Smoked Porters

[Jordang]

Hi, I love FAB‘s Smokey Joe Porter and am looking to brew something along the same lines…. Has anyone got a smoked Porter recipe they would care to share or any insight into the FAB recipe?
thanks!

 

[Hoddy]

A complex recipe topic to say the least. You need to decide how you want your Porter to be structured. Malty, deep, roasty and Smokey. Or a lighter, crisper beer still dark and Smokey.

Yeast choice can be anything from SO4 to Verdent, London ale III.

Smoked malts vary from peat smoked, whiskey barrel wood smoked, German rauch malt to name a few. All of them impart a different character. Generally not more than 10% smoked malt is used in your grist.

Does that help?

 

[Sadfield]

A tricky one to advise on, smoke is one of those flavours that can take some adjusting to.

Brewing your favourite porter recipe and substituting 10% base malt with smoked malt would be the best place to start for a very lightly smoked porter. Or try one of the many clone recipes for Alaskan Smoked Porter off the Internet, it's generally considered a great example of the style. Rauch Malt (Beech smoked) or Oak Smoked Wheat are readily available and a good choice, or perhaps alder smoked or cherrywood smoked if you can find them. I'd avoid peated to begin with.

I think maltmiller do a kit from the Camra homebrew book for Torrside Fire Damage Stout which is an excellent beer, although uses around 60% Rauch Malt.

 

[MrRook]

I did a smoked porter with lapsang souchong tea once many years ago.

 

[Sadfield]

I did a smoked porter with lapsang souchong tea once many years ago.

That sounds interesting.

 

[An Ankoù]

The difference between peat-smoked malt and rauchmalt is massive. Peat-smoked is really for distilling Islay or Skye type whiskies, while rauchmalt, beech, oak, etc (as mentioned above) is much more mellow. Go carefully, would be my advice.
When I was young and foolish and had just about drunk a barrel of Elgood's Black Dog Mild at a beer festival, I decided I liked mild and decided to make a smoked one, 50% peat-smoked malt certainly made it's presence felt. BUT, we did get through the whole PV full, eventually and without wasting any on creosoting the fence.

 

[MrRook]

That sounds interesting.

I brewed a smoke porter with a somewhat small amount of rauchmalt that was fairly old and most of the smoke flavor had faded so there was practically no smoke presence.
I did a thick tea and added it at bottling time with the priming sugar.
It turned out okay, but I have no plans of doing it again.

 

[matt76]

I make my Porter un-smoked but it's derived originally from this Josh Weikert recipe and is very good.

If you read it through he gives the option of swapping out some of the brown malt for smoked malt - could be worth a look.