum, meaning "turnip," also called coleseed), in botany, several plants of the cabbage family grown either as green crop or for the oil in the seeds; part of bird-seed mixtures.
The name rice is applied both to the edible, starchy cereal grain and to the plant from which it is produced. The commonly cultivated rice plant is Oryza sativa. The plant known as wild rice, a distant relative of the cultivated rice plant, is Zizania aquatica. It grows in northeastern North America and its grain, now often considered a delicacy, has long been a staple food of North American Indians. Both belong to the grass family, Gramineae.
The cultivated rice plant is an annual grass that grows to about 4 feet (1.2 meters) tall.
The plant has several stalks that bear long, flattened leaves. At the end of each stalk is a fan-shaped head called the panicle, or inflorescence, which is made up of spikelets bearing green and yellow flowers that produce the edible fruit--grains of rice. The panicle is erect when the flowers bloom, but begins to droop as the grains develop.
The wild rice plant is about 3 to 10 feet (0.9 to 3 meters) tall, topped with a large, open flower cluster. The ripened grains, dark brown to purplish black in color, are slender rods 0.4 to 0.8 inch (1 to 2 centimeters) in length.
A hardy cereal grass (Secale cereale) widely grown for its grain and straw. Where the climate and soil are relatively unfavorable for other cereals and where winter temperatures are too cold to grow winter wheat, rye (Secale cereale) is grown. Rye is used chiefly as flour for bread and as livestock feed. It is high in carbohydrates and provides small quantities of protein, potassium, and B vitamins. It is the only cereal other than wheat that has the qualities necessary for making a loaf of bread, but it is inferior to wheat for that purpose because it lacks elasticity. For that reason it is frequently blended with wheat flour in bread making. Rye is also used in the production of rye whiskey. As livestock feed, rye is usually mixed with other feeds. The tough and fibrous straw of the rye plant is used for bedding, thatching, mattresses, hats, and paper.
Russia and Ukraine together account for about one third of world production of rye. Other important rye-producing countries include Poland, Germany, China, Spain, and Canada. Rye is vulnerable to attack by the poisonous fungus Claviceps purpurea. The fungus grows in place of the grain and forms horny masses called ergot.
An herb (Sesamum indicum) widely cultivated in China, also grown in India, Africa, and Latin America; first commercial harvest in U.S. was in Texas, 1953; seeds yield oil (called sesame, gingili, benne, or teel oil) that does not turn rancid quickly, used in cooking and soapmaking, as a medicine, and as an adulterant for olive oil.
Grown principally for use as an animal feed, sorghum probably originated in Africa. Types raised chiefly for grain include Sudan grass, grown for hay and fodder, and broomcorn, used in making brooms and brushes. Grain sorghums include durra, milo, shallu, kafir, Egyptian corn, great millet, and Indian millet. Sorghum is especially valued in hot and arid regions for its resistance to drought and heat.
Sorghum is of a lower feed quality than corn. The grain is usually ground into a meal that is made into porridge, flatbreads, and cakes. The characteristic strong flavor can be reduced by processing. The grain is also used in making edible oil, starch, the sugar dextrose, paste, and alcoholic beverages. The stalks are used as fodder and building materials. Sorgos, or sweet sorghums, are grown mainly in the United States and the southern part of Africa for forage and for syrup manufacture. In some countries the sweet stalks are chewed.
A primitive species (Triticum spelta) of wheat with grains that do not thresh free of the chaff: now seldom cultivated.
Any of a genus (Helianthus) of tall plants of the composite family, having large, yellow, daisylike flowers with yellow, brown, purple, or almost black disks containing edible seeds that yield an oil.
(Eragrostis abyssinica), see Millet
Brewmaster's note: I have received information Teff's potential flavor in brewing. The source cooks with Teff, and attributes it with 'a deliciously pleasing nutty flavor, slightly reminiscient of Nut Brown ale' after roasting the ground grain. Sounds like an excellent adjunct grain to add to gluten free brews, maybe 10-20% of the total weight of grain. Teff would be much too small to malt successfully, so it's roll as an unmalted, flavorful adjunct would work just fine. Check your local health food store for raw Teff in small quanities.
A small-grain annual cereal of the genus Triticosecale that is a hybrid between Triticum, a genus of wheat, and Secale, a genus of rye; represents first success by plant breeders in creating a new grain crop by combining species from 2 distinct genera; grown primarily in northern U.S. and in Canada; can grow in some soils where wheat does poorly; combines wheat's high yield potential with rye's ruggedness and disease resistance; does not form fully developed kernels like wheat, and its flour is not as good for making bread.
Any of several cereal grasses (genus Triticum ) having dense, erect spikes containing grains which thresh free of the chaff. More than 30 subspecies of wheat (Triticum) are known. Some are cultivated, and some still grow wild. A wheat species is classified according to the number and makeup of chromosomes and the structure of the head (spike or ear) of the plant. Chromosomes are the carriers of genetic information in the plant cell. The primitive and early cultivated wheats, such as einkorn (T. monococcum), had only 14 chromosomes. They are called diploids. Later types, such as durum (T. durum), emmer (T. dicoccon), and Polish wheats (T. polonicum), have 28 chromosomes and are called tetraploid wheat. The hexaploid wheats--spelt (T. spelta), club (T. compactum), and most of the common bread wheats (T. aestivum)--have 42 chromosomes. Most commercial wheats are either common wheat, used to make bread and flour; durum wheat, a hard wheat used for stock feed and to make pasta such as spaghetti and macaroni; or club wheat, a softer type, low in protein, used for pastry flour.
Canagua or Coaihua (Chenopodium pallidicaule)
Quihuicha or Inca wheat (Amaranthus caudatus), see Amaranth
Adlay or Job's Tears (Coix lacryma-jobi)
