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.

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

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.