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| The Scottish Wee Heavy |
For what will most likely be my last brew with this particular pitch of Wyeast of 1968 London ESB ale yeast, I wanted to brew another batch of a beer I brewed last fall in honor of my grandfather. The beer last year was brewed with the 1968 strain and came out great, so I wanted another chance to brew this beer with a few tweaks.
The malt bill for this beer was formulated to a certain extent out of necessity. I'm planning on making a move soon, and I'm not sure I'll have the chance to brew all-grain batches once I move. There's a fair amount of base grain and a few specialty grains I am looking to use up, so the base came from the remainder of a bag of British 2-row, some American 2-row, and some Carastan malt (aka British Crystal). I liked the influence of American Special Roast Malt so much in the Ordinary Bitter that I chose to put a small amount in this grain bill too. The Carastan, American Special Roast, and Crystal 120 are substitutes for Aromatic Malt, and Crystal 60 that I used in the previous batch. I chose to use the same hops but with a different hopping schedule; I chose not to "pepper" in hops as I had with the previous brew, but keep Northern Brewer as a bitter/flavor hop and let the EKG and Fuggles do all the aroma and dry hopping. The first batch of Buster's Bitter finished with a gravity that was a bit too low for my taste, so I chose to lower the mash temp as well this time around.
Buster's Bitter (Batch No.2)
Batch Volume (Gal): 6.0
Pre-Boil Volume (Gal): 7.0
Total Grain (Lbs): 14.5
OG: 1.065 Anticipated FG: ~1.012 Anticipated ABV: ~7% ABV
IBUs: 46
SRM: 11.3
Brewhouse Efficiency: 74%
Boil Duration: 95 min
Grain (Lbs/oz.) (%)
Malteurop North American 2-row 7 48.3
Pearl British 2-row 5 34.5
Carastan Malt 1 6.9
Wheat Malt 8 oz. 3.4
Victory Malt 8 oz. 3.4
Crystal 120 4 oz. 1.7
American Special Roast 4 oz. 1.7
Hops (AA%) (IBU) (Oz.) (Boil[min])
Northern Brewer 12.3 41.3 0.8 90
Northern Brewer 12.3 4.8 0.2 30
EKG 4.5 0 0.5 0
Fuggles 4.0 0 0.5 0
EKG 4.5 0 0.5 Dry Hop
Fuggles 4.0 0 0.5 Dry Hop
Yeast
Repitched ~115 mL of thick, moderately clean 1968 London ESB yeast slurry from Black Butte Porter yeast cake
Water
Ca: 100 Mg: 2 SO4: 134 Na: 25 Cl: 81 HCO3: 84
Mash Schedule
Single Infusion 5 min 140 F, brought up to 150 F 10 min, brought up to 152 F at 15 min,
15 min mashout at 165 F
In Mash: 3 mL of Lactic Acid; pH ~5.4
In Boil: 2 g NaHCO3, 6 g CaSO4, 4 g CaCl2
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| Transferring the Porter off of the 1968 yeast cake |
Only two issues on this particular brew day; my mashing continues to be a bit unpredictable and I can't seem to buy an oxygen tank that has any oxygen left in it. The mash for whatever reason began at 140 F after targeting 152 F. I have no damn clue how it started out this low; I preheated as I always do, calculated out my strike temp but missed my target by 12 degrees. Luckily I brought up the temp quickly with boiling water, but this low initial temp may likely produce a drier than desired English Extra Special Bitter. The mash pH as well continues to be unpredictable, and I consistently hit 5.4 pH at mash temps. Not sure this is a bad thing as I often hit this pH and produce beers, but I've found that when I hit 5.1 or 5.2, my beers are much crisper, acidic, and generally more like a commercial example of the style than if I hit a slightly higher mash pH.
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| The new thermowell for the temp probe |
For the second time it seems I purchased a disposable oxygen tank that was completely empty. I have no damn idea how this keeps happening; the first O2 tank I bought had plenty of oxygen, and I know these tanks are not meant to be refilled, so I have no reason to believe that I needed to have these tanks filled in the first place. For the second brew in a row, I had to resort to an old method of aeration which this week happened to be simply sloshing the beer around in the carboy. Hopefully there was a sufficient amount of oxygen mixed into the wort when it came time to pitch the yeast.
I am hoping that I'll have at least a few more chances to brew all-grain before my move, with either a Belgian Dubbel brew or a Biere de Noel with the Trappist High gravity planned soon. If not, I may have to wait a while before I'll have the chance to brew again, so I'm happy that the last few batches I've brewed are ready to drink just before winter comes.
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Bottling the Belgian Tripel
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| Sanitizing the Belgian Corks |
After about a month in the carboy I was able to bottle the Belgian Tripel in 750 mL cork and cage Belgian beer bottles. After the failure of many of the bottles of Belgian Biere de Garde to carbonate in the Belgian beer bottles with plastic stoppers, I knew that I had to go with Belgian corks if I was to ever bottle a batch of beer in Belgian bottles. Fortunately, the wine corker I have works quite well with these corks (with a few modifications) and I was able to bottle the entire batch in both Belgian Beer bottles and Belgian "Champage" style bottles.
I added about 5 ounces of cane sugar to prime these bottles with which should carbonate the beer to about 3.0 volumes of CO2. The flat beer tasted fantastic, so I can only imagine with some added carbonation and a slightly colder serving temp, this beer will be great for winter.
Baking "Mashed" Bread
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| Mashing the Specialty Grains with a glass of Murphy the Stout Hearted |
I've baked a few batches of spent grain over the past year, but this time around I wanted to experiment with some extra specialty grain I had lying around. I threw together some wheat, crystal 60, carapils, crystal 120, and a lot of chocolate malt and mashed it all for about 20 minutes on the stove, then proofed my bread yeast using the resulting wort from the mash. This all went into the mixing bowl with bread flower and baked. The bread had the exact color of Chocolate malt and the roastiness of the malt comes through a bit with a lot of chocolate malt flavor. The two loaves taste great, and I'd really like to see what some "mashed" bread would taste like if I went with a crystal malt instead.
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| The "mashed" grain bread dough |
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