Bacon Beer

[MobyMD]

Every year my colleagues and I have a Porkfest. Whole hog, ribs and everything has to be made out of pork or pork themed. I want to make a beer that tastes like bacon. I know they make fake extracts and flavors but I would like to avoid that. Also dry hopping with bacon will likely cause problem with head retention due to the fat that would be added. Here is a recipe that hopefully would create a good bacon flavor. Please let me know your thoughts. I don't want the smoke flavor to be overpowering but I do want it strong.

Batch Name:Bacon Beer
Brewed Bysych Doc Brewery
Style:Other Smoked Beer
Batch Size:5.00 gal
Boil Time:60 min
Initial Boil Volume:7gal
Mash Method:All Grain

Calculated & Measured Statistics
Calculated O.G.1.053 (70% Efficiency)
Calculated F.G.1.011 (80% Yeast Attenuation)
ABV5.6%
IBU27.5
SRM12.3°L

Malt Bill
2-Row Malt - 1.75°L 5.50 lbs
Cherrywood Smoked Malt– 2°L 1.50 lbs
Beechwood Smoked Malt - 2.3°L 1.00 lbs
Munich Malt1.50 lbs
Melanoiden Malt0.25 lbs
CaraMunich - 47°L0.25 lbs
Black Malt - 500°L0.12 lbs

Hop Bill
Willamette60 min1.50 oz4.8%Leaf Hop
Willamette5 min1.00 oz4.8%Leaf Hop

Yeast Details
WY1764PC Wyeast Rogue Pacman


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[kanzimonson]

If you really want the closest bacon flavor you would need hickory smoked malt. But using any smoked malt will remind people of bacon.

I make a Bacon Brown every year with 30% beechwood smoked malt. I use Best Malz brand, and it comes to about 4.5# for a 1.065 beer. It is intensely smokey.

You may want to tone yours back to somewhere in the 15-25% smoked range. That would probably be around 3-4#. It would suck to overdo it.

As another comparison, my first smoked brown was 15% smoked and I felt like the smoke was nicely integrated - more of a "forest fire brown ale." The 30% is HUGE smoke which may or may not be what you want.

I've also made a 3.7% ABV smoked american wheat with only 10% smoked malt. That was a nice background flavor for such a light beer.

Here's the question: would it be worse to be too smokey or not enough? If it's too smokey you could blend the beer with anything else you have around. If it's not smokey enough, well then hopefully it'll still be a well-made drinkable beer and there's nothing wrong with that.

Hope the info helps!

 

[MobyMD]

Thanks, I addended the above recipe and cut back to 25% smoked malt. I would rather it not be overpowering. However, it needs to have a strong smoky backbone. I may cut back a little bit more on the cherrywood before I brew it. I agree with the hickory but I love the flavor if the cherrywood. Thanks for the feedback.


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[Juan Grande]

Check this out:

http://morebeer.com/products/cascade-beer-candi-syrup-maple-smoked-bacon.html

I have not tried it, but there are reviews.

Cheers!

 

[MobyMD]

Interesting...it sounds nice. I'll have to try that sometime. Probably not for this batch though. Thanks


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[dcp27]

i'm actually trying to make a bacon beer via smoked malt soon, so curious to hear how this turns out.

keep in mind the level of smoke varies from brand to brand. for instance, the best malz is stronger than weyermann. it also decreases in the malt with age. i've only used cherry in the past, but about 1.5#s (12%) in a munich dunkel was subtle smoke

 

[JKaranka]

Last year over here Brains made a beer with chocolate and bacon. It tasted more like pork scratchings than back bacon but I don't really know what the bacon you're used to tastes like.

http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/brains-craft-brewery-a-pork-alypse/223239/

 

[JKaranka]

I tend to eat unsmoked back bacon, btw, so lots of peaty / Smokey
stuff would be out of place.

 

[stbnj]

The Mad Fermentationist has a smoked rye Baltic porter recipe on his site. I brewed it this year using San Fran lager yeast and everyone who has it says it reminds them old bacon. Some people even say chocolate covered bacon but you get the idea. I'd reccomend this recipe if you are looking for something bacon/smoked meat esque rather than using a weird flavoring,

 

[MobyMD]

I have some older beechwood smoker malt that I will use and get fresh cheery wood malt. So even though it is 25% it might be more subdued than that. Going to get the materials this weekend!

 

[MedBrewer]

Maybe bottle with maple syrup. I made the Brooklyn brew shop BBQ beer recipe, it's a one gallon recipe (they also have the 5 gallon versions) and it called for bottling with maple syrup,it added a nice twist to the flavor, like maple bacon.

 

[MobyMD]

I hit the original gravity on the spot. During the boil it was quite strong in the smoke but not overpowering. A taste sample a few day in to fermentation was good. Smoky but not too strong. I love maple bacon so I felt like it was missing the maple flavor. I brought some organic pure maple syrup. Boiled around 8oz of it to sterilize and added it. The taste after that is more what I was looking for. Planning to bottle tonight.




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[MobyMD]

Oh yeah here is my label



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[MobyMD]

Wanted to give an update on the Bacon Beer. It was way awesome! I took 60 bottles to the Porkfest party and they were gone in 45 minutes. It was a very easy drinking beer. Little smoky flavor with a hint of maple. A small hop presence from the Willamette. Everyone loved it.

I brewed a second batch last night. I increased the beechwood malt up by half a pound to give it a bigger smoky kick. I am also going to add 12oz of grade B maple syrup to secondary. We will see how it turns out with the changes.


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[ArmyATCBrewer]

I'm not sure if this will help you or if you're interested, but I recently finished off a maple bacon red. For the bacon flavor I used 4 oz. (for a 5 gal. batch) of bacon extract at flame out. Also, I infused one cup of scotch with the bacon grease of about 1.5 lbs of maple bacon. Infusion time was approximately one week. I added the bacon infused scotch at bottling and bottle aged for six weeks. It exceeded my expectations and it got great feedback on it which always a good self esteem booster for a new homebrewer (2nd ever batch).

Cheers!

 

[MobyMD]

I'm not sure if this will help you or if you're interested, but I recently finished off a maple bacon red. For the bacon flavor I used 4 oz. (for a 5 gal. batch) of bacon extract at flame out. Also, I infused one cup of scotch with the bacon grease of about 1.5 lbs of maple bacon. Infusion time was approximately one week. I added the bacon infused scotch at bottling and bottle aged for six weeks. It exceeded my expectations and it got great feedback on it which always a good self esteem booster for a new homebrewer (2nd ever batch).

Cheers!

Thanks. Glad yours turned out. It is always good to get feedback positive or negative. I thought about using the extract but I wanted to try to recreate the flavor without using that. Don't have a good reason just wanted to. Also thought about making my own with the alcohol. However, I was worried about the potential effect on the head retention if any if the fat made it in.


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