I get a lot of strange requests

[Mylo]

Bacon is hickory smoked. If you want your rauchbier to taste more like bacon - smoke your own malt with hickory. No need to use actual bacon. I would suggest some oats in there - to give it a nice, velvety feel. You could try a secondary with pure maple syrup - but there probably wouldn't be enough cost benefit. Maple is such a delicate flavor.


Mylo

i had actually considered getting some hickory wood chips and giving them a good toast in the oven, then throwing them in a secondary. i wonder how aging on hickory would work out

Toasted chips will not give you a bacon flavor. It's the smoke you want. Hickory is a pretty tannic wood. That's why you don't see any barrels made out of it. I don't think it will work out the way you think.

I believe it's possible to smoke some grain on your grill, if you don't have a smoker.


Mylo

[triple-oh-six]

One of the guys in my club was going to bacon infuse some bourbon.
He wanted to use it to make Bacon Bourbon Porter. 3 things that I love! Just don't know how they'll go together.
I'll ask him if he ever did it.
Mylo's answer looks good to me though.

[Evan B]

Bacon is hickory smoked. If you want your rauchbier to taste more like bacon - smoke your own malt with hickory. No need to use actual bacon. I would suggest some oats in there - to give it a nice, velvety feel. You could try a secondary with pure maple syrup - but there probably wouldn't be enough cost benefit. Maple is such a delicate flavor.


Mylo

i had actually considered getting some hickory wood chips and giving them a good toast in the oven, then throwing them in a secondary. i wonder how aging on hickory would work out

Toasted chips will not give you a bacon flavor. It's the smoke you want. Hickory is a pretty tannic wood. That's why you don't see any barrels made out of it. I don't think it will work out the way you think.

I believe it's possible to smoke some grain on your grill, if you don't have a smoker.


Mylo

no grill just a stovetop. i'm pretty limited

[Evan B]

i need to make friends who don't live in apartments so i can take advantage of their ability to have useful things

[Grist Licker]

Maybe a BN'r in the Redmond Area would smoke the malt for you in exchange for a a couple of bottles?

[Charlie]

Rauchmalt like you said, and Maple Syrup/Sugar (the real stuff), since some bacon is "maple cured"

I absolutely loathe "maple cured" bacon. That may be because they use fake maple flavor. I dunno.

You could make a sort of one-off smoker using a hibachi and a lot of tin foil. Build a small fire with charcoal and sprinkle wet hickory (or pecan, or oak, or walnut) chips over it and let the smoke pass over a thin layer of malt (preferably on a screen or other permiable surface).

Charlie

[SirNixalot]

i had actually considered getting some hickory wood chips and giving them a good toast in the oven, then throwing them in a secondary. i wonder how aging on hickory would work out

Toasted chips will not give you a bacon flavor. It's the smoke you want. Hickory is a pretty tannic wood. That's why you don't see any barrels made out of it. I don't think it will work out the way you think.

I believe it's possible to smoke some grain on your grill, if you don't have a smoker.


Mylo

no grill just a stovetop. i'm pretty limited

Do you have a driveway area? Or even a public park, where grilling is allowed... There are those Little Smokey Joe grills that are like $30 bucks... little corner with one of those, and some craft brew engineering... rigging up a setup seems do-able

[RodMandrill]

I would try subbing in LOTS of rauch malt. I think many of the smoked beer recipes out there are stingy with the rauch. Schlenkerla uses 100% or nearly 100% smoked malt and I think their marzen tastes pretty damn bacony.

Don't be stingy with the rauch.