Claymore Wee Heavy

hey guy's, i wanna bounce my recipe for my Scotch Ale (Claymore Wee Heavy ) i'll be brewing next weekend of y'all.

14 lbs. Maris Otter (HBS didn't have Golden Promise )
1 lb CaraPils
.5 lb British Crystal 55
.75 lb. British Crystal 105 (yummy!)
2 oz British Roasted Barley
2/3 oz Northdown @ 75
1/2 oz Fuggles @ 10
1/2 oz Fuggles @ 0
Large Wyeast Starter of 1728 Scotch Ale Yeast
OG 1.083 IBU's 24.8 SRM 18.9 (at 75% efficiency)

i've been dying to brew a Wee Heavy just so i could use the name!! need to make a cool label w/ a big-ass nasty look'n claymore sword......

Looks yummy! No peated malt?

Looks good to me, I'd add a couple of ounces of peated malt and a couple ounces of special b but that's just me.

Oh and mash it at around 155 to give it a sweet finish.

Don't worry - Marris Otter is great for this type of brew! I specifically bought M.O. for my stout and my Scotch Ale. I brewed the Scotch Ale last September and your recipe looks a lot like mine! It turned out fantastic! In fact, I'm drinking my third one as I type this and watch the football games (I've also been eating a lot of 'football food', too. Otherwise, I'd never be able to type this!) Go Bears!

I used 15 lbs, of M.O., used Fuggles and EKGs and White Labs WLP028 Edinburgh Ale yeast. I skipped the peat smoked malt. Instead, I smoked two of those 15 lbs. of Marris Otter with hickory pellets @ 225oF for 2 hours in my smoker, then put it in a ziplock bag for a couple of days. Another twist I did was to collect one gallon of the first runnings and boil it to reduce by ~half (stirring constantly).

It has a perfect, not-too-over-the-top smoke flavor and a nice malt profile. I may decide to enter this in a competition when I brew it next year!

Your's looks very good! Good luck... and keep us posted!

I'll second that, MO is great for the style. Two oz of peat-smoked malt will give you a touch of the duns.

hhhhmmm? never thought of the peat smoked malt? i guess they didn't have it/and i didn't know to ask. i looked at a few recipes from Zymurgy and BYO before i went to the HBS saturday and don't remember seeing it? it's not too late to order some, i suppose.
i drank a Belhaven Scotch Ale last night and really noticed the smoked peat malt.

good tips guys! thanks.

been doing some net research and have read that it's not traditional for Scottish breweries to use peated malt. the smokey characteristic comes from the yeast and fermentation temps......beer for thought.

i e-mailed a guy at Belhaven to see what I could get out of him.

since i'm getting the Scotch Ale bug, i ordered Gregory Noonan's Classic Beer Style Book on Scotch Ale. got it on amazon for $10 bucks. if it's as good as his New Brewing Lager Beer book, it'll be a keeper.

R U brewing next weekend? Dec 4-5? I plan on doing a btch also...I was gonna do it this past week end but ran outta time. Fall Alt. I wanna do 5 gallons of that. Let me know, maybe we can hook up and brew them both. Let me know.....

Looks good. Getting the 'right' amount of hoppiness is tricky. My 75/- is a little too hoppy for a bona fide Scottish beer (East Kent Goldings and Fuggles). Still tastes good though!

I have seen recipes for Scottish beers which only add hops at the beginning of the boil. I think these might be a bit extreme. You do need a little bit of hop aroma/flavour in there.

yep, not sure if it's gonna be fri, sat, or sun? trying to work around some other peoples schedules (mainly SWMBO). when you planning on brewing?

Deuchar said:

Looks good. Getting the 'right' amount of hoppiness is tricky. My 75/- is a little too hoppy for a bona fide Scottish beer (East Kent Goldings and Fuggles). Still tastes good though!

I have seen recipes for Scottish beers which only add hops at the beginning of the boil. I think these might be a bit extreme. You do need a little bit of hop aroma/flavour in there.

Click to expand...

the hops i got are a little lower in AAU's than my ProMash recipe shows. i thought about lowering the bittering hops down to maybe 1/2 oz rather than 2/3 oz?

Maybe friday or sunday. I wanna go to St Arnolds saturday for a tour.

check this out guy's. one of the brew dudes from Belhaven e-mailed me back about the "smokey" character in the Scottish Ales and Wee Heavy:

Dear Brian,

Thank you for you enquiry.

On the face of it this grist may give you some burnt roast character as a result of the roasted barley/crystal malts used.

The Belhaven "smokey" character however is primarily due to our direct fired external shell and tube wort boiler.

We do not use any peated malts within the brewery.

I hope this is useful.

Kind regards,

George.


pretty cool hu?

You're famous! So how does that wort boiler work, anyways, and is it possible to build one from parts at Home Depot?

i'm waiting on the spec's now......... ;~)

I was thinking some type of steam powered heat exchanger with lots of tubes inside a shell and steam passing around them (think gatling gun), but they say "direct fired" which sounds a lot more interesting than steam.

he didn't elaborate on the process. i haven't responded to his e-mail to thank him yet. maybe i could ask?????
i just sent an e-mail to see if he bites back......

I'm just having trouble figuring out how the wort would get a smoky flavor from a heat exchanger assuming that's what it is and it's a closed system. Even if they lit a fire under it I wouldn't think the smoke would reach the wort. Perhaps the wort that is in actual contact with the tube carmelizes a bit more.

BeeGee said:

I'm just having trouble figuring out how the wort would get a smoky flavor from a heat exchanger assuming that's what it is and it's a closed system. Even if they lit a fire under it I wouldn't think the smoke would reach the wort. Perhaps the wort that is in actual contact with the tube carmelizes a bit more.

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This is the only thing that I can guess. Almost sounds like the system runs the wort through tubing that is directly heated (flame?).

If you had a great big smoker, big enough that you could set your brewpot inside it and close the lid, then the boiling wort would pick up some smoke. Of course you'd have to be Andre the Giant to use such a smoker.

The only option I can think of in order to maintain the level of discourse and intellectual exchange in this place is for homebrewtalk.com to assemble and sponsor a team to go to Belhaven and tour the facility in the interest of gathering the pertinent technical details of this contraption. Due to clear interest in the task, I suggest DRB, LupusUmbrus, El P, and myself. My travel availability is pretty much open.

Count me in.

yea, my schedule is WIDE open! do i get shot-gun since i took care of the e-mailing? :~)

i was going to ask if I could come along, but if you guys are going to try to DRIVE there.... I think I'll stay home.

-walker

i just said shot-gun. doesn't have to mean we'll DRIVE over there......it's a little soupy out for that! ;~)

ok.. let's see what happens when you jump on an airplane and shout "shotgun!"

-walker

Walker said:

ok.. let's see what happens when you jump on an airplane and shout "shotgun!"

-walker

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Well, if you beat the co-pilot to it, I'd say it's fair game

This place is in the UK from the looks of things. I'm always up for a road trip, but I guess I would have to settle for the flying metal tube for this one.

Yeah, everybody can go! We all have an interest in boiling wort. I suggest we fly SAS...they actually seem to try to get the passengers drunk on the free air booze, and have a pretty fair selection to boot.

okay, here's the follow up from George at Belhaven Brewery on the "open flame" process:

Hello again Brian.

Our worts are heated by pumping(circulating) the liquid over a series of coils which contain within them a gas fired flame.As the worts pass over the heated surface of the pipe the temperature of the wort gradually rises to boiling point.There are many designs throughout the world based on this principle.

Happy Brewing!

Regards,

George.

i suppose that's enough to get the "smokey" flavor in the brew???

I think we're still going to need empirical data!

DeRoux's Broux said:

i suppose that's enough to get the "smokey" flavor in the brew???

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I don't think so. It sounds like they are just pumping it over a radiator. The wort touches nothing but the OUTSIDE of some hot, sealed pipes (inside of which is flame produced from natural gas.) Nothing smoking anywhere in there.

Scottish Ale yeast is supposed to impart a smokey flavor, so perhaps it's all coming from that?

-walker

Walker said:

I don't think so. It sounds like they are just pumping it over a radiator. The wort touches nothing but the OUTSIDE of some hot, sealed pipes (inside of which is flame produced from natural gas.) Nothing smoking anywhere in there.

Scottish Ale yeast is supposed to impart a smokey flavor, so perhaps it's all coming from that?

-walker

Click to expand...

The Belhaven "smokey" character however is primarily due to our direct fired external shell and tube wort boiler.
i dunno, he may be playing hard ball with me? trade secret, now i'm paranoid and keep seeing people following me....

DeRoux's Broux said:

The Belhaven "smokey" character however is primarily due to our direct fired external shell and tube wort boiler.
i dunno, he may be playing hard ball with me? trade secret, now i'm paranoid and keep seeing people following me....

Click to expand...

They probably use Liquid Smoke.

The Belhaven Brewery is about 10 miles from me.

I should really get round to giving them a call and begging for a tour.

Does anyone have any other questions they want me to ask or any beers they'd like some tasting notes on?

If you buy the beer, I'll tell you how good it is!

80/- said:

Does anyone have any other questions they want me to ask or any beers they'd like some tasting notes on?

If you buy the beer, I'll tell you how good it is!

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Yeah, I'd like some tasting notes/comparisons on Traquir House Ale, McEwan's Scotch Ale, and Belhaven Wee Heavy. I've never had a Traquir House, but we used to get McEwan's here (tho not of late), so I drink BWH. I brewed a Traquir House clone, and it reminds me a lot of McEwans...I'm just wondering how close I got to the target. I'll be glad to buy you a round of each.

i'll buy a round! tell my buddy George Howell i said hello!
and find out where the hint of smoke comes from, for real.........