Charles 70/- (Heavy)

That brings us to the second installment of the succession of Scottish ales.

12 December, 2008

I will be shooting for 1 point higher on temp this time @ 156F. I figure I will want some slight changes other than gravity so I am adding a tiny tiny bit more roast barley for a little more color. Like a 1/4 oz. Also, I will attempt to reduce the first runnings this time on the propane burner still using the heavier bottomed pot. Hopefully that will reduce the time it takes without scorching it.

Other than that process should all be same.

Charles' 70/-

80% brewhouse efficiency (fairly certain it is this high now. Hard to tell with these batches but others have bared that out.)

7 lb. Marris Otter
2.25 oz. Roasted barley


.23 g Kent Goldings @ 60 minutes
3 g Irish moss @ 15 minutes.

Single step mash @ 156F for 60 minutes.

Collect one gallon of first runnings. Boil to carmelize down to one quart.

Collect 7.50 gallons of additional wort.

Boil for 120 minutes (2 hours)

Chill to low 60's and pitch a quart of Wyeast 1728 starter from yeast harvested from initial batch of 60/-

Ferment @ 60F for 2.5-3 weeks. Crash and cold condition for a further 2 weeks.

16 December, 2008

Took me a few days to "recover" before posting this next installment. it was another LONG brew day.

Alright as stated I attempted to compensate for the small amount of grist in my tun this time around. I used a floating top made from a scrap of 2" extruded foam insulation left over from my fermentation chiller wrapped in aluminum foil. I also used a higher water to grist ratio this time going with 1.40 quarts per lb rather than 1.25 like i did last time. I also preheated the tun with boiling water bringing the temp to 90F (let it cool a bit) and plugged that number into my software for the room temp. I then used 2.50 gallons of water @ 170F.

The result? I still missed by 6 degrees.

Using the step mash calculator on the Green Bay Rackers site to determine how to raise it.
I added 1 qt. of boiling water and it raised the temp to 153F

I added .60 qt. of boiling water and got NO CHANGE!

Then I got frustrated and pulled 1 qt. of wort off and boiled that. Rose to 154.5

Boiled another 2 Qt.s and it shot up to 162F!!!

Added one ice cube and stirred. FINALLY stabilized at 156!

SHEESH!

Thinking a smaller tun might be worth it for these smaller beers.

Now for the caramelizing. It took an hour last time to caramelize the first gallon so it held up the whole show.

I decided to use the same heavy bottom pot this time but on the propane burner instead. It seemed to go faster (sadly I was distracted and did not time it) however I had lots of boil overs.

For sh!ts and giggles I took a gravity reading of both the caramelized wort and the wort collected after to see.

Regular wort was 1.021. Caramelized wort was off the hydrometer. OVER 1.170! Basically I made my own LME it was so thick.

Combinded they gave me a preboil gravity of 1.029. Should have been 1.026!

Like I said earlier, flying by the seat of my pants here.

The boil was fairly uneventful. I did not boil too vigorously considering how high I already was gravity wise.

Chilled it down nice and quick. Was helpful that it was in the single digits outside.

Still trying to work out the numbers here. I was left with 5.25 gallons so a quart short. I put one quart in the fermenter of boiled and chilled water as my gravity was @ 1.042.

I had WICKED siphon problems. Thinkin' I may get over my fear of plastic and buy an auto siphon! Eventually I will get a weldless spigot for my keggle but the autosiphon is looking good right now.

I added at least a quart of water trying to start/restart the siphon!

Twas fine as my OG ended up being only one point high at 1.039, but man what a mess.

I poured the whole quart of starter (approx. a quart I do not have an exact measure on that) and I ended up with 5.25 gallons in the fermenter?!

Still trying to figure it all out. I measured the amount left in the kettle and it was about a half gallon along with trub and hops.

Fermenting slowly again but surely. Temp is a bit lower at 57F. I tried to keep it down so it did not take off again like last time but it has made it a bit slower and cooler. All Sunday I had mostly just a slowly forming layer of yeast then slowly the kraeusen builds. Bubbling nicely.

No hydro sample ferment this time

17 December, 2008
Temp got a bit away from me yesterday morning (day 3) up to 64F. Temperature here has been unseasonably warm but it is back to normal now. Anyway, I corrected it with some ice in the water bath. It is now steady at 60F

27 January, 2009
Charles's 70/- was racked to keg on the 11th. I just put it in the kegerator last night and put on the gas. Prior to that it has been sitting in my cold room in the low to mid forties F. I temporarily took the gas off the 60/- to do this. I am trying not to drink any more 60/- until I bottle some to save. It is hard because it is really tasty.