Specialty Smoked Beer 100% Peated Ale

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Alchemist42

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jul 14, 2010
Messages
82
Reaction score
7
Location
Oregon
Recipe Type
All Grain
Yeast
1728 Scottish Ale Wyeast
Yeast Starter
Yes - 1 c DME/Qt
Batch Size (Gallons)
5.5
Original Gravity
1.096
Final Gravity
1.020 (jprojected)
Boiling Time (Minutes)
60
IBU
20
Color
Dark Brown
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp)
Still there
Tasting Notes
This is the 2nd run of this. 1st was amazingly smooth in the peat give the amount.
I had one the the best brewing sessions I've had in years. It all went perfectly. Like clockwork. 2nd time I've brewed it. Thought I would toss it out to share:

Brimstone Peated Ale 5.5 gallons

14 lbs Bairds Peated Malt
1 lb Bairds Peated Malt lightly toasted
1 lb Bairds Peated Malt Medium roasted (Brown malt level)

2 oz Fuggles 6.7 alpha 60 minute boil
1728 Scottish Ale Yeast Wyeast

OG 1.096
FG 1.020 projected - in the primary

Mashed grains with 10 qt water @ 135 - stabilized @ 122 F. Held 20 min.
Added 2 qt boiling water - stabilized @ 130 F. Held 20 min.
Added 4 qt boiling water - stabilized @ 142 F. Held 20 min.
Decocted 4 Qt - Boiled 5 minutes & returned - stabilized at 155 F 60 min
Iodine test clean
Decocted 8 qt - boiled 5 minutes & returned - mash out at 174 F.

Sparged with 5 gallons at 175 F. Collected 6.5 gallon total.
Boiled 1 hour with hops.
Counter flow chilled.
Pitched yeast.

Oddly (in a great way), I got a way better extraction than I expected and wanted to toss that around. Using Beer Calculus it nominally projected an OG of 1.072. But I got a whopping 1.096. The only think I can really come up with is that the PPG of 32 is way low and my eff is better than the default 75%. Bumping to a PPG of 42 and an 85% eff gets me much closer, but damn, I know I'm good but I have trouble believing that good (small humor here) - that's DME levels.

So, any thoughts about what went on? I should mention that when I did this as a small test batch of a couple gallons a couple years ago, I got similar results but chalked it up to sloppy measurements, but I'm sure of the numbers above.

Aside from all that, I'm near giddy to get this into my keg - Laphroiag's ale cousin
 
You should make this an Eis ale to increase the alcohol. Let hear how it tastes in about a year, way to go!

OMG why? It's already going to be over 9% - not even close to too shabby in my book. I recall the first one was amazingly quaffable after 2 months. I am certainly one to put this back for a while, but much may not be left after a year. :)
 
It's recipes like this that ruin smoked beer competitions. lol.

So how'd it go?

LMAO.

I'll have to keep that in mind :)

It is going well. The FG seems a tad high at 1.029, but given that it started 1.096 I think it's fine. And also that I'm going to keg it, I'm not too worried about it over carbonating should it be slightly stuck.

Regardless, it's tasting great. Liquid smoked silk. It just slides down so smooth.
 
Well, I kegged this up a couple days ago and have been religiously shaking it to carbonate for tomorrow. I could not take the suspense - I had to make sure I was going to serve a quality product (to three peated Scotch drinkers) tomorrow.

So I pulled a half pint. OMFG A beautiful rich red/brown topped by what I think is the densest ivory head I've ever had outside of a pint of Guinness. The aroma is of course is solid peat...but there is a great maltiness and hints of toffee in there too. And the taste. All I could hope for. The head is a thick as it looks and the smoke just melts in your mouth - suffusing delicate sweet smoke around your mouth. The ale has a touch of hops up front, breaking into that toffee and caramel (decoction mashing YEAH) and the most exquisite explosion of silky peat outside of a sherry casked dram of scotch.
(my daughter (11 - don't tell :) just walked past, and ask for a taste - I agreed - 'this is what you made - it's good' - that's my girl).

Anyway - I'm in love/lust/rapture with this. Ashtray? - pashaw. Not even close. Silken ambrosia to my taste.
 
Well, I kegged this up a couple days ago and have been religiously shaking it to carbonate for tomorrow. I could not take the suspense - I had to make sure I was going to serve a quality product (to three peated Scotch drinkers) tomorrow.

So I pulled a half pint. OMFG A beautiful rich red/brown topped by what I think is the densest ivory head I've ever had outside of a pint of Guinness. The aroma is of course is solid peat...but there is a great maltiness and hints of toffee in there too. And the taste. All I could hope for. The head is a thick as it looks and the smoke just melts in your mouth - suffusing delicate sweet smoke around your mouth. The ale has a touch of hops up front, breaking into that toffee and caramel (decoction mashing YEAH) and the most exquisite explosion of silky peat outside of a sherry casked dram of scotch.
(my daughter (11 - don't tell :) just walked past, and ask for a taste - I agreed - 'this is what you made - it's good' - that's my girl).

Anyway - I'm in love/lust/rapture with this. Ashtray? - pashaw. Not even close. Silken ambrosia to my taste.

So I guess you like it then? :D

I'd love to try it. Maybe I'll give it a shot this winter.
 
You could say that.

And it was a 100% smashing success yesterday over Thanksgiving. Albeit all peated Scotch drinkers, it was quite appreciated, termed strong, but not over the top - or no more so than Laphroiag :). One and all went back for multiple glasses.
 
I think a Peated Malt SMaSH is one of the least likely things I would ever see. Great job jumping on this. I'm truly impressed, and I'd love to try it myself.

If you want to take the chance that a keg filed bottle might be a touch flat, I'd be happy to send you one - drop me a line. Also, any suggestions how to fill a bottle that is from a force keg carbonated would be great. Do I just drop my dispensing pressure and fill 'er up?
 
If you want to take the chance that a keg filed bottle might be a touch flat, I'd be happy to send you one - drop me a line. Also, any suggestions how to fill a bottle that is from a force keg carbonated would be great. Do I just drop my dispensing pressure and fill 'er up?

That's very nice of you to offer. But I think I'll just try this myself. Thanks again.

BTW, did you ever take a pic of your beer? Love to see what it looks like.
 
Alchemist - where in Oregon are you? I'm just getting into brewing beer - been doing mead for several years now - and am starting off with a Sierra Nevada Porter clone.

This sounds AMAZING. I am a scotch lover and think that once I graduate to all-grain brewing, I would love to try your recipe. I have several scotch enthusiast/beer drinking friends that would probably love a peaty ale.

Sounds amazing and thanks for the wonderful idea and for sharing!

Aaron
 
I'm in Eugene. And doing a Bourbon Imperial Stout today, even as I type this.

I'm thrilled to hear you think this is amazing? It's even better than it sounds :)

It's a great all-grain recipe to try. Good luck and feel free to ask questions if you have them.
 
My god, this sounds amazing! I am a big fan of peaty, smokey scotch, so I putting this in my queue. Thank you for sharing!!!
 
Could you help an extract brewer out with this one....????? I love scotch and have been thinking about something like this for a while. Anyone ever add scotch to their brew, like in a bourbon barrel stout?
 
It'll be tough to do something like this with extract only. You'd have to do a partial mash because there's no one out there that makes extract with peated malt. You'll have to at a minimum do a partial mash with about half your fermentables being peated malt.
 
I've added scotch to my ale before...but sadly (in this context) it does not even step into the same room as the peated ale.

I really can't come up with anything that would let an extract brewer try this. It's simply based too strongly on the peated malt. A partial mash is all I can come up with, and I think that would be both very costly and much less effective.

Or you could try peating/smoking your malt extract, but I have serious doubts about that working.

Maybe it's time for trying a small 1-2 gal all grain batch???
 
Honestly, thanks for the input guys! I'm not ready to go all grain and don't really have the time to try out a small all grain batch. I'd seriously be willing to give the partial a shot if you'd be willing to share even if the cost would be high! Thanks so much! This beer/style is very intriguing to me!
 
Absolutely. 100% sure I would and will.

Sounds awesome. I've been experimenting with wood and smoke in beer and this fits right in. Once I get hold of enough peated malt to get going on this I'll report back how it turns out.

Thanks and cheers
 
I brewed a half batch of smoked porter with 4oz of peated malt (this was mistakenly double what the recipe called for) and it was way over the top smoke for what I wanted. I can't imagine what 100% peated malt tasted like. I don't think I'll be brewing one myself but would love to try a bottle if anyone near me ever brewed one. I don't drink scotch so I cant compare tastes there.
 
I think this falls into the 'never the twain shall meet'. I can't wrap my head around making a 'smoked' porter, and finding that 4 oz was over the top. I don't think I could even taste 4 oz. My latest Imperial Stout had 2 lbs of peated malt and was moderate in the peat.
 
I'm with you. My barleywine had two pounds and I can taste it but it's not intense to me. When I hand it to others they go "wow that's smokey". I can taste the peat but not the smoke as much. I am a cigar smoker though so my perception of smoke is different.
 
I am curious if either of you consider stone smoked porter to have any smoke flavor at all. The beer I was going for was a clone of that. What I ended up making tasted like an ashtray compared to stone's version. To me, stone smoked porter has a definite smoke flavor but it's not overpowering. So to you guys it must just taste like a smokeless porter? :)
 
As a matter of fact using that as a reference beer I had a hard time finding smoke flavor in the beer the one and only time I bought Stone Smoked Porter. Due to not really being able to taste the smoke I never bought it again.
 
Alchemist42 said:
I think this falls into the 'never the twain shall meet'. I can't wrap my head around making a 'smoked' porter, and finding that 4 oz was over the top. I don't think I could even taste 4 oz. My latest Imperial Stout had 2 lbs of peated malt and was moderate in the peat.

I think you might be confusing peat smoked with a smoked base malt like weyermans. There is no way in hell you can use pounds of peat.
 
There's no confusing peat if you ask me. I used 2lbs in a barleywine and I know for a fact it was not beech/cherry wood smoked malt. I use Simpsons peated malt at Brew Masters Warehouse when I brew peat smoked beers.

As my barelywine recipe evolves I've been adding more and more peat and it's been getting smoother and smoother even at 11%abv. It's rather sublime with a nice aged Nicaraguan citar.
 
Sounds awesome. I've been experimenting with wood and smoke in beer and this fits right in. Once I get hold of enough peated malt to get going on this I'll report back how it turns out.

Thanks and cheers

Just got the malt in today. I'm going with just over 17 lbs. Can I ask how you toasted the 2 lbs? I imagine the temp was the same for both but one was in the oven longer? No Scottish yeast available so this is down to Notty to do the good work. Brewing on Friday and I'll let you know how it goes from there.
 
I took a shot at this yesterday, stuck very close to the recipe. I tried roasting the malt. Roasted 1 lb at 350 for 30 minutes. The other pound I messed up so bought 1 lb Brown Malt to replace it. I noted that the lb. I did roast lost its peated odor so figured this was an ok replacement.

Mashed as in the recipe.Wow, lengthy mash. I enjoyed the step mash boil, don't know that it affected my OG ( I got 1080), but it may make the end product maltier or more caramel. Find out in a month or so.

Looks good, smells good, decent OG. When its in the keg I'll come back with taste profile and maybe some photos.

THanks for the recipe. If it turns out well this could become a standard. Love the idea.
:mug:

Primary is going nicely. The beer smells super clean and malty.
Peated_resized.JPG
 
Not quite a week in primary and I've racked it over to secondary. Added 1 oz. of Medium Toast French Oak and will leave it on for 7 days. Should provide a very gentle background oak flavour.

I tasted it on racking (1015). It was malty, slightly spicy hoppy and of course had a nice peat flavour. Not overwhelming at all. Lets see what a bit of aging and some oak will do to round it out.

SecondarywOak.JPG
 
Wow, I missed these last posts. Great to hear someone tried brewing this. Way to go Gordon. Isn't it rather amazing just how 'not peaty' it is given what the base it? I toasted the 2 lbs in a wok on my stove top. Just until the color changed to just about what your wort color is.

Yeah, it is a lengthy mash. Did you do a starch test or just follow my lead? Mine was starch test based.

So, it's been a few weeks now. How is it coming? Bottled or kegged yet?
 
I think you might be confusing peat smoked with a smoked base malt like weyermans. There is no way in hell you can use pounds of peat.

Well, I'm not at sure how to respond to this as I DID use pounds of peated malt. And no, I'm not confusing wood smoke with peat smoke. They are clearly different things.

So given I DID use pounds of peat, what is it you are actually trying to say?
 
As a matter of fact using that as a reference beer I had a hard time finding smoke flavor in the beer the one and only time I bought Stone Smoked Porter. Due to not really being able to taste the smoke I never bought it again.

It does have a touch of smoke flavor, but mostly I find it very low, and if my tastes are just slightly off, I can't taste it at all.
 
So I suggested earlier doing an Eis version of this beer and after reading some of the tasting notes on this thread that is exactly what I will be doing after vacation. The plan is to use 50/50 Peated malt and Golden Promise (that may change to MO) I'm going top make 12 gallons and concentrate it down to 6 and put in a 3 time used Rum barrel for a nice long aging ~1year. I'm hoping for a Scotch liqueur type of drink. I'm going to mash as low as I can so I can get good attenuation out of it. I hope it works.
Great thread!
 
I'm curious - why the decision to go 50/50?

BTW, the mash schedule I give really gives a good attenuated ale. Actually, the toasting of 2 lbs was a direct result of how much it attenuated the first go around. But with your 50% GP, you many indeed may need to drop the temp somewhat.
 
I've been working with a local stiller and after some discussions we decidd to go this route. Some of it was because we are worried about risidule sweetness and smoke not playing nice after the concentration. We have also discussed using 10%
sugar to help dry it out. We are leaning towards the sugar.
 
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