Scottish Ale

7/13/2010

Brewer's Best Scottish Ale

Start date: 7/11/2010                     keg date:                             drink date:

BG: 1.04               FG: 1.012                             ABV: 3.68  

Hop Bittering units: 15-18

Ingredients

3.3 lbs Amber LME

1 lb Amber DME

4 oz Crystal 60L grains

4 oz smoked grains

4 oz chocolate grains

1 oz roasted barley grains

.5 oz bittering hops

.5 oz aroma hops

1 pack of yeast

Process

·         boil 2.5 gallons water

·         Steep grains for 20 minutes

·         add malt to boil, then bittering hops

·         add aroma hops and terminate boil

·         transfer to fermenter

·         ferment for about a week, take hydrometer reading when fermenting is done

·         keg it

Comments

I was not here for the start of this brew as I was on my way home from Rochester.  Craig, Chris, T, and Scott took care of the boil.  Craig said this was the most grains we've steeped so far.  I'm not sure what effect that will have.  I arrived home when they were letting the wort chill.  We took the hydrometer reading and sealed the fermenter to let the yeast gobble up the nutrients.  This is supposed to be a fairly weak beer, but it was darker than I expected. 

The brew is in the keg now waiting to be enjoyed.  This could be the last one that we keg for a while.  We are planning on going back to bottling for a change.  We just have not had as much success as we thought we would with kegging.  It is much easier but we have not had a successful beer since the California Common, which was the last time we bottled.

The brew was pretty weak.  It had a similar syrupy, wort-like taste that most of our brews have had.  It obviously wasn't no Sam Adams Scottish Ale.