All Grain SMaSH

The idea of Single Malt and Single Hop brewing seems like a lot of fun and educational for my brewing chops. I'm looking for ideas and recipes that are a bit outside of the comfort envelope. I'm a bit partial to Belgian Ales, but I would like to split my batches and try some different yeast strains. This should probably be in recipes but I figured I might get more responses here.

Cheers!!

Mark

How about some belgian blonde with a belgian pilsner or pale and Saaz. That would be a pretty neutral backdrop to really try some out of the box yeast.

How about a belgian IPA with vienna or marris otter and pretty much any american hop. Brew half with an american yeast for comparison.

If you are willing to add sugar to your smash, you can do pretty much any belgian style. If not, you might want to stick with a lower gravity style.

I dug around in some older posts I found and came up with a few suggestions:
Weyerman Vienna & Amarillo (S-04)
Marris Otter & EKG (wlp002)
Vienna & Northern (US05)
Belgian Pilsner & Saaz

My Own idea:
Belgian Pale Ale & EKG (split batch with wlp008 and wlp009)

Coincidence! I decided to do a SMASH Saison and was searching HBT and found a very recent thread discussing SMASH belgians (this one). Usually, I find HBT threads about what Im thinking about from 2009.

I decided to do a low OG (1.043 -- Although it ferments out dry 1.002-1.006 so ends up 4.high%) Saison with 9.5lbs Belg Pils and 3 oz of Saaz (1oz 60, 1oz 15, 1oz 0). I was going to use White Labs Saison II, but I get to the homebrew store and they are out, so go with WLP550 (Belgian Ale). So instead of SMASH saison, Im doing SMASH belgian ale. They said they might have some on Friday so maybe I will pick up the saison II on Friday split that batch -- sounds like too much work though.

billl said:

How about some belgian blonde with a belgian pilsner or pale and Saaz.

Click to expand...

This! If you like Duvel, it's supposedly as simple as it gets: just Pilsner, sugar, Saaz, and Belgian ale yeast.

The Belgian route sounds tasty! I made a Vienna/Northern Brewer SMaSH with US05 that was extremely tasty and will be brewed again soon.

All these suggestions are great! I love Duvel and everyone seems to agree that the Belgian route is the way to go.

Ok So I brewed mine on Sunday:
Final Run Down
Brew Day Sunday 7/15
9.5# Belgian Pils
1.5 oz 3%AA Saaz 60 min
1.5 oz 3%AA Saaz 20 min
1 oz 3%AA Saaz 0 min

Mashed at 152 60 min
Batch Sparge at 168 10 min

5.5 Gallons 1.050 OG
Pitched a quart starter of WLP550 at 65*
Had swamp cooler about 66 and let it come up to 68 over two days (Im still new with this and not sure what I doing with the swamp cooler).

EDIT: I took a gravity reading on Wed Morning 7/18 gravity down to 1.010. I took out of swamp cooler to let the last few points finish up and let the yeast clean up. Ambient temp is 72.

RmikeVT said:

Ok So I brewed mine on Sunday:
Final Run Down
9.5# Belgian Pils
1.5 oz 3%AA Saaz 60 min
1.5 oz 3%AA Saaz 20 min
1 oz 3%AA Saaz 0 min

Mashed at 152 60 min
Batch Sparge at 168 10 min

5.5 Gallons 1.050 OG
Pitched a quart starter of WLP550 at 65*
Had swamp cooler about 66 and let it come up to 68 over two days (Im still new with this and not sure what I doing with the swamp cooler).

Click to expand...

Sounds like your off to a great start!! Keep us posted on how it turns out.....

knuckleheadbrewing said:

Sounds like your off to a great start!! Keep us posted on how it turns out.....

Click to expand...

Ok just an update. This beer has been naturally carbing in a keg for a couple weeks now. I only have room for one keg in my kegerator. As soon as my oatmeal stout kicks it will need two days to cool down and I will share with some homebrew buddies and provide notes. Anyone else on the thread have an update on how their brews went?

RmikeVT said:

Ok just an update. This beer has been naturally carbing in a keg for a couple weeks now. I only have room for one keg in my kegerator. As soon as my oatmeal stout kicks it will need two days to cool down and I will share with some homebrew buddies and provide notes. Anyone else on the thread have an update on how their brews went?

Click to expand...

Just as a follow up -- this beer/recipe goes straight to the top of the list of best brews I've made.

This will go right into my beer making rotation. I was doing this as a SMaSH experiment, next go around I might add something to give just a touch more malt flavor. Maybe 1# of something like CareVienne, CaraMunich or something along those lines. Although, don't fix it if its not broken.