10 litre SMaSH series

[Ale.Coholic]

G'day everyone,

 

Please excuse to long post, but bear with me.

 

So I'm going to do a series of 10-11 litre single hops small batches using Coopers LME to get a good feel for a few individual hop varieties. I figure brewing 1 case per hop in smaller containers simultaneously will alow me to get around it quicker than doing 20-23 each time. I've purchased 2 smaller containers from Bunnings to add to my two 30 litre FVs which will allow me to have 4 batches fermenting at a time in the brew fridge.

 

I thought I'd use the below ingredients as a base

 

1.5kg Light Liquid Malt Extract

100gm Crystal Malt steeped for 30 minutes (not quite single malt i guess...)

US 05 yeast from a starter

Brewed at 18 degrees

 

Thoughts?

 

The hops I am doing intially are

 

Citra

Centennial

Amarillo

Mosaic

Columbus

Cascade AU

Galaxy

 

I'm considering a couple of options as far as hop schedule is concerned.

By weight

5gm @ 60 min (this could maybe be 45 min considering the steep after flameout?)

15gm @ 15 min (this could be 10?)

15gm @ 5 min

15gm @ 0 min with 20 minute steep

20gm dry hop post fermentation 3 days

 

Or

 

By IBU

Use the same timing for additions, but consider AA% and vary weight to achieve the same IBU percentage per addition and IBUs overall

 

Now the first option will be easier for me, but so i can compare apples to apples which way do you think would be better? I like a hopped out beer do i don't mind some being heavy on the bitterness compared to others.

 

Any thoughts or suggestions from the more experienced brethers on this forum would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks,

 

Luke

[jeremy-o]

I'd probably leave the hop schedule the same for each... perhaps getting an idea of just how much small changes in alpha acid percentages actually impact perceived bitterness. Could be interesting.

 

I think it's a noble effort. I don't know that you won't still end up with a hell of a lot of quite similar tasting beer... same malt, yeast, water... same fermentation... and probably much the same effect from the portion of the hops that are boiled for half an hour or more. If it's a simple style that you love to drink, it's not a problem. Me, I'd probably get bored after the first example or two of each batch, but I was never a big one for hoppy beers.

[Ale.Coholic]

I figure I'll just do 4 to begin with so I'll only end up with the same quantity as two normal batches. I do like a hoppy ale so hopefully I'll like them. I'm not against the idea of beefing up the malt bill, but i haven't used any other malts apart from Crystal yet.

 

Otherwise i could use a APA kit as a base and just add single hop late additions. I just thought this would move away from single hop due to the hops already in the kits.

 

I'll see if any other suggestions come up, but if i end up with a few slabs of similar brews and get bored I'll have some crew around and they'll get taken care of pretty quickly anyway. Unless they're terrible. ..