Extract SMaSH IIPA

Brewing Processes
1

Hi, I’m new to the forum and new to home brewing (3rd batch in the primary). I have been reading on SMaSH beers and think this is the way to go to test hop profiles. I am doing extract and was hoping for some guidance around the timing of hop additions, base malt, and general thoughts to get a 6-7% abv hoppy IPA. Cheers!

2

Well for a smAsh (single malt and single hop) extract beer, you’d obviously use pale extract as your base. And FWIW, a 6-7% abv IPA puts you more in the camp of AIPA, not IIPA - not a bad thing (to me), as IIPA can be tricky to drink 5 gallons of while the hoppiness is at its fresh peak. IIPA is generally 7.5-8% + abv. So here are some guidelines:

  1. Malt - 8 lbs of pale DME (dry malt extract) preferably OR 9 lbs of LME (liquid malt extract) in a 5 gallon post boil batch would put you in the 1.065(ish) OG range, which loosely correlates to a 6-6.7% abv IPA. And actually, to get better attenuation it’s a good idea to substitute maybe 1/2 lb table sugar for 1/2 lb DME (ie., use 7.5 lbs DME, 1/2 lb sugar). I also recommend Briess DME as it is more highly fermentable than most other extracts.

  2. Hops - Centennial is a great hop to use for your first IPA as well as a single hop IPA. It’s citrusy and slightly piney, and can actually function as a bittering hop and late hop.
              I’d use:  1.25-1.5 oz for 60 minutes
                          2 oz each @ 15, 10, 5, and 0 minutes left.
                          Dry hop with 4 oz more in a hop bag for a week @ room temp after fermentation visibly ends.

  3. Yeast - Wyeast 1056, White Labs 001 or Fermentis US-05 dry yeast.

This is a good start. As you brew more, there are tons of other great hop varieties and hopping techniques to check out, but this will make a good beer. Good luck and welcome !

EDIT -  Since the extract manufacturer made the extract to their specs using various water salts/additions, I’d use either reverse osmosis or distilled water, which are very low in these compounds.

3

+1 to most of the above. For fermentability purposes I’d use extra light or pilsner extract. But don’t be surprised if you end up with a bland beer if you just use light extract and no additional grains. I’d suggest a half pound of either CaraRed or C20 as a steeping grain to give you at least a little malt flavor.

I also agree that you should use RO water with the extract, but I’d also add a teaspoon of gypsum for a 5 gallon batch of IPA.

4

Yeah, I agree. Doing a smAsh with extract is a tough thing to pull off and have good discernable malt character, unless you used maybe a MO extract (which I’ve seen but not used). Of course most any extract at least has some carapils if not darker crystal along with the base malt, so the idea of an extract being single malt is unlikely most times anyway.

EDIT - +1 to the gypsum, provided the OP uses RO or distilled.

5

Thanks!