SMASH swap?

[marksa222]

Hi, I'd like to learn more about the character of hops. I think a good way of doing this would be to do a SMASH, but the difficulty being I can only brew a batch or two a month, so to have a decent knowledge of a variety of hops would take yonks.

Would anyone be interested in making a smash brew and sending some to me, and I will send back ones of other forum members. So for example if 5 of us in total were up for it, we could each brew a smash beer, send 4 bottles to me, and I would send back 4 different smash beers containing a different hop. Just send your 4 in a box that could be reused, and perhaps paypal me the postage cost of sending 4 back to them.

That way we would all be to taste the characters of 4 individually hopped beers, which should develope our understanding of them and could help us make an informed recipe in future...

If a more established forum member would prefer to take charge, I would be more than happy. I realise I dont really know anyone too well on here, so would understand some hesitanse of sending me money and beer.

Just an idea, is anyone interested?
Mark

 

[RobWalker]

If you have the hops, you could rack pale, bittering addition only beer into demi johns and dry hop with a different hop each...

that's only a "you could" though...a bottle swap is much better :lol:

 

[marksa222]

If you have the hops, you could rack pale, bittering addition only beer into demi johns and dry hop with a different hop each...

that's only a "you could" though...a bottle swap is much better :lol:

Good point. Wouldn't that only give you the aroma characteristics for the hops though? Wouldn't a 10-20 min addition help taste the hop?

You in then Rob?

 

[chrig]

If you are all swapping bottles then money shouldn't need to change hands at all? Local homebrewers may be more cost effective than posting multiple bottles out.

 

[clibit]

I do 2, 3 or 4 separate boils on my stove top at the same time! Split 25 litres in to small batches, good for research, good for variety, good for quick boiling! Cooker hood on full whack.

 

[morethanworts]

If you have the hops, you could rack pale, bittering addition only beer into demi johns and dry hop with a different hop each...

that's only a "you could" though...a bottle swap is much better :lol:

Good point. Wouldn't that only give you the aroma characteristics for the hops though? Wouldn't a 10-20 min addition help taste the hop?

You in then Rob?

A Single Hop Investigative Tasting. Needs to sound more catchy :hmm:

 

[marksa222]

I think a smash would be good for learning more about that particular hop. It's not meant to be catchy, I think i'd find it helpful when it comes to selecting hops for making those "catchy" sounding beers.

I don't have the equipment to brew more than one lot at a time.

It's probably not going to be the most exciting beer, so I wouldn't want to do lots of different smash beers, which is why I thought it'd be a good idea to just do one, but by doing that one, you'd swap some of them for others, meaning at very little extra effort, you'd be trying a few different ones and learning about lots of hops for when you make those more exciting beers.

As I say, just an idea though. Probably benefit more novice brewers like myself.

 

[morethanworts]

I think it's a worthy idea - Was just a silly joke regarding inappropriate acronym.

 

[marksa222]

We could do it really quickly and call it the SMASH dash :party:


......sorry :cry:

 

[rosie]

If you have the hops, you could rack pale, bittering addition only beer into demi johns and dry hop with a different hop each...

that's only a "you could" though...a bottle swap is much better :lol:

Good point. Wouldn't that only give you the aroma characteristics for the hops though? Wouldn't a 10-20 min addition help taste the hop?

You in then Rob?

A Single Hop Investigative Tasting. Needs to sound more catchy :hmm:

:clap:

 

[knthrak1982]

I think this is a good idea. I have an abundance of Challenger at the moment and was planning on a SMaSH with it next brew day (probably 1Feb). I could bottle a few for those interested.

For the sake of scientific "ceteris paribus" should we stick to any rules such as fixed OG, IBU and amount of dry hopping? Or is that just being too clever?