Pilot to Production: Scaling a Sorghum Beer
| What to control | Target or starting point | How drift shows | What to do |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mash-in and mixing | Grain added slowly into hot, enzyme-active liquor, agitator at full speed before the first pound | The paddle motor slows; grain settles into a mass | Slow the addition. If the paddles labour, mash in cool at 122°F (50°C) and ramp |
| Water to malt | 1.0–1.4 qt/lb (2.2–3.0 L/kg) | A thick mash that won't mix or pump | Thin the mash, and write the units down every time |
| Enzyme dose | Set per pound of malt: Termamyl 1 mL/lb at mash-in, 0.75 mL/lb at coolback | Iodine-blue wort after the hold | Check the hold and temperature first. The supplier's label rate failed on sorghum |
| The 190°F (88°C) hold | 60 minutes; 30 worked in most runs | Starch left at the end of the hold | Run the full 60 until several batches show what your system needs |
| Rice hulls | Near 5% of malt weight, coming down to about 2% | Slow or stuck runoff; on 10–15 barrel (12–18 hL) systems, bridging in the grist case | Adjust on bed behaviour; add at mash-out |
| Malt per barrel | About 55–62 lb a barrel (21–24 kg/hL) in Bard's production | Gravity off target | Re-size from your own gravity and efficiency (batch calculator) |
| Gluten-free status | First brew after the brewery's weekly full cleanout; cast wort tested | A positive cast-wort result | Hold the batch and trace it with the batch record before the next brew |
Who it's for: a brewer with a sorghum beer that works at pilot or homebrew scale, planning a production run, in their own brewhouse or at a contract brewery. The basis: commercial experience and engineering judgment from Bard's production record, 2005 to 2020. It isn't a validated scale-up protocol, so run it on your own system and record what you find.
First, the malt
Nothing above works without malt you can trust, and that's the hard part today. Very little whole-grain sorghum malt is made. As of 2026-10-17, the only US retail source we've found is the seasonal pale sorghum malt from Deer Creek Malthouse, made in a shared malthouse that also malts rye and spelt. Three malthouses run dedicated gluten-free lines, Grouse, Eckert and Miller, and sorghum is the grain they don't make yet (Where to Get Sorghum Malt). So what's on the market may not meet a production brewer's needs: the volume, the lot data, or a gluten-free standard you can stand behind.
That gap is what we're working on. The standard is written down: a grain specification, release limits for finished malt, and a testing matrix for who tests what at each handoff. We're putting brewers and maltsters together around it. Nothing is confirmed, and we won't promise a supply date we can't keep. If you need sorghum malt at production scale, tell us what you brew and roughly how much you'd use in a year.
When you have malt, order it the way Ordering Sorghum Malt sets out, and prove each new lot small before it goes into a production brew (Starting Small with Sorghum Malt). At production scale it arrives in super sacks of 2,000 lb (907 kg), about 500 cases at 4 lb of malt a case, and Bard's contract brewery took at most 45,000 lb (20,400 kg) in one shipment (How Big Is the US Gluten-Free Malt Market?).
What the record shows
- Malt per barrel. A 42-barrel (49 hL) brew in May 2020 took 2,300 lb (1,043 kg) of malt, about 55 lb a barrel and 4.0 lb (1.8 kg) a case. The December 2018 recipe, still being finalized, ran 3,750 lb (1,700 kg) for 60 barrels (70 hL), about 62 lb a barrel (malt market). A better brewhouse needs less malt.
- Enzyme dose. Doses are set per pound of malt, so they scale with the grist, and the per-pound figure still moved: Termamyl at mash-in was 2.24 mL/lb on the November 2019 pilot sheet and 1 mL/lb on the July 2020 production sheet (The Reliable Mash). A pilot dose isn't a production dose.
- The hold. The 60 minutes is insurance against malt, equipment, mixing and scale variation, and the baseline ran at two outside contract breweries (why the 190°F baseline exists).
- Water and hulls. Production ran both ends of the water range. Hulls ran about 5% early in the program and about 2% once the enzyme protocol matured (Rice Hull Strategy).
- Gravity. Production brewed strong, near 16.5 °P, and cut to about 11 °P (Fermentation Management).
- Scale reached. Bard's took the red-sorghum process through 60-, 180- and 480-barrel runs between December 2018 and March 2019, and by Craig's account Blue Milo #4 went into production beer from its first crop (From Ivory 7 to Blue Milo #4).
Measure these on your own system
These depend on your brewhouse, so record them from your first production brew:
- Brewhouse efficiency, batch by batch, so your malt per barrel comes from your own numbers.
- Heat-up, lauter and runoff times, and how your tun and paddles handle a thick sorghum mash.
- Fermentation behaviour at your batch size.
- The same recipe at pilot and production scale, side by side, so you know what changed.
If you brew high-gravity, record both gravities and the dilution water. And if you record any of these, we'd like to see them: tell us.
What went wrong, and what we did about it
The mash-in stalled the agitator
What happened. On 7 May 2020 a contract brewhouse mashed 4,200 lb (1,905 kg) of sorghum malt into 190°F (88°C) water with the liquefaction enzyme already in. The paddle motor slowed as the grain settled into a mass the paddles couldn't move, the mash stuck, and it took days to get the grain out of the tun.
What we did. The brewhouse manufacturer's brewmaster advised a thinner mash. Six weeks later the revised plan mashed in cool, at 122°F (50°C), held at 155°F (68°C) for 20 minutes, ramped to 190°F at 1°F (about 0.6°C) a minute, and ran the agitator at full speed from before the grain went in to the end of the ramp (The Maltose Mash).
The fix: start the agitator before the first pound goes in, add the grain slowly, and if the paddles labour, mash in cool and ramp. At production scale, how the grain goes in matters as much as the temperature it goes into.
The mash failed at the label enzyme rate
What happened. In an October 2019 pilot trial at a contract brewhouse, the enzymes went in at exactly the supplier's recommended rate. The mash was still iodine-blue after an hour, more enzyme and another hour didn't change it, and the mash was dumped (External Enzymes).
What we did. The working rule was written down the same day: "I usually double if not triple the enzyme dose on all three of these enzymes." The next month the enzyme distributor recommended a true cook at 190°F (88°C) held for 60 minutes, and the production protocol adopted it two days later (why the 190°F baseline exists).
The fix: dose per pound of malt, well above the label rate, and run the full hold. The label rate isn't a sorghum rate: the maker's published Termamyl rate is for a barley-adjunct cereal cook (The Reliable Mash).
The malt wouldn't convert on its own enzymes
What happened. In 2005 and 2006, in pilot trials and the first production runs at Bard's first contract brewery, Bard's tried to convert the mash on the malt's own enzymes, and it didn't. The enzymes were alive; sorghum malt just doesn't carry the right ones (The Mash That Wouldn't Convert).
What we did. Stopped asking the malt to convert, and moved conversion to external enzymes for good.
The fix: don't plan a production mash around the malt's native enzymes. External enzymes own conversion on this site, and the doses are on The Reliable Mash.
The brewery couldn't handle raw malt
What happened. One contract brewery couldn't handle raw sorghum malt without cross-contamination risk.
What we did. Had extract made from Bard's own malt by third-party processors, to Bard's gluten-free specification, and brewed from that (The Maltose Mash).
The fix: ask a contract brewery how it will handle raw malt before you book the first brew.
At a contract brewery
Three things to settle with a contract brewery:
- Book the slot, not just the procedure. Every brewery Bard's used fully cleaned its systems once a week, so Bard's brewed first in line after that cleanout (Cross-Contact Prevention).
- Ask how they'll handle raw malt. If they can't keep it apart from their barley, brewing from extract made from your own malt is the route Bard's took (above).
- Put the process in writing before the first brew. The dose, the hold and the mash-in are the brewery's to run and yours to specify. The entry routes, from contract brewing to a dedicated line, are on The Brewery Add-On Strategy, and what a case costs is on What Gluten-Free Brewing Actually Costs.
Records and release
Keep a batch record for every production brew: malt lot, weights, water, doses, temperatures, times, gravities and runoff. It's what lets you find the cause when a batch goes wrong. Test the cast wort for gluten as a midpoint, so a later failure can be placed before or during the brewhouse (Brewery Receiving and Production). Release the packaged beer against Packaging and Finished-Beer Release. Shelf life for this beer isn't validated yet, so don't print one you can't support.
If you need help scaling up
We consult on gluten-free beer top to bottom, and as far as we've found, we're one of very few who cover all of it: the grain and the malthouse, the recipe and the mash, scaling up in your own building or at a contract brewery, the QA chain, and packaging, release and shelf life (Consultation). If you need help with any of it, reach out. The first conversation costs nothing.
Next step
- Need malt for a production run? Tell us what you brew and how much you'd use.
- Proving a new malt lot first? Start with Starting Small with Sorghum Malt.
- Running the mash itself? The Reliable Mash is the production standard, and The Reliable Mash at Homebrew Scale is the same process at 5 gallons (19 L).
- Wondering how big the market is before you scale? Start with How Big Is the US Gluten-Free Beer Market?