Bacon Beer? Why Not?

So call me crazy, but I have had the urge recently to try brewing a bacon flavored beer. Not overly bacon-y, but a nice subtle smoke/pepper/applewood to it.

This is by far not a deffinate recipe, but heres what im thinking:

Partial Mash

Fermentables

1lb Black Malt
.5lb English Roasted Barley
.25 Chocolate Malt
---All at 150* ish for 30 minutes
6 lbs. Dark Malt Syrup
1-2 lbs. Dark DME


Hop Profile
1 oz Cluster @60
.5 oz Willamette @ 40
.5 oz Willamette @10

Wyeast 1056 American Ale

Then at Bottling, add the magic Potion-

Magic potion consists of a bourbon solution that has been "Fat Washed"
(cooked applewood bacon w/ lots of pepper let sit in a jar of bourbon overnight. Then next day remove bacon, then sit in freezer to solidify fat.)
Mix the bourbon with a little more pepper, maybe some "bacon salt" and bring to a boil. Cool and add to bottling.

Maybe bottle with a mixture of molassis and brown sugar?

idk, i think thats it for now. Thoughts/comments/suggestions?

Awesome, let us know how it goes. I'm always down for hearing about a bacon beer. Someday I'll do one myself.

I think I've heard of other people baking the bacon in the oven on a rack so the grease drips off and they can use the bacon from there to "dry hog". Although the bacon/bourbon combo sounds pretty awesome.

Raunchier tastes alot like bacon. Super simple to make just use 100% bamberg malt.

Thanks guys, I'll let you know when I get it figured out/ brewed!

Hows the malt/grain bill looking?

There is an excellent Maple/Bacon Porter on here somewhere. I'd start with that before diving in with a recipe written from scratch.

I made a similar beer but also included some smoked malt, I think it complemented the bacon well. I used nearly a full liter of bourbon and 1 lb of bacon. I think the bourbon was a bit overpowering. next time I'll use less bourbon and sub vodka if I need more volume. the freezing technique worked great for me. I strained with a cheese cloth and have excellent head retention. Primed with 9oz of grade b maple syrup. Good luck, its a great tasting beer and its fun to tell the story to friends/family!

take a look at the links at the bottom of the page. There have been many threads regarding this. You will find good info there. Good luck and let us know how it turns out.

Needs more bacon, and more contact time with the liquor. There's a high-end bar in my area that has an array of infused liquors behind the bar, one of which is bacon-bourbon. The bacon sits in there for weeks and the stuff makes one mean cocktail. I'd give it a solid week of contact time before freezing. Anything worth doing...

Trying adding some smoked malt. Last november I was at the hard rock cafe in vegas at a craft brew tasting (awesome btw) and tried a bacon beer. It was genius! Also very very rich and even slightly salty. But good nonetheless! Brew it!!

-BobbyB

A GREAT reason to have a beer in the morning

Post your recipe!

thodson2010 said:

Maybe bottle with a mixture of molassis and brown sugar?

Click to expand...

Watch out for this. You don't want to add too many fermentables at the bottling stage! Sounds like some good flavoring additions though!

-BobbyB