a Wee Heavy Birthday brew

My girlfriend really digs the malty scotch ales, so for her birthday we're going to attempt to brew a Wee Heavy. We've only done preassembled extract kits w/steeping so far, so this is our first crack at making our own recipe. any advice/tweaks would be appreciated!



steep:
1lb crushed crystal
1oz roasted barely

7.5lbs of dry light extract

1oz of chinook @ 60min
1oz of kent goldings @ 60min

3 gallon boil
5 gallon batch
estimated og: 1.070
estimated fg: 1.020
color: 27 HCU (14 SRM)
bitterness: 31 IBU
estimated alcohol : 6.5%

Right off the bat I would drop the chinook and up the goldings by about a 1/2 oz; scotchs shouldn't have much bitterness or hop character and your IBUs are a little high for the style. Second, I would add some chocolate malt or black patent to your steeping grains to get some additional darkness to your color and add some flavor complexity. Finally, I would up your extract a bit, scotchs are all about the malt and your OG is a little low for the style.

Anyway, those are my thought, someone else might have more ideas for you.

FWIW, here's the version i'll be brewing up this weekend:

Wee Ale X #3
9-E Strong Scotch Ale

Size: 5.0 gal
Efficiency: 75.0%
Attenuation: 75.0%
Calories: 311.97 per 12.0 fl oz

Original Gravity: 1.093 (1.070 - 1.130)
Terminal Gravity: 1.023 (1.018 - 1.030)
Color: 15.2 (14.0 - 25.0)
Alcohol: 9.23% (6.5% - 10.0%)
Bitterness: 23.22 (17.0 - 35.0)

Ingredients:
1 lbs Cara-Pils® Malt
2 oz Peated Malt
2.5 oz Roasted Barley
9.9 lbs Dry Light LME
.5 oz Northdown (8.6%) - added during boil, boiled 60 min
.75 oz East Kent Goldings (5.0%) - added during boil, boiled 15 min
.75 oz East Kent Goldings (5.0%) - added during boil, boiled 1.0 min
1.0 ea White Labs WLP028 Edinburgh Ale

The IBUs are in the style range (per BeerTools), but I will likely drop the aroma hops as the style guidelines indicate very little hop presence, rather they take a back seat to the huge maltiness

thanks for the advice! i've been using the beer recipator and it seems the style ranges are a little different from the beertools. didn't make many extreme changes but this sounds pretty good now.



steep:
1lb crushed crystal
1oz roasted barely
6oz american chocolate (if the local shop has british i'll get that instead)

8.25lbs of dry light extract


2oz of kent goldings @ 60min

wyeast scottish ale yeast

3 gallon boil
5 gallon batch
estimated og: 1.080
estimated fg: 1.020
color: 52 HCU (22 SRM)
bitterness: 19 IBU
estimated alcohol : 7.5%


thanks again, this forum rules!
:rockin:

made up a starter so the brewing starts soon! any last minute changes/advice? gotta make a run up to the LHBS anyways, i forgot to buy a grain bag!!

Don't drink it too soon! Try to keep it to a bottle a month until at least Halloween. I promise it'll be worth it

ended up using a little bit less malt, with most of it as a late addition to try and get better utilization out of 1.5oz of hops(didn't notice it was a half oz till i got home grrrr)

it's been in primary almost 3 weeks now, it's only down to 1.040. hit some temp issues, first too cold in the basement(it snowed), now a little warm in the spare closest(70+ outside). had to move it due to the cold, it had barely dropped after the first two weeks, it was around 1.060 so i babied it for the next week. at that time it smelled and tasted sickly sweet. this sample smells and tastes great! i can NOT wait to taste this carbed up.



i currently don't have anything to secondary in, should i just leave it a little longer and try to get it to drop a couple more points(if it will) or would racking to a carboy be a better idea?