Protein rest for smoked malt?

[Frozenapple]

Hi all, just need a little help working out a new recipe. Aiming on producing a smoked porter for our new brewery. Intending on using 25% smoked malt from Weyermann (sorry, Cargill... it's just that you don't do a beechwood smoked malt....). Knowing that that malt is under-modified, do I need to do a protein rest for that % of malt? I'm kinda hoping to just do a single infusion at 67C, but don't want to end up with a really hazy beer.
Any thoughts, advice, or better yet, real life answers would be much appreciated.

Cheers,

Matt

[Wes]

Hi Matt, why do you say this malt is "undermodified"? If you pull up the specs on the Weyermann website you will see that both the protein and Hartong indeces are pretty much within the range of a "normal" pils or ale malt. Our experience with the product has also been good in single step infusion mashes.

Wes

[jason.koehler]

I think you're fine on the infusion mash at 67, but I'm curious...25%?? I'm afraid you'll have a good base for bbq sauce on your hands if you use 25% smoked malt! Just add tomato and vinegar! :D

[GOOSE]

Hi,

I think 5% would be plenty!
I added a whole bag to a 10bbl batch years ago and it was way over the top, but we had a cigar and scotch loving group of regulars that liked it, but I have to say it was way too much!
My advice is to start off with a hint of smoke and work your way up in the next few batches, if you thinik it is needed.
My 2 cents!

Cheers,

GOOSE

[DFusion]

Hi,
We have been playing around with smoked malt and the ones that we have done a single step on are no more hazy than any other single step. Bamburg breweries smoke 100% of their malt............
Cheers,
Dave

[Sir Brewsalot]

For my 2 cents, I did my smoked porter with 50% Wey. Smoked Malt, and still felt compelled to put in some peat.

I don't think your 25% sounds out of whack to me, but it depends on the base beer...

I did a single step infusion and got nice conversion.
Cheers,
Scott

[tundra45]

25% is a good amount to start with for your porter recipe. Not over the top at all, at least with weyermann rauchmaltz. I've even done a 100% smoke beer and it's quite palatable. The smoke flavor in the beer will fade a bit over time and older rauchmaltz is less smokey than fresh. A two year old sack of smoked malt had maybe half the flavor of a new sack so keep freshness in mind too.

Now peated malt is an entirely different animal. I don't like it myself and 5% will be very noticeable.

[Cargill Malt]

It is true that we do not supply a smoked malt at this time. But we used to and we do have some experience with it. From direct experience I would say that dialing in a correct usage rate can be difficult. Each brewer has their own idea of how much is too much or too little smoke flavor so it is very difficult to even give rough guidelines for usage rates. I have had brewers use 5% in past in a smoked porter tell me they didnt' get any smoke flavor at all. Best advice here is to ask as many brewers as you can to see what they are using. Try to do all of your experimentation with the same lot number as smoking isn't an exact science so there is definitely batch to batch variation.

This is not to be confused of course with Peat Malt. Peat malt is very phenolic and is much, much more potent than wood smoked malt. If you choose to use peat malt in beer even 1-2% can be overdoing it depending upon the beer. Peat malt comes in different levels of peat (measured as actual phenol level in the malt). Make sure you use the same level each time or you could get a surprise. If memory serves it comes in light, medium, and heavy peated. My recommendation would be to go as light as you can. Heavy peat is more suited to Scotch production.

As far as modification goes, I agree with other posters here that it shouldn't be too much of an issue. Especially if haze is your concern. The implied theory based on your question is that significant amounts of haze forming proteins get degraded during a protein rest which decreases the haze potential of the finished beer. Contemporary brewing theory would contradict this theory. The majority of what is going on in a protein rest is glucan breakdown anyway. If anything, the extended time and manipulation of the malt required to perform the protein rest may result in higher polyphenol levels which would actually increase the haze potential of your beer.

So I guess what I'm saying is that I'd get as much direction as I could from fellow brewers on usage rate and take my best guess. And I'd skip the protein rest.

Good luck.

Cargill

[kugeman]

Depending on how big your batch size is you may want to consider smoking your own malt. I do it for our smoked porter, and you have much greater control over the quantity and quality of the smokiness. It's really not all hte hard to do, just a little time consuming. Having had beers that use purchased smoked malt and having had beer with hand smoked malt I have to say that I vastly prefer the hand smoked variety. But maybe that's just a matter of personal taste...

[Frozenapple]

Thanks to everyone who replied so rapidly! Wow...lightning fast. My whole 25% estimation is just a personal starting point... I really do love the original Bamberg smoked beer, and I guess that 25% (for me) seems like a nice way to add some smokiness, without being over the top (for me). Thanks for the advice on the protein rest... looking forward to missing that step!

Cheers,

Matt

[Wes]

Thanks to everyone who replied so rapidly! Wow...lightning fast. My whole 25% estimation is just a personal starting point... I really do love the original Bamberg smoked beer, and I guess that 25% (for me) seems like a nice way to add some smokiness, without being over the top (for me). Thanks for the advice on the protein rest... looking forward to missing that step!

Cheers,

Matt

Matt, you might also think a bit about the balance of your smoked beer. Some years back Thomas Weyermann was good enough to pass on to us his thoughts on a Bamberger Schlenkerla Smokey Weizen. He stressed the importance of carefully balancing the smoked characters with bitterness/roast/ and finally yeast. He recommended the W68 strain as a mandatory inclusion to introduce stronger flavours and aromas to help in that balance. Still got that recipe around somewhere but I also believe it is on their website.

Wes

[Larry Horwitz]

what would lead you to think the Weyermann malt is undermodified? It isn't...

[Beer Guy]

Rauch malt power does entirely depend on freshness.

[jfulton]

The last two posts are spot on. I use the Weyermann Smoked malt every so often and use a single infusion at around 68C with great results and attenuation, however I am not filtering my smoked lager. I even included 8% rye in my last batch, Roggen Rauchbier, and used the same single infusion and had similar attenuation. I used 30% Rauchmalz and the smoke is pretty subtle, vs. a previous recipe where I used ~25% and had an intense smoke flavor/aroma. Clearly this last batch was made with older malt. I am definitely going to smoke my next batch at home. I am lucky to have a 200 gallon pit smoker though! Otherwise 50kg might take me several days.

I would treat the Weyermann rauchmalz as Pils as far as modification goes.

Use fresh rauchmalz for best results.

Jamie
The Covey
Fort Worth, TX