ready for second brew few questions

[polk121]

Ok ready for my second brew its a scottish light ale extract from midwest.
Anyway I got a 22 qt stainless steel kettle do I need to do anything to prepare it like you do with an aluimum kettle?
The recipe says to use at least 1.5 to 2 gal of water figured I would go with about 4 sound good?
It comes with 3.3 pounds lme and 1 pound of dme 4 oz brown sugar and malto dextrin says to add that all after steeping grains. Was wondering about a late extract addition should I put everything in besides the dme and add that with about 15 min. left in the boil? By the way only 1 oz of tradition hops for the whole 60 min boil.
Thanks for any advice in advance

 

[Pappers_]

Those are interesting questions!

Yes, I would go with a larger boil if you have a way to cool the wort down sufficiently afterwards. One of the reasons people do partial boils is that they cool the wort down by putting the pot in an ice bath and topping off the wort with cool water. Its a compromise - bigger boils are better but shorter cooling times are better, also.

As for the late addition, I would generally advocate adding one or two pounds only at the beginning of the boil (just enough to aid in the boiling of the hops) and add everything else late but . . .

You said this is a Scottish light ale - which sometimes have a carmelized flavor as part of their profile. If that's what you're looking for, then I wouldn't do a late addition of the extract at all, but put it in for the full 60 minutes (or maybe more).

Sounds like this will be a fun brew! Cheers!

 

[Kraghed]

You don't need to do anything to your kettle other than give it a good initial cleaning.

Concerning late additions: I would just toss in all the extract after your grains have been steeped. A little caramelization will only add character.

 

[polk121]

sounds great. And yes I do have a wort chiller thanks for the help any other suggestions would be great love this fourm

 

[Marko73]

You might also want to cut down your hop additions just a tad (10% maybe) as with a fuller boil you will get better hope utilization so you don't want your beer to be overly bitter. Good luck!

 

[torque2k]

Try taking the boil time on the extract to 75 minutes for this particular recipe. Add the hops at T-60 as normal. The added time will help carmelization, good for a Scottish ale. As this is a "light" ale, I'm assuming it's similar to 60 shilling ale, and that's all about the malt, so +1 to lightening the hop load a tad if you go with the larger boil volume.

Let us know how this one ends up tasting! I just looked it up in the Midwest catalog: oak chips! Never had a Scottish ale on oak... sounds tasty!