The Most Thanksgiving Beer Ever (Turkey Beer)

Hello Open Minded Folk,
This year for Thanksgiving I am planning to try something a little different, I want to brew the ultimate Thanksgiving beer (unsubstantiated statement but there for effect) and where better a place to start than with a big ol' turkey in the boil pot. The plan is to brew the beer and then serve the turkey at thanksgiving dinner.

When I started concocting the recipe for this beer I was having a lot of trouble deciding on the base beer to go with, the meaty/sulfury/salty flavors of the turkey combined with the herbaceous spices that will be used to season it didn't initially send me to any particular style. I decided to look at it from a different perspective and imagine the ultimate Thanksgiving "bite" and what flavors might be present. I am one of those people who likes to get a little bit of everything on the fork for each bite so I assembled a list of dishes/flavors that I would expect to have in this "ultimate bite" of Thanksgiving dinner and imagined what sip of beer would wash it down nicely.

The flavors that I wanted to incorporate are those that I most closely associate with Thanksgiving, Turkey, cranberry sauce, smoke, sweet potato, brown sugar, maple, and various spices. My imagination leads me to believe that all of these flavors will be complimented by the caramel, biscuit, nut and spicy flavors of a clean fermented American brown ale.

So I used my go to brown ale base with some modifications to account for adjunct sugar additions (totaling in 5% of final extract) and put together a list of procedures for developing every part of this beer.

I will be brewing this beer exactly one week from today for our family's Thanksgiving feast (turkey for the feast... beer to follow) and I invite anyone borderline insane enough to try this with me to do the same.

I will attach the beer XML and a PDF for those who don't have the software, I have included very detailed instructions for every portion of the recipe development (I didn't list many specifics on wort production procedures as our systems are all so different, just shoot for a near match of the recipe parameters and it should be fine)

If you plan to follow the recipe as specified keep in mind that if you don't have your own grain mill that you will need to smoke a pound of Maris Otter a few days in advance, dry it out and take it back to your local HB shop to be milled (make sure to ask if they will still be willing to crush it for you). If you would rather substitute with a smoked malt then experiment with what is available, peat smoked malt you may want to use less than a pound as it is a very intense smoke (I am going for a hint of smoke flavor not a rauchbier)

Im interested to hear people's thoughts on this keeping in mind that I already know Im an insane person for trying this and have considered the fact that this could turn out to be completely unpalatable.

One additional note, I will be using a stock pot that is separate from my normal brewing pot so that none of my hot side equipment is inadvertently trashed. If you do not have a separate boil pot consider borrowing a stock pot from a friend or producing the turkey free wort in your usual kettle and taking a portion of the wort to boil the turkey in a stove top pot then blending into the fermentor post boil.

let me know what you think,
Cheers

View attachment Thanksgiving Turkey Beer.pdf

View attachment Thanksgiving Turkey Beer.xml

Interested to hear how it turns out.

Wait so you're boiling the turkey in wort that is to be fermented? Sounds like rancid meat beer to me- I have gotten a stinky, rancid oil slick from hazelnuts.... I don't even want to imagine how much worse rancid turkey ferment might smell.

Boiling a turkey in wort- even wort diluted by half sounds like an AWESOME idea to me- would be surprised if it hasn't been done by somebody somewhere with at least some animal if not a turkey. I would certainly use a brown ale or porter if I did this. Soak and boil it in your wort w/ herbs and spices to get the flavor in there- then roast/ smoke it hot as hell (well, hotter than normal roasting temps) to finish it off. Hmm.... Smoked Porter Turkey does sound amazing.

It will certainly be an adventure and may result in a total failure but Im hoping that the sterilization of the boil, acidity from hops, ph reduction in fermentation and yeast domination will reduce the bacterial activity on the compounds left from the turkey. I plan to whirlfloc a lot of the proteins out of suspension and hopefully a lot of the lipids will precipitate with them. I am also going to let the solution settle during the whirlpool and siphon from underneath the lipid layer to avoid carryover. Ideally the brining will also help to remove some of the organic solutes in the turkey before it is added to the boil. When its all said and done it will simply come down to drink it or dump it and it will be a fun experiment either way.

Another interesting thought, New Belgium experimented with adding olive oil to the fermentor to provide sufficient UFA's for yeast fermentation in the absence of wort aeration. I wonder if the oleic acid content of the turkey may even enhance the overall performance of the yeast. Again, all's fun in the name of science and brewing

I'd nix the canola oil on the potatoes. I'd love to know how this turns out. It's succulent madness, MADNESS I TELLYOUHAHAHAHAHA

No disrespect, but this year I have something new to be Thankful for: that nobody is serving me a beer tea-bagged with a turkey carcass.

i've said it before, but wouldn't it be easier than, especially if you're like me and like a bite of everything on your fork. To just take a swig of beer while you have the food in your mouth? I imagine it would be like the same thing ..

OPEN MINDED FOLKS!...........HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

We came here to laugh my friend! We came here for a good laugh.

Phew!

*tears*

Thanks for the wiki reference, i may consider adding a par boil to the preparation of the turkey, that could help limit undesired flavor effects.

Any helpful and insightful suggestions are more than welcome, thanks for checkin it out

Lol, ok......you were serious?

You will have to chill and get that fat off THOROUGHLY.

Chill and separate 8 or 9 times and still plan on NO head retention whatsoever....on your......gross beer....

Serious ... obviously not too much, I am after all putting a turkey in a beer, but thats the joy of homebrewing, this is not a pilot beer for production.

If nothing else I get a delicious turkey out of it all, but its about the experimentation. I've brewed plenty of classic styles and award winning beers but I love trying the things that other people wont and just seeing how it goes.

Lol.

Considering bacon beer died and "smoked malt" became the way to make pseudo bacon beer, turkey won't do any better.

Ok, so the OP has already admitted he is insane, and of course there may be varying degrees of disgust, disbelief, horror, humour and so on, but I just want to remind everybody that no matter how ridiculous this idea may sound, there is no excuse for any personal insults or attacks. No matter how justified you may feel, it's still against board policy.

Not even if the thought of beer made by boiling a turkey in the wort makes you want to throw up a little in your mouth, or gives you the shivers. Please be nice.

After all, at one time somebody had to have the inspiration to toss a few handfuls of a strange, bitter weed into their beer and we now call it Hopped beer. Ok, so I admit it's not even close to being the same thing. Point is still the same.

Gran0amigo, you sir, are a true mad scientist. This sounds bizarre to say the least, but hey, why the hell not give it a shot? To me, the brined turkey and tart cranberry additions are practically screaming to have at least a gallon of this pulled off the main wort and soured up using some lactobacillus so you end up with a kind of odd thanksgiving Gose hybrid franken-beer. Maybe chuck in a little Brett and let it age. The concern might be aging a beer with meat fat in it. It has the danger of going rancid before developing whatever flavors it might develop. You probably are going to want to de-fat this thing as thoroughly as you possibly can before doing anything even remotely beery with it.

And as has been mentioned, if nothing else, you should end up with a darn tasty bird. Good luck!

If you want an idea of what it might taste like you can put some turkey in a french press and pour a beer over it, let it sit for a few minutes; press and drink. Honestly could not type this w/ a straight face. No offense OP!

Thank you all for the comments,

I am going to do my best to get as much of the fat content out as possible, my boss is a materials scientist and one of my best friends is a chemical engineer so we have some creative ideas for how to precipitate a lot of the fat out.

Im thinking that doing a par boil first in water, skinning, cleaning and decanting the unwanted matter will go a long way for getting desirable flavor without too much other stuff, then again, the whole point of this was to do something insane so I wouldn't want to cheat myself out of the full experience.

Whether its good or bad there seems to be a lot of interest around this idea so I will be sure to follow up with tasting notes. Ill readily admit if its just awful and check it off my list with a smile.

Make sure you have some frozen pizzas in reserve for thanksgiving day. I don't think your boiled turkey will be very tasty.

Here's my Thanksgiving recipe. Not as "out there" as a turkey beer, but definitely designed for Thanksgiving.

http://beerandwinejournal.com/cranberry-zinger/

Chris Colby
Editor
beerandwinejournal.com

Sounds like a brew dogs episode.

What if you just used the turkey to sour the mash/wort instead of cooking it in the wort?

I respect your creativity and willingness to try new things.

The thought of this recipe does make me want to throw up in my mouth. I think this was mentioned earlier.

One thought is will this beer remain liquid when chilled? It will have some collagen in it. I wonder if it will congeal like when you put turkey soup in the fridge? Oh, I just threw up in my mouth again, sorry.

Maybe for Christmas I'll just put the brew kettle under the chimney to surprise the jolly ol fella.

That last post talking about congealing collagen made me gag. But I'm super excited to see where this one falls out to. Subb'd!

I am new to brewing, but I have years of commercial chef experience. First, doing a brine and then putting the bird in a boiling pot work at cross purposes. Also, you don't boil a turkey you plan to carve - I would do this for pot pie or stew or soup, where I intend a nice long simmer to break down the connective tissues. Starting with a whole, raw turkey, I would want at least a 3-6 hour simmer to extract the most flavor. You will get at least a pound of fat rendered off the bird - but likely more problematic is the collagen. You could end up with turkey beer jello.

I just hate to see the time and cost involvement for something that just isn't going to work and is potentially really unsafe. I can't see any way this doesn't go rancid almost immediately.

Otherwise, I like the idea of a cranberry and sweet potato brown for turkey day - though from a food pairing standpoint, I would prefer something very dry and very crisp to act as a counter to the heavy, rich meal. Something more like a pale ale or a kolch.

That said, I do have an idea. What you need is turkey concentrate. Make a strong turkey broth, reduce it to a syrup and dehydrate and grind into a powder. I'd add that with 15 to go.

You need to be high sugar and high acid to try and counter the bacteria that are going to want to grow. There may be a potential botulism concern here - any canned meat requires pressure canning to be safe.

paperairplane said:

I am new to brewing, but I have years of commercial chef experience. First, doing a brine and then putting the bird in a boiling pot work at cross purposes.

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Ahh good call. I will brine my turkey in wort but not boil it thought that might be a bad idea.

Drinking my thanksgiving sweet potato brown minus the cranberries as we speak err... type!

paperairplane,
thanks for your insight, i think the turkey concentrate is a great idea and Im going to give that some thought for sure. On that note what would you recommend as the best way to get the fat to separate? Would it work to create a broth concentrate, chill it and decant the liquid from the coagulated solution? My expertise is much more in brewing than in food preparation and I greatly appreciate your professional insight.

singybrue said:

Make sure you have some frozen pizzas in reserve for thanksgiving day. I don't think your boiled turkey will be very tasty.

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Second this notion. I hope you have a backup plan incase the turkey doesn't come out as desired.

We have two other turkeys (one fried, one oven roasted) and a serrano ham from spain to keep us busy if this doesn't work out so no worries on that front.

So I've given some of these comments a lot of thought and since this is an experiment I've decided to take a little more scientific approach. I've come up with three variations of this beer that I will produce in order to evaluate the best way (assuming there is one) to add turkey to the beer.

#1: this will be a control, I am going to produce the recipe as previously mentioned minus any turkey addition, I plan to produce 5 gallons of wort for this beer and use it to evaluate the effect adding turkey has on the flavor.

#2: turkey trial version 1, I have decided to prepare a turkey the day before thanksgiving and smoke in a wood burning smoker with alderwood. I will carve this turkey and set aside a portion of the white meat which I will pull, add to a grain steeping sack and add in the last 5 minutes of the boil. I will produce 4 gallons of wort for this beer and Im hoping this method will impart some good smoke, salt and sulfur. Im hoping that this will add some palatable turkey flavor without as much potential for spoilage.

#3: turkey trial version 2, from the smoked and carved turkey I will reserve the carcass and a portion of the white and dark meats which I will put into a grain steeping bag and add to the last 15 mins of the boil. This will produce 3/4 to 1 gallon of wort which I will then refrigerate and decant and filter to remove as much of the fats and coagulants as possible. Ill allow it to warm back to ale temp and pitch a dry yeast.

Im hoping this will give me the most bang for my buck in terms of experimentation, I plan to learn a lot from this beer trial and maybe give others interested in trying meat in their beer a place to start. These are certainly not all of the options that exist for adding the turkey but for this round I think its a good place to start. I look forward to reporting the results and I will tediously document the entire procedure.

thank you for your time and ideas,
Cheers

That sounds like a fun experiment, and I can't wait to hear how it turns out.

So Turkey day is come and gone, how did this beer turn out?

TheSmithsEra said:

So Turkey day is come and gone, how did this beer turn out?

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The OP might not be responding. The turkey probably did him in...

TheSmithsEra said:

So Turkey day is come and gone, how did this beer turn out?

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I was just wondering about this last night...

Crickets..

Hope he's ok.

Hey All,
Thank you for your interest in how it turned out, the brew day went well and we had a lot of fun. My brother in law, who has never brewed before, was with us and he ended up loving it so much he bought equipment the next day, another convert for the noble cause.

Anyway, I took a lot of pictures and I am planning to post results when it is all said and done, its been a busy couple of weeks but I should be able to check on the fermentations this weekend.

The initial results were promising though, the control wort tasted phenomenal, and the white meat wort tasted great too but lacked significant character pre-fermentation, the super-turkey variation was actually by far the most interesting pre-fermentation (sulfuric, salty, spicy) and I am interested to see if it came out ok.

Ill post more about the whole process and results with pictures when I get a free moment, thank you for continued interest.

So a quick update,

I was finally home this evening and had a chance to check on the beers, I didn't have much time to spare so i skipped straight to the 3rd variation of the turkey beer (full turkey carcass).

Ill talk more about this in the full version of the overall results but in short IT IS INCREDIBLE!!!! The brown ale character is just right, hints of nut and caramel with just a little spicy/fruity hop character, the cranberry is a really nice accent as well, brings the balance of the beer back in the right direction. Finally, the turkey, it actually came out tasting much like a rauchbier, its very smokey with a load of spicy, salty, caramelized flavors in the mix. This is just the fermented beer, I am really excited to see how it tastes in a bottle said and done, but the initial tasting was better than anything i could have hoped for.

I have talked with a friend who owns a popular local beer store who has agreed to let me bring in my creation for a taste panel, I will inform you of their unfiltered responses to the beer so you don't just have to trust my opinion. As it stands now though, this is definitely something I will try again and (pending final results) highly recommend you try once for yourself.

I look forward to posting the final versions soon, thanks for you interest

Any updates or pictures?

Sent from my VS980 4G using Home Brew mobile app

Sorry for the delay, I will post pictures and results as soon as possible, I have been traveling in Colorado for the past week and have a hectic Christmas schedule ahead... so it may be just a little while longer but I look forward to adding more soon.

Well, Im waiting on a delayed flight so I have a few minutes to update a little bit on this thread.

Here are some photos from start to finish of the entire process. We prepared a turkey brine as described in the first post, brined the turkey, smoked it over alder chips and finished it in the oven. The sweet potatoes were also prepared as previously described and added as a puree in the last 5. The cranberry sauce was prepared and strained and added with the sweet potato.

The first variation was a section of white meat taken from the finished bird and added in a grain bag to the last 5.

The second variation was the carved carcass of the turkey added to a stovetop pot and boiled for 5 mins with 1 gallon of wort from the boil kettle.

for both variations I did 50 mins of boiling in the main pot and then stole 4 and 1 gallons of wort respectively into separate pots to add the turkey and finish the boil.

The un-turkeyed beer was chilled with the plate chiller, the 4 gallons with the immersion chiller and the 1 gallon was placed in the refrigerator inside a 1 gallon fermentor to chill and separate.

The first two were pitched the day of and a portion of yeast from the starter preserved.

The third variation chilled and the fat and proteins were allowed to separate to the top and bottom respectively. The wort was siphoned off into a clean fermentor [from the middle of the clean wort level] ready to ferment and the protein and fat left behind in the previous fermentor.

I have tasted the alpha drop samples and they look promising, the third variation is bottle conditioning and the others are soon to follow. I will post more about the results with pictures when I have had a chance to sample the finished beer and pole others on their opinions.

I had some problems posting the photos so heres a link to the imgur where they can be found, the captions should be in the same order as the photos.

http://imgur.com/a/HQf67#0

A healthy young bird to get things started (16 lbs)


Brine for turkey awaiting the bird addition


Alderwood chips to smoke the bird


Sweet potatoes ready to cook


The master grill/smoker... the Green Egg


Preparing the wort for turkey addition


A few previous successes to aid in the process [Hop Bursted IPA, coffee oatmeal stout, pumpkin nut brown ale]


Preparing the Cranberry Sauce addition


Delicious turkey ready for carving


Turkey Addition [Variation #1] white meat and skin


Turkey Addition [Variation #2] carved carcass in 1 gallon of wort


Adding the Sweet Potato


Chilled and separated wort [24 hours later]


Clean wort siphoned from the middle of the separated wort [ready to ferment]


if you have any questions about the brew day process please feel free to comment and I'll get back to you as soon as I can.

Thanks for following along,

Totally jealous of your green egg sir! Nice pics- glad you say your samples are better than palatable; you are an inspiration to us all- at least those interested in creating some fowl beer.