Simplicity

I’m on a simplicity kick.  Nothing for a total of ten beers (only successfully completed and drank beers) can be in any way complicated.  My reasons for this are a few in a row of very so-so beers that were also too complicated to be able to accurately trouble shoot without doubt.  So it’s KISS only from here to a while from now.

My lager came out good, that’s one.  It was merely golden promise plus cascade, and it’s damn tasty.

I’ve got a couple Munich SMaSH beers going too.  One’s a petite saison smash with munich and citra, one’s a regular old
US-05 munich/cascade smash beer.  Also got a super simple stout planned with 90% 2-row, 10% roasted barley, and Irish ale yeast, for a super simple dry Irish stout.

Also got a blonde ale that came out fantastic (again!)  Reasonably simple beers that I’ve done before successfully are IN as far as my simplicity kick goes. Elderberry wheat may be repeated shortly too.

When you realize that your simplest beers are usually your best, then you should consider going on a simplicity kick.  Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do.

Sam Adams Summer Ale Clone

4.5 lbs 2 Row Malt

4.5 lbs Wheat Malt

1 oz lemon peel at 5 min

3 g grains of paradise at 5 min

Mash temp 153°

I’ve wanted to try brewing with grains of paradise, so I’ve finally gotten my chance.

Now there was a bit of a mixup between this brew and my quadro-smash, and this may have been dry-hopped with the hops from that one!  Oh well, we’ll find out when the time comes.  Although I didn’t mean for this to be dry hopped, if ti was, it should merely be “extra tssty.”  The quadro-smash will just be more like any other IPA that’s not dry hopped, so no biggie there. Can’t wait to taste them!

Quadro-Smash! (WTF Al?)

Edited to reflect reality!  And again to reflect reality again!

 

UPDATE: fucked it all up.  Forgot which bucket was which, put the dry hops 68g for this one into the Sam Adams summer ale clone.  This one was quite a bit on the bitter side, but has mellowed as it aged, and is at least drinkable. 

Now the other beer, the Sam Adams Summer Ale clone, it came out really nice!  All that dry hop aroma somehow didn’t mess with the rather delicate and subtle aromas and flavors of the lemon peel and grains of paradise.

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Well I never cared whether I mis-used words or butchered the English Language much, so I can name my beers whatever the heck I want!

Got the idea from a beeradvocate.com thread. Four base malts, equal portions, and four hops, equal portions, in a pale ale or IPA like beer with IBUs about 45-50.

3 lbs maris otter
3 lbs golden promise
3 lbs vienna
3 lbs munich

Hops will be a blend of Cascade, Citra, Willamette, and Bravo!  I gotta check the AA% for the exact numbers,, but the schedule wound up like this:

• 40g bravo
  100g cascade
  80g willamette
  60g citra
  280g hops total
  28g at 60
  54g at 5
  140g at FO
  68g dry hop

Used Denny’s best yeast.  Wound up being far more of an IPA than I had previously planned.  Still – This one can’t help but be ginormously fantabulous!

Lager!

Brewed a lager! Wasn’t really much to it, actually. 10.5 lbs of pilsner malt plus this hops schedule:

• 1 oz cascade at 60
• 1 oz willamette at 10
• 1 oz cascade at 5
• 2 oz willamette 1 oz cascade at flameout

Other than that, just some yeast nutrient and whirlflock, and German lager yeast.  The plan is to ferment at 52F for six weeks, then transfer to a carboy and lager for at least six, but up to ten weeks at 33F.

This beer has its own special fermentation freezer and controller setup.

KISS Amber extract ale

The name almost says it all.  The malt bill is quite simple:

• 3 lbs Amber Extract

The hops bill is also very simple:

• 0.5 oz cascade at 60
• 2 oz cascade at FO

2 gallon batch. American ale II yeast used.

The primary purpose of this beer is to test straight amber extract and see what it’s like on its own.  This is part of my “not regurgitating standard advice when you haven’t actually tried it yourself” campaign.

I plan to keep brewing stuff with amber and dark and extra-dark extracts too, because I don’t believe that everything extract needs to be done with extra-light + steeping grains.  It’s ok to get some of your color from extracts. However, we’re going to see real soon just how much other than color this particular extract added to the beer.\

I suppose this is a smash beer too. Can’t have too many smashes!

I may dry hop it, we’ll see.

 

EDIT and update: well first test bottle popped. Great carbonation, great amber color (the amber extract straight up gives the perfect color for an amber ale). Oddly, a strangely wine-like flavor and aroma, not the cascade-bomb amber I expected. Not sure what’s up with it, but hey, it’s still tasty beer!  Definitely confused on the wine-like qualities tho. I’ll have to make another similar brew and see what happens.

Changes to the Double-Smash Beer

Well I finally got around to actually brewing the Double-SMaSH, with Vienna/Munich, BUT – I forgot the cascade hops on brew day.  Since I have to drive a ways to get to where I brew, I wasn’t going back.  However, I had some hops there, so I just changed the hops schedule around completely.  So now it’s a double-TRIPLE-SMaSH.  Yes, I realize that’s one hell of a misnomer.  But hey, it’s my beer, and I can change it up if I want to!  Plus I was never that good at keeping to the strict interpretation of literary meanings or definitions of words.   I do what I want!!

Still 6 lbs each Vienna / Munich malts.

Here’s the new hops schedule:

0.25 each at 60 bravo/belma
0.25 each at 15 bravo/belma/centennial
0.25 each at 10 bravo/belma
0.5 centennial at 10
0.25 each at 5 bravo/belma
0.75 centennial at 5
1 oz each belma/bravo at FO
DH one ounce each belma/bravo

From past experience, it’ll at least make beer, and probably tasty beer.  Maybe it’ll be the new sensation, who knows?  But as long as it makes tasty beer, I’ll be happy.

Fresh Hops are in!!

Just picked up three bags of fresh hops, 8 oz each:

• cascade
• citra
• simcoe

Gonna make a fresh hop pale ale today!  No idea what the IBUs will be, not even sure what the OG is going to be either.  I’m going to use 17 lbs of Golden Promise as the grist, so basically it’s a smash (one grain, fresh hops, a loose definition, lol).  OG should be about 1.060, but I’m making seven gallons, not my usual five, so not sure what the exact efficiency is going to be.

All the fresh hops will be added at flameout and hopstand.  A tiny bittering charge of pellet hops will be added at 60 minutes to ensure enough bitterness.

I’ll dry hop with something.  Probably cascade, but I’ll decide when the time comes.

Can’t wait to see how it comes out!!

Double SMaSH – Two Malts, Two Hops?

EDIT: This beer got changed, the hops schedule at least.  New version is here.

Got this idea from Beer Advocate Homebrew forum – making a SMaSH, but making it with TWO base balts and two types of hops.  Actually we were discussing smash beers, and I was noting some of my results. and the idea just kind of evolved, so I figured I’d try it.  Here’s the recipe I came up with:

Munich/Vienna+Belma/Cascade Double SMaSH

• 6 lbs Munich malt
• 6 lbs Vienna malt
• 0.5 oz Belma at 60
• 0.5 oz Cascade at 60
• 0.5 oz Belma at 10
• 0.5 oz Cascade at 10
• 0.5 oz Belma at 5
• 0.5 oz Cascade at 5
• 1.5 oz Belma at FO
• 1.5 oz Belma at FO
• 1 oz Belma dry hop
• 1 oz Cascade dry hop

Targets:

• OG 1.046
• IBU 48
• SRM 9
• ABV 6.2%

I’ve really liked making SMaSH beers.  Some have come out great, some have come out OK (but quite drinkable!), but they’re all interesting to make, and I learn a lot from each one about various types of malts and hops.  Between the results of my Munich/Bravo SMaSH and my Vienna/Cascade SMaSH, plus the results of the Belma IPA, I think this might make for a real tasty beer.  Only way to find out for sure is to brew it!

I also plan to try something with just Munich and Cara-Munich in the near future, just for the heck of  it!   I realized I haven’t been making anything with much (or any) crystal malt in it lately, and would like to try cara-munich, so perhaps I’ll give it a try.  I’ll search around a little for the appropriate amounts of cara-munich to use, then add that to some munich malt, add hops, yeast —-> Beer!

Vienna Cascade SMaSH

Slapped together a quick one last saturday, a SMaSH beer with only Vienna and Cascade.

• 12 lbs Vienna malt
• US-05 yeast
• 1 oz cascade at 60
• 1 oz cascade at 10
• 1 oz cascade at 5
• 2 oz cascade at FO
• about 2.5 oz of cascade dry hop (the rest of the bag, whatever it weighs)

Mashed at 153 for an hour.

Targets:

• OG 1.058
• IBUs 38
• SRM 6.4
• ABV 6.2

2-Row and Fuggles SMaSH

Made a SMaSH with just 12 lbs* 2-row and fuggles.  Used Nottingham yeast.  Boiled about a gallon of the first runnings for about an hour to increase malliard reactions, then boiled the whole thing longer than normal too (total boil was near three hours).

The funny thing was that I had “around” 5 oz or so of Fuggles (leaf), and wanted to use them up (to free up freezer space, I have two freezers that have a bunch of hops in both. LOL).  So I decided I was going to use them all no matter what.   Also, just to make it interesting, I decided NOT to use a scale.  I put a good handful in at first wort hops, then started tossing in a handful here, a handful there, starting at 15 minutes.  Most of it was added at around 8 minutes or less.  The funny thing is…

It will come out tasty. 🙂

I know.  I’m a rebel and I’ll never be any good.

I have various other SMaSH beers planned for the near future, including one I’ve already got the ingredients for, Maris Otter and Simcoe.  And I’ll definitely be brewing that petite saison again (probably identical grains, but this time use cascade hops).  And the Bravo/Munich smash was out of this world!  Gotta try some Vienna, some golden promise, and who knows what else in the future!

*I am using 12 lbs of grain for all my smash beers, just to “standardize.”  In my system this makes an approximately 6.0-6.2% ABV beer.