Tweaking Brew's Best Scottish Ale

CornyKegs 728
Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
I just did a 1.054 Porter with a single packet of Nottingham, and it took off like crazy.

The BB kit will tell you to just sprinkle the yeast in, but I always rehydrate according to directions on yeast.
 
Good to know, I was planning on at least rehydrating. I guess I'll stick with one packet.
 
I think brew day went well! I ended up with an OG of 1.061ish (kind of hard to tell exactly with the foam.) I re-hydrated the yeast per the instructions on the packet, I only had the one packet of Windsor but hopefully that's sufficient. I pitched it almost 3 hours ago and no activity yet, hopefully I start seeing something in the next few hours. It sounds like for this yeast and my gravity I probably should have gotten a second packet of yeast, but we'll see. I'll keep you all posted. Thanks again for all the help!
 
I just checked the gravity of my satellite fermentation and it was about 1.067 @ 64.4 degrees. Should I do anything (add more water to the fermenter) or just leave it alone? It's been about 5 hours since I pitched the yeast. Thanks.
 
I think I aerated it pretty well earlier. I poured it all into the fermenter bucket (where the additional water was waiting) through a spaghetti strainer, then back into the pot and back to the bucket like 3 or 4 times. I read somewhere that using the strainer helps with aeration.
 
Holy Cow dude!:drunk: You're quite the tinkerer. I'm brewing the exact same beer right now,only I added 4 cups of brown sugar,2 cups of white sugar and half a cup of honey. My OG was 90 and it's bubbling like crazy 15 hours into it with only one packet of windsor yeast. It smells like a festival and looks like alien art.:ban:
 
Sounds interesting! Let me know how it turns out. If you happen to be in Omaha in about two months we'll have to do a little swap/comparison.
 
dlm3 said:
Sounds interesting! Let me know how it turns out. If you happen to be in Omaha in about two months we'll have to do a little swap/comparison.
Click to expand...
It'll be good, I mean it's beer man, but I'll never know what it's supposed to taste like:). Table sugar gets eaten by the yeast a bit slower so I'll let it stew in the carboy for a few more days than recommended by the always trustworthy BB single sheet instructions(why do I tamper?). I'm a boot to home brew(7th kit) but the guy at the beer and wine shop in topeka told me one packet of yeast is all I would need.
I'll most likely get tar and feathered for saying this but try a beer on the bottle day and one every day after that. You'll see how much better it gets with each successive day. Than again I have the patience of a menstrating woman with bipolar:fro:.
 
I don't know if I'll sacrifice a bottle everyday, but I'm sure I won't be able to resist sampling a bit along the way.
 
This morning (approximately 20 hours after pitching the yeast) I had strong fermentation. Good bubbles every 10 seconds or so. I have a thermometer right on top of the bucket and it's reading between 62 and 63 degrees. Hopefully the fermentation is thorough enough to compensate for my higher than intended OG so it doesn't end up too thick and syrupy.
 
Yes, I think things are going well, I still had strong fermentation when I left this morning. I'm still a bit concerned about my final gravity being too high. Any thoughts on what would be "too high" for this style/recipe and what I should do if it is too high?
 
Why are you worried about your FG being too high? It's been two days. Let it sit for at least 3 weeks before you start to even think about it.
 
I'm worried because I'm pretty sure I didn't add quite enough water to my fermenter to get up to the full 5 gal batch side. I don't think I compensated for water lost during the boil
 
dlm3 said:
I'm worried because I'm pretty sure I didn't add quite enough water to my fermenter to get up to the full 5 gal batch side. I don't think I compensated for water lost during the boil
Click to expand...

I wouldn't worry about it. The hops and malt will still be balanced, they'll just be a little stronger.
 
I bottled this past weekend and I think it went pretty well. An ice cube stuck to the pot I boiled my priming sugar water in and ended up falling into my bottling bucket, so I had to resanitize my bucket and boil more sugar water. So it took a bit longer than expected, but not a big deal.

I used about half a gallon of water with my priming sugar since I was a little shy when I originally put it all in the primary. I also went with about 3.9 oz of sugar instead of the full 5 oz since this style shouldn't have a lot of carbonation. I bottled some in a 16 oz plastic soda bottle that I squeezed a little before capping and it's already fairly hard, so I think it's doing well even though it's being stored at 60 to 65 degrees. We'll see how it turns out in a week or two!
 
I know this thread is a bit old but thought I'd revive it seeing as I just bought this kit and plan on brewing it sometime this week. I was wondering how your modified brew came out?

I am planning on turning this kit into a partial mash and mashing the grain from the kit along with 3lbs of marris otter. The boil time in the directions is only 45 minutes so I plan on extending it out to 60 min and will add the first cascade at first boil, then adding to it Saaz w/ 4.9aa with 25 minutes left and the second cascade with 5 min left.

I've done something similar with a brewers best kit of english brown ale, but there I removed the lme from the kit and replaced it with grain in the mash to get the gravity back up. Turned out to be one of the best partial beers I've ever made and def the best extract beer ever.

Anyhow I was just wondering how these are tasting after some time?
 
Maybe its just me but Cascade doesnt seem right for a scottish ale. This kit was pretty good on its own. I like the idea of mashing it with some maris otter.
 
Cascade doesn't sound like the right hop to me either but thats what came with the kit so that'll be what I use. I like marris otter a lot and I think it will add something very nice to this beer.
 
When I did this kit it came with palisades hops. This was one of my favorite beers. A lot of flavor and really easy drinking.
 

Similar threads

S
New to brewing beer with adjuncts Christmas ale maybe off flavor? Save or dump?
Replies
5
Views
733
sampling6391
S
C
Best brewing system for 5-15 gallon batches
Replies
25
Views
2K
Ninoid
Ninoid
G
First Custom Grain Bill- Thoughts?
Replies
11
Views
1K
BrewnWKopperKat
BrewnWKopperKat
G
Addition(s) to Scottish Strong Ale?
Replies
12
Views
1K
bobeer
bobeer
VikeMan
ABV Bias in Beer Ratings
Replies
19
Views
2K
bike2brew
bike2brew

Latest posts

Back
Top