Smokey fall beer

So I have been trying to perfect a fall Smokey beer and I’m at a loss as what to add.
Steep grains at 155 for 30 min
3 lb 2 row pilsen
2 lb peated
6 lb amber dme
1 lb rice solids
1 oz warrior (60 min boil)
2 oz challenger (30 min)
1 oz citra at flameout
Wlp 001
OG is 1.090
It’s a good beer with suttle smoke aftertaste. It’s just missing something. Any suggestions?

With 2lb of Peat Malt, you will be drinking an ash tray unfortunately.

Use Weyermann beechwood smoked malt and increase to 3lbs.

Also pick a more subtle hop that won’t clash with the smoked flavor. The big citrusy C hops might not work here.

Yeah, no ash tray here. Brewed this concoction about.three times and love it. The hops dull the Smokey flavor but the beer still needs something more. Don’t know what it needs something sweet or maybe some more.speciality grains?

Sounds like you’re happy with the recipe but are looking for a little something different to do with it?
My eyeball guess is that you have a SRM around 8-10. How about adding some darker grains and turn it into a brown ale or porter? Or even an Irish Red or Scottish?
I’ve done 3 recipes lately that have included British Brown Malt, and I really like what that adds- a little roastiness without the potential bitterness of Roast Barley. The Honey Porter I did with 1/2 lb. of that is absolutely wonderful. I did add 4oz. cherrywood smoked malt, but could have added more.
Add your recipe in an online recipe site and play around with it. Good Luck! :cheers:

Today, I brewed my first smoked beer in 15 years of brewing. I picked up some Weyermann smoked malt that smelled heavenly. Every time I went down to my brew bunker I took a big whiff of that malt. Anyway, here’s the recipe for what it’s worth. I wanted this to be very straightforward… hops at 60 mins and that’s it. I wanted the smoke to be able to come through without a lot of flavor being contributed by late hops or the yeast. I wanted subtle smoke flavor.

[b]Smokehouse Amber Ale

8 lbs Paul’s UK Pale Malt
1 lbs Weyermann Smoked Malt
8 ounces Best Malz Munich 10L
6 ounces Thomas Fawcett & Sons Dark Crystal #1
4 ounces C20
.45 oz Magnum pellets @ 14.1% (6.3 AAU)
Wyeast 1469 West Yorkshire Ale Yeast

OG: 1.057, FG: 1.013, IBU: 26, SRM: 8, ABV: 5.5%[/b]

I mashed at about 150.5° for 60 mins. The color was fantastic with the british crystal in there and my fingers are crossed it will come out the way I envision.

Ken, let everyone know how it turns out. Just last week I brewed my first smoked beer after 10 years of brewing. Used a recipe that dmtaylo2 posted which included a gallon of apple cider at flameout. Might be a good time to take a sample and see how it is coming now that fermentation is winding down…

I asked around a little bit and found that there are various types of smoked malt and some is more subtle than others. The Briess cherrywood smoked malt claims to have “an intense smoke flavor” and some people have said they did not like some of the beers where too much smoked malt was used. Others mentioned that “faint smoke” would be about 5% of the grain bill and that 10% would be more noticeable but still relatively faint. I was going to use less but at the last minute used 1 pound which came to 9.9% of the grain bill. I got a faint smoke from the mash and boil but I think it’s going to be very much in the background. I also just saw something about a commercial spiced pumpkin ale that had smoked malt in it… interesting. I will update this after I’ve sampled it and try to snap a pic too. Cheers.

Funny, I made my first rauchbier in 10 years of brewing 3 weeks ago. Used 33% of weyermann rauch malt and really didn’t smell too terribly smoky at cold crashing.

Taste damn good, just not smoky. Maybe it’ll make it’s way forth in a few weeks.

[quote=“Ken Lenard”]Today, I brewed my first smoked beer in 15 years of brewing. I picked up some Weyermann smoked malt that smelled heavenly. Every time I went down to my brew bunker I took a big whiff of that malt. Anyway, here’s the recipe for what it’s worth. I wanted this to be very straightforward… hops at 60 mins and that’s it. I wanted the smoke to be able to come through without a lot of flavor being contributed by late hops or the yeast. I wanted subtle smoke flavor.

[b]Smokehouse Amber Ale

8 lbs Paul’s UK Pale Malt
1 lbs Weyermann Smoked Malt
8 ounces Best Malz Munich 10L
6 ounces Thomas Fawcett & Sons Dark Crystal #1
4 ounces C20
.45 oz Magnum pellets @ 14.1% (6.3 AAU)
Wyeast 1469 West Yorkshire Ale Yeast

OG: 1.057, FG: 1.013, IBU: 26, SRM: 8, ABV: 5.5%[/b]

I mashed at about 150.5° for 60 mins. The color was fantastic with the british crystal in there and my fingers are crossed it will come out the way I envision.[/quote]

Ken, any ideas on how to convert your recipe into a partial mash brew? Your ingredients sound really good.

[quote=“brewingdan”]Funny, I made my first rauchbier in 10 years of brewing 3 weeks ago. Used 33% of weyermann rauch malt and really didn’t smell too terribly smoky at cold crashing.

Taste damn good, just not smoky. Maybe it’ll make it’s way forth in a few weeks.[/quote]
I used the Wyermann’s also (only smoked malt I’ve seen sold here) at 25% of the grain bill. Took a sample yesterday (still a few points above FG) and found the smoke flavor to be clearly present but in no way overpowering. That’s exactly what I was hoping for, and a definite improvement from most of the commercial smoked beers I’ve tried. More often than not, I find it hard to finish a glass of smoked beer - the smokiness seems to build and become cloying.

[quote=“Madjew”][quote=“Ken Lenard”]Today, I brewed my first smoked beer in 15 years of brewing. I picked up some Weyermann smoked malt that smelled heavenly. Every time I went down to my brew bunker I took a big whiff of that malt. Anyway, here’s the recipe for what it’s worth. I wanted this to be very straightforward… hops at 60 mins and that’s it. I wanted the smoke to be able to come through without a lot of flavor being contributed by late hops or the yeast. I wanted subtle smoke flavor.

[b]Smokehouse Amber Ale

8 lbs Paul’s UK Pale Malt
1 lbs Weyermann Smoked Malt
8 ounces Best Malz Munich 10L
6 ounces Thomas Fawcett & Sons Dark Crystal #1
4 ounces C20
.45 oz Magnum pellets @ 14.1% (6.3 AAU)
Wyeast 1469 West Yorkshire Ale Yeast

OG: 1.057, FG: 1.013, IBU: 26, SRM: 8, ABV: 5.5%[/b]

I mashed at about 150.5° for 60 mins. The color was fantastic with the british crystal in there and my fingers are crossed it will come out the way I envision.[/quote]

Ken, any ideas on how to convert your recipe into a partial mash brew? Your ingredients sound really good.[/quote]

I have to say that I never got into partial-mash brewing and to be honest… I don’t really understand the concept. I could convert it to extract by steeping the munich, crystal and smoked malt and then using DME (5 lbs?) to get to the OG and go from there. Also, turns out that my smoked malt was Best Malz. I am getting ZERO smoke in the aroma coming from the airlock but my hopes is that it will still come through in the final beer. The percentage of smoked malt in the grain bill was 9.9%.

:cheers:

Personally I would up the smoked malt up to at least 5 lbs.

I did a smoked dark IPA last year using the peat smoked and didn’t care for the character at all.
If you’ve brewed this before and like the results, well, who am I to say…

I want to brew mine again, but using the cherrywood an upping the hop charges.

I’ve never used peat smoked, in part because I’ve never heard anyone say anything good about it. Makes me wonder why it is still available.

I’ve never used peat smoked, in part because I’ve never heard anyone say anything good about it. Makes me wonder why it is still available.[/quote]
Apparantly someone likes it.
My guess is that it’s the one to go for if you’re brewing a Rauchbier and am looking for that bit character. That’s possibly my least favorite style as a whole (other than Pumpkin beers) so I don’t have a huge handle on them, but a couple tastings I’ve been to with that style seems that peat smoked it right up the alley with that.

I transferred this beer to secondary over the weekend. The entire time it was fermenting, I got no real smoke aroma from the beer. I let it go and then opened the primary and it smelled like a bucket of bacon. In a good way. Wait, there is no other way to hear “bucket of bacon” and not have it be good. I did not bother sampling it but it’s sitting in cool secondary now and my hope is that the delicious smoked-malt smell I got from the grain comes through in a subtle way in this beer. I will update when I know more. Cheers.

I’ve got my smoked apple beer on tap now. It is decent, but not as good as I’d hoped for. Both the apple and the smoke were clearly present but restrained when I first tapped it, but both have faded considerably in the two weeks since. I can still detect them, but it is not where I wanted it.

Sorry to hear that, rebuilt. It’s by design, really… I still wanted my smoked apple ale to taste like an ale, not just smoke and apple. If you like more, then next time use more I guess.

I should update. This beer really seemed to evolve as it went. By late November, I was really quite happy with it; the flavors had mellowed to some extent, which somehow allowed the smoke to shine through without overpowering the beer, which is what I wanted. The apple faded though to the point where it was hard to discern. I guess I just needed to wait for the beer to be ready.