smoking some malt

I just made a modification on my electric smoker and its working great now, i have a chicken going at the moment. I want to smoke a pound or 2 of 2 row for an ipa and have been reading some old threads about smoking malt. The general consenses is soak your grains whole for a bit then smoke on low for a few hours then bake in oven for a bit to further dry them out. My question is, has anyone tried or see anything wrong with crushing the grain, soaking then smoking and then mashing those grains right away or the same day?

So let me get this straight... you are going to smoke some malt in where the chicken fat was dripping?

lol, no sorry i was planning on smoking the malt separater maby tomorow or in a few days

I have been thinking about it too. Let us know how it goes.

You probably don't need to dry it in the oven afterwards unless it is still damp once it cools. Otherwise you're just going to toast it and get more toasty/roasty flavor.

If you crushed then soaked then smoked, wouldn't all the starch/etc from inside the grain just dissolve in the soaking water? then wouldn't you just be smoking the empty husks? Were you planning on saving the soak water and adding it to the mash?

That's a good point never thought of that. I suppose I could add the water too the mash but if you soak at room temp you probably wouldn't loose much of anything.

The grain does not dissolve into the water. You shouldn't crush before smoking but if you do it's not the end of the world.

But what's the reasoning behind not crushing before smoking? I guess it doesn't mater if I smoke the grains whole. They should be plenty dry enough to crush after smoking.

I have smoked lots of grain for a few recipes I brew, I soak the grain just for a few minutes, to be sure the husks are thouroughly wet, then I put the grain on sheets of stainless screen material and smoke for 2 hours or so, then I try a few grains to be sure they are good and dry, vacuum pack and let it sit for a week or two.

Then its mill and brew as usual. I have some home-smoked grain that was vacuum packed months ago, still amazing stuff!

I should have researched this a bit. I was in a bind a few weeks back (was out of smoked malt when I thought I had some) and just tossed 2lbs of Vienna into the smoker without wetting it. It smelled good when it came out but now i'm concerned. This was going into a bacon smoked porter. Will I get the maple smoked flavor or did I just add more roasted malt to the brew?

Mischief_Brewing said:

I should have researched this a bit. I was in a bind a few weeks back (was out of smoked malt when I thought I had some) and just tossed 2lbs of Vienna into the smoker without wetting it. It smelled good when it came out but now i'm concerned. This was going into a bacon smoked porter. Will I get the maple smoked flavor or did I just add more roasted malt to the brew?

Click to expand...

The less wet the grain the less smoke will "stick" to the grain. It will probably add a combination of roast/toast and smoke.