Smoke in the Water Brown Ale

im not a big fan of stouts or porters but i do love the idea of having a "smoked" beer. there are plenty of recipes and directions for rauchbiers but i was thinking of trying a smoked brown ale. in Charlie Papazian's book he says that you can smoke the grains yourself with hickory, apple, oak... or you can add liquid smoke. 2 teaspoons for 5 gallons. how long would i smoke the grains? and do yall think this would be a good flavor?

we won't know till you try it and share it with the rest of us! go for it!

I recently tried a smoked ale. I used a pound of smoked grains from the homebrew store, then WAYYYYYY overdid the liquid smoke. At the time, I didn't know about the 2 teaspoon recommendation and ended up putting 1/4 cup total in. Now it looks like im going to have to blend it with another brew.

That sucks.....I've used too much liquid smoke in food but never beer. You used 6 times too much liquid smoke. So if your going to mix it with another brew make sure to mix it 6 to 1. Or if you can make a 30 gal batch some how.......

Where about in VT are you...I stayed in Waterbury and Burlington for a few years. I've been dreaming about the Long Trail Ales.....I used to drink the crap out of that stuff.

I made a smoked porter using home smoked malt. I chose alder wood because I'm a big fan of Alaskan Brewing Smoked Porter, but you can try any wood out there. I smoked Munich malt for about 15-20 minutes, you want the grains to be moist so they can absorb the flavors from the smoke. When they start becoming dry you know they are close to done, or spray some water on them and smoke a little longer for a stronger flavor. The smoked grain came to a total of 10% of the grist, you probably don't want too much more as the smokiness really comes through. The beer is currently in the secondary, I would recommend a long aging period so the flavors can mellow out. Also I would never use liquid smoke in beer, the flavor seems a little one dimentional.

Steve-oh said:

I recently tried a smoked ale. I used a pound of smoked grains from the homebrew store, then WAYYYYYY overdid the liquid smoke. At the time, I didn't know about the 2 teaspoon recommendation and ended up putting 1/4 cup total in. Now it looks like im going to have to blend it with another brew.

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Blend it with some Ketchup and use it as a marinade.

Biermuncher beat me to it. I was gonna suggest using that smokey brew for some cooking purposes.
that's what I've done when a beer turns out not agreeing with my tastebuds directly.