Roast 'em, Toast 'em, Smoke 'em If you Got 'em

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bracconiere said:
lol



i need to shoot for 1.060, and a 1.000 finish. for calorie counting, but...could bump it up too 20 pounds pale malt and 2 pounds smoked crystal, 10 gal batch? i want to start off slow though, just like 8oz maybe or a pound of this smoked grain...see how it goes....
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Not bad to go light vs heavy. You'll be wanting more smoke.

What's your smoke source?
 
@Schlenkerla, i blame you for the wild dreams i was having last night! i was dreaming about which beer i made was smoked yet....and i also had this strange thought about the fact that i smoked my pillow case, and sheets....and was trying to smell them all night long!

wasn't till i woke up that i realized i haven't made my first smoked beer, yet. and i didn't actually put my pillow case in the smoker! :drunk:
 
bracconiere said:
@Schlenkerla, i blame you for the wild dreams i was having last night! i was dreaming about which beer i made was smoked yet....and i also had this strange thought about the fact that i smoked my pillow case, and sheets....and was trying to smell them all night long!

wasn't till i woke up that i realized i haven't made my first smoked beer, yet. and i didn't actually put my pillow case in the smoker! :drunk:
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You should try smoking your linens!!! LOL

[emoji481] [emoji481] [emoji481] [emoji12]
 
Schlenkerla said:
You should try smoking your linens!!! LOL

[emoji481] [emoji481] [emoji481] [emoji12]
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according to my subconscious i would love it! lol, i was thinking of smoking some sunflower seeds though! brew day snack! pick up a pack of ranch seasoning or something, soak them in it, throw 'em in the smoke box.
 
.... Or sleep with some kielbasa.
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bracconiere said:
according to my subconscious i would love it! lol, i was thinking of smoking some sunflower seeds though! brew day snack! pick up a pack of ranch seasoning or something, soak them in it, throw 'em in the smoke box.
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That might be good, I do smoke almonds after I have briefly fried them in butter with a good sprinkling of chili powder and garlic power, cayenne and a little salt.
 
i like the, is that actually bacon incense? lol

And i think the sausage would make me uncomfortable....

On the plus side i, got malt drying now, going in the oven tomorrow, in your awesome screen baskets. and i should be brewing my first smoked beer saturday! another week and i look forward to giving a report on it. going to use 50/50 hops/cardamom for it also, figure 1oz of each
 
bracconiere said:
i like the, is that actually bacon incense? lol

And i think the sausage would make me uncomfortable....

On the plus side i, got malt drying now, going in the oven tomorrow, in your awesome screen baskets. and i should be brewing my first smoked beer saturday! another week and i look forward to giving a report on it. going to use 50/50 hops/cardamom for it also, figure 1oz of each
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Sounds good post pictures...
 
Well, half of my malt has been smoked with oak. I've used oak a lot w/ pork and have smoked malt with it. I like it and am familiar with it.

The second half of the malt, I thought "oh, let's try the birch".

The birch smoke started out as some of the thickest, most acrid, nasty smoke I've ever encountered. I waited and waited for the "smoke to clear". Once the white smoke gave way to blue, I went ahead and added the malt to the smoker. Wow. This is some very nice, sweet, smooth smoke. Very impressed.

Now to make a beer with the oat / birch smoked malt.

homebrudoc
 
Bottled my commercially smoked first rauchbier just half an hour ago. I always pull a small sample to a disposable pint to taste while doing the bottling to see if there`s any off flavors or something alarming. This most always gets poured down the drain cause beer straight out the primary is usually quite nasty. This time I actually finished the whole thing, and only realized that when I tried to sip out of an empty pint, while having a commercial lager open right beside it the whole time!
 
BikerMatt said:
Bottled my commercially smoked first rauchbier just half an hour ago. I always pull a small sample to a disposable pint to taste while doing the bottling to see if there`s any off flavors or something alarming. This most always gets poured down the drain cause beer straight out the primary is usually quite nasty. This time I actually finished the whole thing, and only realized that when I tried to sip out of an empty pint, while having a commercial lager open right beside it the whole time!
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That's awesome, the smoke should pop more with CO2. It always does for me. The taste also changes as it warms up, you get more sense of the complexity of the beer.
:cask:
 
homebrudoc said:
Well, half of my malt has been smoked with oak. I've used oak a lot w/ pork and have smoked malt with it. I like it and am familiar with it.

The second half of the malt, I thought "oh, let's try the birch".

The birch smoke started out as some of the thickest, most acrid, nasty smoke I've ever encountered. I waited and waited for the "smoke to clear". Once the white smoke gave way to blue, I went ahead and added the malt to the smoker. Wow. This is some very nice, sweet, smooth smoke. Very impressed.

Now to make a beer with the oat / birch smoked malt.

homebrudoc
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How did I miss this post?

How's your malt smelling now, I assume its dried and airing out now?

I love the smell it puts off. It's typically very nice wafts of smoke when I walk past my drying oast. Which is a fancy name for a tuppermade, three drawer, chest of drawers.
 
Smells great. Just waiting to get the time to brew a beer. Ever use a belgian yeast strain? Just strange things floating around in my brain.
homebrudoc
 
homebrudoc said:
Smells great. Just waiting to get the time to brew a beer. Ever use a belgian yeast strain? Just strange things floating around in my brain.
homebrudoc
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For the last several years I have only used dry yeasts. S-33 is supposedly a Belgian strain. However it's a very neutral strain, little to no esters very, fast fermenter and has a high alcohol tolerance. Not sure why it's considered a Belgian strain other than the high alcohol tolerance.

S-33 is my number one choice in most of my beers. My LHBS always has it in stock. I use in place of S-05 too.

Some focker buys all their S-05 every time they restock. Literally a couple boxes. So I rarely use S-05.

The last beer I made has wb-06 in it.... Haven't tasted it yet. It's still in the fermenter.
 
Interesting... Apart from a few tries here and there, s4 and s05 are what I always use. Good to know in case I want sth crisp and clear, will probly try it out the next time round. That will take a while though as I've run into quite a pleasant problem to have: I'm running out of empty bottles with shelves creeking under conditioning ones.
 
@Schlenkerla so i thought my first batch with a pound of smoked malt was bad because of the cardamom...But this batch is bad too :( i know now this is the same problem i had with smoked malt malt about 14 years ago though....Do i have to let the beer age, or will letting the smoked malt age in the tub i keep it in for a few months work as well? i know when i make crystal they say to let it sit for a few weeks before use....

and from that ancient batch i did 14 years ago, i know sitting in a bottle/keg for about a month, it turns carmely sweet, and not nasty funky.....and would there be a way to speed up the aging proccess? i'm not sure what chemical processes are happening to 'mellow' the funk?

i got extra freezer space just as an off the wall experiment, maybe i should try and transfer to a couple of smaller buckets and freeze it for a day or two, cold crash!

Anyway i'm pretty sure this AIN'T what your tasting with your beer! :tank:
 
bracconiere said:
@Schlenkerla so i thought my first batch with a pound of smoked malt was bad because of the cardamom...But this batch is bad too :( i know now this is the same problem i had with smoked malt malt about 14 years ago though....Do i have to let the beer age, or will letting the smoked malt age in the tub i keep it in for a few months work as well? i know when i make crystal they say to let it sit for a few weeks before use....

and from that ancient batch i did 14 years ago, i know sitting in a bottle/keg for about a month, it turns carmely sweet, and not nasty funky.....and would there be a way to speed up the aging proccess? i'm not sure what chemical processes are happening to 'mellow' the funk?

i got extra freezer space just as an off the wall experiment, maybe i should try and transfer to a couple of smaller buckets and freeze it for a day or two, cold crash!

Anyway i'm pretty sure this AIN'T what your tasting with your beer! :tank:
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Any beer made with smoked malt will keep pretty long the smoke is a preservative.

Grain is the same too. It's tends to dissipate with time. I keep my smoked grain in airtight containers so they stay fresh. I also dry the feck out of the grain so I'm not worried about mildew.
 
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First sample of my first homebrewed rauchbier, only eight days in the bottles so I was fully prepared to take a sip and dump the rest but turns out this is already fully drinkable! Maybe a little unfinished and the flavor palate is a bit thin, and I was expecting more body but that aside this still tastes AWESOME! The smoky flavor is mostly on the smell rather than on the liquid itself but that is not necessarily a bad thing at all. Very distinctive notes of beech smoke and ham.

Well chuffed.
 
BikerMatt said:
436655be6ff3ab0912.jpg


First sample of my first homebrewed rauchbier, only eight days in the bottles so I was fully prepared to take a sip and dump the rest but turns out this is already fully drinkable! Maybe a little unfinished and the flavor palate is a bit thin, and I was expecting more body but that aside this still tastes AWESOME! The smoky flavor is mostly on the smell rather than on the liquid itself but that is not necessarily a bad thing at all. Very distinctive notes of beech smoke and ham.

Well chuffed.
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Looks nice! Let it warm up, you might think differently about it being thin the smoke taste.

That said, you made the basic recipe. I think there is a gradient from home smoked malt verses just buying Weyerman's. If you wanted more depth in the beer you could;

1a) Smoke your own malt. Naturally getting that roasted and toasted gradient that includes bordering on a small portion of black malt.

1b) Use half home smoked malt and half Munich malt, along with the black malt.

2) Continue to use Weyermans with some roasted malts. Possibly, a mix of roasted barley, chocolate malt, special roast and a little bit of biscuit. All would be less than 10% of the grist while still using black malt and you could back off from 8 oz to about 4 oz. So ~90% being Weyerman's Rauch.

3) Another more random way to get roasted toasted taste in a gradient fashion is to take 1/2 to a full pound of Weyermans grain (or pale malt) and pan roast it dry on low/medium heat until it smells aromatic and starts to smoke a little You must stir constantly to achieve this. The husk will brown first. Whatever you do don't burn it.

4) You can also mash differently, higher, or with a decoction, and/or do a first wort boil.

Regardless that makes a nice rauch beer whatever the choice. I really like what black malt adds to the beer.
 
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Well, mind should be heading to secondary this weekend. We'll see how it goes. Actually has a very distinct phenol in the nose that reminds me of peat-smoked malt.
homebrudoc
 
homebrudoc said:
Well, mind should be heading to secondary this weekend. We'll see how it goes. Actually has a very distinct phenol in the nose that reminds me of peat-smoked malt.
homebrudoc
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Did you just taste it or just smell it? Maybe Both?

Not sure if you posted your rauch malt usage. Was it store bought or did you make it yourself?

I personally don't like peat, it reminds me of burnt 2K ohm resisters. We had to fry them in electrical engineering. The smell is horrible to me. I've had a Stone smoked beer that used peat that I didn't like at all. If you used store bought rauch malt I'm hoping they didn't give peat malt. A tiny amount of peat can be overwhelming. To the point it's undrinkable. Whereas regular rauch malt smoked with a hard wood can be up to 100% if you're a hardcore smoke lover.

I'm going to hope/assume it's a faint fermentation ester that you're picking up in your beer and lagering or further aging will fix that.

Cheers - [emoji481]

Happy Thanksgiving!
 
I smoked my own over oak and maple. Tasting better as the yeast falls out. I like scotch whisky. I don't care much for peat smoked malt in beer. However, I will be making a 100% peat barleywine later this year. Go figure.
homebrudoc
 
homebrudoc said:
I smoked my own over oak and maple. Tasting better as the yeast falls out. I like scotch whisky. I don't care much for peat smoked malt in beer. However, I will be making a 100% peat barleywine later this year. Go figure.
homebrudoc
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Let us know how it goes.

How much of your grist is smoked malt? Am i forgetting your recipe or did you not post it.
 
Funny, I've seen this thread title on the front page for a long time, but I always thought it was about food, so I had never read it....

Tomorrow, I'm going to give smoking malt a shot. I intend to smoke roughly 7 pounds of Belgian pilsner (i'll decide exactly how much when the time comes). The only beech wood I was able to find was pellets online, so it will be my first time smoking anything with pellets.

Plan to brew a 100% smoked malt, 3.5% abv light colored beer, as my first attempt. Inspiration from the almost extinct, grodziskie beer, although I probably will not shoot for such high carbonation as the style details....
 
LayerUp said:
Funny, I've seen this thread title on the front page for a long time, but I always thought it was about food, so I had never read it....

Tomorrow, I'm going to give smoking malt a shot. I intend to smoke roughly 7 pounds of Belgian pilsner (i'll decide exactly how much when the time comes). The only beech wood I was able to find was pellets online, so it will be my first time smoking anything with pellets.

Plan to brew a 100% smoked malt, 3.5% abv light colored beer, as my first attempt. Inspiration from the almost extinct, grodziskie beer, although I probably will not shoot for such high carbonation as the style details....
Click to expand...

Welcome! I'm glad you took the time to pop in here. This thread was in food for awhile, I was smoking grain to make beer to drink with smoked food. I also thought it might draw more people into making smoked beer. I asked the mods to move it back since didn't spurn much interest. The embedded pictures got changed to attachments on my browser on the move back. :(

Word of caution with using pellets. My first beers with pellets using the can and torch method resulted in super smokey malt. I used it one of my first Bamberg Schlenkerla Clones. Its was equally smokey with just 50% malt, as compared to the real thing. I suggest using 40-50% smoked malt for your first go. It doesn't hurt to use just half of your smoked batch of grain. The risk of 100% rauch malt is an overpoweringly smokey beer that you can't drink. Whereas say 40-50% is still smokey but not so much that any n00b who tastes it doesn't get turned off. That be you or your friends. I drink most of my own beer and have come to like the overpowering smack you in the face smoke bomb with roasted/black malts. I think its very similar to the high bitterness of IPAs and IIPAs. IPAs with 50-60 IBU makes you pucker whereas 80-90 IBU makes you do the full body wave shudder when you're first learning about the style. Smoke is somewhat like that, be it food or beer.

One observation while smoking is to watch how thick the smoke is while it wisps out of your smoker. My wood smoker using wood chips has a thin sheen of smoke and vapor coming off of it whereas the pellets seem to have super thick heavy smoke billowing out of the vents where it lingers outside the vent. Its a night and day difference in my opinion. If its windy where you are doing it, you might need to watch for when the wind stops for awhile and watch how it behaves. I think the super thick smoke makes a super concentrated smoke flavor on your grain. Whereas the normal wood chips make considerably smokey but not to the same extent. In both cases I think home smoked grain is way smokier than commercial Weyermans Rauch Malt.

I think you can make any style rauchbier with any style of wood type, so if you can't find the right wood you can sub it like you would with hops in a beer find a suitable match and use that in your grain. Dantes Devine has a good list of woods. Your Gratzer/Grodziskie uses a oak. Its a very mild wood. Beech would work very well as a sub, so would maple.

Whats your grain bill going to be with the Grodziskie? Half pils half wheat? If so, that kind of meets my recommendation of 1/2 rauch malt. Gratzer/Grodziskie is made from 100% wheat, I cheated and did the half pils and half wheat, but I smoked it both grains together with oak wood chips.

Please post some pictures of your rig once you get it going. Its inspiration for others.

In a few days when your grain is drying out you'll love the smoke smell that its putting off!!

Cheers! :mug:

Dantes Devine: http://www.dantesdevine.com/pages/Smoking-Woods.html
 
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homebrudoc said:
I smoked the whole grist. 75% pils, 12.5% vienna, 12.5% dark munich.
homebrudoc
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That sounds real good!. What rauchbier sub-style are you making with this grist?

When i pulled this up on my laptop i saw your other posts way back in last month. On mobile I was only seeing the last few posts. ... [Memory lapses and/or Dainbramaged].... I'm embarrassed!
 
bracconiere said:
@Schlenkerla so i thought my first batch with a pound of smoked malt was bad because of the cardamom...But this batch is bad too :( i know now this is the same problem i had with smoked malt malt about 14 years ago though....Do i have to let the beer age, or will letting the smoked malt age in the tub i keep it in for a few months work as well? i know when i make crystal they say to let it sit for a few weeks before use....

and from that ancient batch i did 14 years ago, i know sitting in a bottle/keg for about a month, it turns carmely sweet, and not nasty funky.....and would there be a way to speed up the aging proccess? i'm not sure what chemical processes are happening to 'mellow' the funk?

i got extra freezer space just as an off the wall experiment, maybe i should try and transfer to a couple of smaller buckets and freeze it for a day or two, cold crash!

Anyway i'm pretty sure this AIN'T what your tasting with your beer! :tank:
Click to expand...
As you know I'm not doing any malting, maybe take this with a grain of salt or just ideas to ponder. Spitballing ideas for you.

A) Do you have some component of caramel/crystal malt in your grist? I understand that if you have too much crystal malt in a beer it will not dry out due to some of the complex sugars in the beer that comes from darker crystal malts. This is typically a problem in bigger and darker Belgians, like dubbels or quads. It's usually from over use of 40L and higher lovibonds. A FG check will tell you this.

B) Are you using a low attenuating yeast? Possibly one that's low attenuation and has a high flocculation. The yeast stops early and just quits. A FG check will tell you.

C) Are you making more like a mellaniodin? I seem to recall that you were smoking a caramel malt. Using too much of either is problem since it can be cloying.

D) Doing a lager phase a bit too early? Similar effect to B. A FG check will tell you this too.

E) What's your hop selection and bitterness target?

Some potential fixes if your are as follows:

1) Maybe roast your smoked malt to be more like a brown malt. Get it more a roasty or biscuit like. If you're using a crystal get darker like 80L.

2) Limit the amount if crystal malt in your recipe especially over 40L. Maybe don't use it at all.

3) Mash lower like 147F for a lower a fuller conversion. Results in a drier finish.

4) Possibly do a decoction mash or first running wort boil off. The latter is one way to cheat at getting a decoction-like result of caramelization.

5) Add sugar or corn syrup to your brew kettle to get it drier. Up to ~10% of grist.

5a) Bitter much higher, also use a spicy hop blend like; hallertauer, tettnanger, and perle but as a blend. Use some of all three at 60 minutes and the balance of all three at less than 10 minutes.

6) Use high attenuation yeasts or use some mix of 6-Row or a higher diastatic powered grain.

7) Ferment longer before lagering and do a diacetyl rest longer and higher in temp.

8) Don't use a lager yeast use a fully attenuating ale yeast like fermentus S-05 or S-33.

9) If your beer is still in the fermenter or a keg you can add a teaspoon of amylase enzyme to it make it crank dry. Down to zero FG.

10) If bottled, roust your yeast with shaking or turn them over and store them in a warmer location and wait.
 
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436655bf9bab3783a2.jpg


Man it`s getting hard for me to keep my dirty little paws off this stuff... It`s aged beautifully, has a much fuller palate now, the charcoal like taste it used to have is totally gone now and replaced with richer burnt aroma. I`m hosting a beer tasting next weekend and trying hard to keep my hand off the second case as I`m already almost through the first one :D For the next batch though what I`d wish to change are I`d want more of that roasted taste rather than fully burnt, and I`d wish that the beer would have more body to make it more robust as this has quite a thin mouthfeel, that however should be remedied by mashing high right?

Funny thing is, this beer is very sensitive to what I`ve been eating/drinking prior as no two bottles have tasted exactly alike ;D
 
BikerMatt said:
436655bf9bab3783a2.jpg


Man it`s getting hard for me to keep my dirty little paws off this stuff... It`s aged beautifully, has a much fuller palate now, the charcoal like taste it used to have is totally gone now and replaced with richer burnt aroma. I`m hosting a beer tasting next weekend and trying hard to keep my hand off the second case as I`m already almost through the first one :D For the next batch though what I`d wish to change are I`d want more of that roasted taste rather than fully burnt, and I`d wish that the beer would have more body to make it more robust as this has quite a thin mouthfeel, that however should be remedied by mashing high right?

Funny thing is, this beer is very sensitive to what I`ve been eating/drinking prior as no two bottles have tasted exactly alike ;D
Click to expand...
Yes definitely mash higher. Somewhere around 167-169F. Also do a decoction mash or cheat and do a first wort boil. Which is a vigorous boil the first runnings instead of recirculating. Typically the first gallon or so.

You could cut back the amount of black malt, and sub it with some biscuit or special roast, amber and brown malt.

Something outside of the crystal malt perspective. Above the 10L and below the 120L. See the link below.

https://www.brew.is/files/malt.html


The recipe you made is the standard commercial grist formulation. The black is on the heavy side, so cutting it in half to 4 oz would work too. I like the extra black in it. I've made it both ways. The more black malt seemed to go better with heavy-duty smoke that I used. 10lbs home made beech malt.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Food Pairing - - - - - - - -

The beer goes great with Smoked BBQ, anything grilled, that has sear marks. So Spicy Mexican, Stir fry and SpicyThai are odd but outstanding combinations with this beer. It goes good with hearty foods too. I'd drink it with pot roast and beef stew. Smoked fish is the good pairing I haven't had with it yet.

A spread of smoked kippers mixed with mayonnaise on black pepper Triscuts would be great. Without a doubt bacon wrapped mini sausages or diced smoked ham as appetizers. Some smoked cheeses of course.

I'm going to make the kipper spread next week to have with my new smoked altbier. I imagine it will also go well with the smokey Irish Red on tap.

I'm making myself hungry. LOL

D1062_48_279_1200.jpeg
KO-USA-kipper-snacks-open-can-overhead.jpeg
91Z0l64rAcL._SY355_.jpeg
b5d155a3-89d2-4e21-998a-4d6fc6d9c6c7_1.cef08f030c7b74e1b83637669823678e.jpeg
 
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@BikerMatt,

You'll have to report back on your friends opinion of your beer. People who don't know rauchbier but like craft beer freak out when they try it with the right foods. You get them hook line and sinker on the style. Definitely plan your pairing menus.

Your smoked beer should be last in the tasting. Unless you have some really big, high gravity, RIS or Porter or Tripel Bock to drink. Truth be told, probably should be last. Smoked beers wreck palates. Nobody will taste much after that. Might have some bread to help, like toasted pumpernickel. Now I'm conflicted.... Big beers are nice last sippers.

If you have wide mouth rimmed glasses try to use them. Like a brandy snifter or the stemmed glass in your picture.

I'd make the excuse you need to test other glasses to find the right ones to use.
:D
 
BikerMatt said:
....and I`d wish that the beer would have more body to make it more robust as this has quite a thin mouthfeel, that however should be remedied by mashing high right?;D
Click to expand...

Is it the smoked beer book that is linked at the beginning of this thread that recommends adjusting mash ph above 5.6 to limit mash conversion, thereby reducing fermentable sugars?
 

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