Question about SMaSH - small volumes and hops

[bernardsmith]

I am thinking that the best way for me to get a handle on hops is to make a number of single malt and single hop brews. I am happy making one gallon (or perhaps 2.5 gallon) batches, but approximately how much hops should I use per gallon (assuming I use 2 parts for bittering and 1 part for flavor and 1 part for aroma. Is one ounce/ gallon too much? (my goal is to gain a better feel for the relationship between the AA % and the perceived bitterness). My plan was to use about 2.5 lbs of Maris Otter as the base malt? Thoughts? Comments? Brickbats? Thanks

 

[kh54s10]

You need to calculate the bittering. Or use a recipe builder. Each hop will be different.

Try Brewers Friend.

 

[mdindy]

1-2oz per 1 gallon will be more than enough, I did a 2 gallon hoppy amber with 1oz of cascade and centennial that came out really hoppy. that would be a good reference point but like kh54s10 said the recipe builders are a super easy fast way to calculate IBU accuratly.

 

[Oginme]

The way I do my smash recipes is to take a batch of wort and split it into 6 liter aliquots. I then boil for 40 minutes adding 10 IBU of a select hop at 30 min, 15 min, 5 min, and whirlpool/steep. Total is 40 IBU, mostly end additions and I get a good idea of aroma and taste from the hop. From a typical batch of wort, I can get 4 hop smashes done, which makes for good comparisons. I've contemplated doing a hop addition to several of the bottles at bottling time to get some idea of how much additional aroma/flavor I would get from dry hopping.