Bacon beer question

I have been being HOUNDED by my friend to try to develop a bacon beer. And I have been trying to research this "holy grail" of delicious. Seems like the consensus is to just make a rauchbier. I want to go more authentic though, and have been trying to think of ways to do this. My thoughts are to bake the bacon in a pan in the oven, and have some sort of grain, or even oak chips in their with it. I could then take all the bacon, and grease, and soak them together. (kind of like you would soak oak chips in bourbon). Then, I could either steep the grains I used prior to my boil, or just use the cubes in a secondary. This may not work, but I'm just trying to come up with some fresh ideas! Input would be greatly appreciated!

Additionally, I know they have bacon vodka. Could I soak oak cubes in that? and then use those in a secondary?

there are lots of threads on this topic on this forum, check out the search.

If it were me, I would soak crispy bacon and oak cubes in bourbon, then add the bourbon and oak to the secondary.

http://groceryeats.com/2009/03/26/bacon-beer/

be sure to read down through the comments too

Disclaimer: I have not tried this

But-- I think you would want to slow-render all the fat off the bacon at low temps to get to something with bacon flavor that isn't burned up, but also isn't pouring a bunch of bacon grease into your beer.

If you can use some alcoholic medium to collect the bacon flavor and then add that to the beer, that's a great idea, but I haven't tried it.

You might just brew up a batch of wort and then put it in a series of 1gal jugs, and try a few ideas:

(1) "Bacos" - artificial bacon flavor from commercially available bacon bits (hey, it might work better than other options)
(2) Slowly rendered bacon until mostly fat-free, then crumble and put in a hop bag and add to secondary
(3) Cook down bacon, add to liquor (as mentioned by previous poster), soak and put resulting liquid in beer
(4) add bacon extract (okay, there is no such thing, but if there were it'd be AWESOME)
(5) cram a pig into the fermenting bucket (I didn't have a real 4th idea and I am similarly lacking on a 5th)

I haven't tried googling this idea, but someone out there has to have tried it.

Edit: the above-posted recipe was pretty funny

I'm sipping a Schlenkerla rauchbier (marzen) right now, funny.

Before you start doing funny things with bacon, get a bit of the Briess cherrywood smoked malt. It smells, and tastes, just like bacon. Really.

Midfielder made a bacon-hopped beer. I have one but I was instructed to not drink it yet because it was bottled right before it was sent and wouldn't be carbed up yet. I have no idea how it was made- but if you send Midfielder a PM, I bet you'd find out!

jkreuze said:

(4) add bacon extract (okay, there is no such thing, but if there were it'd be AWESOME)

Click to expand...

http://www.uncrate.com/men/culture/food/torani-bacon-syrup/

http://***********/component/resource/article/2060-breakfast-beers-bacon-beer