Author: Marshall Schott

On average, I brew a couple batches every other week, all of which are for xBmts or The Hop Chronicles. A recent Saturday was one of these days, I brewed two 5 gallon batches simultaneously for a yet to be published xBmt. The next morning, I woke up early with my kids, made some breakfast, and did a few normal weekend chores. Right after lunch, my wife mentioned she had some errands to run, said she’d be out for a couple hours and would take my oldest daughter. My 2 year-old was napping at this point and my son wanted to ride his bike. That’s when the idea to try something I’d been thinking about for awhile struck– brew an all grain batch in as little time as possible. I set a goal for myself to be finished by the time my wife returned home, which she estimated would be approximately 2 hours. What follows is an account of how it went down, from grain to glass.

As my wife was prepping to leave, right about the time this brilliant idea came to me, I opened up BeerSmith and threw together a very simple SMaSH recipe. Inspired by the latest boil length xBmt findings, I chose to use some 2 year old German Pils malt I found sitting in the bottom of a bucket earlier that weekend. To that, I added Amarillo hops from the 2013 crop I’d been avoiding and a pack of Mangrove Jacks West Coast Yeast that expired nearly a year prior. This was bound to be glorious.

Short & Shoddy SMaSH

Batch Size Boil Time IBU SRM OG FG ABV 1.75 15 min 65 11.6 1.040 SG 1.009 SG 4.0 %

Fermentables

Name Amount % 2 year old Weyermann German Pils Malt(1.6L) 3 lbs 100

Hops

Name Amt/IBU Time Use Form Alpha % Amarillo 20 g/19.4 IBU First Wort Hop – 15 minutes FWH Pellet 8.2 Amarillo 35 g/19.3 IBU 1 minute Boil Pellet 8.2 Amarillo 40g Dryhop 4 Days Dry Hop Pellet 8.2

Yeast

Name Lab Attenuation Ferm Temp M44 West Coast Yeast (exp. 12/2014) Mangrove Jacks 73% 66°F

I chose to use the BIAB method for this project and collected the full volume of water, unfiltered and untreated, as my wife pulled out of the garage.

Start time: 10:05 AM

The water was poured into the kettle and put over the flame, my Bayou KAB4 burner dwarfing the pot I bought with my first extract kit over a decade ago.

I measured out 3 lbs of old German Pils malt, it smelled fine to me despite its age.

Roscoe helped me mill the grain directly into my BIAB bag, it took about 8 seconds.

The small volume of brewing liquor reached my target strike temp in less than 10 minutes, at which point I dropped in the bag of grains, set my timer for 15 minutes, then gave a couple swift stirs.

I’ve found BeerSmith to be remarkably accurate regardless of batch size so long as I input all the right details, which I did on this day and nailed my target mash temp.

I didn’t insulate the pot, only covered it to retain some heat, stirring probably 4-5 times during the short mash.

When the timer beeped, I donned my silicone gloves, pulled the bag out, giving it a good squeeze to get as much wort into the kettle as possible, then turned the flame on. This is also when I added the first and relatively large charge of first wort hops. It wasn’t long, maybe 10 minutes, and the wort began to boil with great vigor.

My timer was once again set for 15 minutes, hops added with a minute left, then in seemingly no time the boil was over. In sticking with my plan to keep this brew day as easy as possible, I chose to cool the wort via water bath, thinking the slower chill rate might also increase the hop character from the 1 minute addition.

A post-boil refractometer check revealed my OG was at 1.040, which put me at 60% efficiency, about 13% lower than what I usually get with BIAB. Still, not too shabby.

Clean-up consisted of spraying off the bag and spoon, it took about 2 minutes. That was it, I was done, and I’m happy to report it was well within my self-imposed time limit.

Finish time: 10:59 AM

I’d just brewed an all grain batch of beer in under an hour. Whoa. I let the wort sit in the water bath for about 2 hours, swapping the warm out for cool 4 times. By the time I transferred the wort to my 3 gallon carboy, it was sitting right around 74°F/23.3°C. I moved it to my cool chamber and left it to finish chilling.

The wort had dropped to my preferred ale fermentation temp of 66°F/18.9°C about 4 hours later, so I opened the old packet of yeast and poured it in.

Observable signs of fermentation activity were present just 12 hours later, far sooner than I expected, something I’m compelled to believe is due to the sheer amount of yeast used in such a small volume of wort. Things proceeded normally. At 7 days post-pitch, the beer was sitting at 1.009 SG, consistent with the hydrometer measurement I took 3 days later just before adding the dry hop addition. I began cold crashing 2 days into the dry hop.

It was around this time John Palmer and I started chatting about different approaches to using gelatin. Indeed, I was planning to utilize the same method I usually do, scaled down to the smaller batch size. But the discussion John and I had inspired me to try something new. Among the many things we talked about was whether large amounts of gelatin produce different results than smaller amounts, not just in terms of perceptible qualities, but clarifying effectiveness and time. What better batch for this type of anecdotal experimentation?

While heating the strike water for a new xBmt batch last Saturday morning, I decided it was time to package the Short & Shoddy beer, though I’d yet to fine it with gelatin. Rather than using the relative pinch I’d originally planned, I combined 1 tsp (~6 grams), twice as much as I use for a 5 gallon batch, with 1/4 cup of hot tap water (~125°F/52°C), swirled until it was fully dissolved, then poured it into the 1.75 gallons of cold beer. I left it alone for about 30 minutes while I tended to the batch I was brewing then proceeded to rack it to a 3 gallon keg and place it in my keezer on 45 psi of CO2.

Time at kegging: 6:25 AM

I finished brewing a couple hours later and went about taking care of normal weekend stuff. Given the smaller volume of beer, I knew it wouldn’t require as much time to carbonate as a full 5 gallon batch, so I returned 5 hours later to reduce to serving pressure. Of course, I had to see how things were coming along.

Time at first sample: 11:25 AM

After tossing the BLC that was in the lines, I filled a sample glass and was rather impressed with what I observed.

The beer was well carbonated and quite a bit clearer than I was expecting, though not quite enough to meet my standards for vanity. My hunch was the gelatin likely helped the larger particulate drop out, but the finer haze producing crap would require more time, at least another 12-18 hours. To test this theory, I pulled another sample 2 hours later.

I was wrong, the beer was clearer. My curiosity piqued, I continued to return for small samples throughout the day and noticed the beer continued to clear. Did this have anything to do with the higher amount of gelatin used? I suppose there’s no good way to know based on this garage science, but it’s hard for me to believe it didn’t have an impact. I’ve fined small batches with less gelatin and they did not clear with such rapidity. I wasn’t planning on it, but since this beer progressed so damn quickly, I decided to take a growler of it to my friend’s birthday party that evening. The party started at 5 PM, the growler was filled at 4:30 PM. A large swath of my brewing buddies were in attendance, all familiar with my antics, I think some were relived when I informed them this blind tasting wouldn’t involve a digital survey. There were probably 10 of us gathered, each with glasses of different sizes and shapes. I poured samples for everyone and asked for general feedback. To reiterate, none of these people had any idea what was up with this beer. The beer was looking mighty fine at this point.

| IMPRESSIONS |

At first, I wondered if it was because my expectations were so low for this batch, but after multiple samples, I had to accept it was good! Nothing special, it was a SMaSH after all, but certainly better than some of the dumpers I’ve made in the past. To my palate, the bitterness was on point, the Amarillo hop character was up front though didn’t overwhelm the dry, crackery flavors of the German Pils malt. I noted absolutely no aromas or flavors typically associated with old yeast or inadequate fermentation. The beer was clean, simple, and quite refreshing.

What did the others think?

I asked the group of tasters to approach this as they might any other beer evaluation and to share their thoughts openly once they formed their own opinions. One person commented the beer was very clear and pale, hedging a guess it may have been produced with 100% Pils malt, which he felt more confident about after tasting. Others agreed, saying they thought it might be a lager hopped like an American ale. Generally, the tasters’ experienced matched mine– lacking complexity, clean fermentation, very drinkable. Not a single allusion was made to DMS, diacetyl, or any other popularly discussed off-flavors.

| CONCLUSION |

I’m not sure what to say about this. A beer made from old malt mashed for 15 minutes, boiled for 15 minutes with old hops, fermented with old yeast, fined with a relative shit ton of gelatin, then carbonated in a few hours actually came out tasting and looking good. Don’t believe me? I totally understand. I was fully prepared for this batch to be an utter disaster, I’m still wondering why the hell it wasn’t.

Naturally, I’m now more interested than ever in completing a more formal xBmt comparing a similar should-be-shit batch to one brewed utilizing the conventional methods many of us have come to accept as gospel. Believe it or not, I maintain a slight bias in the direction of the latter, the mere prospect of discovering that such “terrible” process could produce a beer indistinguishable from one made using “ideal” methods makes me feel… I don’t know.

Until then, if you find yourself with an hour or so of free time and the brewing bug bites, consider throwing together your own short & shoddy batch, I’d love to hear how it works for you.

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