Wee Heavy Scotch Ale

Started with this recipe, found at http://byo.com/recipe/1491.html:


Steelhead Brewing Company
Burlingame, California

Steelhead Wee Heavy Scotch Ale
(5 gallon/19 L, all-grain)
OG = 1.105 FG = 1.030
IBU = 25 SRM = 28 ABV = 9.6%

Ingredients
20.5 lbs. (9.3 kg) Great Western pale malt
10.9 oz. (0.31 kg) Belgian Special B malt
9.33 oz. (0.26 kg) Belgian biscuit malt
2.2 oz. (62 g) Briess chocolate malt
7 AAU Nugget hops (60 mins)
(0.53 oz./15 g of 13% alpha acids)
3 AAU Mt Hood hops (20 mins)
(0.5 oz./14 g of 6% alpha acids)
English or Scottish ale yeast
(4 qt./~4 L starter)
0.75 cups corn sugar (for priming)

Step by Step
Heat 6.8 gallons (26 L) of strike water to 164 °F (73 °C) and mash grains at 153 °F (67 °C) for 60 minutes. Collect about 11 gallons (42 L) of wort. (Specific gravity of pre-boil wort will be around 1.047.) Boil for 3 hours (or longer) to reduce volume to 5 gallons (19 L), adding hops at times indicated in ingredient list. Ferment at 60 °F (16 °C).



Variations/specifics:
Added 2 oz. smoked malt
Used 2 oz. Nugget hops
Used about 1.5 oz. Mount Hood hops
Used Wyeast 1728 Scottish yeast


Saturday 9/23

8:30 am - Set out water (should have done this the night before).
9:00 - Breakfast at Sunflour Cafe with Robert, Ken and Jonathan.
10:15 - Provisioning at Bob's. No substitutions necessary, he had everything specified in the recipe (except the chocolate malt was another brand, not Breiss).
12:30 - Begin boiling water for mash.
1:10 - Dough in complete. Final temperature was 153 F, exactly what we were shooting for. Temperature fell to about 151 after 30 minutes, so added a cup or two of recently boiled water to get it back up to 153.
2:10 - Begin sparge.



Ended up sparging too much -- continued to add sparge water until nearly 11 gallons had been collected, then drained off at least 2 more from the residual water in the grain bed. Added to brew kettle all of first bucket (5.5 gallons) and a little more than half the second to get about 9 gallons in brew kettle to start. Added a little more part way through the boil, but probably less than 10 gallons overall.

4:00 - Begin boil



7:20 - Added Nugget hops
8:00 - Added Mount Hood hops


Ken minding the brew.

8:20 - Begin chilling wort

Pitched the yeast about 9:00.

Original gravity: 1.074 at 80 degrees F = 1.076

Ken was here through dough in, then came back in time to add the homegrown Mount Hood hops and wrap everything up. It was a beautiful sunny day. We finished off the HL 2.0.

Fermentation is off to a good start. As of this morning, Sunday 9/24, at 10:45, the airlock was popping at 52 ppm.

Homegrown Hops

I'm getting a small harvest of Mt. Hood hops from the plant I planted last year.



Here's a closeup of the cones harvested today:

Tapped and Tasted

Tapped the HL 2.0 about two months ago. It's very tasty, but I think the hops were overdone. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of hops. Anderson Valley Hop Ottin' IPA is a favorite of mine, and it's as hoppy as anything. Still, this brew seems slightly out of balance.

That said, it's been pretty well received. None of my guests has poured one down the drain. I've been nursing the tail end of the keg for a few weeks now.