Bacon Porter

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m_c_zero

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I know this has been talked about many many many times on this forum, though I think the idea of using real bacon in a beer is a bit strange. I think going a different route would work much better. Here's my idea...

I'd like to go with a brewer's best kit ingredient list for a base. I'm looking at the smoked porter. It calls for:

6.6 lb Porter LME
1 lb smoked grains
8 oz chocolate grains
8 oz caramel grains
1.5 oz bittering hops
.5 oz aroma hops
and then of coarse yeast

Here's where I'd like to mix it up a bit. There is a bacon syrup out there used for flavoring coffee and what not. I'm thinking I could substitute some of the malt extract with the syrup. Here's the link to the syrup:

http://www.torani.com/products/bacon-syrup

Each 750ml bottle has around 475g of sugar. From what I'm seeing, I think 2 bottles of this stuff would give it enough of a bacony flavor, so I'm looking at 950g of sugar content from the syrup. My question is this, how much extract should I take away from the original recipe? Also, I know this syrup isn't natural and probably has a bunch of artificial crap in it, anything I should be worried about?

Anyhow, before I start this madness, I would like to get ahold of a bottle and mix some of the syrup in with a similar beer to make sure it is not god aweful. If it's not, then most likely I will be starting this brew within a few weeks. Let me know what you guys think!
 
awesome- maybe ill try this in my bacon banana peanutbutter elvis beer since actual bacon didint seem to work as well....awesome! Let us know how this comes out!
 
damnit there sold out of the syrup-it's a limited production run....figures :( waiting on a call back from the company to see when they can make more
 
That seems like alot of extract, you might want to cut down to 1 bottle

Yeah, it probably is, but here's what I'm thinking:

Their website recommends 1/2 to 1 oz of syrup for 6 to 8 oz of beverage. You figure there's 640 oz in 5 gallons. These bottles are 750 ml, so that's roughly 25 oz. If you go with the 1/2 oz per 6 oz, one bottle is enough flavoring for 300 oz of beverage, hence 2 bottles being enough for around 600 oz of beverage.

I think, and I could be dead wrong here, that if you just used 1 bottle, you'd lose a lot of the flavor during primary fermentation, which was when I was thinking of putting in the syrup. Just my opinion. Again, I'm going to have to see if I can find a bottle of this stuff to try it out to begin with.
 
damnit there sold out of the syrup-it's a limited production run....

Awww, ****ty. Figures. I had found a website that stated they had some in stock yesterday, but looking at it now the website is down. Here's the site just in case it does come back up and they do have some in stock:

http://alottacoffeebeans.com

Just leave me two bottles :p
 
Website listed above seems to be back up and it's not showing sold out, so may be a glimmer of hope there... I don't have the monies on me now so not able to actually purchase any at the moment.
 
Yeah, it probably is, but here's what I'm thinking:

Their website recommends 1/2 to 1 oz of syrup for 6 to 8 oz of beverage. You figure there's 640 oz in 5 gallons. These bottles are 750 ml, so that's roughly 25 oz. If you go with the 1/2 oz per 6 oz, one bottle is enough flavoring for 300 oz of beverage, hence 2 bottles being enough for around 600 oz of beverage.

I think, and I could be dead wrong here, that if you just used 1 bottle, you'd lose a lot of the flavor during primary fermentation, which was when I was thinking of putting in the syrup. Just my opinion. Again, I'm going to have to see if I can find a bottle of this stuff to try it out to begin with.

I'd consider adding it after fermentation before you keg/bottle. The extracts that I have used that is what I did, then it didn't get overpowering.

I think I'd suggest experementing with a a beer and adding the flavor per glass until you like the mix. Then going back and calculating out how much you want.

I'll be watching 'cause I wanna try it to.
 
Only thing I'm worried about adding the extract before bottling is the sugar content in it. Again, each bottle of extract has 475g of sugar. The recommended amount of priming sugar is 3/4 cup, which translates to roughly somewhere around 100g. I'm afraid if I were to add the extract in before bottling that I would have bottles exploding all over the place. I really don't want to cut back on using any less than 1 bottle of the syrup per 5 gallons because I definitely want the bacon flavor to really shine through, not just be an afterthought.

I definitely want to pick up a bottle of this stuff and sample it with some beers to know what I'm working with. Hopefully I'll be able to get ahold of one in a week or so...
 
if it was me i would fill a growler with the fermented beer as a sample batch and scale down the amount of bacon syrup to be acceptable for that small volume. let if ferment as a small secondary and see how much of the flavor comes out. If your going to bottle with ther syrup i would NOT also add priming sugar or your asking for bottle bombs as that stuff will almost surely ferment completely out
 
Yeah... I'm really not to keen on the idea of using actual meat by product or spirits into this batch. It's definitely a way to go, but I really want to stick with the combo of straight beer and syrup.
 
I've used toriani syrups a few times in my beers with good results. I did a lemon syrup in the secondary of a amber ale and turned out a pretty good beer. One bottle was plenty to give good flavor. A porter may hide a bit more of the flavors than the amber ale did though. I wouldn't worry about taking out malt extract to make up for the extra sugar. Worse case scenario, you're beer is a bit more alcoholic.
 
Yeah... I'm really not to keen on the idea of using actual meat by product or spirits into this batch. It's definitely a way to go, but I really want to stick with the combo of straight beer and syrup.

yea the meat doesn't work to well....i used bacon and spirits and it was meh. tasted kinda bacony but wasn't very good
 
If you're interested in adding a bacon-like flavor to a beer you should look up Listermann Brewing Company here in Cincinnati and ask them how they accomplish that flavor in their beer. I think its called "Friar Bacon Smoked Bock." It has a very distinct bacon flavor and they get this by using a special type of wood chip in the fermenter, I can't remember which one it is at the moment, but if you send them an email I'm sure they'd be happy to tell you. http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/3474/59656
 
Thanks for the link. I'll definitely look into it if this beer totally fails. I plan on starting it either this weekend or next. I figure I'll go ahead and brew the beer, let it sit in the primary for 2-3 weeks, add in the syrup, let it sit another week and then bottle and hope for the best. I'll return to this thread after it's finished and let you guys know how it turns out.
 
Prism Brewing (www.prismbeer.com) here in PA also do a "bacon" flavored stout, called Insana Stout.
They told me that they use a vegan bacon flavored extract, it has a very well balanced flavor to it, but I never inquired as to where they source it.
They might be another to contact for info.
 
Damn, cock-blocked... The website sent me an e-mail just now saying they're out of the syrup. Back to the drawing board...
 
I would TRY the bacon syrup before putting it in your beer....
 
ALso, read up on making bacon extract.

I would suggest making the extract in either bacon or vodka with bacon that you've de-fatted as much as possible. I made ~4oz of fat washed vodka the other day, and it tasted like terrible bacon fat when I tried to drink it straight. I think something like that would ruin a beer, but the straight bacon extracted might be fine.
 
I admit defeat, I'm giving up on the whole thing. That syrup was the main ingredient. If they ever make more of it, then I'll revisit this.
 
m_c_zero said:
I know this has been talked about many many many times on this forum, though I think the idea of using real bacon in a beer is a bit strange. I think going a different route would work much better. Here's my idea...

I'd like to go with a brewer's best kit ingredient list for a base. I'm looking at the smoked porter. It calls for:

6.6 lb Porter LME
1 lb smoked grains
8 oz chocolate grains
8 oz caramel grains
1.5 oz bittering hops
.5 oz aroma hops
and then of coarse yeast

Here's where I'd like to mix it up a bit. There is a bacon syrup out there used for flavoring coffee and what not. I'm thinking I could substitute some of the malt extract with the syrup. Here's the link to the syrup:

http://www.torani.com/products/bacon-syrup

Each 750ml bottle has around 475g of sugar. From what I'm seeing, I think 2 bottles of this stuff would give it enough of a bacony flavor, so I'm looking at 950g of sugar content from the syrup. My question is this, how much extract should I take away from the original recipe? Also, I know this syrup isn't natural and probably has a bunch of artificial crap in it, anything I should be worried about?

Anyhow, before I start this madness, I would like to get ahold of a bottle and mix some of the syrup in with a similar beer to make sure it is not god aweful. If it's not, then most likely I will be starting this brew within a few weeks. Let me know what you guys think!

I made a bacon infused breakfast stout last year, kept half of it to age. I made bacon extract by cooking a couple pounds of bacon, take the fat and put in a container with scotch for a few weeks, then added it to the beer at secondary. I also added some maple syrup at kegging.

Turned out great.
 
Homebrewtastic said:
I made a bacon infused breakfast stout last year, kept half of it to age. I made bacon extract by cooking a couple pounds of bacon, take the fat and put in a container with scotch for a few weeks, then added it to the beer at secondary. I also added some maple syrup at kegging.

Turned out great.

Should note that before adding the extract I froze it, then ran it through a coffee filter. I had zero problems with getting 100% of the fat out.

The reason I chose to use the fat over the meat is that the majority of the flavor in bacon is from fat.
 
Should note that before adding the extract I froze it, then ran it through a coffee filter. I had zero problems with getting 100% of the fat out.

The reason I chose to use the fat over the meat is that the majority of the flavor in bacon is from fat.

how dark did you cook the bacon doing this...crispy or just enough to render fat? and did you cut it up or leave it in strips?
 
scinerd3000 said:
how dark did you cook the bacon doing this...crispy or just enough to render fat? and did you cut it up or leave it in strips?

Left the bacon whole. Just put it in the oven to cook at 400 until crispy.
 
Left the bacon whole. Just put it in the oven to cook at 400 until crispy.

I'm trying this. I'm assuming you let the liqueur sit out at room temp?

Here's the recipe im thinking....Changed completely from last time:
Elvis Beer- Bacon Banana and Peanut butter Porter

Batch Size: 5.50 gal
Ingredients

Amount Item Type % or IBU
9.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 61.02 %
3.00 lb Smoked Malt (9.0 SRM) Grain 20.34 %
1.00 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (40.0 SRM) Grain 6.78 %
1.00 lb Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain 6.78 %
0.50 lb Barley, Flaked (1.7 SRM) Grain 3.39 %
0.25 lb Black (Patent) Malt (500.0 SRM) Grain 1.69 %
1.00 oz Northern Brewer [8.50 %] (60 min) Hops 25.0 IBU
0.50 oz Cascade [5.50 %] (60 min) Hops 8.1 IBU
2.00 items PB2 (Powdered Peanutbutter) (Boil 10.0 min) Misc

Mash @ 152 for 60 minutes for light-medium body
Wlp001 cal ale yeast or wlp029 kolsch yeast

Cook 2# of bacon and render fat- add to vodka and let sit for 2 weeks, then add to secondary along with either bananas or banana wine i have left over.
 
I'm trying this. I'm assuming you let the liqueur sit out at room temp?

Here's the recipe im thinking....Changed completely from last time:
Elvis Beer- Bacon Banana and Peanut butter Porter

Batch Size: 5.50 gal
Ingredients

Amount Item Type % or IBU
9.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 61.02 %
3.00 lb Smoked Malt (9.0 SRM) Grain 20.34 %
1.00 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (40.0 SRM) Grain 6.78 %
1.00 lb Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain 6.78 %
0.50 lb Barley, Flaked (1.7 SRM) Grain 3.39 %
0.25 lb Black (Patent) Malt (500.0 SRM) Grain 1.69 %
1.00 oz Northern Brewer [8.50 %] (60 min) Hops 25.0 IBU
0.50 oz Cascade [5.50 %] (60 min) Hops 8.1 IBU
2.00 items PB2 (Powdered Peanutbutter) (Boil 10.0 min) Misc

Mash @ 152 for 60 minutes for light-medium body
Wlp001 cal ale yeast or wlp029 kolsch yeast

Cook 2# of bacon and render fat- add to vodka and let sit for 2 weeks, then add to secondary along with either bananas or banana wine i have left over.

There's a lot going on in that beer. I'd worry about the flavors getting lost in translation. Kill the PB and Banana. And just try the strait bacon beer. See how you like it then if you decide to rebrew build from there.
 
it was meant to be a play on elvis's beloved Pb banana and bacon sandwhiches. Kinda need all 3 to make it work....
 
Do it up, I seriously doubt the flavors would get lost, they would more just mingle together.
 
Revive! Found some of this bacon syrup. Did anyone ever put it into beer? Going to try with a stout.
 
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