Biscuit Brown Ale biscuits

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And1129

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I'm planning my next brew to be a "Biscuit Brown Ale" I love the flavor of that biscuit malt, so this is my attempt to see how well I can push that flavor forward. Then, my homebrew club decided to do a "Strange brew" competition, so I thought I might just take the idea of this recipe and make it a bit "strange" by adding some real biscuits to it. The original idea was to get some English muffins, toast them, maybe add a bit of honey, and then toss them straight into the mash. Then, I discovered that there's a major difference between English biscuits and American biscuits; apparently an English biscuit is more like what Americans would call a cookie. Rather than source some pre-made, I found an English biscuit recipe and made a test batch. They're good and a lot sweeter and less bready than I originally thought they might be. The recipe for the biscuits I used is:

0.5 cup all purpose flour
1.5 cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 stick butter
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup milk
dash of vanilla extract

These things were pretty good, but i'm a bit concerned about putting them in the beer due to the milk and the butter present in the biscuits. I'm right to be worried about this right? Is there anything i might do to substitute these ingredients to something that would be better to have in a beer? I think for the beer biscuits i could easily sub out the milk for water, but i'm not sure what to do about the butter... any suggestions?

Here's my beer recipe:

7 lbs Maris Otter Pale malt
2 lbs Biscuit malt
1 lb brown malt
0.5 lb crystal 80L
0.5 lb crystal 120L
0.25 de-bittered black

Hops will be 0.75 oz. Amarillo at 60 min and then 1.0 oz. Cascades at 15 min.

Again, i want to add the biscuits into this during the mash, but i don't want that addition to mess up the whole beer. Maybe i should just stick with the American English muffin idea? Thoughts?
 
Thanks for that idea, but bigger concern is the butter. Won't the oils kill any head retention and just be nasty? I may have to find a bready-er biscuit recipe.
 
um...if you use milk and butter it will go rancid. Yes the fat and oil in butter will kill the head retention. No the alcohol will not stop it from rotting. The flour will cause a gooey sticky mess. The baking powder will mess with the PH and possibly lend some bad flavor. If you want that biscuit flavor use the biscuit malt and forgo the rest.
 
I am no expert on adding biscuits to beer but best case scenario..... I think it would result in extremely cloudy beer. Let me know if the biscuit idea works out though. If it does I may take your recipe and add some lactose, salt, black pepper, and sausage dripping and see if I can make a Biscuit and Milk Gravy Brew!! :D
 
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