smoking barley fail

[effyeah]

So i thought id try my hand at smoking some grains to get a nice smokey whiskey.. i smoked 5 kg of unmalted barley over some peat on my bbq for about 45mins, the grains smelt smokey...I mashed with 5kg aussie 2 row and it mashed well, got full conversion but no smokyness come over in the distilate.

was 45 mins not long enough? or should i get heaps more peat on there.?

cheers .

[Steep-n-Rocky]

I know others more knowledgeable will post but I would think you would want to smoke malted barley as it is drying so that the smoke is "absorbed" by the drying grain.

[effyeah]

Yeah that might be why, I just smoked dry grain

[Dnderhead]

weigh malt,,,soak,,,dry indirectly over smokey fire,back to the original weight

[retlaw]

45 min is a small amount of smoke,
i would try it with no less then two hours, and as much as 12 hours,
and make sure there is no heat,
you want to have it below cooking temp which is 160F,
after 160F the outside gets cooked and then seals the smoke off from penetrating into the mark,

[effyeah]

Ok so I didn't do any of those things, should have some more success next time. Has anyone smoked with oak? Iv got half a french oak wine barrel here.

[Lickercabnit]

Oak is awesome to use for smoke. IPA's get a lot of their flavor typically from toasted red oak. Can't be that far off the mark with that french white oak you have there, especially if they were used for whiskey

[Fourway]

peat smoked malt owes its existence to the tradition of drying the fresh green malt over peat fires... or peat smolders really.
Starting with already malted and dried barley might not have the desired result even with re-wetting.