smoked ale

Putting my recipe together for a smoked ale because those tasty beverages are hard to find in my area, except smoked porters but the big porter taste takes away from that camp fire magic. I bought two different smoked malts rauchmalt and adler smoked malt. How much smoked malt would be overwhelming in a 5 gallon batch? I was only going to use one in one batch and the other in another batch. I guess I am just looking for tips and techniques for this style.

Most people say no more than 50% of the total grain bill, no less than 25% to make it noticably smoky, somewhere inbetween depending on how smokey you want the final taste to be.

I say 100% smoked Munich Malt FTW! I've done several 50% rauchbiers (and one smoked cream ale) and I'd like more. Funny how many people hate smoke beers though.

I love that big smoky flavor. So could go with more than a LB of either. The best one I have had was black cabin. I forget who brewed it but it was amazing. The sam adams bonfire also wasn't bad but I could use bigger smoked flavor.

passedpawn said:

I say 100% smoked Munich Malt FTW! I've done several 50% rauchbiers (and one smoked cream ale) and I'd like more. Funny how many people hate smoke beers though.

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Is that 50% of the malt bill or are you mixing styles?

How much smoked malt you use depends on the make up of the grist. I've had a home-brewed smoked porter with 100% of the base malts are smoked(Bamburg) and I've had lighter lagers with as little as 20% of the grist. In both instances, the smoke flavor was appropriate.

IMO, the more rich, complex the malt bill, the greater % of smoke malt necessary to bring out that smokey flavor.

Huck-E-bear said:

Is that 50% of the malt bill or are you mixing styles?

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I've done 50% beechwood and a 50% mix of beechwood and cherrywood (that one is in my Recipe pulldown). I've never done a 100% smoked malt beer, but I'd like to. I love Schlenkerla's Smoked marzen. They use 100% smoked malt in that. They smoke their own malt, over beechwood for that beer, and they start with something similar to Munich.

I made a smoked ale using 1 1/2 lb of cherry wood malt in 5 gallons and it turned out great. Nice smoke aroma and flavor but not over powering. It was my take on rogue's smoked ale.
There is a local brewery that makes a black cabin ale that is really good also and I think they use Beechwood malt.

See the recent thread about cloning Tumbler (SN's smoked brown) in the recipe section. There's a great discussion about what percentages work -- and what don't. Me, I've been using the cherrywood smoked malt in several of my recent brews with varying degrees of success.

I used 5% in a recent "Smoked Red Ale" I built from scratch (which turned out great) and used about 6% along with 5% of the Begles Kiln-Coffee in a recent smoked brown (still fermenting, but it's near FG -- and tastes fantastic -- big, rich smoked coffee.)

I am doing 18.2% smloked malts. Rauch mald and adler munich. Hope it turns out alright

If you like smoke and peat, quite literally there is no such thing as too much.

I have in my primary a 100% peated ale as we speak - brewing it for the 2nd time because the 1st time rocked so hard.

In that peated malt is more aggressive than any smoked you will find out there (to me of course) you can easily go 100% smoked.

I recalled being told not to attempt this, that 1) it would not convert (more on this in a moment), and 2) it would be overpowering. Neither could be farther from the truth. So, I say go for it! 100%.

As for converting, I'm going to put up a thread on it, but thought I would toss this out. Using 100% peated malt, 16 lbs/5.5 gallons, I got a OG of 1.096. WAY higher than I expected based on theoretical yield of peated malt (36-38 PPG) and my eff of 78-80%. Does anyone have an explanation? Logic tells me the PPG is off but that much?

If I were to boil longer would it bring our more of the smoky malt flavors? Like a 90 or a 120 min boil.

Huck-E-bear said:

If I were to boil longer would it bring our more of the smoky malt flavors? Like a 90 or a 120 min boil.

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I would actually assume you'd want to do a longer mash to leech more flavor from the grain. That's just my .02.

Huck-E-bear said:

If I were to boil longer would it bring our more of the smoky malt flavors? Like a 90 or a 120 min boil.

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At about two weeks in, the SG is 1.030 and still dropping and there is NO lack of smoky malt flavor. If anything a longer boil would tend to reduce your peat I would suspect. As for more malt - the decoction mashing schedule I used gave me huge malt.

I've actually considered a shorter boil to increase/compare the smoke. Bring it all to a boil, hot break it, then boil only 1/3 or so with hops and see if I preserve more.