Scottish Wee Heavy

Brew Day: 8/12/14

Extract kit from Northern Brewer

2 1/2 gallons of water in my 3 gallon kettle. Heated to 165, took off heat, put lid on, and steeped grains for 15 mins. Down to 160. As grains drained in strainer, slowly poured 1/2 gallon of 170 water over grain bag to rinse and bring boil volume to 3 gallons.

Grains:

8 oz UK Crystal 30L

6 oz Belgian Biscuit

2 oz UK Roasted Barley

Brought to boil. Boil time: 60 mins

6 lbs of Gold LME - 60 mins

1 oz German Northern Brewer hops 7.8% AA - 60 mins

6 lbs of Gold LME - 15 mins

1 whirlfloc tablet - 15 mins

Cooled via ice bath down to 100 in 20 mins. Aerated wort by siphoning out of kettle through funnel and double mesh strainer (keep out the hop sludge). Topped off with 2 gallons of cold water. Right around 5 gallons. Pitched yeast at 73. Wyeast 1728 Scottish Ale Yeast 1.2L starter. Put in temp controlled chest freezer at 64. First batch in my 6 gallon Big Mouth Bubbler. Attached blowoff tube, as I've heard this yeast is a chugger.

OG 1.075 (19 brix)

est. IBU 24

Wyeast 1728 Scottish Ale Yeast, 1.2L starter on the stir plate.

Love that hop smell.

Rolling boil.

In the Big Mouth Bubbler with blowoff tube set up, just in case. The tube doesn't seem to seal very tightly in the lid. Maybe it's the Star San that's making it slick. Hopefully when it dries it'll be a better seal.

The other brew in the fermentation chamber is my Noble Trappist Ale in secondary. The next kit in there is a California Common.

Fermentation Update: The seal held just fine, but I awoke the next day to some crazy blowoff. Here's a side-by-side. I had 1/4" of beer in the bottom of the chest freezer and foam everywhere. I replaced the little blowoff pitcher with a 5 gal bucket, and left clean up until I got home from work that night. I took me 90 mins and 3 rolls of paper towels to get it all cleaned up. I installed a bubbler airlock while I soaked the hose in PBW and gave a quick Star San dunk, and the airlock was emptied of sanitizer/water within 3 minutes. It all bubbled out. Strong fermenting yeast, for sure. I replaced the hose into the 5 gallon bucket for more blowoff caution, and kept it there for 3 days until the violent action subsided then replaced with an airlock. 2 more weeks then I'll rack to secondary. Most of homebrewing is just waiting, but homebrewing is never boring.

9/29/14 Racked to secondary after 6 weeks in primary. I was only planning on 3 weeks, but my wife was in a car accident so I've been a bit busy and preoccupied as of late. But now I'm back at it! It smells like toffee and caramel, simply amazing. It's a wonderfully copper brown color. Checked the gravity, and its down to 1.017 which should be about 7.4% ABV. I'll bottle it up in a few weeks and should will be enjoying it by early December. This will be my get-me-through-the-first-long-days-of-Minnesota-winter beer. I have until then to find a thistle glass to properly enjoy it.

1/06/15 Bottling day...finally

Finally got this thing bottled. Ended up with 34 12 oz bottles and 4 20 oz bottles. It will now need at least another month to condition. This thing better be good or it might discourage me from making long-fermenting strong brews again.