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Date: 26 Jun 2006 00:19:28
From: QD Steve
Subject: Cooking Beer
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This might sound strange, but I have been toying with the idea of making a
small batch of 'beer' specifically for use in cooking.
I like to use wine and beer in cooking but I find that the bitterness of
beer often gets in the way.
Therefore the idea would be to make a beer without hops and to use malts
that produce a strong malty flavour such as chocolate, caramunich and munich
as a base malt, maybe even some roasted barley.
Rather than dedicate a batch session specifically for this cooking beer, I
think the best idea would be to take a proportion of a normal batch of beer
and dedicate maybe 4-5 litres for the purpose.
Steve W (in Aus)
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Date: 26 Jun 2006 05:28:28
From: Adam Preble
Subject: Re: Cooking Beer
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QD Steve wrote:
> This might sound strange, but I have been toying with the idea of making a
> small batch of 'beer' specifically for use in cooking.
> I like to use wine and beer in cooking but I find that the bitterness of
> beer often gets in the way.
> Therefore the idea would be to make a beer without hops and to use malts
> that produce a strong malty flavour such as chocolate, caramunich and munich
> as a base malt, maybe even some roasted barley.
I tried using dark, caramely beers a few times and I didn't like how it
worked out. The beers had a sweet, malty taste; I think the sweetness
was the undesireable effect.
My own thoughts on it are to make a light, high alcohol beer that isn't
too sweet--but certainly not dry.
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Date: 29 Jun 2006 17:07:44
From: Kelvin Kundert
Subject: Re: Cooking Beer
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QD Steve wrote:
>
>This might sound strange, but I have been toying with the idea of making a
>small batch of 'beer' specifically for use in cooking.
>I like to use wine and beer in cooking but I find that the bitterness of
>beer often gets in the way.
>Therefore the idea would be to make a beer without hops and to use malts
>that produce a strong malty flavour such as chocolate, caramunich and munich
>as a base malt, maybe even some roasted barley.
>Rather than dedicate a batch session specifically for this cooking beer, I
>think the best idea would be to take a proportion of a normal batch of beer
>and dedicate maybe 4-5 litres for the purpose.
Hmm, if you want more bang for your buck, perhaps you could make some
cold water extracts of a few different specialty malts. Split your
batch of base extract from your normal beer into 1 or 2 liters each,
and ferment mini-batches in pop bottles with different cold water
extracts added. One heavy on the chocolate malt, one heavy on the
crystal, one with some home toasted malt, etc. If you really wanted
to steep/mash them, I suppose a small mini-mash in the oven would work
too.
Maybe you wouldn't even need to ferment them, depending on what you're
looking for. Of course these would be kept in the fridge and used
fairly quickly.
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