Messages

16

Yeast and Fermentation / Re: Wee heavy help!

« on: October 04, 2012, 02:55:33 pm »

I probably will end up with a Barleywine..

17

Yeast and Fermentation / Re: Wee heavy help!

« on: October 04, 2012, 01:28:35 pm »

anyway here is the link
www.skotrat.com/skotrat/recipes/ale/scottish/recipes/10.html

EDIT: to add that one of the most important aspects of any scottish style, in my mind, is the yeast. the edinborough ale yeast gives a slight smokey earthy peaty thing that really makes a scottish ale. Some folks put a pinch of smoked malt in scottish ales for this reason but you don't really need it with that yeast. I suspect this will not be particularly useful for you in brasil but if you have a friend coming to visit from the states try to get them to bring a tube of yeast with them. You'd have to step it up ALOT after that trip but if you really like scottish ales...

That recipe made me think I'm dumb lol

about the yeast, we can get it here, but almost always they're very weak and expensive

1 lb of molasses is a lot of molasses.  You should expect a strong molasses flavor.

Was it blackstrap?  if so, I would expect a very strong molasses flavor.

I wouldn't worry too much about 4 weeks in primary.  I tend to leave my beers at least that long.

With the high ferment temp, you may want to age the beer if possible once you package it.  Any fusels should mellow with time.  Hopefully.

I also have found that Nottingham can give a tart flavor.  IMO, it is not as neutral a yeast as they claim.  But I have made very good beer with it, so I'm not knocking your choice.

It was... molasses, here we don't have that differentiation. it was reddish-brown.

I was planning on aging for at least 6months to develop... should I age in bottles or in a bucket?


thanks again!

18

Yeast and Fermentation / Re: Wee heavy help!

« on: October 04, 2012, 12:46:18 pm »

Thanks for the reply.

I'll try to do the water tub thing, although the fermenter is not at my house ( I live in an apartment with a huge Maine Coon that likes to chew things).

I thought about the autolysis because the yeast is gonna suffer from excess alcohol AND temperature. Right now, it is around 92F. In the cellar it must be near 80 :/

I know i'll probably get higher alcohols and fruity esthers at this temperature, but... patience!

About the recipe, i tried to bring the maltyness from munich and vienna, and the caramel/roast/toffee and color from crystal, biscuit and special B... seemed right. Again, I made that recipe from scratch. lol

AG is easier and cheaper here in brazil... we don't see much extract here. And then again, it is mucho more fun when you do it from scratch!

19

Yeast and Fermentation / Wee heavy help!

« on: October 04, 2012, 12:18:10 pm »

Hello Folks!

Sunday I brewed my first Batch, an all-grain Wee heavy.

I started looking into the subject since the beginning of the year and decided that Wee heavy would be a good Challenge.

Grain Bill:

6.6lb Munich malt type 2
6.6lb Pale Ale
2.2lb Crystal malt
2.2lb Vienna Malt
1lb Biscuit Malt
0.2lb special B Malt

for a 5.3gallon Batch.

Efficiency wasn't so great, got stuck at 1080 (estimated was 1112) and bumped it to 1102 with 1lb molasses.

pitched the whole thing at 77F with 2 packets of nottinhgam ale dry yeast.


it is now sitting in a 10gal bucket with a near the bottom and an airlock bubbling every 2min or so.

One caveat though: I'm in Brasil, in a place where temperature ranges from 65F(at night) and 95F. I placed my bucket in a cellar where average temp is around 77F.

And i have no control over temperature.


Isee people here saying I should not rack to secondary, taking 4 weeks in primary and such... but at my temperature range, won't there be autolysis?

Hope you can help me!