Home Smoked Malt

[NTXBrauer]

How many of you have smoked your own malt?

I enjoy using my smoker with about anything I can throw on it. I have recently been thinking about the possibility of adding some smoke to some pale barley malt. What are your thoughts about this?

 

[Schumed]

How many of you have smoked your own malt?

I enjoy using my smoker with about anything I can throw on it. I have recently been thinking about the possibility of adding some smoke to some pale barley malt. What are your thoughts about this?

Know some local guys that did this ...turned out great ...go for it

 

[Curtis2010]

Just did this for the first time recently. Roasted 2 lbs of 2 row using time/temps for an Amber malt then smoked using a type of palm nut (think minature coconut) that is common here. Ended up w a nice smokey coconut taste.

Currently fermenting what I'm calling a Smokey Braggot. Took a sample recently...taste of my home roasted/smoked grains definately come thru.

You can find info online. Also a book on roasting grains below.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BGHU5JC/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

 

[SpeedYellow]

I highly recommend the book Smoked Beers. It's a good read and covers some interested history of beer (e.g. Until the last couple hundred years, ALL beers were smoked beers!). They cover a few different ways to smoke. I used their process a couple times and it turned out great.

 

[NTXBrauer]

Thanks for the book recommendations. I will do a little more reading up on the process and give it a try.

 

[danielofthedale]

This is something I have been thinking about to. I was thinking of trying some southern wood like Peacan, Hickery, and Palmetto to give the beer a more local flavor.

 

[DSmith]

I highly recommend the book Smoked Beers. It's a good read and covers some interested history of beer (e.g. Until the last couple hundred years, ALL beers were smoked beers!). They cover a few different ways to smoke. I used their process a couple times and it turned out great.

Could you summarize this process? I need to get that book.

I tried building a cold venture smoker per this thread (https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/diy-venturi-cold-smoker-320916/). I couldn't keep the chips from igniting and I had bad water condensation issues inside the box the smoke was routed to. I'd like to build a box with screens for smoking malt if I can get the cold smoker working.

 

[kingwood-kid]

I've cold-smoked mine a few times. I piggyback on top of a day I smoke meat; I just run a spare dryer hose from my grill to a box with a couple screens for grain. It's not an airtight box by any means, but it does fine. The hickory-smoked-rye porter I made with about 1.25lbs/gal smoked malt was delicious.

 

[SpeedYellow]

Could you summarize this process? I need to get that book.

I tried building a cold venture smoker per this thread (https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f51/diy-venturi-cold-smoker-320916/). I couldn't keep the chips from igniting and I had bad water condensation issues inside the box the smoke was routed to. I'd like to build a box with screens for smoking malt if I can get the cold smoker working.

Well they give a few options, and there's a lot that goes into each. The process I followed was a ton of chips, like a pound, soaked in water overnight, then smoked at around 200-240F for 2-3 hrs with around 5 lbs of grains that you lightly wet with distilled water. You want two levels of screens to keep any ash off the grains. I used plain old aluminum screen (for doors) from Lowes. Afterwards, dry in your oven, not too hot, door propped open. I weighed mine every 40-50 minutes so I knew when they were dry.

 

[sacrifice]

I recently smoked a bit over 5 pounds of 2-row I had laying around. Simply placed the grain on parchment paper, sprayed the grain to dampen it, and did 3 hours of cherry and an hour of hickory. This was a cold smoke using my Bradley smoker.

Because I was using parchment paper, I turned the grain every 45 minutes and re-dampened the grain if it was dry. After the process was complete, I cooled the grain and placed in a paper bag for three days until I was ready to brew. The resulting beer, which used 45.7% smoked malt (5 pounds), is wonderful to drink and the smoke has been described as being like the smoke on meat by others.

Grain in the smoker:

The finished product:

 

[NTXBrauer]

I recently smoked a bit over 5 pounds of 2-row I had laying around. Simply placed the grain on parchment paper, sprayed the grain to dampen it, and did 3 hours of cherry and an hour of hickory. This was a cold smoke using my Bradley smoker.

Because I was using parchment paper, I turned the grain every 45 minutes and re-dampened the grain if it was dry. After the process was complete, I cooled the grain and placed in a paper bag for three days until I was ready to brew. The resulting beer, which used 45.7% smoked malt (5 pounds), is wonderful to drink and the smoke has been described as being like the smoke on meat by others.
QUOTE]

Looks good...What temp did you keep your smoker at?

 

[sacrifice]

I recently smoked a bit over 5 pounds of 2-row I had laying around. Simply placed the grain on parchment paper, sprayed the grain to dampen it, and did 3 hours of cherry and an hour of hickory. This was a cold smoke using my Bradley smoker.

Because I was using parchment paper, I turned the grain every 45 minutes and re-dampened the grain if it was dry. After the process was complete, I cooled the grain and placed in a paper bag for three days until I was ready to brew. The resulting beer, which used 45.7% smoked malt (5 pounds), is wonderful to drink and the smoke has been described as being like the smoke on meat by others.
QUOTE]

Looks good...What temp did you keep your smoker at?

I kept it below 90 degrees - I just used the heating element that burns the wood, and turned the main element off. Opening the door every once and a while helped.

 

[danielofthedale]

Can you smoke less than 5lbs at a time or would say 1lb be to small and totally over run by the smoke? I ask he because I would like to use a few different woods to see what they provide and I would make 2gal test batch beers to see how they worked and would not to have 15lbs of malt tied up.

 

[sacrifice]

I do not see any issue with doing smaller 1 pound batches. That would actually be a great way to do test batches.

 

[Zuljin]

I used cherry wood to smoke three pounds of milled Vienna for a Rauchbier which had a total of 13 pounds of grain for a five gallon batch. I'm drinking it now. The smoke flavor is THE dominate flavor. I mean, pow! Smoke! It's good. Exactly what I wanted. Just be aware that three pounds of smoked grain had a profound effect.

And I did this on my stove. Wood chips in a cast iron pan. Grain on a perforated pizza pan over the wood. Wok over the whole thing to be the roof of the smoke hut.

 

[SpeedYellow]

Sure, you can certainly smoke just 1 lb. My smoked beers use just 33% home-smoked malt and are very smoky, very similar to Schlenkerla. Wouldn't want any more. But again, I use a LOT of wood chips (5:1 grains to chips) and put the grains on a screen, which forces the smoke to really permeate the grains.