Just made another smoked malt chili beer. This is version1.3. First one had 1# Briess Cherrywood, second one had 2#s Weyermann's Beechwood. Both those were very similar in the amount of smokeyness brought to the table. This latest one though is a little phenolic...I used 2#s of very fresh smelling Briess Cherrywood smoked malt. Did I overdo it for ~ 10# maltbill?...or will this fade from your experience? It is summer, but I don't think this one got appreciably warmer than the others.
I find the Briess to be a little more phenolic than the Weyermann. The range you would use for the Briess would be less as it is more intense. Smoke aroma/flavor is a phenolic. For Rauchbier, the ratio can be up to 100% smoked malt, depending on the source and age of the malt. Schlenkerla is said to use all smoked malt in their beers, but they smoke thier own malts.
I've made many Rauchbiers with up to 95% smoked malt (only Weyermann), and never had problems with the beers being phenolic. I attribute it to the Briess; I'm not a fan of that stuff personally. I find 70% (Weyermann) smoked malt to be the magic number when trying to approximate Franconian Rauchbiers (esp. of the Maerzen variety).
P.S. The range I was quoting was for home smoked malt (the only kind I've done) and only a "popular" range at that, so recommendations for a smoked malt from a maltster and different beer style applications will absolutely be a factor.
Dont hold out too much hope, a looooong tima ago now I did a smoked beer with 5# of the briess stuff, 2yrs later its still too phenolic
Hopefully the chilis will subdue some of it (I tasted it before I racked it on the chilis) If the chilis help...I might add more.
The one time I used the Briess Cherrywood, I used 2# as well. It was super fresh, just recieved a couple days prior from Briess. It was pretty phenolic right out of the fermenter but after about 4 weeks conditioning it mellowed nicely and became a really nicely balanced smoke with no phenolic taste.
Depends on the drinker, too. I'm SUPER sensitive to phenols associated with smoked malts. Even a little is a mouthful of bandaids for me. Some of my friends are like: "what are you talking about?"
Had to say that because they use the light peated malt in that. I still think that even light peated malt has no place in beer. Tastes like burnt dirt to me.
Peated malt is a tough one. I like Stone's smoked porter, but that's about as high a level of that malt that I can handle, and it's really pretty light when it comes down to it. Hair of the Dog Adam is another example of a lighter use of that malt that works for me. The thing I love about Weyermann Rauchmalz is that you can go all the way up to 100% and it still tastes great to me. I think at a certain point, the smoke flavor form that malt becomes saturated and get maybe deeper, but not more intense if that makes any sense.
I'm planning on brewing a "smoked cascadian dark" in which I want just a hint of smokiness and a bit of roastiness to go alongsiie the hops. I'm thinking somewhere around 8 - 10% of my grist will be the smoked. Maybe a pound ina total grain weigh of 12 or 13 pounds.
I ´ve found that a hint of smokiness can be easily achieved using 3/4 oz of charred oaks(5 gals of a 1060 OG beer), have you ever noticed that as well?
Update: added chilis for 5 days and phenolics have subsided, but not totally gone...will give it another week or 10 days and see how it's mellowing. Think I might take Tebuken's idea and add some oak chips I have lying around...it might even pull a little more of the phenols out/mask it...maybe.
