Smokey Mead

So I was thinking about how I love Johnny Walker and it's smokiness and I really want to impart that in a mead.

My first thought was to use some type of fruit and smoke it, but smokers get pretty hot and I imagine the fruit would fall apart, not to mention I'm not sure I really want a smokey/fruitiness.

Then I was thinking of just smoking the hell out of some oak or apple chips/steeping them in some vodka and adding them after the primary fermentation, or maybe smoking some poblano peppers, just spitballing here, what do you guys think, any suggestions?

I have an excellent suggestion. There is a bourbon barrel mead. It goes by the name "Nau-t-gal". It's produced locally here in Illinois. It's awesome. Really complex and delicious.

So my suggestion is to do charred oak chips soaked in bourbon.

Cheers!!!

This is just a suggestion, Johnny use peat smoked malt, so you could let the mead ferment and then "dry hop" it with some cracked peated malt.

See I thought about doing the bourbon soaked oak chips because I just made a whiskey stout doing the same thing but I don't necesarily want the johhny walker flavor, just the smokiness.

Thank you guys for your suggestions.

Smoke some wood chips and toss 'em into the secondary for a week!

I agree with the smoked wood chips. The burbon barrels are chared on the inside and that is what gives that distinct flavor to a great burbon and Jonny Walker. Best of luck on this and let us know how it turns out!

I'd be tempted to do a Scotch Ale-style braggot with peated malt; remember that most of the smokiness in Scotch whisky comes from peated malt.

I will keep you guys updated, I'm currently in between work right now so as much as I want to brew I have to conserve my cash reserves.

Still haven't made this, just started brewing again but I found a scotch infused mead and it was glorious.

However it was not a peaty scotch so I think I'm going to make 3 different gallon batches, one using some smoked oak cubes, one that is a braggot with peated malt, and one where I have heavily smoked some apples and boil it down.

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A lot of people have suggested the peat malt, but everything I've read is that you need to be careful: it can be a bit harsh, and a little goes a long way! If you use peat malt, I'd start with only a few ounces...

Rauchmalt, which is essentially German Vienna Malt that is dried/smoked with beechwood, is much more mellow..

Regardless, even if using rauchmalt, if you do a smoked braggot, you're going to want to have the smoked malt be only a portion of your malt bill...I'd say a max of 1/4 lb for peat, and 1-2 lbs for rauch (I used 2 lbs in the smoked ale I just finished, and it's nice and smokey...)

I'm buying some american oak cubes this weekend and 2 lbs of granny smith apples and right now the plan is to use applewood to smoke them with since that's what I have, any other suggestions. I'm going to peel and core the apples before smoking them so they have more surface area to absorb the smoke. I will proceed to freeze them, then pasteurize them, remove from boil and add the honey.

I'm going to soak the oak cubes in vanilla extract for 2 weeks, add them to the secondary.

My third gallon of smokey mead will have to wait until my other gallon jug isn't being used (sorghum/rice mexican chocolate ale)

Forestgrover said:

So I was thinking about how I love Johnny Walker and it's smokiness and I really want to impart that in a mead.

My first thought was to use some type of fruit and smoke it, but smokers get pretty hot and I imagine the fruit would fall apart, not to mention I'm not sure I really want a smokey/fruitiness.

Click to expand...

If you did decide to use fruit, you could always smoke dried fruits.

I used some medium toast French oak (chips) in my old ale and it gave a great character to it... I'll probably use some of my medium toast Hungarian oak cubes in part of my traditional mead too (when it's aging)... I would read up on the different oak toast levels as well as the different types of oak, before using it. I would also advise going a bit light on the oak at first. Much easier to add more oak if needed than to try and mellow out the addition later.

I would NOT soak the oak in vanilla extract at all... If you want to add vanilla to the mead later, use whole beans. I won't use extracts in any fermentation... Far better to use the actual beans (you can get great beans from Amazon for about $7 for 7 of them) and rack off of them when you're happy. IF you use extracts, you have zero control over the flavor, once you've added it... With using the actual beans/element, you can get it off of them as you decide it has enough. Or you can just add more if you want.

You do have a good amount of time to do all this. Depending on the ABV of the mead, you're probably looking at a few months before you start adding flavor elements to it... My traditional batches haven't had any flavor elements added yet. I started those just before Thanksgiving 2010.

Look at mead as a year long process before you bottle it up... Helps to put the additions into perspective that way...

Forest,

Glad to see you're not going the peat malt route. I don't think that stuff has a place in brewing or mead making. If you want smoked malt go with rauchmalt. Also, the advice that the smoky character in Scotch Ale comes from peat malt is false. Maybe there are some brewers who use it in very limited amounts, but the majority of the smoky character comes from the local water and their yeast strains. I think the problem is that people (and the BJCP guidelines as well) use the term peaty or smoky to describe the flavor. That has been misinterpreted to mean peat malt.

Honestly I would just drink the whiskey and do something else with my mead. I don't see the point in making a mead that tastes like whiskey when there are so many good whiskeys available.

I smoked 2lbs apples and they taste fantastic, used applewood chips and apple juice in the liquid tray. I cored and cut the apples into 8 pieces. I think I left them in there for 4-5 hours. I also smoked two six inch oak spirals. Birthday party this saturday but hopefully will get a chance to start two single gallon batches sunday.

You know I think peated malt can be used in brewing but super sparingly. I made an imperial porter and used 3 lbs of cherrywood smoked malt and half pound of the peated and the smoked flavor was superb. I have made that same recipe but used 2lbs of peated instead of cherrywood and it was so astringent and medicinal it was disgusting.

I think I will end up adding .5 of cherrywood smoked malt to the third batch after it's fermented. Mainly this is serving as an experiment to see how different methods of imparting a smoke flavor will effect the taste.

You can always try adding a smokey tea, like : http://www.adagio.com/black/lapsang_souchong.html?SID=9c0d42546b59bb9c9aa90af884d42682
I've never tried it, but I want/plan to at some point.

This thread is inching closer to the smoked mead I've been thinking about...I had previously mentioned the smoked ale I brewed...it uses rauchmalt, corriander, and lapsong souchong tea. I figured I could mini mash the grain and when I boil that wort I could add the corriander and tea ( and maybe even some hops?...)

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this sounds STELLAR!!

I think im gonna toss some charred chips into a small vessel with my next mead and see how it turns out.

You know I actually bought some smoked tea from the Stash Tea people since there are close to me, the smoked darjeeling was garbage it was so weak but for mead...who knows.

I don't know why but I'm thinking cold smoking. Kind of like you would if you were making your own bacon or smoked cheese. Might work a lot better then the hot smoking. So I don't know if honey could hold the smoke. Cold smoking temps are way lower then the normal hot smoking. But I'm no expert. Just another route to go.

I think peat malt would be more appropriate than rauchmalt. Rauchmalt is smoked with beechwood, which gives it a soft, sort of bacon-like smoked flavor. That isn't the same kind of smokey flavor in scotch.

I would be interested to see how a mead would turn out using some peat malt and/or fermented with a scottish ale strain -- to get the smokey flavors from the yeast -- and then finished with a wine or champagne strain and then aged on a little oak.

FWIW, you could soak the oak chips in a good Mezcal to give it more of a smokey flavor than Bourbon. The smoked tea is very nice and offers a mellow smoke from burning pine needles no wood.

I haven't responded to this thread in forever...I made a tincture with my smoked apples and added them to 2 gallons of mead, it smells fantastic and is taking on a great color. I have some smoked oak spirals...think my wife threw them out wondering why I had sticks in the house.

Anyways I'm going to the brew store to to brew a cream ale today and instead of using oak cubes I think i'm going to use the cedar ones they have because i'm feeling a bit frisky. I'm getting the vanilla beans today as well.

Any suggestions on how long to let these sit in their secondaries to pick up the flavors?

Gonna put them in the basement till around Christmas I think to let everything really round out. Cheers fellas

+ 1 on the Lapsang Souchong smoked tea. It has a nice, warm smoky flavour that is just right for my taste. You might need to use a lot to get the level of smoke you want, but it would certainly make an interesting & (I think) tasty mead/metheglin.
Regards, GF.

Summer 2012 Update

I added no chips...mainly because I think starting off with so many flavors is kind of crazy and makes it tougher to know exactly where the flavors were coming from.

This batch is a straight smoked apple mead. It's been aged for about 2 months so far so I decided to bust some out for the tasting. It's intriguing to say the very least, the mead fermented very dry and light so although there is a heavy smoke flavor it doesn't linger on the palate long at all, completely the opposite of smokey scotches.

However for 4lbs of smoked grannysmith apples for 2.5 gallons of mead is too much. I feel like the smoke is a little overwhelming and could be toned down, or adding some fresh pressed cider during fermentation to get more apple flavor could be an exceptional addition.

My next step is refining this idea, doing a 5 gallon batch of smoked apple cyser, and once I get the cyser nailed down then try adding some oak.