The recipe for SmoKö: Smoked Kölsch-Style Ale was developed in collaboration between Chop & Brew and Adam Mills of Adam Makes Beer. It produces a wonderfully crisp and light-bodied beer with a subtle smoke flavor over malt flavors of high-quality Pilsner malt Saltine cracker. It’s a great entry beer for brewing and sharing smoked beer. Adam suggests 70-75% Pilsner malt and 25-30% Oak-Smoked Wheat, which is not nearly as intense as many other smoked malt options. I chose to go towards the higher range of Oak-Smoked Wheat, but you could certainly dial it back a bit if you’re concerned about the degree of smoke. I thought the percentages below worked perfectly. Check out this Chop & Brew video to see the brew day and discussion with Adam about this recipe and all things smoked beer.
SmoKö: Smoked Kölsch-Style Ale Homebrew Recipe
OG: 1.048
FG: 1.010
ABV: 5.1%
IBU: 20 IBU at 60 min of clean bittering hop
Malt
- 6.5 lbs (72%) Weyermann Barke Pils
- 2.5 lbs (28%) Oak-Smoked Wheat
Hops
- 2.5 oz Hallertauer Mittelfrueh (3.2%aa) at First Wort Hop
Yeast
Process
My brew was Brew in a Bag for final five gallon into the fermenter, which I do in a method of partial volume boil on my stovetop (boil 3.5-4 gallons depending on the brew) and then dilute with R.O. water to Target OG before pitching yeast.
I doughed in the grains and stirred well. Step mash grains at 133F for 15 minutes (protein rest) and 148F for 45 minutes (saccharification rest) with optional mash-out step at 168F for 10 minutes before running off wort. If you don’t want to or can’t do a step mash, a single infusion mash at 148F will work great for this beer.
Add all hops at first wort hop. Boil for 60 minutes. Chill wort and pitch yeast. Ferment on the lower end of the temperature range if possible, but Imperial Yeast G03 Dieter can go into the upper 60, even lower 70s.
The beer was fairly clear upon kegging and likely would’ve cleared up even more. But I’m a fan of using gelatin to help clarify and in this case it worked really well and left the beer crystal clear.
