Brewing beer is a fun and rewarding hobby. My buddy Nicolas and I have been doing it sporadically for years now. He's getting to be an old pro, and he's an India Pale Ale man. He loves the hops. Yesterday, we started with the recipe for Belhaven Wee Heavy and made a few changes to make it our own.
When brewing beer, the first and most important thing to remember is that there are times in the process that absolute care and attention to sterile equipment is imperative. One little bacteria can ruin a whole batch of brew so the very first thing to do when brewing is to bathe all of your beer hoses, drilled carboy bung, wort chiller immersion coil (if you use one), and carboy in sterilizing solution. I use Star San. You can leave the hoses soaking for most of the process until they are needed (at the end). Once the carboy is sterilized, cover the mouth with some saran wrap to keep it clean.
Get a big ole tub and bring some water to 155º F. Nico and I use a 3ish gallon camp cooking pot and a dial thermometer that hangs on the rim of the pot. Make a "teabag" with the following grains using a cheesecloth bag:
- 9 oz. British 55ºL Crystal Malt
- 4 oz. Belgian Biscuit Malt
- 3 oz. Belgian Aromatic Malt
- 2 oz. Peated Malt
- 1.5 British Black Patent Malt
- 1.5 oz. Roasted Barley
Your local brew supplier will measure out everything for you and mix them all together in a paper bag that's ready to pour into the cheesecloth. We go to Fermentables in Dogtown.
Then sparge the grains with about a gallon of 150º water. (I love the jargon.) Sparging is simply pouring hot water over the grain bag to get all the good juices out so that nothing is wasted. We even mash the bag, squeeze it out real well, when we sparge.
While you're returning your wort to a boil, pick a lemon off your lemon tree. :-)
And juice it.
Make a simple syrup by boiling about a cup of water and 12 oz. of sugar. I used 6 oz. granulated sugar and 6 oz. of brown sugar.
Then, invert the sugar using the juice of the lemon. This changes the molecular structure of the sugar. (Traditional Scotch style ales use a traditional Scottish syrup for this ingredient. You could probably find some at a specialty grocer like Fresh Market. I had fun making my own, with my home grown lemon.)
When the wort reaches a boil, add 10 lbs. of Golden Light pure malt extract.
Add your inverted syrup of choice.
Add 2 oz. of Fuggles hops. This acts as a bittering hop.
Remove three ounces of the wort and caramelize it in a separate pan, then add it back to the original wort and boil for 45 minutes. Then, add 1/2 oz. more of Fuggles hops. This is called the flavor hop. It would be GREAT if you could add a tablespoon of Irish moss here too, but we didn't have any. Irish moss is a type of red algae, and one of its common nicknames is LITTLE ROCK. I kid you not. Next time I brew this beer, I WILL have some Irish moss.
Boil the wort for 15 more minutes.
Now it's time to GET STERILE. Scrub down your hands, and get all your hoses and stuff ready. We rinsed the heck out of everything that was bathed in bleach because you don't want any lingering bleach either. Remember, the fermentation process is alive, it's ALIVE!! The yeast effectively eat the sugars so bleach can ruin the process as much as bacteria. You have to be CAREFUL with the remainder of the process. I can't emphasize this enough. It's really, really, very, extremely, super important.
Here's Nico with his uber-clean hands dropping the wort chiller immersion coil into the wort. Attach a water hose to one end and run cold water through the coil to speed the cooling process.
It was a chilly day so Rome Lee enjoyed playing in the warm water that comes out the other end of the coil. He was bobbing for apples a few minutes after this picture was taken. We changed him into some dry clothes before Mom got home from running some errands.
When the wort cools to 70º, it's time to siphon it into the carboy.
And it's high time to pitch the yeast too! As you can see, this recipe calls for Edinburgh Ale Yeast. The yeast should be activated and working. I kept it in my pocket most of the day, next to my heart to make sure it was warming up and working.
Dump the yeast into the carboy.
Siphon the wort into the carboy for the primary fermentation. Make sure not to get too much of the "junk" in the bottom of the pot. Keep it as clear as you can. And no splashing, yo? This is a good time to drink a beer that you've brewed in the past. We had a Berjot Special IPA and then compared it to a Boulevard Single-wide IPA. Nico's was better in my humble opinion.
Plug the carboy with a drilled carboy bung and insert a tube to vent the carbon dioxide that is released when the yeast feeds on the sugars. Ferment for 7 days or until fermentation slows. Ideal temperature for fermentation is between 66º and 68º, the exact temperature of my garage under Natalie's apartmen
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24 hours into primary fermentation, it's a perfect 66º. It's alive!
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After primary fermentation, siphon into the secondary fermentor (another 5 gallon glass carboy) and wait until secondary fermentation is complete, target gravity is reached, and beer has cleared (approximately 3 weeks). Many beers don't even have this secondary fermentation step. Ours is special!
The last thing to do is to bottle it with 1-1/4 cup of Muntons Extra Light Dry Malt Extract that has been boiled for 10 minutes in 2 cups of water and let it prime in bottles at about 70º for another 3ish weeks. We'll be drinking home brew by Christmas break!
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| Sterilize bottles in a bleach solution. |
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| Triple rinse. |
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| Siphon contents beer into bottling bucket, while adding malt extract, mix, and bottle. |
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| Cap. |
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| Voila! |
I'm calling this batch Daddy Mac's Scotch Style Ale in honor of my great-grandfather (and one of my son's namesakes), Lee Leslie MacLellan. And why not?! Daddy Mac's father, Angus Dominion MacLellan, immigrated to Canada in the 1870's from Scotland and later moved to Minnesota, where my grandmother, Perky, was born.
