The year I started homebrewing, I went to Great American Beer Fest looking for inspiration for my next beer. I found that inspiration in Lazy Magnolia’s Southern Pecan, which I decided to clone for Thanksgiving a few years back.
British Brown Ale with pecans is currently rated at 73% positive. The British distinction is important- the more hop-forward American Brown Ale combined with pecans is only 44%. This leads me to think that a restrained hop presence is important to making a pecan-based beer work.
The recipe:
Ingredients:
10 lb Maris Otter
.25 lb Wheat Malt
.5 lb Wheat Flakes
.25 lb American Chocolate Malt
.5 lb Roasted Pecans – added during mash
1.0 lb Crystal 60
.75 oz Tettnanger (4.8%) – added during boil, boiled 60 min
.25 oz Tettnanger (4.8%) – added during boil, boiled 10 min
1.0 tsp Irish Moss – added during boil, boiled 15.0 min
1.0 ea Fermentis US-05 Safale US-05
This was my first all grain batch, and I had terrible efficiency, so I ended up adding 2 pounds of DME as well.
I roasted the pecans to prepare them for brew day.
This was a great combination- the base recipe complemented the addition of the pecans, and neither overpowered the other. The nuttiness was more complex than you could get from grains alone.
Half a pound of roasted pecans was good, but when I brew this again, I’d like to increase the amount to 3/4 pound. I think this would still be balanced.
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