Monday, October 10, 2011

Scottish Wee Heavy - Stout

A Scottish beers are traditionally sweet while maintaining a low presence of caramel malt flavors. These beers were sweetened by condensing and caramelizing a portion of the wort then adding back that syrup to the main batch.

This normally wouldn't be a problem on a large scale system; the process would be to reserve a gallon of first runnings, and use an extra gallon of sparge water. Things get more complicated with BIAB and 1 gallon batches. It was time to get creative. I've decided that this will be 2 worts: a wort comprised solely of 2 row pale malt, a second wort made from maris otter, biscuit malt, and roasted barley would follow.

(read more after the break)

The Recipe(s):
Mash one(done the day before):
1 lb 2 row pale malt
Mash two(brew day):
1.75 lbs pale malt
1.0 oz biscuit malt
.5 oz roasted barley

Hops:
.1 oz nugget leaf (14.8 AA) (first wort)

Mash:
Add 6.41 qt of water @ 164.8 for 156.0 for 60 min
Heat to 168.0 F over 7 min 168.0 F 10 min  

Stats:
OG: 1.078 SG
FG: 1.021 SG 
Color: 15.1 SRM
IBU: 22.9 IBUs

Process:
I made the first mash, on the day prior to my brew day, this in itself was a labor of love. I started using a double boiler because I wanted to condense the wort not scorch it at first. I spilled a bit as my setup was less then ideal. this knocked out my pilot light on half my stove. so I moved the double boiler to the other side. Once it condensed I put it into my boil kettle and condensed it further making sure to scorch it and scrape the sugar so it redissolved into the liquid.  It was during this stage that my liquid went from pale yellow to thick brown. I got 10:1 condensation going from 1 gallon to around 300 ml. I reserved this in a clean mason jar over night in the refrigerator.

Brew day went as normal. I ground my grain, tossed my hops in, and mashed. When I started the boil I added my reserved wort making sure to scrape all of the caramel bits out of the jar. This boiled for near 75 minutes before I got around to turning it off and chilling. Once chilled I added this one to the fermentor, tossed in some dry yeast, put the stoper in, and gave it a good shake.

Healthy Fermentation is always good to see:

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