Hulk smash? No not that kind of smash, but a home brew SMaSH. Single Malt, Single Hop brew.
A simple recipe that tends to lead to amazing results. This is my very first attempt at a SMaSH brew and I decided to make use of the 55lbs of Pilsner malt I have sitting downstairs. My previous All Grain recipes did not use very much, if any Pilsner malt, but only because I did not feel it fit with the beers I was designing. The next few brews (yes, including the Third Dragon) are going to use Pilsner malt as the primary base. The thing with Pilsner is that it requires an extended boil time to eliminate any potential DMS flavours (basically a buttery like flavour found in beers).
Sword Lion Saaz (German Bitter/Pilsner Saaz SMaSH)
Grains/Adjuncts
- 6.0 lbs Pilsner Malt
Hops/Herbs
- 1.0 oz Saaz @ 40 minutes
- 1.0 oz Saaz @ 5 minutes
Misc
- 1 tsp Yeast Nutrient @ Flame out
- 1/2 tsp Irish Moss @ 15 minutes (for clarity)
- Pacman Yeast Starter (real wort starter, ei: made from this beers actual wort and not a separate DME starter)
Procedures
- Unconditioned malt, milled once
- Brew-in-a-Bag
- Single Step Mash, ~150F-153F, 120 minutes, 2 gallons
- Sparge, 5 gallons, 170F
- 90 minute boil, split boil (1.5 gallons in one pot, 5.5 gallons in the larger pot, mixed together at 40 minutes once the volume had been reduced enough to fit into the large pot)
- No Chill
Beer Profile
• Batch Size – 4.5 gallons
• Estimated OG: 1.035 (Eff: 75%), Estimated FG: 1.01 (3.5% ABV)
• IBU – 18.5
You may notice a few changes this time around. First off I opted for a split boil, only because I was required to do the extended 90 minute boil. I knew my final volume would be far to low if I did not start with a high enough pre-boil wort volume, but I also knew my kettle can only hold 6 gallons of boiling wort safely. So to make this easy on myself I simply placed 1.5 gallons of the wort into the smaller kettle and boiled it along side each other. At around 40 minutes remaining, both wort volumes had become reduced enough I could fit them into the large kettle. At this point I add the first hop addition.
The 2 hour mash was actually a mistake. I had thought I had enough time during the mash to fit in going to the gym and grocery shopping. Sadly this was not the case and I ended up with a 2+ hour mash time. I don’t know how this will affect my overall gravity, but I don’t believe it will make it lower.
I also have decided to start using Irish moss again in my brews. No Chilling my beer is extremely convenient, but causes the beer to become very cloudy. Irish moss helps aid in clarifying beer so hopefully this batch will benefit from this simple addition. If not I may need to look at using Whirlfloc, another clarifying agent.
All done for today. Maybe I will rack the Black Dragon to a glass carboy tomorrow… But that requires work and today is Thanksgiving!