Johnny Red's Quaff (Strong Scotch Ale)

Well, while we're on the topic of Irish and Scottish Ales, I might as well share with you folks a recipe for the granddaddy of the category...the Strong Scotch Ale.  This is one beast of a beer thick in malt character and warming with it's high alcohol content.  A great winter quaff, in this case dedicated to my partner in crime Jonny Red.  So here we go...

Jonny Red's Quaff

OG: 1.081
FG:  1.021
ABV: 8.9%

Fermentables
-9 lbs Briess 2-row
-1 lb Caramel Wheat Malt
-1 lb Briess Caramel 40L
-0.5 lb Gambrinus Honey Malt
-0.25 lb Briess Caramel 120L
-0.25 lb Crisp Pale Chocolate Malt
-4 lbs Briess Golden light LME

Hops
-2.5 oz Fuggles 4.5% 60 min
-1 oz Fuggles 4.5% 15 min

Yeast
White Labs Edinburgh Scottish Ale (WLP028)

We struck the 12 lbs of grain with 3.5 gallons of 168F water to attain a mash temperature of 154F.  After a 60 minute mash, we sparged with 3 gallons of 175F water.  Carbonated to 2.25 volumes of CO2, boiling 2 cups of water and adding 3.3 oz of corn sugar, cooling, then priming.  Mmm...caramel...


-Myles and Carla

Heather and Honey Scottish Export Ale

The Black IPA recipe turned out more like an American Brown Ale.  We'll give it a shot again soon, but meanwhile, here's what's fermenting...

-Chocolate-Coffee Robust Porter
-Cherrywood-Smoked and Oaked Old Ale
-A surprisingly "to style" Northern English Brown Ale
-An equally "to style" American Brown Ale


And in bottles...

-Old Speckled Hen Clone (Extra Special Bitter)
-Jonny Red's Quaff (a strong scotch ale brewed to style that came out superb)  
-A Dry Stout, dry-hopped with Cascades and...

A Scottish Export Ale (80/-) brewed with Heather, the recipe for which we will now share.


Heather and Honey Scottish Export (80 Shilling)

OG: 1.065
FG: 1.013
ABV: 6.8%

Fermentables
-9.5 lbs Briess 2-row
-0.5 lb Briess Munich 10L
-0.5 lb Gambrinus Honey Malt
-0.25 lb Crisp Pale Chocolate
-0.25 lbs Briess Caramel 120
-1 lb Briess Caramel 40
-1 lb honey (added at end of boil)


Hops
-0.8 oz Northern Brewer 8.8%AA  60 min


Yeast
-11.5g Safale S-05


Others
-Dried Heather tips, 0.5 oz additions at 30, 15, 5 minutes, and in the fermenter.


For those of you who've been following the bunker, this next part should seem pretty straightforward.


We struck the grains with 3.75 gallons of 172.4F water to reach a mash temperature of 158F.  Mashed for 60 minutes, then sparged our grains with 2.5 gallons of 175F water for 20 minutes.  After combining the first runnings with the sparge, we boiled for 60 minutes, with the single bittering hop addition.  However, halfway into the boil it was heather time!  This stuff smells so gloriously honeyish and aromatic!  Additions at 30, 15, 5 minutes, and "dry-heathering" lent this brew an amazing complimentary taste to the already sultry Scottish Export flavor.


Primed with 2.1 oz corn sugar for 1.75 volumes of CO2.


Definitely one we'll be repeating!


-Myles

Home Roast Nestok Amber

So here's a new experiment: an amber ale with only home-toasted grains. Referencing this site on home roasting grains,
I roasted 1 pound of Gold malt, and one 1 pound of Amber malt.  Here's the grain bill:

Home-Roast Nestok Amber Ale
OG: 1.044
FG: We'll see!
 

Fermentables:
-7 lb Pale 2-row
-1 lb Home-toasted Amber
-1 lb Home-toasted Gold
Go here to learn how to toast your own grains


Hops:
-0.5 oz Cascade 7.5% 60 min
-0.5 oz Cascade 7.5% 30 min

Yeast:
Fermentis Safbrew S-33

Others:
-2 g Servomyces yeast nutrient 15 min
-1 tsp Irish Moss 15 min

 We heated 2.5 gallons of strike water to 167F, to achieve a mash temperature of 148F.  Pour in those milled grains!

Stir that stuff up good, break up any clumps.

Then we wrap it with a towel, and mash for an hour.  Enjoy a homebrew at this time, or a good craft beer if you're out at the moment.

On a side note, I've gotta say, I love Cascade hops.  We buy them by the pound!  Very cheap at Brewtensils.

 

60 minutes of mashing, and we ended up a little above 140F.  Then we remove the swollen grain bag,

Pour into a bucket,

And heat 2 gallons of sparge water to 170 degrees Fahrenheit.

We sparged for 20 minutes, then removed the grain bag to a drip bucket, for adding any drippings later in the boil; gotta get all that malty goodness!

Get that sucker boiling, stove on high,

and add the first half ounce of Cascade hops.










 30 minutes into the boil, we added the rest of the Cascade hops, in a muslin bag.

At 45 minutes we added the Servomyces and Irish moss, a fining agent.  Then after the full hour boil, we shut the stove off, made an ice water bath, and cooled.  Remember to whirlpool your wort with a sanitized paddle or spoon when cooling to collect solids in the bottom/middle.

 

Beautiful!  The beer looks great too!

After that we poured the wort eagerly into the fermenter splashing vigorously to aerate.  The yeast love us!  Then we pitched one 11g packet of Safbrew S-33 at 88F

Now it's bubbling happily away, should be a good one!  And super cheap too!

-Myles and Carla

Spicy American Wheat Ale: First All-Grain

My buddy gave me a couple of food-grade five gallon buckets the other day. BREWING TIME!

I'd been itching to do a wheat beer for a while now. We like wheat; she makes whole wheat bread, we eat whole wheat pasta, cream of wheat for breakfast...you get the idea. And to top it all off, she really likes Blue Moon. Witbier time!

But not exactly. This recipe fits the BJCP style guidelines for an American Wheat Beer, but is spiced in a classic Witbier way. The brew process was fun and smelled great. But most importantly, it was our first straight "grain to glass" brew. No extracts here folks, all fermentables came straight from the grain!

I was proud, calculations were spot-on, except for efficiency, which was underestimated. Our process was 88% efficient this session. That's higher than many commercial breweries! So here we go...


Spicy American Wheat Ale: All-Grain
4 gallon batch

Predicted OG: 1.052
Actual OG: 1.054

Predicted FG: 1.012

Fermentables:
-4 lbs US 2-row Pale Malt
-4 lbs Flaked Wheat

Hops:
-1 oz US Golding 4.5% (60 min)

Yeast:
-Safbrew WB-06 dry ale yeast

Others:

-0.75 oz crushed coriander
-0.75 oz dried orange peel (homemade)


Process:
We heated 3 gallons of water (1.5 qt water/1 lb of grain) to a strike temperature of 165 degrees Fahrenheit, with our trusty strainer bag secured to the pot's handles.

 

This temperature was calculated so that when the 8 pounds of 65 degree Fahrenheit grain hit the 3 gallons of 165 degree water, we would achieve a mash temperature of 153 degrees.  And sure enough, we hit it dead on.

With the stove top now turned off, I stirred the mash heartily to break up any clumps.  Then we put the lid on the pot, wrapped a towel around it, and left it to mash at 153 for 60 minutes.  Using the simple towel method, we didn't lose a single degree Fahrenheit during the mash.

And no, the other end of the mash paddle is not in my nose, though that would be a neat trick.

Next I removed the grain bag (this is where bicep strength comes in!) and set it into our now-upgraded drip tray...another bucket!  Then I poured these first runnings into a food grade bucket, and poured 2.5 gallons of water into our pot.

 No need to be fancy unless you're a real stickler, I just measure gallons with an old juice jug

Then, once the 2.5 gallons of water reached 180 degrees, we turned off the burner and replaced the grain bag.  I stirred the grains once more with the mash paddle, then covered the pot and let it sit for 15 minutes.  This BIAB (brew in a bag) batch sparge method majorly contributes to the high efficiency of this system.

  

 After this 15 minute sparge, I removed the grain bag from the sparge water and returned it to the drip tray for its last drippings.  No waste in this brewhouse!  Or should I say brewpartment?  Anyway, now comes the fun part...

Combine the wort and the sparge water,

 Add the hops,

                                  And boil!

Important Note: Remember to watch your pot (contrary to old wives tales it will boil), and stir to prevent boil-over.  Hot break can be hellacious, and nobody wants to lose any of their beer, not to mention clean up sticky burnt wort.  The more head space your pot has, the better.  

After about 80 minutes of boiling we whipped out the trusty mini-food processor to crush the coriander.  I decided to throw the dried orange peels in there too, as they were pretty large pieces to begin with.  

If you aren't as frugal you could go buy bitter or sweet orange peel (drastically different, research first)  from your brew shop for about $1.50 to $2 an ounce.  But if you would like to use the same method we did, just peel your oranges with a paring knife, leaving as much pith (the bitter white part) on the fruit as possible.  Break the peels into your desired size, and set them out in a dry spot on a plate for 3-4 days.  You could expedite the process by putting them on a baking sheet in the oven at a low setting for an hour or two.  Use organic fruits if you want to make sure you're not drinking pesticides.

Then I poured the coriander and orange peel into a little nylon bag, tied it off, and dropped it in to boil for the last five minutes.  The short boil is to preserve delicate flavors and aromas that over-cooking can destroy.

 

Next, we started loading our sink with cold water and ice for the cooling.  We can cool to a respectable 100 degrees Fahrenheit in 30 minutes if we just replace the water when it is no longer cold, about once every 5 to 10 minutes in our sink.  

ALWAYS REMEMBER TO SANITIZE!

  Here I'm adding 1 tsp Iodophor to 1.5 gallons of water to sanitize the bucket, lid, mash paddle (for fishing out bags) and airlock.  Cooling is a prime time for this.

I removed the bags to a drip tray to save every possible drop,

  

Poured the cooled wort into the sanitized fermenting bucket,

Then topped off with the drippings.

We ended up just under the 4 gallon mark, so I added a little dechlorinated water to get us to the desired volume.

Took a hydrometer reading...

OG: 1.054

and pitched the yeast.  Now it's sitting on the right, next to our Engagement Day American Ale, bubbling away!  More updates at bottling time!

-Myles