1 Mash enters, 3 brews leave

[markcurry]

So here's my crazy idea for tomorrow's brew.

I've been brewing for about 2 years now. I've been meaning to brew some SMaSH brews so I can start better learning the profiles of the malts, hops, and yeasts.

I'm thinking of the Vienna/Centennial SMaSH here:
Vienna/Centennial SMaSH

I've also wanted to brew Brandon's Graff. Which only needs about a gallon of (lightly hopped) wort.

Brandon's Graff

So here's my plan.

Mash up the SMaSH, but add some more Vienna.
Pull of ~1.5 Gallons of the wort from my first sparge for the Graff, and reserve.

Continue the SMaSH per recipe. However, at the end split into (2) 2.5 Gallon ferments. One with English Yeast (S-04). One with American (S-05).

For the Graf, take that 1.5 Gallons of reserved wort - steep the torrified wheat and Crystal 120 per recipe. Then boil with the small hop addition.
I'm aiming for 1 Gallon at ~1.080.

Proceed with the rest of Brandon's Graff.

1 Mash, giving me three brews.

Plenty of places I can mess up. But it should be fun.

--Mark

 

[oujens]

I think you're going to have efficiency issues. The majority of your sugars get pulled off on your first sparge. You would need to make the same grain bill and mashed together (collected in same kettle) for all 3 beers to have the best chance at success. If I'm thinking about this correctly, your Graff would have too many sugars and your other beers will have too few. Hope that makes sense.

 

[stoneBriar]

I don't think you can steep terrified wheat. Maybe there will be enough enzymes in the 1.5 gallons you pull to convert the wheat starches but I wouldn't bet on it unless you pull that early in the course of the experiment.

Good luck, let us know how it goes.

 

[Mike_kever_kombi]

I often do something very similar.

I will make 12 +/- gallons of base beer (cooler mash, batch sparge), and then use either my stove top or HLT burner (sometimes both, depending on what varieties) to make a mini BIAB mash. I then divide the "base wort" and combine with mini mashes to create 2-3 unique beers.

It takes maybe 30-60 minutes longer with prep/clean/process/etc. but it is an efficient use of time, as opposed to 2 separate brew days. Can be/get a bit hectic your first few times, but once you get a system it isn't bad. I find I have very little downtime which makes the day go by much quicker.

 

[markcurry]

@oujens

Yeah, I'll end up measuring the gravity, then mixing/matching from the first sparge and the rest to get the gravity for the Graff part right. I know what I need for the pre-boil. I'll have 1.5 or so gallons of high gravity wort from the first sparge. Then the rest from the subsequent sparge. Mix a little as needed.

Hopefully I'll be able to hit it. If not, I do have some DME to help fix.

About to strike right now..

Thanks,

Mark

 

[markcurry]

@stoneBriar

I wasn't sure about that. It's one of the things I missed by skipping extract brewing and jumping right to all-grain. Paying attention to what needs to convert, what needs to be just steeped. You can learn a lot there.

Going right to all-grain, I didn't really need to think about that - just mash everything.

Brandon's recipe just has the wheat steeped along with the Crystal 120. I'm thinking you're not looking for the sugars as much as whatever's in the wheat that gives good head.

And it's only an ounce. My alternative would be to up the amount, and include it in the SMaSH too, but then it wouldn't be a SMaSH.

--Mark

 

[markcurry]

Brew day went pretty well. The concerns oujens raised about the first batch sparge was right. I pulled 1.5 gallons off for the Graff, and put a small sample in the fridge to cool to get an accurate SG. Continued with the rest of the sparge, for the SMaSH, and pulled a separate sample for an SG reading of the bulk of the wort - put that in the fridge too.

Boil for the SMaSH started. Reading for the Graff high - no problem, just need a reading for the SMaSH... and, too many things happening at once, and I started the Graff steep before the adjustment.

Anyway my Graff wort ended up high at around 1.095. Was aiming for 1.080. No biggie. The SMaSH was spot on, so my efficiency was a little better than I expected.

All's bubbling nicely now. Can't wait to taste all three.

--Mark

 

[markcurry]

Just kegged the two SMaSH brews. Fermentation was a little different between the two yeasts.
The English Yeast took off quicker and was more aggressive - krausen almost blew out my airlock. F.G. was 1.007

For the American Yeast, it took a little longer to get going, and wasn't as active. It did however finish lower, at 1.004.

Taste test when I was kegging: Both were very good, I'll be making the SMaSH again. However, I'm curious if this was the best recipe to do a yeast comparison with. There's a lot of hops in this recipe, and that was very forward in my sample. I don't have the best palate so that's part of it. But I couldn't tell any difference between the two yeasts.

Will wait for it to carb up and cool down for a week. Try again then. It's good either way, I'll definitely enjoy it.

 

[tennesseean_87]

See the link in my sig and let me know if you have any other good experiments.

 

[markcurry]

@tennesseean_87

Your post was part of my inspiration for trying this. Thanks!

I'm in the process of converting my keezer from (5) 5-gallon cornies to (2) 5-gallons, and (5) 2.5 gallons to up my potential kegged varieties.

I plan on trying other ideas from your posts in the near future.

--Mark

 

[tennesseean_87]

@tennesseean_87

Your post was part of my inspiration for trying this. Thanks!

I'm in the process of converting my keezer from (5) 5-gallon cornies to (2) 5-gallons, and (5) 2.5 gallons to up my potential kegged varieties.

I plan on trying other ideas from your posts in the near future.

--Mark

Glad to be of help!