SMaSH II Tasting

The prevailing opinion these days seems to be that SMaSH beers are more useful as experiments to get to know particular ingredients than as "refined" recipes for heavy rotation imbibing. While I'll admit that the two SMaSHes I've done now haven't made me the most excited of anything I've brewed, this one in particular isn't terribly hard to drink. Though I doubled the hops from my first SMaSH, I'll probably push up the hopping rate further for subsequent batches. I do get some flavor & aroma contributions from the Sterling here, but this rates as a solid blonde ale. To really get the full sense of the hops, I'll probably aim for more West Coast pale ale character going forward.

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Appearance: Burnished gold, a touch hazy.

Smell: Slight toast, warm malt. Hops come out as herbal and earthy. Maybe just a little citrus hiding in the back.

Taste: Crisp, herbal, slightly orange. It intensifies as it moves to the back half of the tongue, finishing warm and bready. An herbal note lingers.

Mouthfeel: Medium-lean body, mid/low carbonation that gives it just a little bite around the front and sides of the tongue. Not difficult to take the next drink.

Overall: Though it's not terribly complex, it's an easy drinker. The Vienna makes a good impression here. I could use more Sterling character...or maybe I couldn't, as the lingering herbal note isn't necessarily my favorite. I could see this hop working well in a lager.

SMaSH II

My brewing runs in short spurts these days. I finally managed to get some wort out of the mash tun and over the burner during the no man's land between Christmas and New Year's Eve. The first batch was another SMaSH, this time featuring Vienna malt and Sterling hops.

I've used Vienna quite a bit and really like the bready, grainy warmth it brings to a recipe. Sterling, on the other hand, I've never used in a way that has really accentuated its character. I recall a beer brewed by Ted Danyluk in Chicago in my early days of homebrewing that featured this varietal, but that's about the extent of my experience with it.

Given the lack of hop character in my previous SMaSH, I've bumped up the hops to four ounces this time; hopefully they'll make a more pronounced appearance in this iteration. I suppose I should really aim for a half pound or more to really make them stand out, but we'll see how it goes here. As this beer features a German malt and an American "noble"(ish)-style hop, I went with an American ale yeast fermented a little cooler than normal to get a clean (possibly faux-lager/hybrid?) character.

As of this posting, the batch has been going for a solid week, the swamp cooler holding steady and cool, and the overly full primary carboy has been intermittently blowing off yeast throughout a very consistent fermentation. Thinking good thoughts as it continues to rock along.

SMaSH II

Batch size: 5.5 gallons
Projected OG: 1.048
Projected SRM: 5.0
Projected IBU: 37.6
Boil time: 60 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 73%

Grains
100.0% - 10 lb Weyermann Vienna

Hops
.5 oz Sterling (8.7%) (60 min)
1 oz Sterling (10 min)
1 oz Sterling (0 min - 30 min whirlpool/hop steep)
1.5 oz Sterling (dry hop - 5 days)

Yeast
1 vial WLP001 California Ale - no starter

Extras
1 tsp Yeast nutrient (5 min)
.5 tablet Whirlfloc (5 min)

Water (mash)
Profile: Reno (brewersfriend.com)
8 g Gypsum
1 g Epsom salts
1 g CaCl
5.5 ml Lactic acid (88%)

Brewday: 27 December 2015
Mash: 152F for 60 minutes
Pre-boil volume: 7.5 gallons
Pre-boil SG: 9.8P (1.038)

Mash profile target “Light colored and hoppy” from brewersfriend.com.
Received 45 seconds of pure O2 at pitching. Reoxygentated 12 hours later prior to active fermentation.
Fermented in swamp cooler at 59-61F ambient.

3 January 2016: After 6 days of active fermentation, during which there was active blowoff, upped the swamp cooler temp to 62F.

Despite very cloudy kettle runoff at the end of transfer to primary, there's probably only about 1 qt of trub at the bottom of the fermenter. Will plan to leave less in the kettle in the future!

8 January 2016: Krauesen still present, but very little noticeable activity. Raised swamp cooler temp to 64F & have agitated fermenter daily.

Dry Hop: 9 January 2016
FG: 1.012
ABV: 4.7%

Transferred to new bucket, sealed without an airlock (or hole). Fair bit of splashing during transfer early on, unfortunately, so won’t be surprised it this one turns out oxidized.

Bottled: 15 January 2016
Bottled with 4 oz table sugar.

Tasting: Success! Easy drinking with notes of warm bread and herbal hops.

SMaSH I Tasting

Sadly, I haven't been able to fit in a brewday since the one when I started this batch and the Timothy Taylor Landlord clone, which sadly seems to have succumbed to oxidation. While I hope to brew in the final days of 2015 (and the early days of 2016) in the meantime it was definitely time for tasting notes on my first SMaSH beer. At the extreme end of base malts, I can now say that I definitely understand the flavor impact of Munich II when formulating future recipes. The hops, however, were too sparse to really make a statement; I'll dial up those for future batches.

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Appearance: Deep amber, trending toward orange at the edges with solid red highlights. Just a little hazy.

Smell: Super malty, a little sweet, lots of dark bread crust. This is a melanoidin-rich aroma. No discernible hop presence.

Taste: Bread crust through and through, richly malty, but without any lingering sweetness. A hint of fruitiness maybe. Just a touch of neutral hop bitterness on the end, leaving an aftertaste of warm bread.

Mouthfeel: Full, heavy for such a low-alcohol (4.3% ABV) beer. Carbonation is medium-low; present without being prickly, it's a bit above cask level.

Overall: Honestly, not a bad malty beer. It's fairly one-dimensional, which isn't hard to believe given the grain bill and relatively neutral yeast. Unfortunately, I'm left with no idea what the Nuggetzilla hops have to contribute in terms of flavor or aroma. This is ended up being a real malt bomb, which really switches it up from my normal brewing habits. It certainly isn't hard to drink, but tends to be a low-gravity sipper.

SMaSH I

Though I’ve been brewing for a number of years, I don’t always feel like I have a great sense of my ingredients. Case in point: when this summer’s pale ale came out rough and oniony, it wasn’t until my LHBS gave me a whiff of some Amarillo hops they had on hand that I believed they could’ve brought that character to my beer. In an effort to better understand what's going into my beer, I'm finally embarking on a series of SMaSH (Single Malt and Single Hop) beers. With a sole ingredient in each category, I can really wrap my head around what those ingredients offer.

One oft-reported downfall of SMaSH beers, though, is that they can come out pretty one-dimensional (by design, of course) and uninteresting. So for my first go-around, I went with the richest base grain I could find: dark Munich. For hops, I went kind of nutty with Nuggetzilla, a variety I've never used. While I probably should've stuck with a very neutral yeast like Cal Ale, I opted for Denny's Favorite to boost the interest level even more.

My efficiency has been riding somewhat low since the spring for some reason, so my OG was a bit lower than I'd hoped. Between the malt and yeast, though, the final product turned out ridiculously malty. This beer could really use more oomph in the hop bitterness--it definitely doesn't read as 46 IBUs--flavor, and aroma departments to balance all that malt. This is pretty much a dark Munich showcase, and it gets overwhelming pretty quickly. So for round one, I don't think I really allowed for much learning: I already had a good feel for Munich (and even dark Munich, to an extent) and I didn't add enough hops to get a solid impression of their character in any aspect. At least I learned more about how to conceive of SMaSH beers for next time.

SMaSH I
Batch size: 5.5 gallons
Projected OG: 1.045
Projected SRM: 9.2
Projected IBU: 46.5
Boil time: 60 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 70%

Grains
100% - 10 lb Weyermann Munich II

Hops
.2 oz Nuggetzilla (15.4%) (60 min)
.8 oz Nuggetzilla (10 min)

1 oz Nuggetzilla (0 min - hop steep/whirlpool 30 min)

Yeast
WY1450 - slurry from Competition Pale Ale

Extras
1 tsp Yeast nutrient (5 min)
.5 tab Whirlfloc (5 min)

Water (mash)
Profile: Reno
Target water: “Balanced profile” from brewersfriend.com
5 g Gypsum
5 g CaCl
5 g Baking soda
3 ml Lactic acid (88%)

Brewday: 7 September 2015
Mash: 13 qts @ 151F for 60 minutes - added 1 qt @ 212F to get to temp
1st sparge: 12 qts @ 212F
2nd sparge: 14 qts @ 180F
Pre-boil volume: 8.2 gallons
Pre-boil SG: 9.9P (1.035)

5.5 gallons to fermenter at 11.4P.
Ferment in swamp cooler at 65-67F.

Moved out of swamp cooler to ambient temps (60-68F) after 6 days of active primary, near end of activity.

Bottled: 19 September 2015
FG: 1.013
ABV: 4.3%
Bottled with 3.8 oz table sugar.

Tasting: 6 December 2015
Holy malt, Batman. Hops additions need to go up to be  noticed.