Experiment with lots of malts and hops

[l0pht]

Does anyone have good suggestions on how to really get a good understanding of all the hops and malts out there? I’ve been extract brewing for about 3 years and switched to BIAB for the past year and really want to start experimenting but have always done 5gal batches. How do I scale down and make .5 to 1gal and separate enough of my beer to sample differences in ingredients or is there a better way to go about this I haven’t thought about. Also I have looked into single malt hop and single hop recipes to try out.

 

[AlexKay]

Two suggestions. First, eat the raw grains to get an idea of what tastes each can contribute. See this thread. I'll extend the offer to ship a grain flight that I made to the OP in that thread. Second, check out the 1-gallon brewers thread. BIAB is perfect for little batches (I brew 2.5, 1.25, and 0.25-gallon batches.) Once you figure out your boil-off rate for a given set-up, you can scale a 5-gallon recipe down and get something pretty good.

 

[Bobby_M]

It's pretty tough splitting batches at the boil stage. Basic brewing radio (podcast) has been doing a lot of hop sampler batches (1 gallon) where 100% of the hops are basically added right when the wort hits a boil and the heat is removed. If you do that with an all grain batch, you could make 5 gallons of wort, boil it hard for say 15 minutes to get rid of DMS and then split it between five 2 gallon buckets with different hops added in a bag that you can remove after a 20 minute hop stand. You can then use a tiny immersion chiller to chill them down (or add a bit of sanitary ice).

Trying different malts is harder still. I thought of a lot of ways to pull this off including filling a large rectangular cooler with bain maries.

where each would have a different mash happening within a water bath for temp stability.

 

[PCABrewing]

.. Trying different malts is harder still. I thought of a lot of ways to pull this off including filling a large rectangular cooler with bain maries.
View attachment 749132
where each would have a different mash happening within a water bath for temp stability.

And be sure to taste the runnings from each mash before it moves onto the boil and hop addition.

 

[hotbeer]

Sounds like you've got it solved. Scale recipes down to smaller batches. Though I'd think 1 to 2 gallons about right. Half gallon batches will barely give you a taste and won't be enough to see how beer might change in the bottle over several weeks or months.

I started with all grain BIAB 1 gallon recipe kits and keep several fermenters going at any one time. So I can try and what if everything while it's fresh in my memory. I got some fermenters that will hold 5 liters so I can get a full gallon of beer to bottle.

Take good notes.

 

[marc1]

One thing to consider - there's no rush. There's no need to test all the grains and all the hops right now. Brew styles that you like, try new styles, try new grains, try new hops, and see where it takes you. If you enjoy the hobby and stay with it, you'll get experience over the years on what you like.
Unless you brew like a fiend, you'll never get close to everything tried, so don't stress over it.
If you know other brewers, taste what they make as well, and learn their process, what they like, and see what different things bring to the table for them.

 

[CascadesBrewer]

Does anyone have good suggestions on how to really get a good understanding of all the hops and malts out there?

I agree with the comment from @marc1. The goal should probably be more about getting a basic understanding of enough ingredients to make informed decisions. It is hard to keep up with just the new hops introduced every year, and you could make a batch every week for a year just testing out various Pilsner Malts. While in theory, beer is very simple being made with 3 basic ingredients + water, the reality is that the range of beers made from malt/grain, hops, and yeast at even a small homebrew store is staggering.

Simple beers are a great way to learn. They don't have to be a SMaSH beer. 1 gallon batches are a great way to turn over batches quickly. All-grain 1 gallon batches can be a lot of effort for the reward, but extract batches are so simple I don't mind. I brew a lot of 2.5 gallon batches as well.

There are plenty of other ways to evaluate ingredients. None of them are quite an informative as actually making an enjoyable beer with those ingredients.

 

[Komodo]

One thing to consider - there's no rush. There's no need to test all the grains and all the hops right now. Brew styles that you like, try new styles, try new grains, try new hops, and see where it takes you. If you enjoy the hobby and stay with it, you'll get experience over the years on what you like.
Unless you brew like a fiend, you'll never get close to everything tried, so don't stress over it.
If you know other brewers, taste what they make as well, and learn their process, what they like, and see what different things bring to the table for them.

This. You can learn much from commercial examples, other home brewers, local brewpubs, cloning, etc. Do some digging to find out what ingredients were used. Many times when researching clone recipes, you'll find somebody has already done this.

I'd argue to start with yeast first and keep the malt bill real basic. Study some Belgian recipes to see how simple they are and what the yeast does.