How Much Smoked Malt is Enough?

[its12somewhere]

I'm taking a shot at a smoked porter this weekend with a buddy and neither one of us have worked with smoked malts before. I've also read some conflicting information about the percentage of smoked malts that should be used. I found a Aecht Schlenkerla Rauchbier Märzen clone to get a baseline and the clone that I found had smoked malts at 60% of the total grain bill. I've also read that above 35% and you start to get a smoke bomb. I know that the freshness of the malts impacts the level of smokiness they will impart, but I've been trying to find a good starting point.

I decided to go with 47%%. This is the rough recipe that I worked up using Beer Smith:

Weyermann Smoked Malt: 5 lbs, 9 oz
Maris Otter: 3 lbs, 5 oz
Briess Cara-Pils:1 lbs, 6 oz
Briess 2 Row Caramel 80: 13 oz
Crisp Chocolate Malt: 13 oz
Brewers Gold Pellets: .55 oz @ 60 mins
Fuggles Pellets, UK: 1 oz @ 60 mins

I would ideally like the smoke to balance some of the sweetness, but not be as smokey as a traditional rauchbier.

Any suggestions or thoughts?

 

[Misplaced_Canuck]

My last one was at 46% and it was quite smokey, but delicious. Not for the newbies!

MC

 

[dannypo]

For my smoked Porter I have found 30% to be ideal. Any more and it either doesn't add much or it gets overpowering. And I love smoked beer. My rauchbier uses 95% rauchmalt.

It really depends on freshness and the maltster. My amounts are for fairly fresh Wyermann beechood smoked malt. If you use briess cherrywood smoked malt you can use even less.

 

[bferullo]

What?!?!?!?!?!? that recipe looks horrible!!!!...I would never brew that.....

JUST KIDDING, I am brewing that as his assistant brewer.

I'm sure we will be fine. Isn't that the fun of homebrewing...trial and error? I'm excited!!!!

In the words of CP "Relax, don't worry, and have a homebrew"