Beer for cooking with

[darkonnis]

Alright chaps,
I make quite a lot of pies, usually 2 - 4 larges ones at a time when I've got family round and whilst they are spectacular, my beef pies usually rely on stout (guiness more often than not) for the gravy. I plan on changing this to a strong porter stout with an FG of 1020ish, so I'm thinking mash high, get some low attenuating yeast and starting with a gravity of around 1080 and balanced IBU's. As its for cooking I'm not too worried about the hop profile, I'll have enough to balance it but I'm not looking for flavour, what I am looking for is a heavy duty malt profile which will give lots of flavour.

I was thinking about a wheat base, topped up with caramalt, dark crystal and maybe some chocolate (only a small amount) to give it the colouring. Then no protafloc or finnings, only chilling down to drop the yeast out, (what yeast?)

What do you guys think?
TIA
Cooky

[Befuddler]

Keep the hops very low, they can turn really bitter in cooking and spoil the dish.

I reckon you've got a decent plan going with the malts, I would go with half wheat, half vienna as a base, just to keep the mash moving. Maybe a few oats as well for complexity? For the yeast, I would go with WLP028 for a lovely malt profile, or Windsor for an estery fruitiness.

Remember you're going to be cooking the alcohol out, so no point starting with a high gravity. Use the same techniques you would for a mild: start at a normal gravity and mash very high (as high as 70c, maybe). You could even stop the yeast early by pasteurising it, if you wanted to keep some sweet malty sugars.

[darkonnis]

True, but my thoughts where that with a high OG base, I'm more likely to end up with a high FG? I was also thinking that if i went with something a bit more like a mild, I'd be more likely to end up with something lacking a lot of flavours?
I currently use my milds and the like and they work nicely but in my steak or mince pies it just doesn't hold its own, nor do most stouts.

[Rookie]

Munton's plain yeast will give a higher F G. Last year I split a batch of bitter between S-04 and Munton's. The S-04 ended up at 1.009, the Munton's at 1.013. I had the last bottle of the Munton fermented part last week and it was really good, better than I'd expected.

[Rick_UK]

I always have a good rich malty stout on tap for this reason among many others! Plenty of roast barley with some munich and smoked malt would be my tip to raise the malt profile and complexity.

Rick

[darkonnis]

So:
55% wheat
10% dark crystal
20% cara
10% munich
<5% dark or roast (for colouring rather than all our charred flavour)

Then muntons yeast or perhaps some S0-4 or nottingham depending on what I have in. Chances are I'll only make a small batch (<10L) cant see me needing 23L or even 60L of gravy base!

Cheers chaps, any more suggestions?
Cooky

[Dr. Dextrin]

Just a thought, but for cooking you don't want a lot of hops. Also, you don't really want a lot of beer. The amount that goes into food (in this house at least) is tiny compared to the amount imbibed directly. Also, the beer doesn't need to be clear. Indeed, a bit of yeast is just extra flavour in a pie.

So could you use the fermented wort from your starters? Chill them in the fridge and decant off the liquid. Would it be any good for cooking with?

[Martin G]

Cheers chaps, any more suggestions?
Cooky

Great idea, I happen to be a pie expert but I'm struggling to think of anything to add, if you send me an example of your pies I'd be happy to provide some feedback!!!

[darkonnis]

Great idea, I happen to be a pie expert but I'm struggling to think of anything to add, if you send me an example of your pies I'd be happy to provide some feedback!!!

Next time I make one, I'll take a whole bunch of photos to give you a good idea. My most common ones though consist of:
Mince, stout, seasonings (blakc pepper parsely etc, depends on what I have in and what I feel like adding) vegetables (onions, leeks, broccoli carrots etc)
or the crowd favourite
Chicken with bacon cuts, half a pint of mild, 50 - 100g of soft garlic and herb cheese, chunks of a much stronger cheese (5 on str scale) broccoli heads finely chopped with parsely a touch of pepper, thyme.

The mince is dark and quite tasty but a bit bland, but in that filling stew kind of way. The chicken ones are a rich explosion of flavours and tastes which means it gets eaten first every time.

I use the gravy sauce to stop the pie being so solid and so you don't need gravy with it as its already inside, but bulked out with so much filling you never manage to find pastry without meat and veg attached
Blowing my own trumpet, but they're awesome. Despite the odd looks when I say "chicken and beer pie"
Cheers,
Cooky

[Martin G]

Both sound awesome to me, the chicken one sounds really interesting, not heard of ale and chicken before.