A single hop experiment can be fun. When you are looking for a great brew to make over and over again, you have to have a good recipe. You also want to have a little variety in hops so you can have some fun too. So, this beckoned my Zombie Level 8 Series. I enjoyed Three Floyd’s Zombie Dust, so I formulated a recipe that is homage to it. The great thing about about this is that it allows the hops to shine. Why level 8 you ask? 8 ounces of hops in each batch.
Base Recipe
Here is the base malts that I used in this for a five gallon batch.
- 10 lbs 2 row
- 1 lb Borlander Munich
- 8 oz Caramel 60L
- 8 oz Carapils
- 1 oz hops 60 min
- 1 oz hops 10 min
- 3 oz hops 1 min
- 3 oz hops dry hop day 5
- WLP001 yeast from starter
Different Variations
I first decided to try out this recipe with Comet hops. I ran into a good deal for a pound of this hops, and I decided this was a great brew to showcase it. I also thought this would be a great recipe to use with the Bouncer Hack Pack and the Tenacious Badger Hops. The brew for Zombie Com Level 8 went off without a hitch. You can see this beer in the video. I truly enjoyed the taste of this!
Zombie Experiment Level 8 with experimental grapefruit hops 
Brewing the Citra version, with a little help 
Mashing in 
Zombie Citradome brewing – smoking food and brewing at the same time 
Citradome and Zombie Com fermenting
The second brew day was Zombie Citradome Level 8. It featured Citra hops this time. Now this brew day was a little different than the other one. My wife headed out of town for the weekend, so it was time for brewing and smoking meat! I fired up the smoker with some food for a beer share that night, and brewed at the same time. This is the classic hops that is used for the Zombie Dust. I had a few friends stop over during the brew, and that makes for a fun brew time.
I highly recommend finding a good base recipe for your “house beer”. Having this one in my repertoire also allows for dialing in the flavoring with different hops. I have now brewed a version with experimental grapefruit hops, listed some places as 07270, and boy was it dank! This batch seemed to be super polarizing for people who tried it They either loved it, or turned their nose at it. I later used this for my homebrew brined smoked turkey this time.
Filtering
The big thing to think about when working with a beer that has 8 ounces of hops in it is filtering. The Bouncer filter is awesome for this. I don’t worry about the trub in the fermenter, I just stick that siphon in there and let the Bouncer MD do the heavy lifting to be sure there isn’t hop flakes gumming up my final product.
Future Brews
I am now looking forward to trying this recipe with Mosaic and trying with some cryohops. I think I may have to dial back the “level” a bit when using the cryohops, since they are a little bit more potent. I also would like to try this brew side by side with different yeasts, but the same hops. I think that would also give a great appreciation for the yeast characteristics.
What is your base recipe? Is there a hop that you like for a single hop experiment?
