"Northern Savage" Wee Heavy Scotch Ale

[Rosscomatic]

Hi everyone

Using Ian's spreadsheet of Awesomeness I've come up with this recipe for a Wee Heavy Scotch Ale that I'm calling Northern Savage...

It's not yet been made because I don't quite have all the equipment I need yet. I.e. a fermenting fridge... Hopefully I'll get one over the Anzac day weekend

Any feedback, suggestions or comments would be very welcome because to be perfectly honest, I don't have a clue how it'll turn out.

Northern Savage
Briess Sparkling Amber (EBC 19.7) x 1.5kg
Briess Golden Light (EBC 7.9) x 1.5kg
Light Dry Malt x 3.23kg
Treacle x 0.5kg

Hops
Goldings x 45g @ 60 mins
Goldings x 15g @ 5 mins

23L in the fermenter

Reduce to 14 celcius

OG expected to be 1.100

According to Mr Malty, pitch 23g of nicely hydrated Wyeast 1728 once at 14c. Need to get to that temp to avoid esters. They don't belong in Northern Savage. Those pesky esters! :angry:

Slowly ferment till it's done.

FG expected to be 1027 giving about 9.7% Alc/vol

I'm then considering bulk priming with 94g of dextrose to get the right carbonation in the bottle.

So... What do you think?

 

[bigj]

Sounds good. Let us know how it turns out. Im making scotch ale atm. Have you considered rising some oak chips in there?

 

[Rosscomatic]

Sounds good. Let us know how it turns out. Im making scotch ale atm. Have you considered rising some oak chips in there?

I had considered it actually... But I thought you'd only put them in once fermentation was complete. So into a keg, of which I have none :'(

I don't know why I thought this... It was just an assumption I made...

Would you put them into the FV?

 

[bigj]

My lbs said you could put it in the primary. I waited a week for the ferment to finish and threw them in for another 2. I've read that leaving brew in the primary for a month is ok.I did Around 20 grams per litre of oak chips and checked the taste every few days. Take it out before if 2 weeks if your happy with the flavour

 

[Rosscomatic]

Interesting... I'll definitely consider it some more...

Another question... Is treacle, treacle? Or is some treacle better for home brew?

 

[manticle]

I don't think you need treacle. Wee heavy can be deceptively simple.

My ag recipe is all maris but with a separate reduction and a long boil. Challenger or EKG to ~20 IBU in a single addition@60.

1728 fermented low, long conditioning time (that yeast hangs in suspension and beer doesn't taste right till it drops).

if it were me, I would take a pale briess malt, steep a touch of roast barley for colour and do a small reduction with some dme and water. Add it all together, do your hop boil and ferment low as suggested. Oak might work if you like innis and gunn but I'd stay simple brew one and complicate brew 2 if required.

1728 is a liquid yeast so no rehydration - you will just need multiple packs and/or a big starter appropriate for the gravity you are trying to hit.

 

[Rosscomatic]

I don't think you need treacle. Wee heavy can be deceptively simple. My ag recipe is all maris but with a separate reduction and a long boil. Challenger or EKG to ~20 IBU in a single [email protected] fermented low, long conditioning time (that yeast hangs in suspension and beer doesn't taste right till it drops).

Ok cool. I'll keep that in mind. So it should be crash chilled after fermentation as well?

if it were me, I would take a pale briess malt, steep a touch of roast barley for colour and do a small reduction with some dme and water. Add it all together, do your hop boil and ferment low as suggested. Oak might work if you like innis and gunn but I'd stay simple brew one and complicate brew 2 if required.

That sounds like, very good advice. I'll forgo the wood for my first one. Then start playing with the next one.

1728 is a liquid yeast so no rehydration - you will just need multiple packs and/or a big starter appropriate for the gravity you are trying to hit.

Oh ok. There you go.

Thanks heaps for the tips. I'll have a think and a play with steeping grain etc, but for the first one I think I'll stick with all extract. Then as I learn, and collect more equipment, I'll move into using grain etc to see how it changes things...

 

[manticle]

Cold conditioning will help. One thing I notice about that yeast is its tendency to throw a bit of red apple ester (ethyl hexoanate). With conditioning this reduces so be patient. Not a beer to be drinking a week after it's fermented.

 

[hoppy2B]

You don't need much equipment for steeping grain Rosscomatic. I just use a bit of calico, which is cotton cloth I got from Spotlight.

Just put a bit of crushed spec grain, (you can buy it from any good homebrew store or online), onto a piece of cloth, bring up the corners and tie with some string. Drop this little 'bag' into a pot of water which is at 70 degrees C, and come back an hour later. Lift bag and drain and TADA all done. Mix your other extracts and hops etc into the pot of water which was used for steeping.

 

[manticle]

Make sure you boil the liquid from the grain steep for at least 10 minutes.

 

[Rosscomatic]

So this is fermenting away in my fermenting fridge that I picked up free of GumTree...

At the moment it's got a nice krausen on it so it seems to be working away at a constant 14 degrees... In the end I followed the recipe almost exactly as written above, except instead of using Wyeast 1728, I rehydrated and pitched 5 packets of Nottingham yeast as advised by my LBS.

After the boil I got the temp down to about 22 and whirlpooled which didn't do anything. Soooo murky when it went into the FV... looked like mud! Couldn't get any whirlfloc

I'll leave it for a good couple of weeks and then crash cool it once it's finished fermenting... Hopefully that'll help clear it alot...

OG was 1.108. I almost couldn't get my hydrometer to sink!!! Soooooo malty...

 

[bigj]

Sounds good. Did you just use a plain old fridge or did you modify it? Temp controllers and stuff like that?

 

[wereprawn]

Are you aware that a beer that strong may not be very nice for months ?

 

[Rosscomatic]

I bought a fridge temperature controller thing off eBay for $20. Arrived almost the next day! eBay shop is called homebrewingisfun1...

Seems to work very well so far!

And yep, I know that beers like this need to mature in the bottle/keg for ages. I'll leave it as long as I can!

 

[bigj]

How does it regulate the temp?

 

[Rosscomatic]

So first you plug the device into the wall, then plug the fridge into the device.

Then there is a cable with a sensor on it that you sanitize and hang in your brew.

Then you set it to a temp. When the temp is reached, it turns the fridge off.

You can also set it to heat mode where it turns on when the temp drops. So you could attach it to a heat mat for example.

 

[Rosscomatic]

So this has been fermenting for about a week now. Looks like a big tub of caramel...

Sorry that the picture is sideways...

 

[bigj]

How did the scotch ale go?

 

[Rosscomatic]

Sorry for the late reply.

It's been in the bottle for 2 weeks now. I cold crashed it to 3c for over a week (went on holidays) and then bulk primed with 15g of dextrose. Then into bottles.

Tried some last night and I reckon its awesome already!!! It's going to be hard to keep it for a few months. I think I'll make another lot to out away...

I might have another one tonight while I watch the Wallabies thrash Les Frogs. If I do I'll take a photo and post it up.

Next one I try, I'll give the WYeast a crack...

 

[Rosscomatic]

Oops. 150g of dextrose...

 

[Rosscomatic]

Photo

 

[Rosscomatic]

So I just put on a new brew of this one... Differences are that I used WYeast 1728 instead of Nottingham. And I've also thrown in some oak chips...

IanH's spreadsheet said I should expect an OG of 1.098.

I forgot to take the OG until a few hours after I'd pitched the yeast (which I'd made into a 2L starter first).

My OG is so G that its off the scale! My hydrometer won't measure that much G! I'm estimating about 1.120!

Is that because of the yeast or did I do something wrong?

If it's because of the yeast, do I just trust IanH's Spreadsheet?

 

[bigj]

I'm not familiar with the spreadsheet. What was the recipe again?

 

[Rosscomatic]

Hi bigj

The recipe is the first post of this thread. The only different is that that I put oak chips in, and instead of using 2 breiss kits, I used one breiss and one black rock amber. Th black rock was 1.7kg where the breiss was 1.5, so I adjusted the LDME too...

Th first batch I made is turning out to be a fantastic beer. It's an easy recipe that I'd recommend to anyone... Maybe tone down the malt a little, but wow. I'm really happy with it.

 

[hwall95]

Hey mate, how'd the second version turn out?

I'm interested in making a 10L batch of a strong scotch ale and have been tossing up between notto or s04 and Wyeast 1728.

Currently my plan is to use two Briess Munich LME, some roast barley and dark crystal, and then bitter with EKG so interested to hear how the second version turned out and also how the first version improved with time.

Cheers mate.

 

[Rosscomatic]

The first batch is going really well. There are only a few bottles left though!!!

The second batch is even better although it's still quite new. The oak really added an extra dimension.

Really recommend it, but I'd cut down on the malt a bit so that I could get an accurate reading on the IG and therefore the ABV.

 

[hwall95]

Okay thanks mate, quite keen to give it a try when I get time. Will probably try to keep the gravity around 1.080-1.090 and since I'm only doing a 10L batch should be able to do a full boil which will be interesting regrading the malt character.

I have heard about caramelising a smaller portion of wort and adding it near the end of boil, so I may drop the crystal malt and give it a try to see how the caramel/malty flavour comes out.

 

[Rosscomatic]

If it's only a 10l batch then it gives you heaps of room to play. I'd suggest trying a really basic batch as a baseline. Then do other stuff as you go.

Also with a small batch you'll need some serious discipline to not finish it before it's aged properly. Good luck with THAT!

 

[hwall95]

If it's only a 10l batch then it gives you heaps of room to play. I'd suggest trying a really basic batch as a baseline. Then do other stuff as you go.

Also with a small batch you'll need some serious discipline to not finish it before it's aged properly. Good luck with THAT!

Yeah great idea, my base line will be the munich malt lme as I'm interested to try the difference compared to the general ldme I use. And after having dirty bastard and moonshine scotch ale, pretty keen to have a scotch ale in stock

Yeah I think ill just have to hide it somewhere and forget about it.. Or maybe just brew another batch of beer to take my mind of it!