Scottish Ale Brewday

So today marked my 4th brew (3rd all-grain) in Northwest Arkansas.  As we get nearer to that cold weather I realized I had to brew a good warming, malty beer for those winter nights.  I haven't decided if this will be a holiday ale, but either way I wanted to brew another Scottish Ale.  Last November my twink and I brewed a Scottish on a whim and it turned out to be my most memorable brew of the holiday season.  This time around I wanted to brew a more classic 'Wee Heavy' style of Scottish ale that has a very basic grain bill and utilizes caramelization in the boil to obtain the rich caramel and malty flavors (as opposed to using caramel malts in the mash).  It presented itself to me as a decent challenge and an exciting opportunity to push myself as an amateur brewer.  So off to my LHBS I went for the grains and hops:

13# Marris Otter
0.25# Roasted Black Barley

1.3 oz. 5% AA East Kent Goldings at 60 minutes

Nothing too exciting about that grain.

Pretty dang simple, huh?  I thought so, too.  I mashed for about an hour, starting around 157F and winding down around 154F by the end of the hour. 

Mash it up.

This is where my typical brewing practices got a little more complicated.  I started to recirculated the wort until I obtained clarity and a good (1 qt/min) flow.  I then proceeded to collect the first gallon of the wort and put in on the stove to boil.  While the rest of the wort collected, this 1 gallon started its caramelization boil.  I took the boil all the way down to 1 qt of syrupy and sweet wort. 

Not a terribly valuable pic, but it the first gallon of runnings boiling away.

Concurrently, I collected the rest of the wort (~7 gallons) and got it out onto the turkey fryer stand.  I allowed this to hot break and begin the boil (about 30 minutes) before I added the caramelized wort.  Are you keeping up with all this action?  Okay.  So once I combined my worts I started a 90 minute boil. 

One full brew kettle.  Luckily, the hot break was over.  All I had to do was boil this down.

At the 60 minute mark I added my EKG's and the rest of the brewday basically went as normal.  I was able to cool this brew down to ~78F in 20 minutes.  Earlier in the week I had made a yeast starter from a White Labs Edinburgh (Scottish) Ale vial.  I pitched this starter and stuck my Scottish ale in my kegerator....

Scottish ales are supposed to be clean with minimal esters.  Being so, I decided to put a temperature controller on my kegerator and set it to 58F.  With the frenzy of fermenting, I figure the internal temp of the carboy will be closer to 62F, right where I want to be.

I am still in the process of refurbing the kegerator, but it should be alright for some fermenting.  You can see the temp controller on top of the brass tap fixture in the top left of the picture (It's a small Loves TSS2-2100 dual stage controller).

So that is about all.  I was able to hit (and even exceed) my OG target of 1.070 (I got closer to 1.072).  I expect the final gravity to be in the mid teens, making this a medium bodied brew with a super clean and malty flavor balanced with about 20 IBUs.  The prolonged boil and reduction should make for some toffee-ish flavors as well.  I can't wait to see what happens; should be a great beer.

A Dick's Scottish Style Ale from WA (compliments of the Tuckers).  I really like this beer, though it utilized smoked malts in the recipe, which I did not.  So mine probably will not resemble it much.

Sampling of my brew.  It is very sweet and thick.  I can taste the hops fighting for balance.  I am very interested to see where this brew goes with the cooler fermentation.

On a side note, Connor told me (the night before brewday) that he didn't want to hear any sob stories about missing my targets or screwing something up.  He wanted me to nail this ale.  So, I told him that this brew was for him.  Then I had an idea for the name of this batch, 'Willie's Scottish Ale'.  William is a good Scottish name and it is also Connor's first name.  Thoughts?

Thanks for stopping by!  Stay tuned for updates on this brew.  Tomorrow Ashley and I are making a standard Chardonnay and I am transferring my pumpkin ale to secondary.  My Common ale and my Pig Trail Ale are both in bottles and conditioning.