Smoked Ham on Rye with Mustard Beer

Beer Recipes
1

Recipe:

Munich, wheat or Pilsen - 37% - bready base grain, maybe a combo

Rye - 30% - because rye
Cherrywood smoked malt - 30% - tastes like smoked ham to me
Midnight wheat - 3% - for brown color

Sterling - 30ibu - half @ 60, half @ 20

Mustard seed and Tumeric @ 10.  Quantity undetermined.
Salty water profile

s-05 yeast fermented cool.  6% ABV

Planning on doing a small batch for obvious reasons.  Nothing about this recipe is intended to be subtle.  I want it to taste like a liquid smoked ham sammich on rye with mustard.

What do you think?  Please vote.  Thank you.

Evaluate this recipe concept
  • Yum
  • Interesting…might be good.
  • Questionable and likely gross
  • Gross
  • I don’t like smoked beer, heavy rye beer or any beer that doesn’t taste like beer.
0 voters
2

Never been a ham fan, but I love a local smoked bacon porter. Go for it!

3

I gotta say it…just because a smoked ham on rye sandwich is good doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a good idea for a beer.

4

I can’t say it wouldn’t be interesting but my first reaction was "interesting, like a fake Chinese proverb interesting, but you never really know.

Paul

5

All things considered, not a fan of sandwich beers. But I do love sandwiches. And I like Rauchbier, which might be a similar option but a little better.      :wink:

6

Good point.  I like tuna fish with dill, lemon and Miracle Whip on toasted wheat, but won’t be trying to make a beer out of it.  I understand how this is a potentially blasphemous recipe idea in your sacred temple of rye.

I don’t mind brewing a gallon or two of drain pour.  Satisfying my curiosity accomplishes something.  Just curious what other people think.  It’s ok to hate the idea.

7

And I didn’t mean to come off as dickish.  We’re all a one man brewery, and we can do what we damn well want. It just made me think of Northern Brewer’s new ‘Bacon beer’ kit - my thought on it was to just brew Rauchbier.

8

Some people think Breiss cherrywood smoked malt tastes like bacon which coincidentally comes from the same animal as ham.  Most ham that you can buy in the store isn’t smoked to the extent of a back yard smoked ham.  I’m going for back yard smoked ham flavor which could be mistaken for bacon.

Thanks for the encouragement!

9

I haven’t seen the kit and have never brewed a kit.  I’ll take a look at it for the purpose of R&D.

Nothing you said was dickish.  Offending me is a difficult task.  It’s impossible to offend me based on honest feedback for a weird beer recipe.

10

It’s not that it’s “blasphemous” or that I hate the idea.  It’s just that I can’t imagine wanting a beer to have those flavors.

11

This is the NB bacon beer kit.

SPECIALTY GRAIN

  • 2 oz English Chocolate Malt
  • 6 oz Gambrinus Honey Malt
  • 10 oz Caramunich III
  • 12 oz Briess Cherrywood Smoked Malt
    FERMENTABLES
  • 3 lbs Amber DME
  • 1 lb Wheat DME
  • 3.15 lbs Dark malt syrup (15 min late addition)
    HOPS & FLAVORINGS
  • 1 oz Willamette (60 min)
  • 30 mL Bacon Extract (Flame out)

Considerably different than my Smoked Ham on Rye with Mustard malt beverage. Three Floyds made a Ham on Rye beer, but wimped out and forgot to add the mustard!

12

With odd ball beer recipes, you have to pretend it isn’t beer and forget about styles, brewing traditions, etc.

Look at it like it’s just flavors.  If the flavors are good, it doesn’t have to taste like a beer to be a tasty beverage.  If I could figure out a way to make a 5% abv liquid hasenpfeffer, I’d do it.  Ham on Rye with Mustard seems more attainable.

13

I’d say the only thing that is especially weird about it is the spices. Never had mustard seed or turmeric in a beer before.  It kind of sounds like a malty smoked brown rye ale.

Maybe add a little caraway seed to get the rye bread flavor. Rye malt doesn’t really taste like rye bread with caraway seeds.

14

Caraway seeds sounds like a definite possibility, thanks.  I have had two pro beers made with mustard seeds.  One was super tasty, but not really because of the mustard seeds, the other was a mess, but not because of the mustard seeds.

I thought about turmeric only because it’s a common ingredient in yellow mustard.  Yellow mustard is mustard seeds, turmeric and vinegar.  Maybe I should just add mustard.

15

Turmeric might be more useful in a much lighter colored beer. They won’t hardly show up in your brown beer

16

To me, the Briess cherry wood smoked malt is overly harsh and phenolic.  At 30% I would go with weyermann rauch (beech wood smoked) instead.  For more intense smoke I would replace all of the pils malt with the rauch malt.

17

Good points, thanks.  I’ve used both malts a few times in various quantities, but used them conservatively because I was chicken. Weyermann seems more forgiving and reminds me more of a camp fire than a smoked ham when it’s fresh then it fades to ham after several months.  Breiss is piggy at 15% after a month.  I might be overdoing it with 30% Briess.  It’s what I have in stock, so I will might use less than 30% of it and increase the base malt.

Aecht Schrelenka Marzen is one of my favorite smoked beers.  When it’s fresh, it tastes like a campfire smells with a dusting of noble hops.  With age it tastes like smoked ham and okra. I like both versions.

18

Yep but more importantly, being an Indian food lover, turmeric is very mild and subtle until it isn’t. It gives curry a great color and subtle flavor and then gets harsh pretty quickly if you use too much. I’d use little or none.

EDIT  -  Good catch troybinso.

19

All of the mustard recipes I’ve seen use a really small amount of turmeric.  I’ll probably skip it since I don’t have it.

20

You’re right, I use it in my home made mustard.  I love it in mustard and in curry in proper amounts, but I don’t know I’d risk any in beer. OTOH, it might work in yours. Good luck.