Yee Yee Wee Heavy (Jasper's Wee Olde Lizzie Scotch Ale))

I've spent way too much time on this forum reading and trying to get a grasp on this ridiculously addicting hobby so I figured I would help contribute to the madness. This is my second brew - first was the NB's bourbon barrel which I brewed beginning of December and am getting ready to bottle. I was looking for something that would ferment good in my cold Michigan basement during the polar vortex and decided on either wyeast 1728 or 1007. I love Founder's Dirty Bastard and after I ran across this kit from Jaspers I knew I wanted it.

I'm going to go through my brew process with some pictures just in case a noob like me comes across it and maybe it can help. Any of you veteran brewers please by all means feel free to critique me.

I decided to take a little step up from the kit and make a few minor additions of my own. I reduced the LME by 1.25 pounds and added 2 lbs of 2 row for a mini (really mini) mash. I also added 2oz of smoked peat for the flavor. I know this is not in the guidelines for this style but I'm not a judge nor will this be in a competition. It is for my drinking pleasure and I like that flavor. I upped up the volume to a 3 gallon boil to hit IBU's around 35. Dirty Bastard is 55 and it is a little bitter for my tastes.

I plugged everything into brewers friend and this is what I got. (I included the DME from my starter - was this correct? ):

Brew Method: Partial Mash
Style Name: Strong Scotch Ale
Boil Time: 60 min
Batch Size: 5 gallons (fermentor volume)
Boil Size: 3 gallons
Boil Gravity: 1.172
Efficiency: 70% (brew house)

STATS:
Original Gravity: 1.103
Final Gravity: 1.030
ABV (standard): 9.61%
IBU (tinseth): 36.44
SRM (morey): 15.61


FERMENTABLES:
6 lb - Liquid Malt Extract - Light (39.3%)
3.3 lb - Liquid Malt Extract - Munich (21.6%)
1.1 lb - Liquid Malt Extract - Wheat (7.2%)
1 lb - Corn Sugar - Dextrose (6.6%)
0.5 lb - American - Caramel / Crystal 60L (3.3%)
0.5 lb - Belgian - Biscuit (3.3%)
0.25 lb - United Kingdom - Pale Chocolate (1.6%)
0.1 lb - United Kingdom - Peated Malt (0.7%)
2 lb - American - Pale 2-Row (13.1%)
0.5 lb - Dry Malt Extract - Light (3.3%) (For the 2L starter – 2 cups of DME)

HOPS:
1 oz - Galena, Type: Leaf/Whole, AA: 13, Use: Boil for 60 min, IBU: 15.03
1 oz - Nugget, Type: Leaf/Whole, AA: 14, Use: Boil for 60 min, IBU: 16.19
0.75 oz - Kent Goldings, Type: Leaf/Whole, AA: 5, Use: Boil for 60 min, IBU: 4.34
0.25 oz - Kent Goldings, Type: Leaf/Whole, AA: 5, Use: Boil for 20 min, IBU: 0.88

MASH GUIDELINES:
1) Temp: 150 F, Time: 60 min

YEAST:
Wyeast - Scottish Ale 1728
Starter: Yes
Form: Liquid
Attenuation (avg): 71%
Flocculation: High
Optimum Temp: 55 - 75 F
Fermentation Temp: 58 F

Like I said before, this may be a lot of info for nothing, but maybe it will help someone along the way.

This was my first time ordering from Jasper's Home brew and man am I impressed! www.boomchugalug.com They have a great selection of interesting kits on their site. Maybe be a little more pricy but I will definitely be using them again.

I called and spoke with Jeff about my intentions of altering the recipe and he was more than happy to help. They ended up dropping the LME and adding the 2 row and smoked peat at no extra charge. Even held the order for me to ship during the week. I know this is only my second kit but I was impressed by their shipping and packaging efficiency.

Happiness in a box:

They did a good job of packing everything in to the small box. The big difference from Northern Brewer's kit is that they bagged their LME instead of it in a bottle. I'm assuming this will make it easier to squeeze it all out than try to drip it out of plastic bottles. Every kit is packaged and sealed to order. The bag of light LME is 6 pounds just as I ordered. And the grains are all fresh ground, combined and sealed. This part I fell a little indifferent about. I was thinking about lowering the smoked peat to 1.5 oz but was unable to because it was all mixed into one bag.

I smacked the Wyeast at 8am Thursday morning and let it do its thing throughout the day and into the evening. I got home at 9 that night and started boiling. I was shooting towards a 2L starter based on this video with Greg Doss of Wyeast

Last time I did a starter it had some pretty good krausen so I was afraid of a spill over. I ended up doing 7 cups of water to 1.75 cups of DME (.25 cups DME to 1 cup water). After boiling this got me about 1600ml of wort. I also added about a 1/4 tab of whirfloc.

I put it on my stir plate - youtube DIY for about $20 - and let it ride.

I heated up 3.5 quarts (14 cups) of water to about 166* on my stovetop then added the roughly 2.25lbs of grain to the strainer bag inside of the pot. After stirring really good it dropped to 153* :rockin: I took it off the burner, wrapped it in a towel and let it sit for an hour. Towards the end of the hour I started heating my sparge water.

After 45 minutes the temp was 149*

I poured the remaining of the 3 gallons into my book pot and heated it to 165ish for my sparge water. Once the mash was done I pulled out the grain bag and let it drain and also squeezed a bit. I know there's big debate about the squeeze method but after reading and researching on it for a few hours I figured why waste it.

I did the tea bag method in the sparge water for about ten minutes then again let it all drain out by setting a strainer on the rim of the boil pot and let it sit for a few minutes. After the drain I discarded the grains and combined the mash with the sparge and cranked the heat to get the boil going. At this point I had a full 3 gallons.

As the wort was coming to a boil I put the 2 bags of LME into a sink full of warm water to loosen it up a bit. Once the boil started I removed it from the heat and stirred in the LME and the dextrose. It was a lot to add in so I made sure to stir the crap out of it. I did like the bagged LME over the bottled. After warming it up I was able to squeeze out almost every drop. After mixing I put it back on the heat to bring it back to a boil.

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Once it was back to a boil I took it off the heat and put 24 oz of the wort into a separate sauce pan to caramelize. I brought it to a light simmer/boil and stirred it. I was afraid of burning it because of all the sugar so was constantly stirring. It took about 25 minutes to bring it down to a thick syrup consistency. Basically I was making malt candy. Once it was thick I dumped it back into the wort and stirred it like crazy before returning it to the heat. I was supposed to mix 2 cups of boiling water with the syrup before putting it in thw wort but forgot.

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Nice pics of your process.

Jasper's is my LHBS. They are great people: very knowledgeable and easy to work with.

+1 on Jasper's being my LHBS and being wicked awesome. Always impressed with them, and always spend way too long in there when I go in.

Oginme said:

Nice pics of your process..

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Thanks!

This post is taking awhile to put up - right after I brewed I hit the road for a wedding.

After I poured the malt candy into the wort I stirred it really good again off of the heat to try and eliminate any clumps from burning. Once it was mixed in I brought it back to a rolling boil and added the bittering Hops. After 45 minutes I added a tab of whirfloc and 5 minutes after that I tossed in the aroma Hops for the last ten minutes.

Newbie tip: Do not boil with a lid on your wort. From what I've read keeping the lid off allows unwanted stuff(not exactly sure what the bad stuff is but let it escape) to dissipate.

During the boil I kept the wort at a light rolling boil and tried to stir it every few minutes to keep it from burning.

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I don't have a fancy wort chiller but I do have a couple feet of snow in the yard and a bathtub. I filled the tub up with snow and water and put the wort in for a chill bath. The water in the tub was around 20* and brought the boiling wort down to 58* in 16 minutes. All I did was move the brew pot around the tub and stirred it as much as I could trying to get the wort on the bare sides of the pot giving me more surface area to cool on.

I brought the temp down low because I will be fermenting at 55*

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Jasper's kicks ass. Can I say they kick ass? If I can't they are top notch.

After the cool I transferred it to the carboy and it came out to a little more then 2 and a half gallons so I lost about a half a gallon between the boil and the caramelization process. I topped of the wort with spring water(which I used for the boil also) to 4.5 gallons. I left one of the gallons of water outside during the boil to get it cold for the addition. The temp was about 58* and I pitched the yeast. After pitching the yeast I was just under the 5 gallon mark so I added a little more to top it off. I put a cap on and gave it a good shake then hit it with the O2 for a minute.

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I forgot a pretty important part.... Before the oxygen I checked the gravity and it was at 1.110!

After the oxygen I put it in my basement and added the airlock with a blow off valve.

After a few hours I had a lot of crystal like looking things in the wort. After consulting some knowledgeable people in the beginner brewing forum I found out that it's cold break.

I had to leave right after I put it in the basement and wasn't back home for about 24 hours. At that time it was bubbling away nicely and there was residue all the way up to the top of the carboy where the krauzen had come up. I'm going to let it ride for 2 weeks and report back when I transfer to secondary.



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this was my last extract kit before i moved to AG. i used what was provided, did a 32oz reduction, that was enough to get a caramelized and ever so slightly smokey finish.
only pitched one pack of dry yeast, ferm'd at 59 for 3 weeks then xfer for 1 month. it came out a little hot, but once in a keg at 45 was great after a week.

if you don't have a LHBS nearby and rely on kits thru the mail, Jasper's is a great choice. imho, the better of the other few kit suppliers.

i'd readily brew this recipe as AG, using a starter next time. btw according to my hydro readings i nailed a 9.3% abv and using only a packet of yeast, i was amazed there were no off-flavors, fusels, etc..

te-wa said:

this was my last extract kit before i moved to AG. i used what was provided, did a 32oz reduction, that was enough to get a caramelized and ever so slightly smokey finish.

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How did you like the beer overall? I'm a little scared my smoked peat addition may be a little strong.

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i dont think peat is necessary. ymmv, and it will likely be great anyway. Slaint!
i loved that brew. huge malt, good caramel, slightly dry and had a super nice lacing. sticky sweet!
i think i will brew it again over the fall, split the batch and put half on bourbon oak cubes.

Couple of notes:

I've been in Jasper's when they get orders for kits. They make each kit up fresh as the orders come in.

With the reduction to a syrup (I do 2 l out of a 10 l batch reduced to a little less than 500 ml) and the right yeast (I use WY1728 -- Scottish Ale), you will get an earthy/smoky flavor from the malts without addition of smoked malts which I found harder to control the amount of smoke flavor.

Lastly, it looks like your fermentation temperature is really good. I start out at around 58/60F and allow it to warm up slowly to around 66/68F after the first two weeks. I keep it at 68F for a few days and then cold crash it in the high 40's/low 50's for a week. My brew comes out really clear, no off flavors or fusel alcohol flavors present.

Lastly, if you are bottle conditioning, give it some extra time to carbonate. The high alcohol content slows down the yeast activity. Mine usually carbonate after 3 to 4 weeks in the mid 60's for temperature. My ABV is around 9.2%.

OK, this is really the last bit of advice. (I lied above). Set some bottles to sit for several months (3 to 4 minimum) and the flavors will really blend well and it becomes really smooth and easy to drink... a little too easy, given the alcohol content.

-- Old Goat

Te-wa, I'm planning on transferring a gallon onto oak and a few oz of Bourbon when the time comes.

Thanks for the input Old Goat. I was planning on letting it sit at least 2 months before cracking. What type of sugar and how much did you use for priming?

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Here's a shot of the fermenter yesterday. After 5 days there was still a lot of visible activity and was consistently bubbling away. The temp has been pegged at 58*. I'm going to let it sit at least 2-3 weeks before taking a reading. The color on it is already looking awesome. I really can't wait to try this one.

I usually use brown sugar for priming, as I also have some in my recipe to help bump up the ABV. Generally, if I use a sugar in the recipe, I will prime using the same sugar. Just my CDO showing through...

My last batch, I used 60 gms of brown sugar for a 10 liter batch. For the Scotch Ale, I aim for a lower carbonation level, about 2.0 volumes of CO2.

I just took my first gravity reading and after 2 weeks at about 56* I'm down to 1.030 which according to beersmith gives me 71% apparent attenuation and 10.5 abv. I removed my blow off valve and moved it upstairs where it will be around 65*.

The sample tasted awesome! Nice malt and caramel flavors and the color is looking good too. Gonna let it sit another week then rack to Secondary.

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Just transferred into secondary. Gravity readings haven't moved in about a week. I'm going to let it relax for 2 or 3 weeks then into bottles! I lost about a half a gallon to the trub and yeast cake.

I bottled the wee heavy yesterday and ended up getting 40 12oz and 4 22oz bottles. I have them wrapped in a blanket to keep warm and will try one in a few weeks after it carbs up. I used just over 2oz of dextrose for my priming solution.

Looking forward to hearing your update! Marking to come back.

Threw one of these in the fridge yesterday and just cracked it. Not really sure what to think. It poured a lot darker than I thought it was going to be, a nice dark amber color(can't really tell in the picture). I also had no head at all from a vigorous pour. Definitely think I undercarbed it. It's got a strong malty taste up front and finishes with a sweet taste. The alcohol has a nice warming effect at the end but not 'hot' or overpowered at all. The mouthfeel is heavier and barely any carbonation. Overall I think I'll need to try a few more in the coming weeks but I'd call it a success. Would be a nice beer for colder fall/winter nights, definitely not a warm weather brew. Ill try another next week and see if there are any changes.

i want to do this one AG, but first i have to do a Hunahpu's clone.. then i'll do this beer. by the time our next "winter" comes along, it would be in it's prime. that would give it roughly 7-8 months of aging. i need to start doing 10 gallon batches~

How long did you let it carb for? I find that my Scotch Ale takes at least 3 weeks in warm temperatures (70F+) before it begins to carb. Four weeks is about right for a good amount of carb and a fairly long lasting head.

Thanks for the inspiration! I just opened and poured one!

Its only been about 3 weeks in the bottle. I'm gonna give it another week or two before I try another one.

After allowing it to condition at warm temperatures, put it in the refrigerator for another couple of weeks. It makes a world of difference.

Thanks for the tip, ill give that a try and report back in a few weeks. How long ago did you brew yours? AG or extract?

AG BIAB with a DME addition to up the OG. The grains account for an OG of about 1.078 and the DME add gets it up to 1.088. 10 liter batch. The picture is of my recipe brewed in November 2013. I repeated the brew in January so that I could stash away a few for long term aging. Third time I've done this recipe and it goes waay too fast <G>.

Oginme said:

After allowing it to condition at warm temperatures, put it in the refrigerator for another couple of weeks. It makes a world of difference.

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I brewed a breakfast stout recently and left it for like a month to bottle condition and carb at like 65°F (+ at least two days in the fridge, of course). Nothing. No carbonation at all. I moved them to a warmer locale in my apartment (70-75 as I've learned) for a week and then threw them in the fridge.

World of difference.

These heavy beers take longer to carb, just the nature of the beast, but warmer=better (not to exceed about 75°F depending on style)

Oginme said:

AG BIAB with a DME addition to up the OG. The grains account for an OG of about 1.078 and the DME add gets it up to 1.088. 10 liter batch. The picture is of my recipe brewed in November 2013. I repeated the brew in January so that I could stash away a few for long term aging. Third time I've done this recipe and it goes waay too fast <G>.

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Might have to get the recipe off of you after I step up to BIAB.

Brewed up a Wee Heavy similar to yours, brewed it on 11/29/13, transferred to secondary 12/21/13, and just bottled it this last weekend 4/12/14; I actually have no plans on touching it until at least Nov. and will probably hide a bunch to let them age for another year and longer. Big beers like our Wee Heavies get a lot better if you let them age awhile. If I was you I would hide those cases until Nov./Dec. and just get some other beers going to keep your mind off of them.

Trox said:

Brewed up a Wee Heavy similar to yours, brewed it on 11/29/13, transferred to secondary 12/21/13, and just bottled it this last weekend 4/12/14; I actually have no plans on touching it until at least Nov. and will probably hide a bunch to let them age for another year and longer. Big beers like our Wee Heavies get a lot better if you let them age awhile. If I was you I would hide those cases until Nov./Dec. and just get some other beers going to keep your mind off of them.

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Agreed! They get so much smoother and build much more malty complexity with time. Surprisingly, this was the second recipe that I designed myself, after making three extract kits and one BIAB partial mash recipe. It just goes down so nicely on these cold northern evenings!

Just checking my logs, I brewed on 11/30/13, primary until 12/26/13 then straight to bottle. Bottle conditioned at 66F to 70F for 3 weeks and then into cold storage for four weeks. Tried the first sample bottle on March 6th.

I use Jasper's HB pretty much exclusively at this point. The price is a little high but the quality is really out of the world. I recently switched to all grain and their kits for that are just as good! One thing to note, however. If you're using their grain kits make sure to look at both instructions. The grain one doesn't give the exact steps for some of the identical processes (fermentation, hop addition, etc). It's just easier to cross reference.

Trox said:

Big beers like our Wee Heavies get a lot better if you let them age awhile. If I was you I would hide those cases until Nov./Dec. and just get some other beers going to keep your mind off of them.

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This was my second brew with my first being the Bourbon barrel Porter. So I have these two waiting for the holidays. I just got anxious and had to try my own brew for the first time. I know I'll keep the Porter saved and try to just have one of the wee heavys here and there but save most till the fall/winter. Now I just need to brew something I can drink sooner! I have a Pineapple Kolsch that I bottled 2 weeks ago carbing up right now. Saving that till may as a birthday gift.

I understand bottle conditioning but I guess I dont understand cold bottle conditioning. Why do some guys say to leave it in the fridge a week or so before drinking? Does it really make a difference?

By leaving it in for 3 days to a week in the fridge will give the cold CO2 time to dissolve back into the beer; otherwise you'll lose most of it when you first open the bottle resulting in a beer that goes flat quicker.

Thanks Trox!