SMaSH Brewing

SMaSH stands for Single Malt and Single Hop recipe design. SMaSH takes the idea of simplicity in brewing to its logical extreme — by limiting the brewer to one malt, one hop variety, and one yeast strain. It’s a great technique for brewers looking to simplify their beer, and move beyond the kitchen sink syndrome. SMaSH is an important step on the path to understanding how isolated ingredients impact your finished beer. Some of the advantages of SMaSH include:
• Understanding what a single hop variety tastes like in isolation, and what it brings to your beer.
• Understanding how different base malts impact the flavor of your finished beer.
• Highlighting the differences between yeast strains.
• Getting the brewer to think seriously about brewing techniques and what they bring to the beer — including mash techniques, hop additions and timing, water additions, fermentation schedules and finishing your beer.
• Moving towards a philosophy that emphasizes using ingredients and techniques to achieve a specific flavor or effect in the finished beer, and away from the kitchen sink approach to brewing.
• Understanding what flavors you like in your beer, and which ones you don’t.

BYO’s Technical Editor Ashton Lewis walks you through SMaSH concepts in this BYO+ video.