smoked malt

Personally I think having smoked beer with smoked food would be way too much, but that is just me. I do love the somewhat recent popularity of smoked porters - some are great (Stone, O'Fallon) and some taste like a cross between soy sauce and liquid smoke (Humperdinks).

If you are looking for a smokey flavor in a jalapeno beer why not try a chipotle pepper? It is after all a smoke-dried jalapeno and Rogue has a chipotle ale out that is quite interesting.

If you want to use smoked malt I wouldn't go more than 10% of total grist though. Let us know how it turns out. On another note I am about to make a hefe with just a touch of smoked malt, see if smokey the bannana works out!

_Randal

The May-June 04 issue of BYO has an awesome article on smoking malts on your BBQ grill (Page 49 by Chris Colby).

He recommends wrapping the wood to be smoked in foil with decent sized holes poked in it and moistening it with a spray bottle. Pellets be soaked for a few minutes, chips for a few hours & chunks for a day or two.

Cut a piece of window screen (aluminum of course) to fit the circumference of your grilling surface and spread your UNCRACKED malt out on that. Lightly spray the malts to moisten them well.

Light & burn your charcoal down to embers push them to one side of the grill and put the foil wrapped wood chips next to them (half on, half off). Keep them nice & moist or they will burn instead of smoking. Put the grill with the malts in place, close the lid and keep an eye on them. Chris recommends tasting a few grains every now & again once they start to look dry, you want them completely dried, but not scorched, else they get moldy & nasty.

He says you can smoke ANY type of malt and that it does lower it's diastic abilities and you can use up to 40% smoked malt for your grist but since you're extracting, you'll just be steeping, so I think Randal had a good point with about 10%. I would use a base grain myself and experiment with small batches, varying the amount of smoked malt with each batch. That is what it's all about!! Suit to your taste.

Man, Randal has a good idea...I love chipotle, I love beer...mmmmmm...chipotle beer.

Kent

Hmmm, hadn't thought of the chipotle idea...maybe I'll give that a shot first, since a pepper/smoked beer would be a double-first for me. Baby steps. right? Thanks

JT

I think I remember that BYO issue...I'll have to check and see if I still have it or if the dog chewed it up!

JT

Have you tried making a smoked beer before? If you haven't, I'd suggest you try something mellower than mesquite.....alder, hickory, something like that.

Way too much overkill here. I smoke grains in a smoker for personal use just about every time I run my smoker for doing ribs or butts or ????

Anyway start with whole grains, lay out on a cookie sheet, say 1 pound to a large tray. Put in smoker over meat and let it say there for 1 to 2 hrs at

I smoke with Cherry wood because I have it handy. You can use apple, or pear, walnut or fig??? No matter.

You don't need any water! I add 1/2 # of smoked grain for a mild smoke in my beer. I go for a Belgium myself and people like it.

I also smoke on a barbeque team

TTFN

__Stephen

I've been playing around with smoking grains (I bought a smoker dedicated to grain only) and my Cherry Wood Smoked Hefe has been pretty popular so far. I expanded from just cherry wood to maple wood as well and will eventually add alder wood and others.

I do sell the cherry wood and maple wood smoked malt through my shop, but I am more than willing to share my experiences and advice on smoking grains effectively and efficiently with anyone who is interested.

:0)

CDB