Smoked Porter
 

I'm putting together a recipe for a smoked porter that I will do when I get my brewery back in order. How much smoked malt should I use? I was planning to use rauch, and right now I've got it at one pound. I want it to be noticable, not just really subtle. Along the lines of Stone's Smoked Porter if anyone's tried it. Also, I don't want to have a harsh roasted flavor to it, so the dark malts are as follows: 0.5 lb. Chocolate, 4 oz. Black Patent and no roasted barley. How does that sound? Feedback please. :)

What if I post the whole recipe I'm working on? Will you reply then? :D

Smoked Porter

7.5 lb. 2-row
1 lb. Rauchmalt
0.5 lb. Crystal 75
0.5 lb. Chocolate malt
0.25 lb. Black Patent
0.5 lb. flaked barley

0.5 oz. Target 10.6% 60
0.5 oz. Target 10.6% 30

OG: 1.056
SRM: 29
IBU: 38

If it needs more smoke I'll swap rauch for 2-row.

Now maybe some replys... :)

Better, I'd say two pounds of rauch.

I had that over the weekend. I rather enjoyed it. Very subtle flavor, but definitely there.

FWIW, when I did mine I used 5 lbs of Rauch malt. It was definitely there but not overpowering by any means. I think any less than half of the base malt and you'll struggle to know it is there.

Just my input....

Do you have access to "Designing great beer"? I just read the porter chapter yesterday and I have to say it was incredible. Perhaps you can go to Borders and look through the chapter, you wont be disappointed. From his information it appears that Porters had a smokey flavor and he goes through several ways that this flavor came about in the style. Incidently, at some point in time these berries where an addition in Porters... cant remember the name of the berry off the top of my head, but they were posionous! The big brewers were making beers that they themselves would not want to drink and serving it to the masses!

We did 1 pound of smoke malt in the Imperial Hellfire and in mine it can't be detected. I would say it will take more than 1 pound. Maybe 5 pounds like Dude said.

I would go with the 5 pounds. It is a good solid amount and at 50% of the grain bill would be noticable. What mash temperature are you going for? I would suggest something above 150, maybe up to 154.

All beers had a smokey flavor in the past, not just porters. This was simply due to the way that the freshly malted barley was kilned. it came in contact with the smoke of the hardwoods that fueled the kiln. You'll run across references to smokey flavors in a lot of old beer styles in that book.

I admit that it does sound good. I added a little rauch malt to one of my brews last year, but not enough to have it be noticable.

-walker

Interesting info...

I would think that getting enough smoke flavor in an extract brew would be really hard to do.

The concept of a smoked beer sounds odd, but it really works. My porter was really nice. It is definitely on the list to do again.