Smoked Rye Beer?

I'll be making a smoked beer again for this winter. I don't have my Beersmith in front of me, but it's about 1.066, roughly half Rauchmalt, with a few pounds of Peat Smoked, base malt to top off gravity, and some Crystal to about 20 SRM overall. Then maybe 15 IBU of something like Willamette. I'm thinking of adding a few pounds of Rye to it. Thoughts?

Sometimes I like to make silly experiments and then have to struggle through five gallons of meh. I'd rather just make a good one, but I'm thinking Rye could add a nice dimension. Unfortunately, I don't see much evidence of many smoked rye beers, so maybe it's not a great idea.

Depending upon how much you like smoked beer, that seems a tad high on the amount of smoked grain for your base. I like smoked beer and once added about 4# to about a ~11# bill and found that was too much smoke flavor for my palette; about 2 # or so was good. I know the peat smoked won't add the same characteristics as rauchmalt, but if you like that much smoke flavor, sounds good to me. If you use rye, another good choice, I would strongly suggest a protein rest of about a 1/2 hour at 122. Rye beers are very tasty, but I've never made a smoked rye beer. Does sound good. Let me know how it turns out and what your grain bill is.

I'm planning a smoked rye Baltic porter for this weekend. I'm just doing 40% rauch malt, I like peat smoked malt but it can be pretty aggressive in high percentages (lbs). I'm just doing a bit of flaked rye more for body than anything else. Hope that helps in some way. Good luck.

Two years ago I did two smoked batches. The first was easy on the smoked malts, more like avid's suggestion. But it just wasn't slap your face smoky. So I upped it for the second one. I don't have those brewsheets here, but I have my planned recipe for this year (without the Rye), which I would assume was a direct copy of the second one from before:

5.75# Base Malt
5# Rauchmalt
2# Peat Smoked
0.25# Black Patent
1 oz Hallertau @ 60
1 oz Hallertau @ 15

Click to expand...

It was smoky, and that's how I want to go. I want to go all the way with the smoke. I might even bottle it so I can slowly make my way through the batch. I'm not thinking this is going to be one where I have a pint each night.

My possible plan is to sub 2# Rye malt for 2 of the base malt. I just started brewing with rye this year, after having Rastafa Rye, I made Denny's Rye IPA, and I loved the rye aspect. Now I'm trying to find all the places I could use it.

I think I'll go for it, why not? I'll never know until I do it.