Tuesday night I attempted to brew an “old-fashioned” Scottish 70/-. Most commercial Scottish ales are brewed with a generous amount of crystal/caramel malts, but traditionally kettle caramelization was used to create the rich caramel flavor and color. Kettle caramelization occurs during very long boils, when some of the sugars caramelize and become unfermentable. Bridgeport for example, employed an eight hour boil when brewing their Highland Ambush Scotch Ale. Since I was brewing after work, an extended boil was no good. Instead, I decided to simulate the process by collecting the first gallon of wort and boiling the crap out of it in a separate pot; then adding the reduced wort back to the kettle.
While the brew day was an overall success, I did learn a couple important things. First, “old-fashioned” and “traditional” are usually synonymous with “long” and “hard.” This was not a brew I should have started at 6:00 pm, following a full day of work. Second, always double-check your math.
Scottish 70/-
7.0 lbs Maris Otter
13 oz Flaked Barley
3 oz Roasted Barley
1.0 oz Goldings (4.5 AA%) @ 90
Wyeast 1728 Scottish Ale
Estimated Efficiency: 70%
Estimated Attenuation 70%
Estimated OG: 1.041
Estimated FG: 1.012
Estimated ABV: 3.7%
Estimated IBU: 19
Estimated SRM: 12
My plan was to do a single-infusion mash at 155°F for 60 minutes, then raise the temperature to 170°F and sparge. Since I was going to reduce the first gallon of wort down to about a quart, I figured I would need to start with ~8 gallons of water instead of the usual 7. I like to infuse and sparge with equal amounts of water, so this meant 4 gallons were going into the mash tun along with my grain. This is where my math skills failed me.
I forgot to subtract the water needed to raise me from mash to sparge temperature from the initial 4 gallons; all of it when in with the grain. So, when I opened my 5 gallon tun at the end of the mash, I had no head space to add the boiling water. After twenty minutes of panic, I decided to collect the first gallon or so of wort, bring it to a boil and dump it back into the tun, which got me to 170°F on the dot. Not quite a decoction and not quite double-brewed, but it seemed to work ok.
Once I had my sparging issue sorted, it was time to start the reduction. This is where I ran head first into my next problem. My stove only has one large burner, which was being used for my brew kettle. This meant that the ~5 quarts of wort I collected for the reduction had to struggle to maintain a boil in a pot that was much to large for the burner. About an hour into the main boil, I had only reduced the small pot by about a quart. Twenty minutes later, I was down to three and able to transfer it to a better fitting vessel. In the smaller pot, I was able to get the reduction down to a quart in another ten minutes. This put my total boil time at ~100 minutes. Looking back, I should have just performed the reduction on the large burner, then started the main boil; I guess that makes three things learned.
I ended up with about 5.5 gallons of wort in the fermenter at a starting gravity of 1.043, putting my efficiency around 82%. Previous to this batch, I had been consistently hitting the low 70′s. Unfortunately so much was unique about this brew that I can’t say for sure what caused the spike in efficiency. Perhaps the longer mash time, or possibly recycling the wort as sparge water? Maybe it was just the finer crush I gave the grain and had nothing to do with my process? I suppose the only way to know for sure is to keep brewing.
The beer is fermenting away right now at 68°F. Homebrewtalk is lousy with people swearing that Wyeast 1728 performs best at 60°F, but in a Brew Monkey interview from a few years back, Allen mentions that all Hair of the Dog brews (which use the same yeast) are fermented at 70°F. I’m trying for the subtle, smoky flavor that the yeast is supposedly able to produce, but can’t find much useful information on which end of the range best facilitates this. Any suggestions? If not, I’ll report back my finding in a month or so.
Cheers!
Kevin