If you are new to homebrewing or have been into homebrewing for years making small or 5 gallon smash beers can help find out what malts, hops or yeast can bring to a homebrew. What is a smash beer? Smash stands for Single malt single hop. You have a lot of options when making a smash beer. You can use the same grain and keep changing the hops to see what you get. In this first small batch series beer we will be using Rarh 2-row and Amarillo hops. For right now we will keep using the same yeast and that will be US-05.
This will be a 1.25 gallon batch going into the fermenter. Right now we will be using the Mr. Beer fermenter.
BIAB Recipe:
2 LBs 12 oz Rahr 2-Row
.39 oz Amarillo Alpha Acid 10.3% 30 mins
.29 oz Amarillo Alpha Acid 10.3% 5 mins
.32 oz Amarillo Alpha Acid 10.3% Dry Hop 3 days after yeast start
Mash in temp: 150
Boil Time: 60 mins
Yeast: US-05
BeerSmith was used for recipe and numbers
Pre-Boil Gravity 1.040 Mine was 1.035
Post Boil Gravity 1.056 Mine was 1.063
Batch Volume into fermenter 1.25 gallons.
Tasting
With a SMASH beer you are going to get grain/malt flavor unless you use a lot of hops. In this series we want to taste the grain and hops so that’s why we are doing the hop schedule we are. In the smell you do pull some sweet grain from the RAHR 2-row that’s use. I do get a hint of citrus and fruit. If you look on line the main profile of Amarillo is orange. In the taste you do get some sweet malt but then it goes into a orange bitterness. A hint of fruit but the orange citrus does pull until the end. After taste is orange citrus.
After 5 months the color is starting to get darker. This would be from the malt. This is an IPA so I didnt think it would last 5 months. It looks like its golden tea. You are getting a lot of sweet malt. In the taste you are getting that sweet malt with some bitterness. Like with most craft IPAs you dont want to go that long b/4 drinking them. We will only do 4 reviews going forward as this tells us that the malt will talk over.
Amarillo Smash going into the Mr. Beer