In my bid to do some new beer styles and experiment with new techniques in 2016, I’ve decided to do my first ever SMaSH beer. SMaSH is a home brewers term meaning “Single Malt and Single Hop”. It’s a way of keeping a recipe simple in order to taste a variety of malt and hops in an unadulterated way. It’s an interesting technique, though it has me worried as I tend to go a little complicated when it comes to recipes. Particularly with hops, where I love the complexity that comes with using 2 or 3 complimentary hop varieties in the same beer.
The decision on which malt and hops to use in this beer is driven by practical reasons. I’ve at least 30kg of Munton’s Maris Otter malt, some of it past its prime, so I’m going to use some of it up in this recipe. I’ve several hops varieties in the fridge at the moment, but I’m going to use Amarillo here, which will give the beer some fantastic citrus flavours.
Recipe Specifications
Boil Size: 27.92 l
Post Boil Volume: 23.92 l
Batch Size (fermenter): 19.00 l
Bottling Volume: 17.00 l
Estimated OG: 1.056 SG
Estimated Color: 10.8 EBC
Estimated IBU: 52.8 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 60.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 72.6 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes
Ingredients
5.600 kg Pale Malt, Maris Otter, Muntons (6.5 EBC, 100.0 %
15 g Amarillo [10.90 %] – Boil 60.0 min, 21.3 IBUs
0.50 Items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 10.0 mins)
50 g Amarillo [10.90 %] – Boil 10.0 min, 14.2 IBUs
51 g Amarillo [9.90 %] – Steep/Whirlpool 10 mins, 10.2 IBUs
34 g Amarillo [10.90 %] – Steep/Whirlpool 10 mins, 7.2 IBUs
1.0 pkg Safale American (DCL/Fermentis #US-05) (400ml slurry from Harvest Pale Ale)
100 g Amarillo [8.80 %] – Dry Hop 5.0 Days, 0.0 IBUs
Mash Schedule: Bubbles’ Single Infusion, Light Body, Batch Sparge
Total Grain Weight: 5.600 kg
Mash In Add 15.68 l of water at 71.2 C 65.0 C 60 min
Sparge: Batch sparge with 2 steps (Drain mash tun , 18.35l) of 77.0 C water
28/02/2016 Brew Day – Runoff extremely slow from the mash tun, which I thought was to do with the fact that I hadn’t charged the drill fully and had to crush the grain in stages. I think the grain wasn’t quite as crushed as usual, but not sure. Wort was really clear, but I had to exercise serious patience to let the wort run off fully. I ended with the full pre-boil volume, so I tried to watch the boiler like a hawk. It was a close thing at times. Hops weren’t the freshest, but I was determined to use them, as they’re so expensive. Smells nice in the fermenter anyway. Pitched a yeast cake from the Harvest Pale Ale. It’s surprising how much colour you can get out of this pale malt. Target OG was low at 1.050 – 1.052.
13/03/2016 – Racked to secondary and dry hopped with a metric shitload of Amarillo. Well, 100g to be exact. But as dry hops go, that’s quite a lot, especially in one go.
14/03/2016 – The smell from the fermenter is absolutely amazing. Really intense. I’m going to have to remove the hop bag and leaving the beer to settle for a few days, as I think there is going to be a lot of fine hop matter in there.
20/03/2016 – Bottled with 112g corn sugar (17 litres @ 2.5 vol). Got 12 x 750ml and 12 x 500ml bottles from the batch. Lots of sediment in the secondary fermenter from the massive dry hop.