Hi all- I just purchased my first brewing kit from a co-worker who no longer brews and am looking to start figuring out exactly what I am going to brew. The equipment that I have is pretty basic and includes (2) 6 gallon plastic ale pales, 5g glass carboy, capper, auto-siphon, bottle filler, etc. I am going to start filling in the gaps with other things that I will need along the way (thermometer, test jar, kettle, large quantity of sanitizer & cleanser, caps etc). I don't plan to actually brew for a couple of weeks. I don't have much in the way of space in my house and plan to only brew a couple of batches a year as I want to get the process and its inner workings down and will aim to drink what I've made in a reasonable amount of time once bottled and conditioned(probably 5-6 batches/year). I have a metric shit ton of 22 and 12oz bombers that i've saved over the last few months in anticipation of brewing and plan to bottle whatever I make in them; I wont be kegging anything anytime soon My preferred style of beer is Fruity/Hoppy IPA & IIPA (Abrasive, Hop Ranch, Citra Showers/Ninja etc) and I will most likely focus on brewing that style for now. Ive done some reading on SMaSH beers and it seems like that's a good direction for me to go in but am not sure if I will be able to find a relatively simple and repeatable base IPA (7%abv +) that I could then take and add in the hops that I want to brew with while being able to repeat with a different type of hop next time using the same "base IPA recipe". Ive also given some thought to modifying this method just a bit and using a bittering hop and an aroma hop (ala Surly Abrasive with Warrior/Citra) instead of making a true SMaSh formulation. Again, with the focus being on keeping it relatively simple. After some amount of reading here and at HBT it seems that changing hops (along with their associated AA) in and out is just not as simple as I'm hoping it will be in my ideal mind. For now, I will place a premium on keeping it simple, making tasty beers to the style that I prefer and giving myself minimum opportunity to screw things up. Hops that I want to try out in this manner include your usual suspects; Citra, Amarillo, Galaxy, Mosaic, Simcoe et al. Im hoping to get some input on my plan and appreciate any and all given.
Well, a SMASH is a single malt and single hop, and most often associated with all-grain. Usually people brew them to experience what a specific hop brings to the profile. It sounds to me like you just want to have a base extract recipe, and use different hops accordingly. So, that's quite different from a SMASH. There are a great deal of programs that will work out the AAU numbers for you, so it takes the guesswork/lack of experience out of the equation.
Ok gotcha, I'm definitely not looking to go the all grain route just yet. Any recommendation for an AAU Program?
http://www.brewtoad.com/ I've not used it, there are others that are more powerful, but are aimed more toward all-grain brewers. BeerSmith is another, but you have to pay for it...and truthfully you won't use most of its features. BrewCipher was developed by another member here, and while free...it's also more aimed at all-grain brewers...and might be a little daunting for new brewers.
Fremont Brewing makes a great SMaSH in the summer: Summer Ale. It's 2-row and Amarillo. I might have to clone that one. I still have a pound of Amarillo in the freezer.
As an example, when I buy a hop I've never used before I use the same base single-hop recipe and hop to 65 ibu. 6lb extra light dme 8oz crystal 20 1lb table sugar 4oz Maltodextrin (or 8oz carapills)* *not necessary especially when using extract but I prefer the thicker mouthfeel. The brewtoad site mentioned above is more than adequate to accomplish what you want.
If any Extract Brewers out there would like to use BrewCipher, let me know. It does support extract batches, but is very (very) light on extract ingredients. But I can certainly load them up on a next version.
I'm of the opinion that single hop IPAs can be done well, but are difficult unless your process is spot-on. I have made many unremarkable single hop IPAs. This opinion is rooted in the belief that more hop complexity is a good thing as a homebrewer. Since you mentioned fruity IPAs, I would take a look at the link here and pick a couple hop varieties that you have reasonable access to: http://www.bear-flavored.com/2011/12/bear-flavoreds-ultimate-guide-to-hop.html. Use a bunch of them at the end of the boil, rinse, and repeat on your next batch. Good luck
I'm an extract brewer and use ibrewmaster on my iphone. It's not free and takes a little getting used to but it works great for me. I always have my phone with me so I can add new recipes, update/edit old ones or add tasting notes at anytime. The majority of ingrediants are already in there but when I have had to add hops, yeast or extracts it is very easy. It has helped me keep track of detailed information about process and tasting notes for each batch. If I bring beers over to a friends house I have every piece of info they might ask about in my phone. If I were only brewing a few times a year I would probably use one of the free ones. But the accessibility of it makes it worth the price to me.
Give me 3 hops and I can probably give you 2,473 different hop combos that will make tasty beer. it's not that critical of a parameter. However, certain guidelines are helpful. Look up the APA IPA for a great example of how to hop a hoppy beer. If you don't have all the fundamentals down, read how to brew, then get back with us.
Thanks for the replies all! Im pretty sure that Im going to stick with extract brewing for now; it seems that I will be able to keep things relatively simple and my local LHBS's seem to have a pretty good selection of DME. I have done a fair bit of reading on the process but I believe that in a few weeks time, I will be at the point where I am going to need to jump in and try to learn it; Im much more of a demonstrative learner than I am a visual one. I have been and will continue to snoop around Brewtoad for insight on my first recipe attempt. Seems like a decent and simple formulation. I presume that you crush the crystal and carapils and steep them in a bag along with the DME? What temperatures do steep and boil at? Do you use the same hopping schedule every time? Do you use the same yeast to ferment as well or do you adjust it for the type of hop that you are using?
1) I heat my water (2 gal) to 160 then steep the grains for 30 minutes. I then add that liquid into 4 gal of water that I've already heated to near boiling. Once I get near boiling, I add the DME. 2) I try to hop to 65ish ibu and typically do 50% of the ibu at the 60 min addition, and get the remaining 50% at 20 minutes and lower. The alpha acid content will determine the amount of hops used at each interval. I also usually use 2-3 oz for the dryhop. There are other methods like hop-bursting that others favor so you can look into that as well. 3) Almost all of my ipas use us-05 or nottingham. I want the hops to shine so I keep it simple here.
I like SMOSH better. Single malt or Single hop. It gives you a way to explore complexity while simultaneously following the KISS principle.
This is good too. I would say multiple malts put you at risk of muddy, non-KISS beer much more than multiple hops.
Interesting. I have much more experience using multiple malts than multiple hops. I feel like I have developed a sense for grists and can blend malts more deftly than I can hops.
Would brewsmith be a worthwhile investment if I was looking to build or find existing clones of popular beers (specifically IPA & IIPA) using extracts?
if you mean beersmith, it's a pretty good program. I use it and overall I'm happy with it, even tho it's not perfect by any means. Whether it can help you FIND clones is doubtful. Whether it can help you build them, sure, but you need a good clone recipe a lot more than you need any particular program in order to clone something. But for controlling parameters in brewing, beersmith is very useful. Vikeman's spreadsheet is also very useful. I'm sure there are others too.
It's possible that you might find clone recipes in the shared recipe area that beersmith maintains on the cloud, and they should be readily imported. I don't make use of the cloud storage so I don't know what's there.
