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Recipe: Live Oak Schwarzer Rauch
“Fermented cold and clean with our German lager yeast,” say the team at Live Oak Brewing in Austin, “this beer highlights the complexity that smoke adds to traditional dark lagers.”
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Live Oak Brewing in Austin has a reputation for traditional Czech- and German-style beers—including plenty of lagers and wheat beers—and several are smoked. Courtesy of owner Chip McElroy and head brewer Dusan Kwiatkowski, here is a homebrew-scale recipe for their smoked schwarzbier.
“With balanced, roasted malt flavor, this beer prominently features a beechwood smoke,” the brewers say. “This smokiness mingles with layers of darker malt flavors, braced by Noble hop character. Fermented cold and clean with our German lager yeast, this beer highlights the complexity that smoke adds to traditional dark lagers.”
ALL-GRAIN
Batch size: 5 gallons (19 liters)
Brewhouse efficiency: 72%
OG: 1.048
FG: 1.012
IBUs: 25
ABV: 4.8%
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Live Oak Brewing in Austin has a reputation for traditional Czech- and German-style beers—including plenty of lagers and wheat beers—and several are smoked. Courtesy of owner Chip McElroy and head brewer Dusan Kwiatkowski, here is a homebrew-scale recipe for their smoked schwarzbier.
“With balanced, roasted malt flavor, this beer prominently features a beechwood smoke,” the brewers say. “This smokiness mingles with layers of darker malt flavors, braced by Noble hop character. Fermented cold and clean with our German lager yeast, this beer highlights the complexity that smoke adds to traditional dark lagers.”
ALL-GRAIN
Batch size: 5 gallons (19 liters)
Brewhouse efficiency: 72%
OG: 1.048
FG: 1.012
IBUs: 25
ABV: 4.8%
[PAYWALL]
MALT/GRAIN BILL
6.7 lb (3 kg) Best Smoked Malt
2.1 lb (953 g) Weyermann Barke Munich
6 oz (170 g) Weyermann Carafa III
HOPS SCHEDULE
0.5 oz (14 g) Northern Brewer at 60 minutes [15 IBUs]
0.9 oz (26 g) Mittelfruh at 30 minutes [10 IBUs]
YEAST
Fermentis SafLager W-34/70
DIRECTIONS
Mill the grains and mash in at 144°F (62°C) for 30 minutes; raise to 154°F (68°C) and rest 15 minutes; raise to 162°F (72°C) and rest 15 minutes; then raise to 172°F (78°C) for mash out. Recirculate until the runnings are clear, then run off into the kettle. Sparge and top up as necessary to get about 6 gallons (23 liters) of wort, depending on your evaporation rate. Boil for 60 minutes, adding hops according to the schedule. After the boil, chill to about 46°F (8°C), aerate well, and pitch the yeast. Ferment at 48°F (9°C) until the gravity has dropped below 1.024, then raise the temperature to 54°F (12°C); when the gravity has dropped to 1.012 or below, lower the temperature to 39°F (4°C) and rack to a lagering vessel. Lager at 39°F (4°C) for 2 weeks, then steadily drop to 32°F (0°C) over 4 days. Lager at 32°F (0°C) for 4 more weeks, then package and enjoy.
BREWER’S NOTES
Don’t get creative and go adding aroma/knockout hops.
