I posted this in another thread. We really have enjoyed experimenting with SMaSH brews and now make them our most frequent "House Brews".
For what it may be worth, here are our thoughts.
Good Luck,
Preston
We are becoming almost exclusively SMaSH brewers for our everyday session beers. Plus, we've hit on a combination that has quickly become our go to House Beer. In the process of arriving at our favorite, we used all of the basic techniques to arrive at the most cost effective and enjoyable brew for us. Below are the techniques in order of most effect to least. In addition we were looking for the "Best Bang for the Buck". We wanted the best cheap beer we could brew ;D
1. Hop selection - This made the biggest taste difference. We have two favorites, Amarillo and Centennial. Amarillo wins, Centennial a close second.
2. Base malt selection - Tried many but finally stuck with simple 2-row based on cost to taste ratio. In other words the difference in taste didn't justify the cost.
3. Hop Technique - We exclusively use First Wort hops. We get a very mellow taste and aroma without the high cost of large quantity late additions.
4. Choice of Yeast - We have two based on season. Most flavorful winter brew is US-05. Warmer season we like Safale-04. 04 is dryer. We do harvest and reuse.
5. Mash Temp - We have varied this around. If we use 05 yeast, we use a Medium body mash. If 04 is used we do a Light body mash.
6. Mash/Sparge/mash out temp. We do a recirculating sparge/mash out. We drive the overall temp up to 180*F. The astringency of the extracted tannins give a nice crisp snap to the beer. Be careful too high is very quickly too much. BUT, we really like the dry crisp snap especially when Safale-04 was used.
Again, there many options but we had a cost goal also. As we are half way through our brewing season, we are finding that to us we have two basic SMaSH beers. Brewing into the colder weather, We like a beer with more body so our SMaSH choices are US-05 yeast, Amarillo Hops First Wort with a BU/GU between .4 and .5, Medium body mash and normal mash out. As we head towards warmer weather we like a lighter more crisp and lager like beer so our choices are, Safale-04 yeast, Centennial hops First Worted at .35 to .45 BU/GU, light body mash with the over temp mash out to enhance the dry crisp snap.
We really enjoyed the "Hunt" and were pleasantly surprised at how changing a few combinations of basic parameters and ingredients could bring such varied results, all at a low cost. We think that that the two most expensive variables and those with the greatest effect were Hops and Yeast. In fact to us its the combination. Example, we like 05 yeast and Amarillo or 04 yeast and Centennial. The other way around is good but not as good to us.
Good luck and enjoy the hunt!!