My scottish 80 scored a 39.5 last weekend, good for a bronze. It was my first all grain beer and my first contest. Got dinged on mouthfeel for a dry finish, which i agreed with. I drove the temp up to finish the fermentation out, and i think it attenuated a bit too well.
Excellent score for a challenging style.
Raising the temp makes for lower attenuation. You probably want to mash warmer to begin with, or step up to a beta temp eariler. Or just use some more crystal, or boil some wort down to caramelize and add that. Or include some carapils. Lots of ways to skin that cat i guess.
Or better yet don’t change a thing!
I think Drew meant that he raised the temperature toward the end of fermentation. Which is fine, and my SOP.
Doing that won’t affect the attenuation limit of the wort, which as Lennie says is set in the mash.
I wouldn’t change a beer because of one set of scoresheets. Besides…
I think the hardest part about that category (and some others) are all the preconceived notions; judges have a real difficult time just following the guidelines themselves.
congrats; that is an excellent first effort. Heck it’s excellent whenever.
how dry is this finish they dinged? The style can finish quite dry…
Congrats on your first all grain and first competition!
-Sent from the future.
Congrats! 8)
Good score. Dryness can be pretty tough to dial in properly, and it’s hard to know what judges will want. The closer you get to the limit of attenuation, the drier it will seem.
Maybe it was just a little overcarbed? That can make beer seem too dry sometimes. IIRC the carbonation level for the style is only like 1-1.3 volumes, but maybe if you had carbed it that low judges wouldn’t have cared for the low carbonation.
As Lennie mentioned, boiling wort down to a caramel is a great way to add depth and complexity to beer. That’s my SOP for all British styles (even my bitters).
Did kind of blow that diagnosis, thanks all for making me sound slightly less stupid.
Thanks folks. I got a lot of advice from these forums that helped a lot.
[quote]I think Drew meant that he raised the temperature toward the end of fermentation. Which is fine, and my SOP.
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Yep.
[quote]how dry is this finish they dinged? The style can finish quite dry…
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I didn’t think it was excessively dry, but thats just me. I’ll check the scoresheet when I get home and post the comments
[quote]Maybe it was just a little overcarbed? That can make beer seem too dry sometimes. IIRC the carbonation level for the style is only like 1-1.3 volumes, but maybe if you had carbed it that low judges wouldn’t have cared for the low carbonation.
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I think that it was a bit overcarbed, you’re probably right on with that thought.
Can you expand on this idea for me. Pull off some first runnings or at the end of boil? Typical quantity pulled off for say a 5 gal. batch…Ordinary vs say an ESB. This is new to me, but I like the possibilities…and how dark do you typically let it get?
Typical way of doing this is to pull the first 1/2 gallon - 1 gallon of first runnings and boil that until reduced by half.
I would do it for an ESB. Ordinary, maybe not.
Thanks Drew. Any styles beside the ESB and Scottish that this might be used for?
You look a lot older in your forum pic than on the BS Podcast. The picture here must be the one off your fake ID. ;) Enjoyed the podcast and have gotten a lot of ideas from you for stuff to do with our club.
What Drew described is basically what I do. I pull about 1 gallon of first runnings, then boil that down to at least 1/2 the original volume, smaller volume if I can.
I don’t care for crystal-type malts, so I almost never keep them on hand. When I do want something with some malty/caramel character, I’ll boil some first runnings down. My ordinary bitter is just Golden Promise + boiled first runnings, and I’ll boil it down from 1 gallon to 1/2 gallon.
For an ESB I’ll pull more volume, say 1.5 gallons and try to get it down to 1/2 gallon or less. I can’t describe it more than that, but basically just watch it, keep stirring, and it wouldn’t hurt to pull samples, let them cool, then taste them, if you’re not sure what you’re doing. Let your tongue guide you.
Excellent. I will no longer sweat running out of crystal. Yet another technique for the arsenal.
I think I’ll take that as a compliment! Of course that pic was taken 5 years ago, so… maybe I’ve gained Dick Clark’s powers! 
As for styles - I would say anything that you’d want some caramel flavor to - a dubbel? A Belgian Dark? a Bock? etc. etc. Just be careful… reduced malt (it’s not really caramelized) does have reduced fermentability as well.
Diane, while I love and use the boil down technique, I certainly wouldn’t call it a substitute for crystal. The results are quite different. IMO, each has it’s place and they are not interchangeable.
Do you really want Dick Clark powers? Too soon?
Yeah, you’ll get different results. Think about the difference between a malty, but relatively dry North English Brown (Like Sammy Smith’s) vs a typical sweet American brown ale.
Reduced wort will provide depth-of-flavor and color, and will provide more malty/caramel flavors the darker you cook it, but you’ll never get the sweetness you’ll get from crystal malt. I agree with Drew. It’s appropriate whenever you want a more robust malt flavor, or flavors in the same “class” as crystal malt, but don’t want the residual sweetness.
I don’t want to get into a semantic argument, but the difference between a caramel reaction and a Maillard reaction are often confused in food industry literature because of their similar chemical/sensory characteristics. There is a ton of flavor overlap between the two.
Chemically speaking, caramelization: sugar + heat = sugar loses water, undergoes further dehydration. Maillard reactions: sugar + heat + amino acids = sugar loses water, undergoes further dehydration, plus some other stuff happens.
I make a lot of caramelized sugar syrups for my Belgian beers, and I’ve gotten lots of crazy flavors out of them, including crackers, toast, roasted almonds, and other things that don’t taste like what we typically think of as “caramel” flavors.
Thanks for the input. I will keep all the caveats in mind when I use this technique.