I'm looking at doing 4 smash beers over the next couple months to learn ingredients better. If you guys could offer any insight or suggestions to another you recommend that would be much appreciated. I already did an extract with all citra that I'm waiting for. Simcoe and 2 row Galaxy and Vienna Warrior and Maris otter Southern cross and 2 row
If you really want to use SMaSH beers to learn ingredients, I'd suggest doing your 4 beers with the same malt but different hops in each. And then do 4 with the same hop but different malts. But your way will be instructive too.
I agree with VikeMan, you really want to use the same malt a couple times to get an idea what it brings to the table. If you are doing 5 gallon batches and have a mill, I would buy a sack of European Pils or a sack of Marris Otter and do 3-5 beers with that sack. Another thing to do with a SMASH beer is to vary the timing of when you use the hops or the amount of hops used.
Great advice I think I will try all the same malt for a couple. On each of the batches I have varied the hop additions. I will be scaling these down to 3-3.5 gallon batches to brew more often.
Golden Promise is an excellent grain for SMaSH beers as well...and I completely agree with @VikeMan about sticking to the same grain for your series to really learn about the hops, then picking your favorite hop and doing a series where you use different grains. You will learn the most about those hops and grains that way, but may not be able to detect the difference if you keep switching both hops and grains each time.
I'm doing one this coming Monday - Bavarian wheat LME, tettnang hops, WLP0300 for a simple extract hefe.
You could do them all with 2 row or pilsner. I find that maris otter, munich, and vienna work really well in smashes. One of my favorites is maris otter and nelson sauvin.
I am a big fan of american pale ale (not pale) malt for smash beers. You can make change the beer's character a lot with that malt by mashing high or low. It doesn't overpower hops in my opinion but provides a good malt character. I like a lot of all 2 row pale malt beers but they end up a little light on the color spectrum for me.
I was not a fan of Galaxy in a smash. It is great combined with Mosaic and Citra but by itself it had a weird minty/grassy quality. YMMV If you do smashes and vary the grain, try the ale malt from The Swaen if the store you use has it. It's from the Netherlands and I really liked the flavor. It is more flavorful and interesting than the standard American 2-row and not as pale. It's about 3-4L in color.
I'll vouch for pilsner and mosaic. We've got a brew in this neck of the woods called Yellow Rose, and I think I came pretty dang close to it
This thread reminds me to make the time (finally) to brew a Smash. I vote for keeping it as simple as possible, and using a base malt to put the hops up against over a few batches. Or a base hop to put the grains up against. We have one on tap at work using Cascade that I'm a huge fan of.
I just brewed a smash pale ale a couple of days ago. I'm trying to get a good idea of a new pilsner malt from a local supplier (Skagit valley organic Copeland pilsner) with plans of brewing a pilsner/saaz smash pilsner next. The one I just brewed used citra to the tune of 2.5 lbs per barrel of hops and is fermented with 2nd generation VT ale yeast. While I know I probably won't get the best malt evaluation, I hope to see how it is as a base malt for hoppy beers. Should be in the 6.2% range (much better efficiency than expected) and around 40 IBUs coming from hop additions from the last 10 minutes of the boil on. Mashed at around 156 for one hour with hopes that there is some body/malt character to support the light malt bill and excessive hopping rates, and that it doesn't attenuate too low. The 6% hoppy Simcoe pale/IPA I harvested the yeast from finished at 1.012 with a 79% attenuation and the yeast is generally know to attenuate even more in successive generations. We will see how it goes!
