German Ales Black Grätzer - AG

Beer Name: Black Grätzer
Beer Style: Grätzer
Brew Type: All Grain
Batch Size: ~5 gallons
OG: 1.055
FG: 1.012
ABV: 5.6%
IBU: 53.2 Rager, 45.2 Tinseth

Efficiency: 88% (though my target was ~80%)

Grain Bill:
5 lb wheat malt
3 lb rauch malt
1 lb Breiss midnight wheat
4 oz peated malt

Hop Bill:
5 AAU (10g @ 14.5% AA) Columbus @ 60
10 AAU (19g @ 14.5% AA) Columbus @ 20
20 AAU (39g @ 14.2% AA) Citra @ 5

Yeast:
Wyeast 3056 - Bavarian What Blend; no starter, just a smack-pack

Process:
Single-step mash at 149° for 1 hour; collected 6.5 gallons for the boil. I did a batch sparge; two batches of water at around 170-175°. Fermentation temperature was not externally controlled; I pitched at 68° and the temperature of the beer in the fermenter rose as high as 73°. Fermentation took off quickly and had completely subsided by about 90 hours; I left the works in the primary for about 7 weeks due to laziness.

 

Oh you bet, it was not too much smoke at all. There were lots of competing flavors there, but it went down surprisingly easily. 4 oz is a lot of peated malt, but I happen to like smoke a lot -- that might be an area where you could pare back if you don't like that much smoke.

As far as regular rauchmalt -- 100% isn't too much for me. I like Aecht Schlenkerla levels of smoke!