Home Made Smoked Malt

[Tony]

OK

How many of us grew up collecting sticks from gum trees for the BBQ on the weekend........ who remembers the smell of it cooking.

How many of us have driven along and come apon a bush fire and sniffed the smoke. oooooooooo something is burning somewhere! Its a nice smell hey.

How many of you people out there grew up on the land and got to set fire to 200 acres of knocked down gum trees? I did.

I grew up with a cast iron pot belly stove burning nothing but iron bark red wood that i split myself (it was one of my jobs as a kid) hence i love the smell of it.

Recently i have been making some beers with Hoepfner rauchmalz and they are great but just dont have tha smoked flavour i want.

Today i set out to make my own Iron Bark Malt and boy did it work a treat.

I remember when we burnt those fields of piled up gum trees (in the mid hunter valley) we had the fire brigade turn up and say people were ringing up from scone to sydney saying there was a bush fire, they could see the red glow on the clouds.

Well we had to stay with it all night, wandering around putting out spot fires etc.

I remember the next day most of my boddily hait was singed and curled from the heat and i had this smokey smell in my skin that took days to get rid of.

Thats the smell i was looking for today.

The smell of burning ironbarks, the smell of the bushfire, the smell of the wood fired BBQ before everything went gas.

I started with 1kg of JW pilsner malt.

I soaked it for 1/2 hr in 4 liters of water.

I smoked it for 1.5 hrs and then left it to dry over the heat for a further hour once the smoking chips stopped smoking.

The grain has turned a distinct yellow/orange on the outside but is still white inside when cracked.

It has a honey/bacon/bushfire flavour that will be onderfull in a beer.

now all i hae to do is work out a good recipe.......... a pale ale or a porter, a bitter or a lager. too many choices.

cheers.

 

[Tony]

pressed the wrong button and missed out on some pics

I forgot to add that i had a water spray bottle and gave the grain a misting and turned every 15 min to keep it moist.

the pis below on the grain is after it was smokes, it was pils malt, now it looks like caramalt.

I also smell like a bush fire so if half of the flavour and aroma that got into me and my clothes is in the maty it will be good stuff.

cheers.

 

[dicko]

Hi Tony,
There is a lot of difference in the colour of that grain.
They are top pics, I hope it all goes well and you get the flavour you want.
Cheers

 

[Jovial_Monk]

Freaking radical! i gotta get me a webber and do stuffs like that!

Jovial Monk

 

[facter]

tony - what did you rest the grain on above the actual coals? I see the fist pic with the coals, then the next pic just has the grain evenly spread out - is there something between those layers? Was it a mesh of some kind and how far aboe the coals did you have it raised? Fletch.

 

[macr]

My guess would be the brass flyscreen mesh. That should survive the heat at a guess. Wonder what smoked hickory Malt would taste like in a beer.

 

[warrenlw63]

Excellent post Tony. :super: :super:

I've done the same thing myself with Hickory. I'm inclined to agree that the flavour of freshly smoked malt is (in some ways) superior to the Commercial Rauchmalz.

Usually a good idea to let the malt settle a couple of weeks before mashing to let the volatiles/phenols dissipate. Other than that the flavour is very overwhelming bacon. Usually needs a bit of time to age out of the beer. However over time it's superb.

If you're looking for a good style to incorporate this into. My vote goes with a Porter. Try to keep the hopping lowish though so it doesn't fight the smoke flavour. Porter with a higher OG than usual is nice too.

Slight thread hijack. However it's related to smoking malt. I usually roast my own coffee beans. When they're in the advanced stages of roasting a heck of a lot of smoke is given off during the process. It's a very clingy type of smoke. Usually makes you stink for several hours even after washing your hands.

I've often wondered if there would be any way of incorporating this into the smoking of malt. Imagine the complexity of coffee smoked malt. That would be a major plus in stout etc.

My creative wheels are clicking... Stay tuned. I'm off to clean the Webber.

Warren -

 

[Pumpy]

Tony,

You are always pushing the boundaries of innovation for the home brewer what a great idea .

Pumpy

 

[Justin]

Nice little post Tony and great pics. There is enough info for anyone to have a crack at doing it.

I've read up on this topic before and was planning on having a go at doing some myself very soon. I was going to go for Peat smoked malt for a similar brewing purpose and your instructions above are pretty much exactly like the ones I had found.

Good work, hope your beer turns out great. It will certainly be interesting.

Cheers mate. Justin

 

[Tony]

the mesh i used is a fine Stainless Steel nesh we have here at work

It was sittong inbetween the second layer of bricks and the top layer.

I HAD A LOOK AT bbq galore and you can get several types of smoking timbers but they cost ya.

$12 for the ones in the pics, that is only half of them though, the other half went in the fire.

This ironbark has a sticky smoky smell thet i can still smell in my fingers today

great ideah about the coffee

cheers

 

[Tony]

I have decided to do a pale ale with the malt

1.050, 25 IBU With POR and Willamette in the boil, 10g of EKG at 20 min.

Will use the KG of smoked pils malt, 200g wheat malt and the remainder JW trad ale malt

cheers folks, will keep you all informed.

 

[pint of lager]

Great post Tony.

Smoking grain is something I also want to have a go at, but haven't done so yet.

Here are some ideas I have that are relative to your excellent thread.

Don't use leaves, they are going to give a nasty flavour. Use well seasoned wood.

There is a huge range of trees out there. Sniff the smoke from different types, if it smells pleasant, give it a go. I have no idea if there are toxic trees out there, so use some common sense and do some research.

You can make a much larger smoker, with a long chimney. This means the smoke is relatively cool, and the diastic power of the malt will not be decreased too much. Fancy smokers have a thermometer showing the temperature of the smoking chamber. Have seen one in operation, the smoking chamber (44 gallon drum) was around 60 deg C, this temperature was controlled by how hot the fire was running and a flue damper.

 

[Tony]

I made my home smoked beer today

Called it "Iron Bark Ale"

I wanted a beer to reflect the mighty ironbark, strong, dry and red in colour.

25 liter batch, 1.052, 21.5EBC, 24 IBU POR all in 90 min boil

used:

4KG JW ale malt
1KG Ironbark smoked JW pils malt
300g TF flaked barley
200g TF crystal wheat 125ebc
30g JW roast wheat 1300ebc

brewing at 19 deg with 1318 london ale 111

I had a taste when i checked the gravity and it is smooth as silk
The smoke is proninent but not overpowering.

I brings back memories. the smell in the air of peoples fireplaces during the winter as you drive to work early in the morning.

It has that aussie flavour, not like the smoke of the german stuff.

This is going to be a great BBQ beer.

Im going to smoke another 2 KG's tommorrow!!!

cheers

 

[Tony]

well the results are in on the ironbark smoked malt

Its shit aparently

It manaded to get me two last places at the AABC.

I got my score sheets back and it seems the "unique" flavour experience i have created scares the shit out of judges and they put it down to infection.

Believe me, these beers are not infected, they just taste different to anything ever produced........... ever

I do admit, the recipe above, which qualified for the AABC but came last in its class is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay to smokey and tastes like bacon and whisky but its not that bad.

And the scottish that got the lowest score in the comp ?

Well Pumpy, Ross and Ducatiboystu all tried it and loved it.

Stu can have another try when he comes and visits in december.

I tried one thisarvo and its a nice beer, better than 40 out of 150. this poses another question........ what effect does postage have on a beer?

cheers

 

[delboy]

well all i can say is good on ya .and the judges well sometimes even they are stuck in ther own world but whos to say that they know everything .
seems to me the lager lout came out of them in this comp. may be they were looking at session beers rather than a unique ale.
all the best mate sounds like your on a winner in my books .had a smoky stout at GMK's and it was just what i needed i reminded me of thoughs winter smoky fire places as you drive through the adelaide hills .


so at the end of the day i would think that a smoky ale would be more suited to a stout or porter even a brown ale rather than a pale but you had to try it .
and if you like it and your mates at a barby well thats the one .
try it in a darker one next time tough and sweeten it up with a bit of lactose i am sure you will win the judges over then.

del

 

[Tony]

i used it in a smoked porter recently.

used 5% my smoked malt and 5% rauch malz and its nice. Only been in the bottle for 2 weeks so its a good start.

Wont be sending it to any comps though

kind of dishartened on trying something different for now.

I will enjoy it myself.

cheers

 

[ColdBeerLuke]

Don't be disheartened tony.
One. You brew for yourself mainly. If you like it, that's good enough.
If your mates like it, even better.
Two. Beer judges have styles to judge by to try to keep a degree of objectivity. Some latitude is available with specialty beer classes etc., but you've identified a problem. You're convinced that your beers weren't infected, but they were marked down because their unique taste didn't conform to guidelines. Your smoked wasn't a Weyermann Rauch, or anything else they could identify. Not your problem. Most of the time we're all comfortable in our zones. Genius outside the zone sometimes takes a while to recognise. We'd never get anywhere if nobody tried anything new.
Cheers tony.
:beer:

 

[Linz]

I'll back up ColdBeerLuke.

Dont stop doing what you're doing Tony!!!

What was the category was the beer entered in? Pale Ale?? if so..no wonder, theres not supposed to be that kind of flavour or arome in there(although the judging sheet should have come back with "overwhelming smoked aromas and flavour).

If it was entered in a specialty class like smoked beers, well, theres my question as to WHO trains the AABA beer judges???

There is also the VERY,VERY,VERY,etc,etc faint possibility that you had a dud bottle in the batch and that one went to the comp...

What about a scan of the judging sheets??

 

[PhilS]

Great work with the effort & experimentation Yony. This is thought provoking & inspirational!

This reminds me of the paradigm (sp?) effect with the dude that developed digital watches & the Swiss didn't take it on board.

Let us know how your next brew turns out

 

[Tony]

Thanks for the support folks.

I think i will go back to brewing simple beers.

Seems you have to use lots of cascade to win competitions .

And i dont like cascade much............ go figure. not sure if its the flavour or the fact that most put it in their beers.

my most sucesfull beer was the most simple, ale malt and some POR, thats it.

My scanner is stuffed

comments for the scottish 80/-

Smokey but unpleasant
unusual aroma
possible yeast problem
possible problem with this beer
smells like ham

Oh christ im getting really dipressed typing this

Now i only used 2% smoked ironbark malt in the beer

I do agree when i look at it objectivley, it does have unusual aromas but its just because its from the smoked malt i used.

I am going to make a beer with exactly the same recipe using Rauchmalz and enter it next year and see what happens.

It is hard for everyone at home to understand but to taste it and read the sheets i get the feeling that the judges didnt like the taste of the ironbark malt.

I think thats what it came down too.


cheers folks