Kettlehouse Cold Smoke Scotch Ale Recipe?

[ChandlerBrewery]

I work for a company based in Bozeman, MT and I had this DELICIOUS beer at Montana Aleworks. I too, am very curious about how this turns out.

 

[hopdropper]

hey remus...just curious where you buy your supplies online. i've checked out austin homebrew, midwest and northern brewer. i'd like to find the best place to buy individual grains for this recipe. it looked like austin homebrew will even let you order fractional amounts (down to the ounce) which is kind of nice. any suggestions?

 

[remuS]

hi hopdropper - I've always had good luck with Midwest supplies as well as MoreBeer. I've been doing MoreBeer lately mainly because they have treated me well.

On that note, if you have a grain mill you can get the grains from Madison River brewery in Belgrade for more then half the cost online. If you go that route, make sure you call them early on a weekday (usually around 2 or 3) as well as do the pickup early as well (usually the next day). They get busy as the night goes.

 

[jlovgren406]

Cold Smoke in the books. Pitched a Edinburgh starter and set the chamber to 67F +/-0.5. Seemed like that mash temp was a bit low for a heavier beer, but ill do as I'm told.

 

[MizooBrew]

Cold Smoke in the books. Pitched a Edinburgh starter and set the chamber to 67F +/-0.5. Seemed like that mash temp was a bit low for a heavier beer, but ill do as I'm told.

Just pitched mine the other day as well, got an OG of 1.064, close enough jlovgren406, I am actually in Bozeman these days as well. Message me in a few weeks and we can compare results.

 

[MizooBrew]

And alright, now have my first go at the Cold Smoke clone in bottles and carbonating/aging. I'll probably get impatient and pop one this coming weekend, and then a week after that. Report to come soon!

 

[hopdropper]

Any of you guys try your Coldsmoke yet? Wondering how it turned out...just ordered the grain yesterday. Probably brew it up after Thanksgiving.

 

[hopdropper]

A little off the topic of Coldsmoke (but still pertaining to SW Montana beers)...have you guys tried the Bitterroot Breweries "Last Cast Black IPA"? Guess it's a limited release beer... and it's outstanding. Ranks right up there with Coldsmoke and Hopzone as my top 3 MT brews. Wonder if Bitterroot would be willing to give up a recipe like Kettlehouse???

 

[bighorn_brew]

I loved kettlehouse back in '96-'97 when it was transitioning from a U-Brew to brewery.....I lived right down the street.....spent many a afternoon and evening there....only to stumble across the bridge and end up at one of the many "late night" establishments...Top Hat, Jays Upstairs, The Ritz, Rhino, or Charlies....sooooo many good times, no wonder it took me soo long to graduate....

 

[MizooBrew]

A little off the topic of Coldsmoke (but still pertaining to SW Montana beers)...have you guys tried the Bitterroot Breweries "Last Cast Black IPA"? Guess it's a limited release beer... and it's outstanding. Ranks right up there with Coldsmoke and Hopzone as my top 3 MT brews. Wonder if Bitterroot would be willing to give up a recipe like Kettlehouse???

shoot them an email! microbreweries are often very willing to give up their recipes to stoked consumers like yourself! and then post it here once you get it...

 

[hopdropper]

roger that...emailed them yesterday regarding the black IPA. i'll let you know if they send the recipe!

 

[MizooBrew]

Alright everybody, I have had my Cold Smoke Clone (1st attempt) bottled for a while now, and it is pretty tasty. I had a little trouble hitting my anticipated OG with the partial mash recipe I used, presumably just because I didn't get very good efficiency in my mash(?). Anyhow, I just brought it up to my OG with DME, and got within 0.005 gravity points. Anyhow, this lead to slight dilution of the flavor from my roasted barley and whatnot. All in all my 1st attempt was not a perfect Cold Smoke clone, but still delicious. Good enough that I will certainly be giving this another attempt in the coming months, which will hopefully have a flavor closer to what I am shooting for.

 

[hopdropper]

yo coldsmokers...i'm going to finally pull the trigger and brew it up this week...just wondering if you all went with the 2 hour boil kettlehouse usually does? or did you just boil for an hour like most recipes?

 

[remuS]

Hello,

MizooBrew: My batch came in at 1.055 but hit down to 1.010. This was only my fourth all-grain batch, so I'm a little new to that process... I did mash about 2 degrees higher then they do. I tasted it at kegging time and it was tasty, so we'll see when it's carbed up in the next week or so.

hopdropper: I did the 2 hour boil time. This gives better carmilization as well as better hop utilization. You could probably get by with an hour boil though I'd up the bittering hops slightly and you may not get the exact flavor profile you are shooting for. EDIT: By the way... the 2 hour boil seemed to drag on forever...

 

[hopdropper]

remuS...how much wort did you start with in the boil? and how much was left after the two hour boil? just wondering if i should try and collect 7 or 7.5 gallons pre-boil to make sure i end up with 5 into the fermenter...

 

[remuS]

hopdropper: If I remember correctly, I did a 7.25 or 7.5 gallon boil and collected almost 5 gallons exactly after boil. I'll try to post later tonight when I can check for sure.

 

[hopdropper]

well, add another coldsmoke clone to the books...brewed it up this afternoon. OG came in suprisingly low though...about 1.048. all my other all-grain batches have always been within a couple points of the target, but had difficulty with this one. noticed the caramel 120L was poorly crushed (if crushed at all) so that maybe was part of the problem...didn't realize it until too late...rookie mistake. do any of you think that 5 oz of uncrushed 120L would lower the OG by that much?
started with 7.3 gallons, boiled for 2 hours, 5 gallons into the fermenter. pitched wyeast scottish. now the waiting game...

 

[remuS]

hopdropper: the 120L has a negligible affect on gravity points. One pound in one gallon would contribute between 1.020 - 1.030 gravity points. So I'm guessing something else happened. Did you maintain temps throughout your mash? ( It's been cold in Bozeman the last few weeks).

I'm new to the all-grain scene so I've been adding an extra pound or so of 2-row to make up for my poor efficiency. When I scrap together the cash I plan on buying a grain mill - I've read most Homebrew shops give less then perfect crushes in order to increase grain sales.

 

[hopdropper]

thanks for the input remus...i've also been thinking about a grain mill, and buying grain from madison river brewery. their grain is cheap...i think the 2-row is only 60 cents a pound...and the specialty grains around $1.25....and hops are $1.50 oz...quite a bit cheaper than any online resource i've found. plus no shipping, plus supporting local business....and the best part, it gives me an excuse to stop buy the brewery.
as far as mash temps...i know they were good. stuck the thermometer in after 60 min and it was right around 152. i've been mashing at 1.4 qts of water per pound of grain, then batch sparging to make up the difference from whats lost through absorbtion. wondering if i messed up there...
anyway, it still should come in around 5% ABV...just hope the flavor is there...

 

[jlovgren406]

Grain mill is the way to go. Then you can have grains lying around for longer. Farmhouse brewing has good deals on hops. You have to buy 4oz at a time but then you can always have some floating around.

Remus- How did your brew turn out? Mine isnt too bad!... not quite as roasty as the real deal but definitely similar tastes.

 

[hopdropper]

hey jlovgren406....farmhouse brewing...how's their shipping costs? checked them out quickly online...looks like a good selection of grain and hops...

 

[jlovgren406]

I've only ever order hops from them and I think its around 5 bucks for a pound of hops (4 - 4oz selections) Fast shipping too. I highly recommend.

 

[hopdropper]

bottled the coldsmoke today...tastes like ass. not sure what went wrong but it tastes nothing like what i've bought at the store. my OG was a bit low, but can't imagine it would have altered the flavor that much. if it doesn't age well in the bottle, it will be getting dumped out.
any luck on any of the other tries out there?

 

[remuS]

My clone turned out very well. It was missing some roasted flavor as well.

Ill definitely be doing this one again... next time ill up the2row to try to compensate for my poor efficiency and try to add some more chocolate malt or something.

Lasted 2 and 1/2 weeks in the keg before I drank it all.

 

[hopdropper]

huh, glad to know it worked out well for you...guess i'll give it one more shot down the road. maybe i ended up with a contamination issue or something. i'll give 'er a few weeks in the bottle and see how things age...would be a bummer to dump out 5 gallons but i guess thats how things go sometimes.

 

[remuS]

Yeah, that be a sad day to pour 5 gallons of it. Hopefully some time turns it around for you; I let mine sit for almost 8 weeks total. 3.5 in the carboy and then carbed slowly at room temp for the rest of the time.

 

[Leftmostcat]

A quick note for anyone still curious about the yeast to use: I spoke to someone at Kettlehouse a couple weeks ago and he mentioned that their house yeast is the WLP001/Wyeast 1056/Safale US-05.

 

[cooperia]

5.4 lb light DME
0.25 lb brown sugar
5.1 oz 120L Crystal malt
3.2 oz Black Malt
1.4 oz Roasted Barley
0.3 oz Golding hops (at flameout)
10.5 IBUs from Columbus/Tomahawk/Zeus

I and a friend just tried the above recipe this weekend and ended up with a fairly low OG (1.050). We used Chinook Hops rather than CTZ but that was the only difference. Did everyone else's OG end up where it should be or were you also experiencing lower OG? What would you suggest trying in the future to rectify this? More Brown sugar? More Malt?

 

[remuS]

Hi Cooperia,

I ended up almost .01 lower but attribute that to using precrushed grains from an online retailer. Next time I brew it I think I'll be much closer, if not higher.

I would up the DME next time to achieve an OG closer to the expected.

 

[cooperia]

remuS,

Thanks. I figured the DME was probably going to be the place to start. My supply store sells DME in 3 lb bags so it would be more convenient to do 6lbs anyway. Judging by what Hopville's calculator says, that should put us a lot closer to 1.065 - although still a bit low.

Have any of you had a chance to mess around with the proportions of specialty grains? If so, any wonderful results?