Create Your Own Smoked Malt
To create your own smoked beer (aka Rauchbier) you can use a cauldron-style charcoal grill with a shallow, screen-basket to smoke the malt.
The malt rests in a screen-basket, which you can make from a wood frame with screening stapled to it. Build a small fire with a handful of charcoal briquettes off to the side (you do not want the malt directly over the coals), and wait until the briquettes have finished flaming and are white-hot.
Soak wood chips in water, then spread them over the coals. Spread malt evenly into the screen-basket, and place the basket on the rack in the grill (but off to the side), close the lid, and allow to smoke from 30 minutes to 2 hours.
Be selective in the wood chips you choose for smoking…
Mesquite will give a delicate spiciness. Peat imparts phenolic, oily, creosote-like characteristics. Alder has a sweet, delicate woodiness, as does apple. Cherry adds almond fruitiness, and birch gives a subtle wintergreen profile to the malt. Grapevine wood is herbal, while white oak tends to add a pungent, musty backbone.
Filed under: Brewing 101 on August 24th, 2009
