What is a SMaSH beer recipe

Описание: Brewing beer can be very complex or very simple. The most complex beers involve many steps, enzymes, ingredients and more. A long process of preparing and then fermenting. All for very good result but not easily achieved.

By contrast the simplest beer is just malted barley, water, and hops. SmaSH beer is an example this kind of simple beer. A SMaSH beer is a beer named after an acronym. Single Malt and Single Hop beer.

The use of just one kind of malt and just one kind of hop means you don’t need lots of ingredients. You will use the weight or volume of ingredients.

Just because you make your SMaSH beer from a smaller number of ingredients does not always mean a simple flavour. It is not as complicated as some beers but it I snot meant to be. A SMaSH beer will bring certain flavours from the hops or malt out to the fullest.

Of course you can make small changes tot he process of creatign the beer to alter aspects. Boil time, amount of malt or hops and more. The SMaSH approach gives you fewer ingredients but more options about what to do with those ingredients. You can fine tune the process you use.

For example you might use a single light or all purpose malt. This can be lautered for longer or shorter. That will effect the amount of sugar that can be fermented. More sugar means higher alcohol and a lighter beer. Less sugar means a heavier body and less alcohol.

Or you might change the amounts of the single hops you use. Perhaps more early in boiling to get more alpha acids and therefore a more bitter beer. Perhaps more hops at the end to increase aromatics.

As SMaSH beer recipes use few ingredients they are hard to get wrong. Or at least they are hard to get wrong in a way that makes the beer undrinkable. You might get things a bit wrong but it will balance out in the end.

This is in comparison to other recipes that use many ingredients. In such cases one ingredient can overwhelm or outshine the others creating a gross imbalance. SmaSH beer can’t do this with 2 components.