New Brunswick Craft Brewers Association

Beer Recipes and Food => All Grain => 22 - Smoke-Flavored and Wood-Aged Beer => Topic started by: TomFogarty on February 24, 2012, 06:11:29 PM

Title: German rauchbier
Post by: TomFogarty on February 24, 2012, 06:11:29 PM
I haven't seen much in the line of rauchbier recipes on here so I thought I'd toss this up and get your guy's two cents worth...
On tap for tomorrow's brew day:

Rauchbier
-5.5 kg German rauch malt
-2.0 kg Canadian 2 row
-500 g Munich
-900 g Cara-munich
-100 g Scottish peated malt
-1 oz hallertauer (60 mintutes)
-1 oz fuggles (15 minutes)

Once again, I didn't actually look up any recipes when I came up with this; it's just a shot in the dark.
Any thoughts or constructive criticism before I start?
Title: Re: German rauchbier
Post by: Richard on February 24, 2012, 06:26:05 PM
Yeast? Afaik the style calls for lager yeast + lagering... the aging probably would help to take the harshness out of all that smoked malt. Others have found that using just a very small amount of it will add an awful lot of flavour, so I'm thinking this one will be _really_ rauch-y :P
Title: Re: German rauchbier
Post by: TomFogarty on February 24, 2012, 06:30:56 PM
Right, forgot about the yeast... I'm going to use Wyeast's Scottish ale yeast, since it was readily available to me and I think would play nicely with the flavours. I'm not a fan of lager yeasts; I'm not very well equipped to properly condition lagers since I store everything in my room (in an apartment) and I maintain a temp of 20 degrees.
One thing I do know about some German smoked beers is that they tend to use up to 100% smoked malt as the base malt. I like a nice rich flavour!
Title: Re: German rauchbier
Post by: Richard on February 24, 2012, 06:34:02 PM
Yeah, not really to-style but I'm sure it'll still be great.

Sign me up for trying this when it's done :)
Title: Re: German rauchbier
Post by: TomFogarty on February 24, 2012, 06:36:22 PM
I don't tend to follow the rules very often  :roll:
I'll be sure to save some for sampling though, who knows how long it'll last though!
Title: Re: German rauchbier
Post by: TomFogarty on February 24, 2012, 09:24:36 PM
The peated malt isn't as harsh as I expected it to be, I'm just using it to add a hint of flavour to the beer. I used it in a pale ale I've got in secondary right now and it's very subtle (mind you I only used about 75 grams).
Title: Re: German rauchbier
Post by: Ian Grant on February 24, 2012, 10:04:43 PM
I really want to try this!!!!
Title: Re: German rauchbier
Post by: brew on February 25, 2012, 12:23:40 AM
Yeah the peated malt is something i've never tried either this sounds very cool...
Title: Re: German rauchbier
Post by: TomFogarty on March 15, 2012, 12:45:04 AM
Had my first taste of this tonight with a couple of friends. One of them said it tasted like an undercooked pork chop, but the other guy and I loved it! I guess two out of three ain't bad...
I'd definitely recommend this recipe to anyone who enjoys a nice smokey beer!
Title: Re: German rauchbier
Post by: Kyle on March 15, 2012, 08:30:48 AM
Sounds interesting. You may also want to try Ian's Smoked Porter recipe, its quite good:
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=317&hilit=smoked+porter (http://nbcba.org/forum/index.php?topic=317.0&hilit=smoked+porter)
Title: Re: German rauchbier
Post by: TomFogarty on March 15, 2012, 05:12:21 PM
I actually did a barley wine that was very similar to that, only with a few more types of malt and some honey. It finished with a nice mild smokey flavour, not robust and in your face like this rauchbier.