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