Gearing up for a 12g batch of this beer. The original recipe calls for a 1/2g starter at high Krausen with Wyeast 1728. I made a 1g starter the old fashioned way (not stirred) that just finished. It’s going to be a week before I brew this beer so I have some time. I’m thinking about decanting and doing another gallon starter.
Alternatively, I have an IPA finishing up on Wyeast 1450 so I’ll have a cake available to pitch on but I’m not convinced this strain would be a good fit for a wee heavy.
I suppose if you want exactly like the recipe beer you’d have to do exactly like the recipe.
Obviously that’s not a worry. So what is the expected OG? A half gallon starter seems small for a 12 gallon big beer.
Pitching at high krausen makes sense under the theory of having them all fired up and ready to go. But I think proper amount is more important personally.
Guessing your OG at 1.080 with 12 gallons, using 1 week old activators, i think you’d need 14 liters of starter and two activators.
So decanting your starter and repitching to a new gallon might get you part of the way there. Maybe try a 2 gallon second step?
Maybe its just me, but I’d rather brew a batch of session beer to step up my yeast rather than make a starter, especially when the starter needs to be this big. It kills me to think of dumping a case worth of beer when you could be drinking it instead.
Fully agree. To my way of thinking they are all technically starters but I only call them starters if I plan to dump them. I only dump 2,000ml with no hops.
If I were doing a Wee Heavy but didn’t have the pitch, I would do a 2000ml starter, then a 5 gallon 60 bob, then the WH.
The plan is to re-pitch for most of my beers but I’m still getting my process up and running so I don’t have a good yeast stock yet. I’m in no hurry to brew the WH so I will probably take your advice and do a session beer first.
Here’s the recipe. I’m using Marris Otter instead of Golden Promise.
Yeast: Wyeast 1728 Scottish Ale Yeast Starter: 1/2 US gallon at High Krausen Batch Size: 11 US Gallons Original Gravity: 1.085 Final Gravity: 1.020 Alcohol Content: 8.64 % Total Grains: 32.79 US Pounds Color: 12-22 (depending on carmelization) Extract Efficiency: 75 % Hop IBU’s: 28.6 Boiling Time: 2 hours Primary Fermentation: 10 days @ 62f Secondary Fermentation: 10 days @ 58f Additional Fermentation: 2 months in brite tanks @ 45f Grain Bill: 32.48 lb. Scottish Malting GOLDEN PROMISE PALE ALE 2 ROW (99%) .31 lb. Roast Barley (1%) Hop Bill: 1.57 oz. N. BREWER 6.9% 45 min 1.57 oz. N. BREWER 6.9% 35 min Mash Schedule: Single Step Mash: 90 minutes @ 154 10 minutes @ 168 Brewers Notes: Yeast: WYEAST Scottish Ale 1728 Scottish Ale Rich, smokey, peaty character ideally suited for scottish style ales, smoked beers and high gravity ales. Flocculation - high; apparent attenuation - 69-73%. (55-70°F) Notes: Remove two gallons of first runnings and Carmelize it (boil down to about 1 pint and add back to boil). This will give the richer taste that you find in this finebeer. Collect 15 gallons of Run-off and boil down to your 10 1/2 gallon target (the other 1/2 gallon will come from the 1/2 gallon starter of yeast slurry that you have made in advance). Add 2-3 teaspoons of Irish Moss into the boil just because. Traquair is the finest of all Scottish Ales. Their recipe is pretty easy and straight forward. 99% Pale Ale Malt, 1% Roasted Barley and 25-37 IBU’s. I have found this to be the common thread for this brew after reviewing about 30-40 recipes from Homebrewers that have cloned this brew. About 1/2 of the recipes claimed that Traquair uses East Kent Goldings as the hop and the Other claim that Northern Brewer is the Hop. I chose Northern Brewer because I am very fond of them as base hops.
I have a 5G batch of Skotrat’s clone going now. I did a 60/- and repitched the whole cake. I racked the 60/- to a keg while chilling the Wee Heavy. It didn’t take long to ferment the 60/- so I’d do that rather than a starter.
FWIW, Skotrat’s recipe calls for Northern Brewer. I remember seeing something where he gave his beer to the owners of Traquair who were impressed. The hops are mainly for bittering so it may not matter if they really used EKG.
