smoke youre own grains

[bmxfrank]

Anyone try this? If so what type of beer did you do and what were the results? Im thinking of putting about 1-2 pounds, 1% of grist, into a smoker for 45-60 minutes. Not sure of wood type and what works well. Hickery, Maple, etc. Any thoughts?

UF

[kugeman]

Uncle Frank,
I do a smoked porter every year. I use a backyard smoker I bought on the net from "char-grill". It has a side fire box for building the fire (charcoal) and throwing the wood in. I use fruit-wood chips (cherry & pecan). It's a much milder and more pleasant smoke than hickory or beechwood. I smoke about 20% of the grist. Here's my process:

• Soak the wood chips in water.
• Build a fire and let it burn down to coals
• I spread out 15-20 lbs of malt on a screen in the main compartment of the smoker and wet it down slightly.
• I Smoke each batch of grain for approx 30 mins, turning every 8-10 mins or so.

I end up smoking almost 100 lbs of grain and it takes me about 4 hours. I usually have to stop and rebuild the fire once or twice during the process. You definitely do not want grain on the smoker when you're rebuilding a charcoal fire or the results will be nasty. Our smoked porter ends up with a nice mild smoke flavor that balances very well with the robust porter flavors. It's definitely not a rauchbier and not quite as smoky as alaskan's porter. The "Smoked Beers" book by Daniels & Larson from the BA style series is a great resource. Give me a buzz if you have any more questions.

Cheers!

p.s. I should mention that my malt is pre-milled. That might make a difference when it comes to absorbing the smoke flavor. I've never tried with unmilled malt before.

[beerking1]

You can smoke unmilled malt, and I would think it would work much better than milled malt.
for unmilled malt, you want the grain to be slightly damp. That will help the grain absorb the smoke. Keep a spray bottle on hand and spritz it occasionally so it stays damp.
30 minutes is the max I would go for, and ditto what kugeman said about types of wood. I would avoid hickory, maple, oak, mesquite...all way to harsh a smoke. Apple might be nice, or pecan or cherry. Beechwood is what Weyermann uses and is the traditional wood.
After smoking the malt, let it cool and dry, and keep it in paper bags (NOT plastic) for about 2 weeks to mellow before using.

[bmxfrank]

Good stuff to know.
We have Hickory in house and I was afraid it would remind people of bacon. bacon and beer, not a good combo. I have some jack Daniels chips that are used for BBQ and once soaked those in a cask of IPA that came out awesome. But again soaking and smoking are different things.

I'll pick up some other wood this weekend.

Curious about the settle time though. Two weeks? I was hoping to make the beer about 48 hours after smoking.

[kugeman]

Frank,
I often brew the next day after smoking the malt. I've never noticed a difference whether I use the malt right away or wait a few days.

[SRB]

.....bacon and beer, not a good combo....

I had a friend play around at home with a bacon stout. He "had to go" the baco's route which he was not pleased with....but guess what...a pint of his bacon stout with two fried eggs hard, some potatoes, a couple strips bacon, some buttered toast I can say I actually enjoyed it.

maybe it was the novelty of it....but now that Im out of the bacon stout closet I want to try it some day.
If ya can brew with oysters....why not bacon? The only oysters round here are the rocky mtn variety...plenty o' local bacon!!!

[Jephro]

At a previous brewery i worked for we smoked unmilled malt in a rotisire smoker. We put the grain in shallow disposable sheet pans which were slotted with a knive and covered with foil that was also slotted. I think we smoked it for about 3 hours stirring occasionally. It gave a nice subtle smoke aroma and would do it again if i had access to a smoker.

We used 1 bag of dry unmilled malt for 10bbl's and i believe the wood was hickory.

[beerking1]

I have brewed many rauchbiers with the Weyermann Rauchmalz, which is smoked with Beechwood. I have done a rauchhelles, rauchdoppelbock and rauchhellerbock (Silver, GABF Pro-Am 2008), and people I know have often spoken of the smoke reminding them of bacon. My response has always been that it is a man's beer. "Bacon and beer in the same glass, what REAL man would not love it?" LOL
The thought of actually PUTTING bacon in a beer kind of turns my stomach, though.

My understanding of the rest for the smoked grains is that it gives the harsher aspects of the smoke a chance to volatize and mellow out a bit. I have seen this recommended in several articles on smoking your own grains, and I am pretty sure it is in Ray Daniels and Geoff Larson's book. IMHO, if it is good enough for Geoff Larson, it is good enough for me!

Edit:I had my son look it up in the Daniels/Larson book. There are several methods for smoking your own grains given, and they suggest rests ranging from 12 to 36 hours for drying purposes only.

[Larry Doyle]

Be careful. In some states it is illegal to smoke certain "grains."

[jfulton]

My method

I have brewed several batches of beer with the Weyermann product and have varied the percentage of the grist. The second batch had a higher level of smoked malt and was definitely less smokey than the first. Old malt? Most likely. This spurred me to smoke my own. I have a large 100 gallon pit smoker at home with a side box for the coals. My process was very similar to kugeman. I made four, one inch thick cedar frames and staple gunned steel screen to one side. I would lay down quarter inch of malt and thoroughly wet it with a spray bottle with NON chlorinated water, continuing this until each of the four trays were full to the brim. I started an oak fire in a large chiminea to get smokeless/non-popping coals for the fire box, replenishing this every other hour. I used 75% apple wood chips and 25% mesquite chips that I soaked overnight with spring water. The apple is very mild and smooth, the mesquite can easily get overwhelming by itself. All heart wood and no bark as the bark can lend an acrid flavor, I learned from a fellow restaurateur that owns the Bodacious BBQ restaurants in TX.

All in all, I had to do three batches of four trays each to smoke 120 lbs of the Munich malt. I smoked each batch heavily for about an hour at 100-125F at the far end of my smoker, relatively cool. I also put three layers of screen over the entrance hole of the smoke to the pit to ensure no ash made its way into the malt. Using only embers though from the chiminea eliminated any popping of the coals. After smoking for an hour, I dried each batch at 250F for an hour to an hour and a half. The malt still felt a little moist at this point, but after a few days the moisture content was normal to slightly drier than regular malt.

I used 120lbs of this smoked malt (which made the entire brewery smell like apple wood smoke) in an export style stout, Smokestack Stout, which amounted to around 20% of the total grist. The character was awesome and a huge favorite among the customers. I will use this method again for sure before buying more commercially smoked malt. Besides, its pretty badass to smoke your own malt! Be ready to wash your clothes three times to get the smoke out, and don't plan on any organoleptic ventures for a day or two, your smell is shot.

[Rosie]

Smoke 'em if you got 'em

I smoke 5% of the grist (using whole Maris Otter) of our Robust Porter with local beech and I love it. I also love the process.

I'm using a good 'ol Weber BBQ...make a small fire to one side of the BBQ, then I have a mesh screen that covers the rest of the grate that doesn't have a fire under it. I soak the beech chunks in dechlorinated water for probably 1 hour before smoking, just dropping right on the fire. I keep the heat/smoke under control by throttling the top vent (1/2 open does the job). I do 5 batches, each one hour, gently spraying the grains with dechlorinated water and stirring every so often. I keep the fire going by adding the odd briquette every now and then.

I don't always get the same amount of smoke and sometimes I get a little toasting as well - it may not always be the same, but it is always good.

I am usually smoking the day before brewing, without adverse affects...more because I'm a poor planner than for any other reason.

Cheers,
Jeff