Begin Brewing!

Last weekend, I brewed a SMaSH beer using only Viking Pale Ale Malt, Mandarina Bavaria hops pellets, and Safale US-05 yeast.  As part of my ongoing effort to learn what the various base malts contribute to the flavor of a beer, I'm making this one with Munich Malt.  The main challenge this time is that I'm using 5 pounds of malt instead of the 4 I used last time.  To get the gravity close to the last two batches, I'm bumping the volume up from 2.5 to 3 gallons. Ingredients 5 pounds Avangard Munich Malt (Munich Avangard - Malz Premium 6L) 1.5 tsp. pH 5.2 Stabilizer 0.25 tsp. Brewtan B (20 min. boil) 1/4 Whirlfloc tablet 3 gallons of mash water 1.75 gallons of sparge water 1 packet Safale US-05 yeast Brewfather estimates the beer will have the following qualities: Batch size: 3 gallons (estimated and actual) Original Gravity:   1.049 SG estimated (1.055 actual) Pre-Boil Gravity:   1.042 SG estimated (1.039 actual, at 4.25 gallons) Final Gravity...

Late in 2019, I tried to brew a SMaSH beer using Viking Pale Ale malt and a sous vide setup.  The beer ended with the appearance of having kettle soured or getting infected, so I dumped it without attempting to bottle it. I recently made some modifications to my Grainfather's wort chiller and recirculating pipe connections in the hope that this would make those connections easier to use and more reliable.  Today was my first attempt to test those out. The goal of this brew session was twofold. First, I wanted to test the modifications to The Grainfather using a simple recipe with ingredients I had on hand in quantity, so that if something went hideously wrong I would only be losing a few bucks' worth of ingredients.  Second, I wanted to see how Viking Pale Ale Malt tasted when brewed by itself. Ingredients 4 pounds Viking Pale Ale Malt 0.5 tsp. pH 5.2 Stabilizer (mash) 1 capful Phosphoric Acid 10% solution (mash) 0.50 ounces Mandarina Bavaria hops pellets @ 9....

With the demise of the Brewie, I wanted an easy enough alternative for producing small pilot batches of beer (2.5 gallons or less) with as little hands on effort necessary as possible with maintaining what will hopefully be some reliability (and easy repair/replacement upon failure).  Toward that end, today I decided to try brewing a SMASH beer using the following setup: Anova Sous Vide Recirculating Heater 3 gallon sous vide plastic container with lid Grain bag from the Brewie+ system 4 gallon induction-ready kettle 1800W Induction cooktop Stainless steel immersion chiller Since I couldn't be sure this combination would work (though, from what I've seen published online, I wouldn't be the first to attempt something similar), I decided to do a SMASH beer (single malt and single hop) to keep things simple and inexpensive. Ingredients 5 pounds Viking Pale Ale malt 0.45 ounces Mandarina Bavaria Hops pellets @ 9.6% AA (15 min.) 0.55 ounces Mandarina Bavari...

I've come to the conclusion that the best way to bring my recipe creation skills up a level is to focus a bit on the flavor contribution of various malts. There is a lot out there on the subject already, but most experts will tell you that each of us has a slightly different sense of taste and smell. What may seem dry and lemony to me could seem very different to you.  The best way to know what the different base malts contribute to a recipe is to build a single-malt and single-hop (SMASH) beer.  To fairly compare the malts to one another, you will want to use the same water profile, mash and sparge steps, same hops, same yeast, etc.  Your only change should be the base malt. I have a fair amount of a number of base malts in stock, along with a decent quantity of Mandarina Bavaria hops pellets, and some Coopers dry ale yeast.  With the Brewie+ functional again, I should be able to create a number of SMASH beers which are nearly identical apart from their base malts...