Easy Smash (Centennial, Wildfire Pale Malt, S-04)

Rough SMASH template, the idea is to keep OG and IBUs roughly consistent between SMASH batches for a consistent comparison.

• Water profile should remain consistent, and mash pH should be adjusted to 5.4.
  
  
• OG should be roughly 1.050. FG may differ widely depending on fermentable sugar percentage and yeast attenuation, but that's a decent starting point.
  
  
• Mash should be 152f for a fairly fermentable sugar profile that preserves some body. I'll have to work out a standard step mash (with beta-glucanase and protein rests) for instances where that's appropriate.
  
  
• Sparge/Mash ratio and procedure should be done in a consistent manner, but it doesn't matter too much so long as the efficiency isn't horrible (can always add more grain) and off flavors aren't introduced.
  
  
• Short Boil, 30m should be plenty.
  
  
• Aim for ~30 IBUs, which should be reasonable target for 2oz of even low AA hops. Aim for an even split in IBU contribution between the 30m and 15m additions, and then throw 1.5 oz into a medium temperature (165f) whirlpool and another 1.5 oz into the dry hop at pitch. While a dry hopping at pitch is a little unorthodox, my reading (so far) indicates this should be fine in the majority of cases, and will certainly be much easier (and risk less oxidation). Overall, the late additions should make for reasonable flavor/aroma.
  
  
• For dry yeasts, rehydrate in Go-Ferm PE. Use a small amount of Fermaid O yeast nutrient (aim for just above the 10g/HL) at pitch to keep the yeast happy. If the yeast is particularly nutrient hungry more nutrient additions may be required, but that can be addressed on a case by case basis.
  
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  Brew Day notes:
  
  First brew with new equipment, and the efficiency was a little lower than I had hoped. Hopefully my pump, when I finally get it in (c'mon Blichmann), will help address this.
  
  Moving from nylon BIAB to the BEMaB, I need to increase the gap size on my mill a bit - there was a fair bit of grain particulate that made it through the mash into the boil (and some of it into the fermenter), and a bit of sticking/near-scorching from the very fine particles.
  
  Temperatures seemed to fluctuate pretty wildly in the mash, despite my attempts to manually recirculate every 10 minutes or so, but hopefully this is yet another thing the pump will help with. I tried for 152, but I think I got 147-158, and my "mash-out" at 168 had much the same variation. Another step I'll take next time is to add a Reflectix wrap around the unit - should help stabilize those temperatures and speed up the heating rate.
  
  The boil was fairly smooth, for the most part, but I made the questionable choice of not using my hop spider. The immersion wort chiller was also the source of a minor hiccup: it doesn't stick quite far enough down into the kettle, and so with less than three gallons in the kettle it didn't have as much liquid contact as I'd like. Hopefully it had enough contact to sterilize it during the boil, I suppose I'll see.
  
  During the whirlpool I shot past my intended target a little, and ended up all over the 155-170 temperature interval. That shouldn't have too much of an impact, but next time I'll be sure to stop chilling a little earlier.
  
  Trying to gather the trub into a cone via manual whirlpool was a bit of an exercise in frustration, and I know I got a bunch of trub into the fermenter on accident. Hopefully this'll be yet another thing the pump fixes, but I might take out the side dip tube I rigged up if I do another brew without it.
  
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  Packaging and Sample Notes:
  
  Finally managed to get my pressure transfers down pat with the torpedo buoy and floating dip tube filter. Adding a ~10g stainless steel weight (in the form of a large washer) solved the problem I was having where the end of the floating dip tube wanted to rise above the level of the liquid.
  
  From the sample it's clear this will end up bracingly bitter - certainly not ~30 IBUS, and it's clear that either the whirlpool utilization calculator is very wrong in it's 0% utilization at 165 or I pulled more IBUs out of the spikes to ~170 during the whirlpool than I thought I did. More research into whirlpool hop utilization is necessary, and it might be worth cutting out the 30m hop addition altogether and balancing the IBUs between the 15m addition and the whirlpool addition if I'm going to be getting this sort of utilization.
  
  On the other hand, bitterness aside, the flavor I'm getting from the centennial is great - dry hopping at pitch seems to have worked out just fine.
  
  There weren't any fermentation off flavors I could detect, thought I'll have to wait at least another few days while the rest of it carbs up.
  
  On a belated note, my poor mash efficiency might have been caused by channeling, from crushing too fine and not stirring after dough in. I'll be able to recirculate properly next time, but I'll also need to adjust my mill and stir a few extra times during the first 30m.