Bacon as an ingredient

With all the fanfare over bacon vodka, I'd like to see how it fares as a beer ingredient. After all, I have yet to discover anything that bacon cannot do :rockin:

I'm brewing a big (1.110) scotch ale next weekend to let it age all summer, and am considering adding the following (as well as the grain bill):

Peated Malt
Brown Sugar
Applewood-Smoked Bacon
Bourbon-Soaked oak chips (in the secondary)

...I may call it swine-flu-brew.

Has anyone tried flavoring their beer with bacon before? Any recommendations on overcoming the head-retention issue that fatty ingredients seem to pose? I'd love to hear any and all suggestions.

Thanks!

There's a discussion about this every few weeks or so...it doesn't get too far....I don';t think anyones actually brewed with it, though your recipe kinda sounds tasty.....But how would you handle the grease? It would kill head retention...



Here's a few threads....https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/bacon-beer-114892/?highlight=Bacon



also don't forget porkfelwein...https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f25/official-porkfelwein-myspace-page-63498/?highlight=porkfelwein

Good luck.....

Thanks Revvy!

I thought about possibly soaking the bacon in the bourbon to extract the flavor sans grease...

I'll check out the links you just posted and update this thread as the brew moves forward!

spage said:

Any recommendations on overcoming the head-retention issue that fatty ingredients seem to pose?

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Yeah, don't put it in your beer. Two things brewers want to minimize in beer are protein and fat which are, ta da, the two main components of bacon. Honestly, it is just not a good idea. If you want a bacony flavor try switching out that bituminous flavored peat smoked malt with some wood smoked German malt.

Perhaps a rauchbier would suffice?

find out what's used to flavor bacos and use that in your beer.

That's almost what I'm thinking at this point... something to the effect of crushing up artificial bacon bits. Or maybe creating bacon-bourbon, and then bacon-bourbon-soaked-oak-chips. More research is to be done...

Hey if bacon can cut steel like butter it should be able to make a fine beer...

I still think the secret would be imitation bacon bits. Bacon flavor without the grease.

I think that maybe a strict filtration process of cold-conditioning a bacon/vodka mixture might work. I'm sure you could strain out alot of the protien/fat. Maybe try to balance that with some carapils or something.

Ok, that video was awesome. Behold the power of bacon and macgyver! :rockin:

A butt load of Beechwood smoked malt will give you a similar smokiness, but remember that salt is the predominant flavor in bacon.

Maybe serve a good smoky rauchbier in a salt rimmed glass....with eggs.

ChemE said:

Hey if bacon can cut steel like butter it should be able to make a fine beer...

YouTube - Flaming Bacon Lance of Death, from Theo Gray's book "Mad Science"

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They used prosciutto... Does that still count as bacon?

eschatz said:

Ok, that video was awesome. Behold the power of bacon and macgyver! :rockin:

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Always happy to bring a little (more) mad science to these discussion forums.

Duckfoot said:

They used prosciutto... Does that still count as bacon?

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It is an engineering grade of bacon so yes it counts!

Peat moss is so overpowering, use the German stuff. We all know German's make good stuff, right?

Maple syrup and smoked malt.

Denny's Evil Concoctions said:

Maple syrup and smoked malt.

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Been thinking about a maple smoked porter....

Any thoughts?

A buddy of mine recently made a maple-caramel-smoked porter, it was pure heaven.

I like the suggestions on using German Rauch malt as opposed to peated malt.

im not a major brewmaster or anything but how bout this, cover 2-4lbs of bacon, cook down till you have a large amount of bacon grease and liquid, let the liquid sit till it cools and seperates some, take the "bacon broth" away from the grease and use that in a beer, you could also add, brown sugar and liquid hickory smoke to increase the flavor of the beer. this is me talking as a cook more than brewer, but it would seem that this would work.

Bacon Salt

Tastes like bacon. Not sure how salt would affect the beer. Anyone know?

you could make a bacon broth and chill it and the fat will become solid and you can lift it out or filter it. then go from there.

Salt is a yeast retardant and would likely curb fermentation.