Smoked Raspberry Porter

5 gallons, partial-mash;

Ingredients:

• 2 lbs. pale malt
• 4 oz. chocolate malt
• 4 oz.black patent malt
• 8 oz. dark crystal malt (90° Lovibond or darker)
• 8 oz. smoked malt (German rauchmalt, Scottish peated malt, or smoke your own on the grill)
• 5 lbs. unhopped dark dry malt extract
• 1 oz. Northern Brewer or Nugget hops (8% alpha acid) for 45 min.
• 1 qt. neutral ale yeast culture (Wyeast 1056, American Ale, works very well in this brew)
• 4 lbs. fresh raspberries
• 2/3 cup corn sugar for priming

Step by Step:

Wash and freeze raspberries. This will help to break them down in the secondary. Heat 1 gal. water to 164° F. Crack pale, crystal, chocolate, and black malts. Mix cracked grains into mash water, which should settle to around 152° F. Hold 75 min. at this temperature, then begin run-off. Sparge with 2 gal. at 169° F.

Steep smoked malt in the run-off for at least 20 min. Remove the smoked malt and begin heating kettle. Add dry malt extract and bring to a boil. Add bittering hops, boil 45 min., then turn off heat.

Chill and top off in fermenter with enough cold, preboiled water to make 5.25 gal. Cool to 70° F. and pitch yeast.

Ferment at 65° F for 10 days or until primary fermentation seems to have stopped. Thaw raspberries, place in secondary fermenter, and rack beer onto them. Age on fruit for 10 days near 65° F, then rack the beer off the fruit into another vessel. Allow to age and clarify for about two weeks at 58° to 60° F. Prime with corn sugar and bottle.

Bottle condition for at least two weeks. Plan to consume this beer relatively soon. Both smoke and raspberry flavors tend to fade within a couple of months.

Notes:

All-grain: Omit the dry malt. Increase the pale malt to 7 lbs., increase the black and chocolate malts to 8 oz. each. Mash in 2.5 gal. water for 90 min. Sparge with 3.5 gal. water.

All-extract: Omit the pale malt and increase the dry malt extract to 6 lbs. Steep the black, chocolate, crystal, and smoked malts in 2.5 gal. of water, heating gradually to 170° F and then removing grains. Add extracts, hops, and boil as above.

Smoked malt: Most complete homebrew suppliers offer some type of smoked malts these days, but if you should find yourself unable to procure the appropriate malt, try smoking your own. Build a small wood fire in your barbecue, and put on green/wet branches (maple, beech, apple, or other fruit tree) to make a smoldering smoky fire. Place pale malt on a metal screen and allow it to sit in the smoke (high enough to not be touched by the flames, however!) for about 15 minutes. Voilà, smoked malt.

Fruit: Fresh is the key. Plan your brewing around the availability of fresh fruit. I prefer regular red raspberries, but black raspberries, blackberries, boysenberries, or any other related fruit would be okay, too. Freeze them for a least a week to break down the skins and enable easier extraction of flavor and aroma during secondary fermentation.

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