305: Matthias Trum of Schlenkerla Isn't Preserving the Ashes, He's Keeping the Rauchbier Fire Burning
Craft Beer & Brewing Magazine Podcast
How to Make Your Own Smoky Malt
Some craft brewers are experimenting with own smoke flavors in their molds. For us it's not all about the flavor. Like the flavor is at the center of course, but since we need to actually operate the kiln with the wood we also have to look at a relatively good burning value. So we kind of put scraps in there or something like that.
Matthias Trum is the sixth-generation brewer at Bamberg’s Heller-Trum Bräu—better known as Schlenkerla—and he is as obsessed with local history as he is with producing world-class smoked lagers via their old-fashioned methods.
Bamberg has a long history of brewing, and Trum is a great student of that history—and his family has played an important role in it. In this episode, he immerses us in that story, discussing:
- old family brewing logs that detail strong beers as well as lower-strength ones made from second runnings
- the true story of rauchbier, and Schlenkerla’s role in preserving its legacy
- details on Schlenkerla’s own wood-fired malting process, and the old practice of using different types of wood
- the non-linear intensity of the smoky character in Schlenkerla’s beers
- the importance of decoction to fermentation and flavor
- the flavor contribution of their direct-fire copper kettles
- the trick of balancing smoke and malt with evident hop bitterness
- experimenting with malts smoked by different woods and paired with different aroma hops
- balancing the non-smoked yet subtly smoky Helles Lagerbier
- how hyper-inflation led to the development of the Helles
And more.
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