Extract based Honey Bacon Beer

Why? Well, I went to a baconfest party where everyone brought something with bacon in it from sweet, savory to beverage. Then everybody judged them and winners were announced.

If I'm brewing it's going to taste good (or have the ability to). I'm somewhat conflicted about this because the last thing I want is a gimick for gimick sakes. It must be legitimate. I've had Rougue's Voodoo Doughnut Bacon Maple Beer. It's pretty good, just a tad sweet and too smokey. You can tell it's quality though.

After much thought, I will be attempting a Honey Bacon Amber. I would consider myself a newbie so I'll be sticking to extract. On researching, I found a method of infusing bacon flavor to vodka.

So here's the basic plan for a two gallon batch:

3 lbs. amber extract
1/2 lb. smoked Malt (added in muslin bag at beginning)
1/2 cup Honey (added beginning of boil)
1 cup vodka heavily infused with bacon and hickory chips (added at end of boil)
2 oz. saaz hops (up for suggestions on a different hop, 1 hop, that can work as bittering, flavor, and maybe aroma)
Muttons Gold Yeast (pretty set on this unless there's a good reason to change)

So, there's the plan. Any thoughts?

 

You are steeping or mini mashing (I assume) already.

I would go 3 lbs pale DME.

add
1/4 lb crystal 80L
1/4 lb roasted

Get the color from grains.

 

I am planning on steeping the smoked grains(the store calls it malt). I'm leaning towards the amber for a "heartier" feel. What would the benefits be using the pale?

 

What a horrible idea!

Honey has no place with bacon.

Maple is where it's at!

 

Heartier.....Amber DME is made from pale grains and some "mystery" amberish ingredients......LIKE....crystal malts, chocolate malts, etc.

If you add your own "hearty" malts for color, you control the outcome, rather than taking whatever they have in it.

Hearty as far as mouthfeel would take some flaked oats, which wouldn't be a bad idea. The roasted will round out the smoked a little.

You asked for advice.

 

Understand, I'm pretty new at this, so I'm trying to get it The explanation really helps.

 

I would go with more bacon, Use some in the mash( or steep in your case) and some in the same fashion as dry hopping. The issue you get is lack of head retention due to the grease so do a good job draining and sopping the grease up. I have had good luck with this in a maple porter with some oatmeal to help with the mouthfeel. Good Luck.

 

Well I'll bite...I'm interested in what your notes will be from the final product

 

"1 cup vodka heavily infused with bacon and hickory chips (added at end of boil)"

i would add this in the secondary or at bottling to help preserve the flavors a bit more

 

^^+1

 

Add more smoked malt & less extract. 3 lbs extract is alot for just 2 gallons. 1 lb smoked will help alot to get u to smoked beer flavor. It also depends on brand smoked malt too - strength of flavor is prob breiss, BZ, weyermann from strongest>weakest. Drf use Maple syrup or maple sugar to prime!

Report back with results!!

 

REAL STUFF

kroger brand maple syrup has lots of other gunk in it and probably no maple.

 

Love the responses and suggestions. I will report back, and I am guessing it will take a few tries to nail it down 'cause I tend to do things slowly and somewhat methodically :/.

I'm a little gun shy on the maple syrup (real), because of how sweet Rouge Brewery's beer was. Also, I'll probably start easy on the smoked malt as well because of Rogue's bacon maple smokiness.

It may take a few tries, though it will happen. That's the good thing about 2 gallon batches I think. Again, the advice is great and I will post my results

 

My guess is that Maple syrup ferments out pretty dry. Like honey.

 

So Monday, I worked on infusing the Vodka. I bought some hickory chips and noticed they didn't impart any kind of smell. I lightly charred a small amount and BOOM, out came the aroma. I slow cooked the bacon on medium. I used 6 pieces of Oscar Meyer and got 1 oz. of grease (what I was shooting for). That stuff was all fat.

In a cup of Vodka, I threw in 1 oz. of Bacon fat, 2 tbsp. of bacon pieces, and 3/8 oz. of charred hickory chips. The charred hickory chips are imparting a strong smokey flavor, so I'm going to pass on the smoked malt.

I let the mixture sit at room temp for 2 days, threw it in the fridge, removed the big chunks of fat, and strained the rest through a coffee filter. The Hickory chips sank to the bottom so I'll be adding that for more smoked hickory flavor. It also seemed to draw in a lot of bacon flavor as well. I quickly rinsed the hickory chips in hot water to remove any remaining fat attached to the pieces.

The Vodka is crazy strong with hickory smoked bacon goodness. I'd say excessive for shots, but good for flavoring 2 gallons of beer.

Sunday is brew day

 

subscribed.

 

So this week I bottled the Honey Bacon Maple. I choose to go with 2.5 lbs. amber extract and .5 lbs honey. I had a gravity reading of 1.057


Though I know I have some time before I get to the finished product, I am learning some things, and plan on doing things differently on the next batch:

1. If you're going to smoke hickory chips, don't be a doofus and follow the directions: Soak the chips first. If you cook them dry you will get a charcoal taste permeating whatever you use it for. By the time I bottled it, it did calm down a bit.

2. I left the hickory chips in during primary. Around day 9 a bitter taste was leaching out of the chips. I wasn't planning on doing a secondary, but felt I had to remove the chips before they completely killed the beer.

2. Using the Vodka to infuse the hickory and bacon made outstanding infused Vodka. Adding it to the beer added a cheap vodka taste to the beer.

3. The bulk amber extract (briess) hides the bacon and smoke flavor. The beer is too complex. With that said, I also think the Muttons Gold yeast also contributes to that as well.

4. Though I added the honey at the end, I think it was too hot, too long, and lost some flavor. I will shoot for it being over 120 only around ten minutes.

5. I'm rethinking Saaz hops, I just don't know what at this point though.


After adding the extract for carbonation, my gravity read 1.016. The bitterness from the hickory, and the vodka bite seemed to ease up a little at that time.

During all this fermenting time, I helped some friends make a full mash brew and used some smoked malt. the aroma and taste it added to the wort was outstanding. Next batch I'm ditching the hickory and going to try steeping the smoked grains.

Other changes will be:

- I'm going to switch to a light extract
- I'm ditching the Muttons Gold and will be using just the plain old Muttons yeast.
- I'm thinking of changing out the Saaz hops, don't know with what though.

- I will be infusing beer extract with bacon and add it during the primary. I will be using bacon infused extract for carbonation during bottling as well.

The good thing is the beer I just bottled should be tasty. It just won't be the beer of perfection I'm shooting for. The goal is two more times and I want it pretty much dialed in.

 

1st Batch Recap: Decent beer, can't really taste the bacon. There is a vodka bite to the beer, and the honey came out good.

2nd Beer Recap:
Though I was really happy with oscar meyer bacon, on this batch I went with a bacon with honey overtones that was reduced in price. For the infusion, I took 1/2 cup extract and boiled it in a quart of water. I cooled the "wort" and I dumped in all the fat from the whole package and about two strips worth of bacon. This came out to about 32 oz. of liquid I was infusing. I capped the jars and let it sit at room temp for about 24 hours. I then moved the liquid to the fridge to let it sit for about 5 days. After that I removed the grease and strained the liquid through a coffee filter.

For the brewing process, I decided to put the infused liquid through the whole boil. Here's the ingredients for a 2 gallon batch:

3 lbs. Briess Light Extract (including the infused extract)
4 oz. Briess Smoked Malt (partial mash)
1/4 oz. Columbus hops (bittering)
1/4 oz. Glacier (flavoring)
1/4 oz. Simcoe (aroma)
Safale US-05 yeast
Honey skipped (story below)

So I'm boiling up the wort, and I take a sip, and it tastes like broth. I was extremely dejected. I skipped the honey, figured I'd just brew the damn thing up and make alcoholic broth flavored ramen with it.

After sitting in primary for 18 days, it started to taste like beer. pretty good beer. That tasted like bacon. F'n bacon! After the cold crash I decided to carbonate with honey. I took 1/3 cup of raw honey and added it to 2 cups boiled water that I dropped to 170 degrees. I put the lid on it, made sure it stayed above 120 degrees for at least 10 minutes. I then cooled it, added it to the beer, then bottled. That process kept the honey flavor and aroma.

I've gotten glowing reviews on this beer after carbonating then letting it sit in the cooler for three weeks. It is bacon. The smoke is just perfect. It tastes really good. There's enough honey to pull it together.

THE SECRET TO MAKING TASTY BACON BEER

-To make tasty bacon beer that actually tastes like bacon is to infuse the bacon and grease into a liquid. (see above)

Thoughts:
-If doing extract, Infuse extract. If you are doing full mash Infuse raw honey. Never cook the honey above 170 degrees and limit the time above 120 degrees to around 10-15 minutes.

- In the future, I will be adding the infused liquid to the end of the boil. I believe the bacon flavor will be better, and so will the honey.

- Add any honey to the end of the boil following the temp instructions above. 1 to 1 1/2 cups should do it for a 5-6 gallon batch.

-I highly recommend honey over real maple syrup. I feel maple syrup will make the beer taste like breakfast. With honey, it was really good beer.

- I'm still sold that oscar meyer brand bacon is the way to go. A whole pack should be good for a 5-6 gal. batch of beer. I would suggest infusing a 1/2 gallon (64 oz.) of liquid. A giant pickle/sauerkraut jar from Costco would be about the right size I think.

-Use hops and yeast that are less flavorful or overpowering. The bacon and honey must be the featured flavor. I am super happy with the hops combo and US-05 yeast that I used.

In conclusion: Mister Tipsy, you can suck it. You don't deserve good tasty honey bacon beer.