Testing Base Malts with SMaSHes

Hi Guys-

I'm interested in evaluating base malts (and boy are there a ton of them) to pick a sort of "house" pale malt. What's a good way to do this when evaluating malt? I'd like to end up with some drinkable beers at the end of all this, and not something too boring. I thought of something like a pale ale, but was worried late hops might get in the way.

Thoughts on OG, mash temp, etc?

I did one using Marris Otter and Cascade hops recently that was my first SMaSH and was brewed as a 3bbl batch for sale to customers. Kept the IBU at around 60 (forget right now) and the alcohol at 5.5%

I wasn't sure what to expect for sales but it moved a lot faster than I expected and I have had requests for more of this style since nobody does this for tap sales in this area.

Mash temp was 155
OG if I remember right was 1.050
FG 1.010
I forget the gu:bu numbers but I could look it up later

I've done a few SMaSHes, and I usually target about 1.060 OG, and mash fairly high (156*F), and target ~ 45 IBU's with all additions 20 min or less. I feel like the warmer mash allows the malt to have a say in things, as does keeping the bittering level restrained. I still get plenty of hop flavor and aroma so I can learn about that hop strain as well by keeping the additions late a la "hopburst." I have never gotten the impression that this protocol overwhelms or outshines the malt at all...

All combinations have come out awesome, but the best so far I think was my American Pale Nelson Sauvin, close second being my current on tap Vienna Simcoe. I'm actually running low...I do need to brew soon! Thinking about something with Munich...have to go through my hop stash and see what might sound good with that!

Edit: forgot to mention...use a clean neutral yeast...I've been using either US-05 or BRY-97

Our house yeast is WLP090 so no worries there, but I was concerned about late hops affecting my ability to judge the malt character fully. Not a problem do you think? I've got a pretty good palate but since this is for posterity, I'd like to get it right the first time.

daksin said:

Our house yeast is WLP090 so no worries there, but I was concerned about late hops affecting my ability to judge the malt character fully. Not a problem do you think? I've got a pretty good palate but since this is for posterity, I'd like to get it right the first time.

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My suggestion is to set yourself a standard then use it every time.

OG = x
IBU = x
BU:GU = x
Hop schedule = x

This way it is the exact same beer every time but the only variable is the base grain and the hops themselves. If you use BS to design you could even make sure each hop addition is imparting the same number of IBU so it is even more precise.

What numbers you decide on honestly makes no difference but keeping the BU:GU numbers at a moderate level will allow the base grain to show through a bit more and you will have a more balanced beer, but if you want a 100ibu SMaSH then there is no reason you couldn't and with each SMaSH you brewed like that you would notice the change in flavor from the grain or the hop depending on what variable you switched out.

What base grains are you even familiar with?


Why not try chewing a handful of base grains and see if you find the flavor agreeable? If you can't taste the difference between 2 malts chewing on them, you won't be able to in a beer neither.

I have tried several over the past few years, including Maris Otter several different "pale ale" malts that were produced domestically. Maris Otter is great if you are doing English ales, or anything you want a little more malty character in. Domestically, I like the Northwest Pale Ale malt by Great Western. It just tastes better to me than the 2-Row from Canadian Malting.

I agree with Nightshade too. Set up an experiment using all of the different base malts you can get your hands on. Then use a basic recipe to test them all in a routine fashion. The only variable in the test should be the base malt. If you are looking to have a drinkable beer out of each one then do a style you like as the test batch. I don't see any reason to limit it to a SMaSH though, as long as you control all other aspects of the recipe.

So, I understand how to set up an experiment; I was more looking for suggestions on what you think would be good for a recipe when compaing base malts specifically.

Also- 2-row base malt and pale malts in general produced by different malsters can be radically different- chewing grain may give you an idea of the difference between munich and maris otter, but if you want to figure out how two different 2-rows are going to act in a final beer, you need to make that beer and compare them.

daksin said:

So, I understand how to set up an experiment; I was more looking for suggestions on what you think would be good for a recipe when compaing base malts specifically.

Also- 2-row base malt and pale malts in general produced by different malsters can be radically different- chewing grain may give you an idea of the difference between munich and maris otter, but if you want to figure out how two different 2-rows are going to act in a final beer, you need to make that beer and compare them.

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I have no actual knowledge or experience on the matter, but wouldn't just doing a light 60 min hop addition with something like hallertauer mittelfruh or even magnum be a pretty good way to evaluate grain? No late hops at all.

This wouldn't really be the best drinking beer, but you'd really taste the grain.

Off topic...

My wife will be in San Diego for the next few days. I suggested she and my sister (both my sister and my wife's sister live in SD) go to Stone brewing for a tour and so my wife could pick me up a growler (I have a modest collection going) but when she talked to my sister she found out my sis already got me one. My sister is into my brewing although she prefers lambics and I can't really stand them.

Are you guys open to the public and do you sell growlers? Just to get to the heart of the matter finally.

daksin said:

So, I understand how to set up an experiment; I was more looking for suggestions on what you think would be good for a recipe when compaing base malts specifically.

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What about a blonde? Tweak your water to bring out the malt, mash higher. That way hops aren't too much in the profile, plus you've got a quick, low-stress ferment and end up with lawnmower beers for the summer!

daksin said:

Our house yeast is WLP090 so no worries there, but I was concerned about late hops affecting my ability to judge the malt character fully. Not a problem do you think? I've got a pretty good palate but since this is for posterity, I'd like to get it right the first time.

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I don't personally feel that the late hops outshine the malt, but my goal with SMaSH brewing is to learn both the grain flavors as well as the hop flavors. I weight my mash and bittering levels to achieve some maltiness, but use the hopburst additions to get me some good hop aroma and flavor.

If you're really just interested in choosing a base malt that you like, perhaps a more balanced traditional hop schedule is in order... My way works for me, and I think my formula makes a superb pale ale, regardless of the malt/hop combination (so far).

Perhaps your first two SMaSHes should be the same malt and hop with the same IBU levels, but with one having all late additions, and the other spread more throughout the boil...see if you findl the traditional bittering gives you a better feel for the malt or not...

I did an experiment like this, but changed hops instead of malts. I didn't work out as well as I had hoped, but the experiment was a success in that I hopped the same wort with five different hop varieties, and they were dramatically different.

If I we setting out to do this experiment, I would probably bet that changing the base malts might not exhibit huge differences....stay, a briess two-row, to M.O., or pilsner. Munich or Vienna might be different enough. So I might consider doing this experiment with a standard bill as 80-90%, then adding different accent malts to see what you get. Or maybe to keep it simple, do one with all two row, one with Munich, and one with pilsner. Sme hops and add times for all of them.

My $.02

Gameface said:

Are you guys open to the public and do you sell growlers? Just to get to the heart of the matter finally.

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We will be open to the public, but not in the next few days. Still waiting in line for our licenses. Thanks for the thought though.

Anway, I think I'll probably shoot for something in the 1.055 range and do a bittering addition and then just one flameout addition for a bit of a flavor but mostly aroma. I have the following hops, not sure what would be best for a 2-row SMaSH:

Plenty of:
Belma
Centennial
Northern Brewer
Cascade
Citra
Simcoe
Bravo

and an ounce of chinook, so that's out I think.

FWIW, I'd set it up as simple as possible. 90-95% base malt and 5-10% carapils for body. I'd use the same hop in all of them, probably cascade. I'd also try to go for a more "balanced" pale ale, with SOME sort of bittering additions (even if it's small), and I wouldn't hop burst it too much.

So 5G would go like this: 90-95% base 5-10% carapils (mostly for body) 1oz cascade fwh (I like the hop backbone this gives and it doesn't increase the ibus too much), 1oz at 15, 1oz at 5 and 1oz at flameout. Then send me some so I can taste them ;-)

Our club just did our annual beer camp and we had 10 brewers make single hop pale ales with the same grainbill. Some of the beers were great, but I wished it was even more structured as we were allowed to add 1lb of non-sugar malt to the grist, and one brewer added black patent..which kind ruined the ability to differentiate the hops for me. I'm thinking of doing it again and just doing like 5 1G batches at the same time, but staying mroe consistent, and then perhaps, doing it changing the specialty malt.

jbaysurfer said:

FWIW, I'd set it up as simple as possible. 90-95% base malt and 5-10% carapils for body.

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But, but...then it's not really a SMaSH, is it?

biochemedic said:

But, but...then it's not really a SMaSH, is it?

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Yeah, I suppose that's true. lol. Then again, the OP wasn't specifically asking for a SMaSH. But that works too. Just drop the carapils.

Also, if that's a 5 gallon batch, you've made a light IPA, not what I'd call ideal for evaluating malt characteristics. Probably just going to go with one decent size aroma/flavor addition at 5-10m and either a traditional bittering charge or FWH. I don't think the carapils should be necessary, a nice high mash should give me all the body I need and punch up the malt flavor a bit.

Drop the Carapils and the late hop additions. Cheers guys. I'm interested to see how this project works out for ya daksin.