Spice, Herb, or Vegetable Beer Pecan Scottish 80/-

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Chriso

Broken Robot Brewing Co.
Joined
Oct 31, 2007
Messages
4,618
Reaction score
89
Location
Someplace
Recipe Type
All Grain
Yeast
WLP028 Edinburgh Ale
Yeast Starter
None
Batch Size (Gallons)
5
Original Gravity
1.054
Final Gravity
1.014
Boiling Time (Minutes)
90
IBU
17
Color
14
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp)
10 @ 68F
Secondary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp)
14 @ 68F
Pecans were toasted at 300F for 10 minutes in a single layer, then poured into a paper bag to sit out overnight, hopefully getting some of the oils out of them. Pecans were roasted 10 minutes at 400F till slightly smoking. Poured into another paper bag.
Pecans were finally roasted for 10 more minutes at 350F for about 8 minutes, again, just until slightly smoking.
Between each roast, I used a flat-style crowbar and smashed as many whole nuts as I could in order to expose the maximum amount of surface area.

Mash:
9 lbs Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM)
8.0 oz Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM)
8.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (40.0 SRM)
4.0 oz Aromatic Malt (20.0 SRM)
4.0 oz Honey Malt (25.0 SRM)
4.0 oz Roasted Barley (300.0 SRM)
4.0 oz Wheat Malt (2.3 SRM)
0.50 lb Pecans, Roasted
Total Grain Weight: 11.00 lb

Mash In Add 3.5 gal of water at 165 F = 150.0 F for 75 min
Batch sparge with 5.0 gal of water at 168 F.

Taking a hint from Bearcat Brewmeister, "After the runnings clear, I collect the first 2 quarts and carmelize by boiling it down to 1 quart. "

Boil 90 minutes. Only one hop addition:
1.00 oz Goldings, US [4.70 %] (60 min) Hops 17.3 IBU

Cool and collect, take reading and pitch yeast.

Important note:
This isn't quite what I deem to be a "Tried & True" recipe. The base recipe may or may not be solid -- my results were inconclusive due to a high ferment temp and underpitching of Edinburgh Ale Yeast, which led to strong Clove off flavors. I will be doing more experiments with nuts in the future, and will be sure to link to them from here. This recipe is primarily being posted for others' reference due to all the questions I get about it.
 
I've got this fermenting away right now with walnuts instead of pecans.

I was wondering if using a food processor then toasting might work? You'd get maximum surface area exposed and lots of oil to wick up.
 
I just bottled the remaining 1/2 keg of this, got exactly one case out of it. It's delicious when aged for ~2 months. The pecan and banana notes (the banana is from fermenting too warm) blend into a malty, bready treat. It's just strong enough, it doesn't have any alcoholic nose to it, as it's only a 1.055 beer.... I highly recommend this recipe.

I would roast the nuts, even if you food process them, to bring out the smoky nutty flavors. Especially if you try walnuts, the smoke is worth it, IMHO. Edit: Just re-read your post, sorry, I misread your wording. You food processed, then roasted. I think this is a great idea. I might try it myself, next time. The oil wicking is exactly spot-on. :)

Post back here with your results, please! :)

I'm taking 2 bottles to a Scottish Competition tonight, I will post back w/ results.
 
Averaged about a 28 on this beer, unfortunately. I entered it as a plain Scottish 80/- since we were holding a very small, informal comp. It would have fared better as a specialty beer.

Biggest criticism was suspicion that I underpitched my yeast. Probably true, as I pitched with no starter. From the other comp I entered it in, others thought that I probably fermented too high, maybe even in the 74-75F range.

I think the recipe itself is solid though??????

Also was criticized for being too dark for style (for 80/- non-specialty), which is probably true. Maybe take the Roasted Barley out entirely, and rely on the roasted nuts for the same characteristics?????
 
Just pulled this out of the primary after 3 1/2 weeks and it tastes awfully good.I hit the gravity dead-on. I used a starter and the yeast kept fermenting up till week two. At one point it got a little too cool for the edinburgh, but never too warm. It is quite dark(darker than my room mates honey brown). Maybe you are right in the roasted barley.

I used walnuts in the mixture and I think I tasted a little smoother than I expected(my taste buds are not reliable or even accurate.)

I followed through with the pecans. I got a ton of oil right off the bat, enough to make me use three bags. However, I used a coffee grinder and I think that it is WAY too fine. Your liable to have it go right through your braid/false bottom. I'm probably going to try again, grinding before I roast them so they might not stick together. Will post here again once I try it (and hopefully with more impressions on this recipe).

In other news, looks like i'm making pecan butter.
 
In the end, I used more like 20 bags that soaked up the oil. I had to layer the bags, as one bag sucked up oil in no time.

I decided to go ahead and use the pecans and did not get a stuck sparge or a lot of sediment. I used the pecans in a Southern Pecan clone that's still going, but I think it'll work out with a good taste.

Kegged this and bottled a few last night. My room mate and I pulled a sample from the siphon and MAN. It is awesome! I got none of the problems I think plagued your fermentation(see sig).

I think the recipe is quite solid. I'm just floored with how well the variety of tastes come together in the recipe. I wish that I had a commercial version to compare it with though.

If the carbonated beer is as good as the slightly chilled flat beer, I fully plan on making this a regular brew.
 
Correct. And for this type of recipe, any Brit hop would work. 1/2 oz Challenger would do it, as would 1 oz EKGs or 1 oz Northdown or whatever you have that smells kind of like a Fuggle.
 
I love this forum...The search (on this site) doesn't work for me much, but Google sends me right back here every time. I was just interested in how to use nuts in a brew. I like that paper bag idea. Kudos to you Chriso! ClutchDude the food processor...great idea, I will just chop and not use the butter setting.

Second thought, maybe a cutting board and a good chopping so that the dusty, small, particles are left to a minimum. I run my beer through a coffee filter going into keg, so clear beer always happens.

Thanks all involved.
 
I'm doing this one today, it's just about to start the boil. Can't wait to see how it turns out!

By the way, I ended up getting just under 7.5 gallons of wort from the mash tun after all sparging (Yes, I measured the right amount of mas water and sparge water).
 
Cool, do let me know how it comes out!

That 7.5 gallons of runnings (turns out beersmith was a bit off, but it's ok) boiled off to 5.5 gallons from the 90 minute boil, making my efficiency 94% with a 1.070 OG. Holy crap! 7.2%ABV Scottish Ale, nice! I made a thread trying to figure out if 94% is even possible, and after confirming everything multiple times, it appears as though it's a result of over sparging and the large boil off volume, neither of which negatively affected the brew.

Can't wait to see how it turns out.
 
Very nice! As long as it ferments cleanly, and the oversparge doesn't contribute to excessive tannins, everything should be just fine. It's not like 7.5g of runnings is a huge dramatic oversparge by any means! ;) I will be eagerly watching for further developments, thanks! c
 
Did you put the pecans into the boil or into the fermenter? Im not sure which will get the flavor out better?

Any advice on dry pecaning?
 
The original post should more or less state it clearly but it bears repeating - The pecans in my recipe were used during the mash.

However you can certainly use them at multiple points throughout the beer - You could, in theory, mash with pecans, boil with some pecans, AND dry-pecan in secondary.

If you do add any to your finished beer in primary or secondary, just make sure to sanitize. Either give them one good final toast, enough to kill any bugs, and then cover with foil until they cool off -- or else put them in a measuring cup, add a shot or two of vodka (just enough to moisten/cover) and give it 30 minutes or so to sanitize.
You could also sanitize a small kitchen strainer, which would allow you to collect the vodka and pitch only the nuts into your fermenter. (If you do this, you could make a rather tasty butterscotch-pecan sort of vodka drink with the run-off! Or maybe pecan vodka + some bourbon, with Coke on ice.)
 
Thanks for the advice. I already made the beer and ended up adding 1/2 lb to the last 15 minutes of the boil and 1/2lb to the primary after toasting and roasting them, so I'll have to wait and see how it turns out.
 
I went ahead and made this recipe but added 1 lb crushed/toasted pecans. Did it on 10/26....I quite literally just kegged it - 11/4. Total beer mix up! Meant to leave this in primary for at least 3 weeks. Nailed the OG at 1.054 @ 75* and it finished at 1.012 @ 66* so, based on the originally posted #s I'm good to go. I'll force carb it for the next 48 hours and then just store it in a room for a couple weeks...I guess? As a flat beer, it seemed a bit sweet but good. Nut flavor is there in the background nice and subtle-like. It's more of an embrace vs a nut shot.

Good beer and thanks for the recipe OP!
 
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