I decided to try my hand at one of the award winning recipes. I went ahead and bought my grains, hops and yeast, but I seem to have misplaced my magazine.
Can anyone copy the instructions from it? Otherwise I’ll be hopping blind.
I don’t remember the exact name, it was a scottish irish ale that won gold. 5 gallon. A pretty heavy beer, about 17 lbs of grain.
Any help would be appreciated!
This one?
14lb pale
(1 lb each) malted wheat, aromatic, Munich
.33 lb roasted barley
0.5 oz magnum 14% 60 min
.25 oz fuggles 4.2% 10 min
Wyeast 1728 Scottish Ale
Mash at 156
OG 1.101
FG 1.024
2 hour boil
Ferment @ 68F
That’s it! Thank you!
No problem! I should have given credit to the brewer. It is Steve Fletty’s “Scotch Bingerson’s Rehydration Fluid” Strong Scotch Ale from page 51 of the Sept/Oct 2010 Zymurgy.
Just brewed it yesterday. Seems to have gone well so far, though I can’t get a good reading on the OG. Didn’t realize before that my hydrometer caps out at 1.090
Great to hear - at least you know you probably didn’t end up on the low side! I have heard that with careful measurement of volume, you can mix the wort 50/50 with water and then double the measured gravity of that solution. I’ve never tried it myself, but it may be worth a shot if you find yourself in that position in the future.
I did a huge barleywine earlier this year that maxed out my refractometer. It really confused me until I realized that was the problem.
Ah, that makes perfect sense.
I’m guessing I nearly hit the target gravity since fermentation stopped pretty close to the FG - 1.026 instead of 1.024
and I can guess that it’s 12% ABV since that’s the tolerance level for the yeast.
Though, I didn’t think about carbonation.
I do priming sugar and carbonate in bottle, but won’t that fail since I’ve killed off all my yeast?
I have had problems carbonating high ABV beers before. Usually those beers have had a fairly long time in the secondary fermenter because they tend to benefit from a little extra bulk aging. Whenever I bottle condition these beers, I will rehydrate a packet of Nottingham dry yeast and pitch some of it (ie not the whole thing because that may be a little much). I see it as cheap insurance against a bunch of flat bottles.
I’m currently waiting for my 11.5% wee heavy to carbonate. I added half a pack of US-05 at bottling time.
After being in the bottle for three weeks there was no perceptible carbonation. After five weeks there was the barest hint. I’m hoping it will improve with additional age. But I’m definitely going to force carb the next beer I brew that is that strong.
Are you adding yeast to the bottle bucket or to the bottles?
I’m reading up on it now. Some people seem to suggest throwing a few yeast grains in each bottle
I add it to the bottling bucket right before I put the priming sugar in, and then I make sure it is really well mixed in. I also make sure that the bottled beer is kept at a temp of at least 70F until it is carbonated.
Same here, except my storage temps are a little lower.
I brewed a Strong Scotch back in January via a partigyle. It ended up at 13% so I cut it with some boiled water to get it down to 11%. Yeast was obviously dead (WYEAST 1728) I used 1/2 packet of US-05 & rehydrated it with the bottling sugar once the temp got down to ~80F, then added it to the bottling bucket. To date it still does not have much carbonation. I doubt it ever will but it’s okay for the style. But, man does it have legs!!! 
My ~12% stout carbonated just fine. Secondary on Wyeast 1728 for 7 months.
When I bottled, I put in a whole sachet of us-05 and some sugar (I think about 3oz). Carbonated very well with a med-low level of carbonation… even after 3 weeks. It’s now about 1.5 years old and it’s got the same amount of carbonation.
This article was helpful in determining bottle conditioning procedures for my stout.
Just bottled last night with a packet of US-05, so we’ll see how it does in a few weeks.
I used a number of pint bottles to discourage myself from drinking it early. Figure I’m more likely to hold the pints to share with friends over time.
2 weeks out and I’ve got medium carbonation (appropriate for the style) and a very tasty beer. Thanks all!