[danmages]

I found this recipe in River Cottage Booze book. It has some interesting English homebrew recipes, including this one.

6.6 Lbs pale malt
3.5 lbs sugar coated puffed wheat cereal (aka Honey Smacks)
7 oz brown sugar
1 oz EKG
English dry yeast

Mash at 152 for 75 minutes

Boil for 75 minutes. Add 1/3 of the hops and brown sugar at boil, 1/3 of the hops at 1 hour and 1/3 of the hops at 5 minutes.

Thoughts??

[pete b]

 

[narvin]

I put cereal in the mash once when I was young (stupid).

At best, you get nothing.  At worst, you get oil, preservatives, and regrets.

[HoosierBrew]

At best, you get nothing.  At worst, you get oil, preservatives, and regrets.

Well said.   

[pete b]

I don't know what honey smacks taste like but if they really do have a certain something you are trying to capture you are better off using real ingredients so you don't end up with oil, HFCS, etc. If the flavor is "honey" and "smack" then there you go.

[dmtaylor]

This sounds like a tasty recipe to me.  Why not give it a try?  I made a Grape Nuts Pale Ale last year that turned out very good.  Huge creamy head like none I've ever seen.  Something to keep in mind is that cereals contain a lot of salt and minerals, so because of this, you really need to use 100% distilled water so as not to have too much salts in the final beer.  Otherwise, heck, why not try it!?!  It might turn out really good.  I've been curious about Smacks myself so I'd be curious to hear some real results.

I probably would not ever made a Count Chocula beer or anything like that.  But Wheaties, Grape Nuts, maybe Smacks, etc. seem to work just fine.

[danmages]

At best, you get nothing.  At worst, you get oil, preservatives, and regrets.

Well said.   

It is also a great way to get strange looks on a group brew day. Local brewers already know I'm nuts, so why not feed the reputation?

Honey Smacks is about 50% sugar by weight, so it will do something to the beer.

[erockrph]

I just don't think that you're going to get much carryover in flavor if you mash a cereal like this. The ingredients are pretty basic:

Sugar, wheat, dextrose, honey, contains 2% or less of vegetable oil (hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated soybean), salt, caramel color, soy lecithin, BHT for freshness

Outside of the puffed wheat, I don't see much here that would seem like it would continue to have much of a flavor impact on the finished beer after going through the boil and fermentation. The BHT might help shelf stability a bit, I guess...

[narvin]

If the flavor is "honey" and "smack" then there you go.

That second ingredient might not be approved for beer by the TTB...

[denny]

I once ran an Iron Brewer contest where the secret ingredients were Count Chocula, Froot Loops, Lucky Charms and Honey Nut Cheerios.  Some of those people still won't speak to me to this day....

[Stevie]

I'm down to try the grape-nut mash.

[Slowbrew]

I made a Grape-Nuts Porter once.  The beer was good but I don't recall anything special about it due to the cereal.  It definitely did not cause any problems.

Paul

[snowtiger87]

http://www.9news.com/story/life/2014/10/18/missing-count-chocula-found-drowned-in-beer/17532461/

[Wort-H.O.G.]

I'm down to try the grape-nut mash.

yeah grape nuts is one thing- it contains little to no added sugar and crap. froot loops, sugar smacks....oooof

[majorvices]

it's homebrew. It should be fun. If you want to try it, then go for it! I once made a s'mores stout with real graham crackers in the mash and Hershey's chocolate and Marshmallows in the boil. It was terrible. But it wa fun to brew. And hell, I may try it again with some more modifications someday.