This is my LEA SMASH recipe
Low Equipment Ale - Single Malt and Single Hop
This is a low cost low equipment method for making beer. This will give you foundational skills for beer making and fermentation. You will need the following (you probably have some of the necessary items on hand):
Hops (I use cascade around 7% alpha acids and I use less than .5 oz)
Yeast (US-05) is a classic clean yeast great for beginners
Water (filtered, spring, or tap if it tastes good)
A pot that can boil over 1 gallon of liquid (you probably already have one)
A funnel (kind of optional)
Auto siphon and wand(optional)
Bottle capper (optional)
Bottle caps (optional)
Carbonation drops for carbonating
First you need to prepare your liquid malt extract by warming it up in some hot water. Add 1/2 of a 3.3lb container to your pot with 1 gallon of filtered or spring water. Note: If you buy gallon jugs of water at the store, you can just use the container they came in to ferment. Just make sure the wort isn't hot when you put it in there. Begin to bring that to a boil and stirring to mix the extract with the water. As your liquid starts to heat up, you'll see proteins floating around. That's normal. This is called wort. When your wort is about to boil, you'll see foam start to form on the top. This can get quite foamy so watch out for boil overs. Turn the heat down, or stir to maintain. It should subside after about 5 minutes. This is called the hot break.
After your hot break, add your hops (If you're a beginner, add 10-15 medium sized hop pellets) 10 if you prefer malty beer, and 15 if you prefer more hop bitterness. This is a great method for trying to stay consistent with hops. I use Cascade which is around 7% alpha acids. Use a hop similar to that for best results. Boil for 60 minutes. You can turn your heat back up to get a nice rolling boil.
While your wort is boiling, fill your jug half way with water and add sanitizer solution. If you don't have sanitizer, get some. It's handy for a lot of things. In a pinch you can use a dishwasher's sanitize setting or heat in the oven. Google how to do that if you need, but be careful with heating and cooling glass. StarSan really is the best thing ever. Shake the sanitizer around in the jug to coat all surfaces. Then pour into a bowl. Add your yeast pack, bung, and airlock to the bowl. This will allow them to be completely sanitized while the wort is finishing the boil.
When the boil is complete, cut the heat and add 10-15 more hop pellets to the liquid. If you're using Cascade, this will land you somewhere between 25 and 45 IBUs. Move your pot over to a sink full of ice water and put a lid on it. Let this sit for about 30 minutes. The goal is to get your liquid to room temperature. Once it is at room temp, you can add the liquid to your jug. This is messy without a funnel, but manageable. Be sure to sanitize your funnel. You can pour sanitizer through it or wipe it with a sanitized paper towel.
Once all your wort is in the jug, make sure you have enough head space for fermentation. The liquid should have a lot of space on top. Typical cider jugs are great because you can stop at the shoulder of the jug. Put the bung and airlock on. Set the jug in a box, bucket, or plastic tub for 14 days. Ales love to make a mess so this is an insurance policy. If you do happen to have a blow out with fermentation, just pull off the airlock, clean it up, sanitize it, and put it back on. Not a huge deal.
Once fermentation is complete, clean and sanitize 10 bottles. Add a carbonation tab to each bottle, and siphon your beer into the bottles. If you don't have a siphon and bottling wand, no big deal. Sanitize your funnel and pour slowly into the bottles at an angle. You may need a helper for this. Once your bottles are full, add sanitizer to them and cap them. The cheap alternative to glass and caps is old soda bottles. They work just fine, but make sure you keep them out of the light. They will become light struck and skunky if you don't.
Let your bottles condition for 14 days. This will carbonate them. After 14 days, add them to the refrigerator. After 24 hours, crack one and enjoy. You just made a beer that's between 5 and 6%! This of course skips a lot of mashing steps, but you're a beginner. Once you have the process and some of the early equipment, you can make these ales for less than $1 a bottle. Don't worry about that just yet. Just enjoy a quick and easy brew day and a nice ale. Cheers.
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