Pig Out Smoked Blonde Ale Homebrew Recipe

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Brewed at Bryon Adams’ Pig Out BBQ Competition & Homebrew Festival, Brew In A Bag style!
It was a pretty hectic day, so I didn’t take a lot of notes… or I lost them either way.
Piecing this together from memory and social media posts.

OG: 1.038
FG: 1.007
ABV: 4.1%
IBU: ??

Malts
6 lbs Castle Malting Belgian Pilsner Malt
2 lbs Cooper Fox Mesquite Wood Smoked Malt
1 lb Great Western Organic C-15

Mashed Brew in a Bag Style for 60 min at 150F.

Hops (pellets)
0.5 oz German Perle @ 60 min.
0.5 oz German Perle @ 3 min.

Yeast
Wyeast “Mt Hood” strain from CBC 2015. Two smack packs pitched at home after cooling as far as I could at BA’s backyard, leaving near his AC vent, and fridge-cooling at home first. I think it was about 58F when I pitched and tried to keep cool in tub of water, but the temps still got into the lower-mid 70s. (Which is why I didn’t use water and just went with ice packs and frozen bottles for the next brew I did — an Aletoberfest — and its Cali Lager strain.)

SOME NOTES ON THE MALTS

6 lbs Castle Pils (BELGIUM)
Leftover from using in Nathan Smith’s Bad Ass Saisons. Nice, classic Belgian pils malt – neutral, grassy, sweet, pleasant. Less melanoidin and toasty than German Pils.

1 lbs Great Western Malting Caramel 15 (CAN)
Crystal/Caramel Lovibond 15 w/ light golden color. Subtle sweet, malty, mild caramel flavor. Great Western’s Vancouver, WA, plant is certified as an Organic Food Processor by the Washington State Department of Agriculture in accordance with National Organic Program (NOP). The flavor and performance characteristics of the organic malts are similar in all regards to their nonorganic counterparts, as described earlier.

2 lbs Copper Fox Mesquite Wood Smoked Malt (VIRGINA, USA)
Hook-up from Damian McConn, who used it in Summit Scorch, a smoked Baltic porter brewed for/with Pizza Luce. Intense smoke taste when you chew the kernel – definitely translates to the beer at a rate of almost 25% of grist

From Southern Hills Homebrew Supply website:
Copper Fox Mesquite Wood Smoked Malt is a floor malted 6-Row barley that is grown in Virginia’s Northern Neck and is malted at the Copper Fox Distillery in Sperryville, VA. It has a stronger smoke flavor than the Apple & Cherry Wood smoke malt and can be used to flavor a wide variety of beers.

From Maryland Homebrew website:
Mesquite 6 Row malt from the Copper Fox Distillery, Sperryville, Virginia producer of Wasmund’s Single Malt Whiskey, and Copper Fox Rye Whiskey. This exceptional smoked malt is hand crafted from Virginia grown 6-row barley; floor malted, and dried in a traditional wood-fired kiln. Smoked by smoldering Southwest US mesquite wood atop the kiln room’s cast iron stove. Grown on the fertile fields of Virginia’s historic Northern Neck, and malted at Copper Fox, in the foothills of the Blue Ridge. This rare smoked malt has travelled only about 200 miles from the field, to the maltster, to Maryland Homebrew–it couldn’t be more local, unless mesquite grew a bit closer to Sperryville.

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