Scotch Ale - Initial Activity

I noticed the first signs of fermentation yesterday morning and since then it's been happily bubbling away.



You can see that I sort of have a towel wrapped around the fermenter. This is because my closet ambient temperature is now about 68F so I am using a gallon jug of ice to try to keep the fermenter around 60-66F. If it gets much higher then the yeast start producing fruity esters, which aren't really desireable in a Scotch Ale.

Scotch Ale - Brew Day

Today I brewed the Scotch Ale kit I got from www.morebeer.com. So without further ado, here's how it went down:


Starting from the top right and going clockwise we have 2 lbs. light dry malt extract, a Whirfloc tablet, about 1.5 lbs. of steeping grains, which is a blend of some lighter and darker grains, and finally 1 oz. of Glacier hops (6.0% AA, for boiling).


Here we have 9 lbs. of ultralight liquid malt extract, and some liquid, pitchable yeast of the Edinburgh strain.


I was brewing alone today, so I came up with a nifty method of putting the steeping grains into the grain bags. I use a bowl to keep the bag open while I dump grains in. Works pretty well.

I steeped the grains for 30 minutes at about 160F in 2 gallons of water before adding the malt, which is shown in the next picture.


Here I have already added the dry malt extract and am currently adding the liquid malt extract.


Here I am bringing it up to a boil. You can see that the dry malt extract has created this thick, creamy, foamy head. I've never used dry malt extract before so I've never seen this before.


Here's the wort just after I've added the hops (and lifted the pot up to keep it from boiling over).

The hops were boiled for 60 minutes, with the Whirfloc tablet added to the last 20 minutes of the boil. The Whirfloc is a fining agent that flocculates the proteins that cause haze. I've never really had a problem with haze in my other beers when I haven't used it, but I figured I'd give it a shot anyway and see what happens.



Next I cooled the wort then added it to the carboy and topped it off at 5 gallons with more water. Here I'm waiting for the temperature to stabilize so that I can pitch the yeast.

I had a better time with opening the liquid yeast vial this time. It was only out of the fridge for about 3 hours and did not explode when I opened it.


Here it is in my closet, blowoff tube attached, ready to start fermenting.

Since it's getting warmer and my closet is south-facing, I'll probably have to employ some sort of cooling method to keep the carboy between 60-66F. Maybe just putting some frozen water bottles in close proximity to it will do the trick.

The expected OG for this beer is 1.070 to 1.075, but mine read 1.092. So either it's off because of all the trub suspended in the beer or it's going to end up being a pretty strong Scotch Ale. Time will tell.

I also calculated the bitterness for this beer and it's going to be about 21 IBU, which is a little less than the style definition of a Scotch Ale, so it should be nice and malty.

Anyway, that's all for now, I'll update again once fermentation gets going.

Armenian Imperial Stout and Oatmeal Coffee Stout - Tasting

So it's been over 4 weeks since I bottled the Imperial Stout and to celebrate I cracked a bottle open. Oh man. So good. The hops have really mellowed and that roasty/toasty flavor from the grains comes through nicely. It's so good at this point that I'm having a hard time imagining how it could get any better.

As for the Oatmeal Coffee Stout, it's been in the bottle for just over a week, so it's carbonated but barely aged at all. I gave that a try as well and it's still pretty raw (hops are very strong), but I am happy to report that you can definitely taste the coffee. Assuming this ages as well as the Imperial Stout, I'm going to have one very tasty beer in another 3 weeks or so.

My next two beers will be a Scotch Ale and a Light Ale, both kits ordered from www.morebeer.com.

Oatmeal Coffee Stout - Bottling

I bottled the Oatmeal Coffee Stout on Sunday. The FG was 1.020 and with an OG of 1.056 that gives an ABV of 4.73%. The bottling went smoothly and I ended up with 46 12 oz. bottles.

As far as taste is concerned, it had mellowed somewhat just since I had last tasted it, but it's still more bitter than it should be. I could not detect any coffee flavor so I added another quart of coffee to the bottling bucket. It's going to have to age for several weeks before it hits my desired flavor profile and it may not even get there. Clearly I miscalculated my hops utilization, I'll have to go back and see what it is that I didn't account for so that I don't make this mistake again.

While amassing the empty bottles for this batch, I realized just how much beer I have now--a lot. I've got 12 bottles each of the Dark Ale and Imperial Stout stashed away for graduation, so that's 24. I still have another 12 bottles of the Dark Ale and 19 bottles of the Imperial Stout for my own consumption so that's 45. Add in what I just bottled and you've got 91 bottles of beer. I've got two more batches planned before graduation, so that's going to be roughly 180 bottles of beer when all said and done. I hope people are ready to drink some beer at my graduation.

Oatmeal Coffee Stout - First Taste

Well, I took a SG reading this morning and it came out at 1.020, which, with an OG of 1.056, indicates an ABV of 4.73%. I plan on bottling on Sunday, assuming the SG hasn't changed much, which I doubt it will.

Right now the beer is more bitter than I was expecting. I know I used 2 oz. of relatively high alpha acid hops, but with my boiling volume (1.5 gal) I calculated the bitterness to be about 27 IBU, which is right in the mid-range of what an oatmeal stout should be. Perhaps I needed to account for the volume of the liquid malt extracts as well? I'm a little disappointed as it pretty much tastes like the imperial stout with the alcohol and bitterness cut in half (although I shouldn't be surprised as the recipes are quite similar). There are some malty/toasty undertones, but they are very subtle. I'm really hoping it mellows out after a few weeks in the bottle. Don't get me wrong here, it's not a bad beer, I'll definitely drink it, I was just hoping for something a little different.

Also, I don't get much coffee flavor at all, so I will be dumping some additional coffee into the bottling bucket to try to boost that flavor.