Bacon beer. Yeah. I said it.

[Sigafoos]

Thanks for your responses everybody.

Do you think that using close to 100% 2 row will be a bad idea? I probably misspoke, and it'll likely be closer to an amber than a pale ale.

Fat washing sounds interesting, and it'd be what Oliver would do if he ever made the beer, but it also sounds crazy and easy to mess up

I'm thinking I may want to make a bunch of small batches and compare first, but I don't know how I'd do that without it taking more effort than a 5g batch. Maybe mash/sparge the smoked malt separately, and then try a few other things? (ratio of smoked:not, different specialty malts, yeasts, etc) Bah. I'm going to overthink this til the day I brew it, I'm sure.

incutrav, welcome to the forums. And I got more of a smoked gouda out of the Urbock... I won't argue it though, because it was a while ago and no matter what it was it was tasty.

What I'm thinking now is:

11 or 12 lbs 2 row (can't remember which, and it's at home), 6 lbs of it smoked
1 lb Munich
1 oz Millennium (~12%aa) @60

The hops will give it about 35 IBUs, which should balance the malt but not make it hoppy. I might toss in a pinch of roasted barley for color (bringing it even more in line with an amber if I've got my facts right, though not on the hopping schedule)

 

[IrregularPulse]

I think a gain bill that high in just pale malt will be too light to support the full smokiness. I like the Schlenkerla Marzen, but any smoke beers I make with be Porters. But that's the point of homebrewing, brew what you like

 

[Hugh_Jass]

I think a gain bill that high in just pale malt will be too light to support the full smokiness. I like the Schlenkerla Marzen, but any smoke beers I make with be Porters. But that's the point of homebrewing, brew what you like

You could always back off the % of smoke. Maybe start with 5% or less of smoke malt with a light grist and see how it turns out. IMO, the lighter the grist, the more noticeable the smoke will become.

It would seem wierd, not bad, just wierd to drink a lighter SRM beer that tastes like bacon, YMMV. It'll be good, just different. I mean it's bacon after all. How bad could it be?:cross:

 

[Doog_Si_Reeb]

My buddy made a 80 schilling Scottish Ale last year. It had some smoked malt in it. That beer was extremely "bacony" for the first month. He was very disappointed since that wasn't what he was expecting. It eventually mellowed into a great 80 schilling beer. Based on his results, you are going the right route with using smoked malt. I would suggest something along the lines of the Scottish beers since they have low hop bitterness and lots of rich malt flavor. That coupled with the smoke will give it a nice smoky meaty flavor for the first month or two.

 

[Homercidal]

Why not smoke the malt alongside a pork butt? I wonder if some of the pork flavor would come through.

 

[pheboglobi]

Why not smoke the malt alongside a pork butt? I wonder if some of the pork flavor would come through.

Or in thought, why not cook bacon underneath some malt? I don't know about you guys, but my entire apartment smells like bacon with just a few strips. I imagine the malt would pick that up to a certain degree. well, maybe.

 

[dwktr]

Just got the latest issue of Brew Your Own today and there is an article in it about making a Bacon Porter by baking the bacon in the oven on parchment till it's crispy to remove the fat, then placing it in a hop bag and throwing it in your secondary. I'm curious to give it a try.

 

[Richabt]

I recently heard a Basic Brewing podcast that used the term "Dry Porking" when talking about bacon beer. I just about lost control of my car I laughed so hard.

 

[Synovia]

Smoke some malt with Hickory and applewood. You'll probably get pretty close.

 

[dwktr]

"Dry Porking" that's just awesome! The article I read called it "Dry Hogging"

 

[jaginger]

Just got the latest issue of Brew Your Own today and there is an article in it about making a Bacon Porter by baking the bacon in the oven on parchment till it's crispy to remove the fat, then placing it in a hop bag and throwing it in your secondary. I'm curious to give it a try.

Ding ding ding! This is the way to go.

have you considered fat-washing the beer with bacon fat? add bacon fat, let it mix around, decrease the temperature and let it precipitate out and then remove it. i know they do it with bourbon and it imparts a ton of bacon flavor, but i'm not quite sure it'd be the same with beer.

Also like this a bit too. I fat-washed some bourbon and it was super easy. And super awesome too.

 

[Hugh_Jass]

Just today, I brewed a beer with 65% Weyermann's smoke malt, 20% Munich, 10% 6-row (for better conversion) and 5 % dark chocolate. bittered with Magnum and pitched with 2 packets of notty. OG=19 brix.

after it's finished fermenting, it's going into my 19L bourbon barrel for a month or so...

yup...smoke, oak, bourbon, bacon beer

Just racked this to keg from the barrel the other day. I wish I would have upped the smoke malt to 75%. It's there, but not a prominent flavor. The bourbon is overwhelming right now. Hopefully the liquor taste will mellow in time.

 

[Jebu1788]

New Holland Brewing has a Charkoota Rye, a cherry wood smoked doppelbock. All I could think of drinking that one was bacon.

This sounds really interesting. Perhaps someday I'll have the nerve to try something like this.

 

[passedpawn]

<-- See my Recipe pulldown. I made a really nice smokebeer (lager) with the cherrywood smoked malt. I thought it was really good. Anyhoo, there are pictures for those that get their kicks looking at glasses of beer (i.e., me).

Hmmm, I think I'll put a couple of those in the fridge right now

 

[1ratdog]

get the byo magazine thers an article on it

 

[rengelma]

so you could fat wash some wort after chilling then add it to the secondary...

 

[MatthewS119]

You could try bacon powder... Not sure how it will do in the boil but u could try a small amount in a porter by adding it in the secondary or at bottling.

 

[Beermaker]

The latest BYO or Zymurgy has a beer recipe that is dry hopped in the 2ndary with 5 oz of oven baked bacon strips.

 

[bovineblitz]

Thought I'd resurrect this thread to talk about my recently brewed bacon porter

I took 1gal of a robust porter I brewed and added 8oz of bacon. I cooked the bacon in the oven on parchment paper until the point of being almost burnt (which is how I like to eat it) then pressed it between paper towels until basically no more oil came out. This crushed up the bacon quite a bit. I put the bacon in a muslin bag and added it to the 1gal of porter for 4 days.

At bottling, the baconized porter was WAAAAAY too bacon-y so I blended it with a gallon of the regular porter. The bacon flavor at this point seemed kinda... gross... to me, almost like it was rancid, so I wasn't very excited about having wasted an extra gallon of good porter.

Now, about 5 weeks since bottling, the bacon flavor is better. I wouldn't call it delicious but it's definitely bacon and definitely and a pretty good beer. Maybe it needs to mellow like spices? Lol... I think a touch of smoked malt would have made the flavor feel more natural in a beer, if bacon beer can ever be called natural.

Anyways, the one thing I found amazing is that this beer has HUGE head and great head retention. Even if I pour gently I can't fit a 12oz bottle in a standard pint glass. The head is thick and there's a thin layer that lasts the whole glass. The regular porter has less head and less retention... it could be a difference in priming sugar amounts, but I thought oils from the bacon would kill the head. Definitely not true in this case.

Another weird thing, this beer seems to mess me up more than standard beer. No idea why.

 

[rycov]

this. this is a good thing. this is a really really good thing.

 

[CHansen6]

The below beer was made with applewood smoked malt. I read it was actually smoked by an outfit that traditionally makes bacon if that makes any difference in knowing exactly what they were doing. Applewood smoked bacon is by far my favorite. That being said, I though this was a little gross, it didn't seem right. Bacon with beer = amazing. Bacon in my beer = a little off.

http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/590/39527

 

[passedpawn]

Briess cherrywood smoked malt = sweet bacon. Easy bacon beer.

 

[MarsColonist]

I wonder how well a bacon randall would work?

I just started carbing up an attempt at a "bacon beer" batch I made with 25% home-smoked Munich 10 (cherry wood), 44% Munich 10, 20% Munich 33, 9% Caramunich 60, and 1% Chocolate, and about 20 IBUs of Tettnang on San Fran lager.... in this undercarbed state (its about 2months from brew date... Ive got a backlog of kegs to get carbed) smells like bacon, but tastes like astringent smoke phenols and soap. :/ I havent lagered it yet, so here is to hoping springtime produces a more mellow finish.

While on the smoke beer kick, I also made the Gratzer style (1.030 with 40IBU, 100% oak smoked wheat) and it is actually quite awesome! Recipes are in Brewing with Wheat and in Radical Brewing. I made both of them, but the Radical Brewing one is in queue to get carbed (it is a 1043 beer and had about 9% of the smoked wheat toasted), so I havent sampled it yet.

 

[bluejuice1031]

Hows about addin this....or some other bacon extract


google search: Gimborn Wowzers Sizzlin Bacon Flavor Spray 4-oz bottle