Smoked rye porter recipe, opinions wanted

So, since I have very little experience with using roasted grains, I thought I would ask you guy's oppinions on how this recipe looks. So far, this is what I have:

9# 2-row malt
3# rye malt
3# smoked malt
12oz chocolate wheat malt
12oz crystal 80

It looks like the color and the gravity are right where they need to be (5 gallon batch, by the way), but is that little bit of chocolate and crystal going to give me a nice roasty flavor that I am looking for? Again, any input is appreciated here, as I have little to no experience brewing something that is darker than pale lol. TIA!!

It will be nicely roasty but not overpowering, In fact it looks like an excellent recipe.
What kind of smoked malt are you using? The rauchbock I'm drinking right now was brewed with 5 pounds of homesmoked malt for a 10 gallon batch, but that malt was very fresh.

Thanks for that . I'll just be using smoked malt from rebel brewers website. Hops are still undetermined though...

For yeast I was planning on using the California ale V (wlp-051 if I recall) to ferment. Should I plan on getting a London ale yeast instead or should this yeast be fine? I wanted to use the yeast that I just washed, but I suppose I could buy a new one if I need to.

Which smoked Malt you use is important. If you buy the cheapest from Rebel Brewer and make your recipe, you will be very disappointed. The beer will be .... not sure what .... just too much, and you will be waiting years for it to mellow.

I've used Weyermann, Briess and peat Smoked malt in Porters and made great beers with each. Here are my comments on your recipe using them:

- 3 lbs of Weyermann will be good.

- 3 lbs of Briess (Cherrywood) will be stronger than the Weyermann. It will be fine, but for me I'd cut it down to about 2 lbs.

- 3 lbs of peat smoked malt is way too much. Have you ever tasted Stone Smoked Porter? Stone gave a recipe to BYO for that beer, and it uses 0.25 lbs (yes, a quarter of a pound) of peat smoked malt. I did the clone they gave, and used that amount and it came out great.

Hmmm, interesting information, and good to know! I'll have to look into it and report back. I might actually have to buy it from my LHBS, so I'll see what they can get.

Any suggestions on hops? I am thinking something quiet in the background, and maybe something spicy on the nose/pallate.

Any input on the yeast also?

So I think I have narrowed my yeast choices down to these:

California ale V (WLP051)
British ale II (1335)
London ale III (1318)
London ale (1028)

I already have the WLP051 that I can put together a starter for. If I end up buying another yeast I would really like to be able to use it in this beer, and a few other brews that I have planned (specifically an English IPA and an ESB).

In September I brewed a rye pale ale using American Ale II yeast. It really brought out and rounded the rye character. This is a very different beer but you might consider it.

The Chocolate Wheat will give you a clean, smooth roastiness without much bitterness. Kind of like Carafe.

The more smoke you want the less finishing hops you'll want. Most of my smoked beers have a substantial bittering addition and a moderate 20 minute addition, that's all. I would use something like Wye Challenger or Fuggles-my current smoked porter is all Fuggles.

I want the smoke to be present, but probably not the forefront... If that makes sense. I want the roasted malt flavors up front, but I definitely want the smoke and the rye presence to be known.

I am actually thinking I might scale down the recipe a bit, as far as the amount of fermentables go... According to beersmith, with the recipe as posted, to get a light body beer (which I want) it would come out to nearly 8% abv, which is WAY higher than I want... If I pull back 1 pound each of 2-row, rye, and smoked malt then it would attenuate slightly lower (not a bad thing for what I want) and put my ABV in the range that I am looking for (6.2, still ever so slightly high IMO). I want this to be a very flavorful but still easy drinking porter, something with lots of roast/rye/smoke flavor, but light bodied and easy to drink.

For anyone that might be wondering, I just doughed in with this recipe. I did end up scaling it down to make a slightly smaller beer, mashed nice and low (nailed my mash temp on the head, 148, that's a good way to start the day!!

For hops I went with challenger, fuggles, willamete, and northern brewer. Using 1335 yeast (british ale II).

I know this was a long time ago, but I was thinking about making a beer like this; actually, this beer. Can you let me know what the result was? I am thinking about putting this on the list after my standard robust porter.

Thanks.

This beer turned out VERY good. I can find my exact recipe that I ended up using if you want, I just have to find my old laptop...

It was a really nice beer though. It drank like a very hoppy RIS almost borderline BIPA, the smoke was present but not overly so, and the rye added a really nice touch to the overall drink ability. I have actually thought a lot about revisiting this recipe.


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Been awhile, but yes, please post your revised recipe!