2

I've heard rumor of people figuring out a way to do this without getting all the grease into the beer as well. If you want to add bacon flavoring to a beer, how do you do it? I know you can use some smoked grains and other things like that, but I want the real thing. One method I heard of was baking it rather than frying it.

  • Has anyone used bacon in a beer? If so, how?
  • Has anyone tried a beer with bacon in it?
  • Does anyone have any ideas on the best way to use bacon in a beer?
  • What styles support bacon?
1
  • I love beer and I love bacon, but bacon beer?? Is this really better than having a smoked bacon sandwich on the side with your pint.
    – mdma
    Sep 3, 2011 at 18:59

6 Answers 6

4

Similar to drunk-monkey's brew club, I've done this. I used a fairly usual (in-style) porter recipe and "dry hopped" with bacon bits. I didn't use BacOs as they're soy and I'm completely against the idea, but the sort in the grocery aisle marked "real bacon bits." (Link) The only worry I had was the salt content, but it didn't seem to matter very much. The beer came out very well and has been a talking point of my local brewers for quite some time. I would venture to say I used about 16oz of the stuff.

3

Over the summer a home brew club out of St Louis mad a BLT beer for an event trying to make the world's largest BLT sandwich. For the bacon beer, they made a smoked porter and "dry-hopped" with Bacos. It got in the bacon flavoring without the grease from real bacon

http://www.showmebeer.com/2009/08/blt-beer.html

2

Garret Oliver from Brooklyn Brewery has been experimenting with bacon in beer.

http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/11/bowling-for-brews/

2

A conglomeration of your answers and my own, here is my solution. I will report back...

http://bit.ly/cYI0kz

Excerpt:

So, here’s my plan.

I’m going to put a slotted baking sheet over a regular flat baking sheet. I’m going to make some sort of awesome contraption of tin foil that will keep the bacon somewhat vertical. Like seats, for the bacon. I’ll take a picture when I get this going so that that makes sense. Then I’m going to bake the bacon at 400˚ (random choice of temperature) until it is super crispy. The hope is that this will cause the least amount of grease possible, while still making awesome bacon. For this first attempt, I’ll get normal bacon, not flavored with anything (like maple, pepper, whatever). I’ll also hope for thin bacon for this first attempt. Science!

Once it is super crispy, but NOT BURNT, I’ll break it up into smaller pieces, and soak it in some bourbon. Not sure what kind yet. I’m open to suggestions. The amount of bourbon will be determined by my stout recipe, which I haven’t written yet.

This vat, or at least jar of bourbon with bacon will sit in the fridge for a few weeks. I’m thinking I’ll do this tomorrow (Saturday, March 6th), and let it soak for 2-3 weeks. Hopefully any excess grease and fat will congeal and float to the top in the fridge. This will be skimmed away.

When the soaking is done, I’ll pour the liquid through a coffee filter. Probably two coffee filters. Twice. No fat, no chunks.

Then I’ll add this to the secondary fermentation.

Lastly, I will win.

Thoughts?

2
  • +1 for the "Lastly, I will win." Definitely going to use that from now on. Mar 6, 2010 at 17:38
  • We crisp our bacon in the microwave between sheets of paper towels.
    – 42-
    Oct 9, 2018 at 22:10
1

I've been meaning to try a bacon beer for quite some time now... Thinking through the flavors though I think it would be mostly like Alaskan Smoked Porter. You wouldn't really have to use pork, and if you think about it, there's a ton of pumpkin beers that have no pumpkin. If you really want to use the pig, expect zero head. Also you might want to look into rendering and just use the greaves

0

I don't see why you couldn't do something like a bacon/bourbon infusion filtered through a coffee filter and add it to the beer. Seems like you would need to be making a bigger darker beer to support the flavor. Maybe something that can support the smokey salty flavors?

1
  • 1
    You could make an infusion (boil it whatever) of the bacon, refrigerate it, the fat will rise and congeal, remove fat, use liquid. Win.
    – comat0se
    Jan 8, 2010 at 18:19

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