• SMaSH Brewing

A Well-Made Tripel - One Gallon Batch

Brooklyn Brew Shop - This was a recipe from their book titled Beer Making Book

• Belgian trippel
• according to the book, it's suppose to have a 9.9% ABV
• brewed on June 4, 2014
• used Wyeast Trappist HG 3787
• we finished brewing and added blow-off tube around 11:00 p.m., June 4
• OG was 1.074, temp 73.4, adjusted OG was 1.075.
• around 7:00 a.m. on June 5, no surface activity existed. but within an hour or so, considerable surface activity existed, filling the carboy to the lid with bubbles.
• by 11:00 p.m. on June 5, the most vigorous fermentation activity had already subsided.
• at 7:00 a.m. on June 6, fermentation activity continues at nice pace with gas flowing through the blow-off tube, but the activity is less than the evening before.
• fermentation on June 4, 5, and 6 occurred in the dining room with an air temp between 68 and 71 degrees. i wrapped a blanket around the carboy, and i stopped opening the window in the dining room because our morning temps this week were around 50 to 55 degrees.
• temps in the dining room remained in the mid 70s from Jun 7 through Jun 9.
• on Mon eve, Jun 9, turned the furnace on to 80 degrees for a while. Then later, I moved the fermenter to the upstairs bathroom and closed the door.
• we had cool mornings and days all week, Jun 9 through Jun 13. temps in the upstairs bathroom remained in the 70s.
• on Fri, Jun 13, I moved the carboy to the basement.

Ingredients

• Belgian Pilsner malt
• Caramel 10 malt
• East Kent Golding hops
• Saaz hops
• Belgian Candi Sugar
• Book recommended: Wyeast Belgian Abbey 1218 or Safale S-33
• We used Wyeast Trappist HG 3787
• Book suggests orange blossom honey for bottling.

SMaSH Brewing

http://www.homebrewersassociation.org/lets-brew/keeping-it-simple-with-smash-brewing/

SMaSH (single malt and single hop) brewing is a way to cut down on various brewing ingredients and appreciate what each aspect of a recipe brings to the table.

Brewing on the Ones

SMaSH is an extremely valuable learning process that can create great beer, but being limited to one malt and one hop can get a bit drab over time. That’s where Drew Beechum comes in…

Riffing off of the “keep it simple” concept of SMaSH, Drew came up with a slightly more complex version that allows more freedom while still valuing the constraint and creativity of having to pick and choose limited ingredients.

In addition to one base malt and hop, “brewing on the ones” calls for one ingredient in each of the following categories: color/flavor malt or adjunct; sugar; spice.

Try taking a SMaSH or other simplified recipe and adding additional ingredients from the categories above to change the style altogether. In many cases it doesn’t take too many bells and whistles to evolve from one style to another, which John Palmer shows us in How to Brew:

• Pale ale: base malt plus a half-pound of caramel malt
• Amber ale: pale ale plus a half-pound of dark caramel malt
• Brown ale: pale ale plus a half-pound of chocolate malt
• Porter: amber plus a half-pound of chocolate malt
• Stout: porter plus a half-pound of roasted barley

The above trippel recipe is close.

• base malt: Belgian Pilsner
• color/flavor malt: Caramel 10
• sugar: Belgian Candi Sugar for the boil and honey for bottling. is priming sugar counted?
• spice: none
• other adjunct such as fruit: none

But the above trippel uses two hops:

• East Kent Golding hops
• Saaz hops

Need to attempt a lower ABV (less Belgian Pilsner malt) with only one of the hops. Can this recipe ignore the Belgian Candi sugar at boil time?

It seems that the three main hops used in Belgian beers include:

• Saaz (Czech) - low bitternes - dried herbs/white pepper/apples flavor
• East Kent Golding (U.K.) - low to medium bitterness - dried flowers/moss/plum flavor
• Styrian Golding (Slovenia) - low to medium bitterness - white pepper/moss/undergrowth flavor

Wyeast Belgian yeasts:
http://www.wyeastlab.com/hb_yeaststrain.cfm

• 1214 - Belgian Abbey
• 1388 Belgian Strong Ale
• 1762 Belgian Abbey II
• 3724 Belgian Saison
• 3787 Trappist High Gravity
• 3944 Belgian Witbier

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