SSBC Monthly Newsletter

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It’s All in the De-t-Ales…

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The following are the BJCP guidelines which will be used for judging Scottish Ale in the January club competition:

Commercial Examples: Belhaven 60/-, McEwan’s 60/-, Maclay 60/- Light (all are cask-only products not exported to the US)

Commercial Examples: Caledonian 70/- (Caledonian Amber Ale in the US), Belhaven 70/-, Orkney Raven Ale, Maclay 70/-

Commercial Examples: Orkney Dark Island, Belhaven 80/-(Belhaven Scottish Ale in the US), Belhaven St. Andrews Ale, McEwan's IPA, Caledonian 80/- Export Ale, Broughton Merlin’s Ale, Three Floyds Robert the Bruce

Aroma: Low to medium malty sweetness, sometimes accentuated by low to moderate kettle caramelization. Some examples have a low hop aroma, light fruitiness, low diacetyl, and/or a low to moderate peaty aroma (all are optional). The peaty aroma is sometimes perceived as earthy, smoky or very lightly roasted.

Appearance: Deep amber to dark copper. Usually very clear due to long, cool fermentations. Low to moderate, creamy off-white to light tan-colored head.

Flavor: Malt is the primary flavor, but isn’t overly strong. The initial malty sweetness is usually accentuated by a low to moderate kettle caramelization, and is sometimes accompanied by a low diacetyl component. Fruity esters may be moderate to none. Hop bitterness is low to moderate, but the balance will always be towards the malt (although not always by much). Hop flavor is low to none. A low to moderate peaty character is optional, and may be perceived as earthy or smoky. Generally has a grainy, dry finish due to small amounts of unmalted roasted barley.

Mouthfeel: Medium-low to medium body. Low to moderate carbonation. Sometimes a bit creamy, but often quite dry due to use of roasted barley.

Overall Impression: Cleanly malty with a drying finish, perhaps a few esters, and on occasion a faint bit of peaty earthiness (smoke). Most beers finish fairly dry considering their relatively sweet palate, and as such have a different balance than strong Scotch ales.

History: Traditional Scottish session beers reflecting the indigenous ingredients (water, malt), with less hops than their English counterparts (due to the need to import them). Long, cool fermentations are traditionally used in Scottish brewing.

Comments: The malt-hop balance is slightly to moderately tilted towards the malt side. Any caramelization comes from kettle caramelization and not caramel malt (and is sometimes confused with diacetyl). Although unusual, any smoked character is yeast- or water-derived and not from the use of peat-smoked malts. Use of peat-smoked malt to replicate the peaty character should be restrained; overly smoky beers should be entered in the Smoked Beer category rather than here.

Ingredients: Scottish or English pale base malt. Small amounts of roasted barley add color and flavor, and lend a dry, slightly roasty finish. English hops. Clean, relatively un-attenuative ale yeast. Some commercial brewers add small amounts of crystal, amber, or wheat malts, and adjuncts such as sugar. The optional peaty, earthy and/or smoky character comes from the traditional yeast and from the local malt and water rather than using smoked malts.

Russian Imperial Stout

We had a good day for brewing on Saturday, it was a little cloudy and not too hot. Seven brewers showed up for the South Shore Group Brew, not as many as anticipated, but we had a good group anyway. The brewers were: Bob Collins, Kevin Farrell, Bill Tredo, Paul Corbett, Mike Keshura, Chris Biegel and myself. Our target beer to fill the cask this year was a Russian Imperial Stout. The recipe is a combination of recipes that Jeff McNally and I have brewed, plus a few tweaks to make it work for a 55 gallon batch. It seemed like a good idea to fill the cask with another big beer and I'm sure it will be an awesome winter warmer when it's done.

The session started out pretty good, with coffee, muffins and doughnuts to build up our strength and get us into the right frame of mind. While we were starting to get organized, we had a guest stop in. Steve Andberg from The Witches Brew stopped by to say, "Hello", wish us luck, and to drop off my jacket and checkbook that I left at his house on Thursday evening.

I guess I spent a little too much time standing around the brew shop sampling Steve's beer. Steve helped us out quite a bit with the cost of ingredients and materials to get this project off to a good start. Please stop by The Witches Brew and say "Hello" to Steve and help him thin out his inventory. Beware of the beers taps by the door, if you stand too close to them they'll cause you to forget where your house is.

Back to brewing. I started dividing up the ingredients when I realized that I had overestimated the capacity of the all-grain systems that we had available and it was going to be difficult to mash all of the grain we had. I was thinking to myself that we sure could use another all-grain brewer to help out and guess who showed up... Dean Goulding! My prayers were answered! Well... no.

It turns out that Dean was only making a guest appearance. Apparently, his apprentice brewer had a Cub Scout meeting just down the road, so he decided to stop by. Dean had driven by Bob's place, thought he vaguely recognized a few of the people that were doing some strange things with all of these kegs and pots and stuff, so he decided to stop in and see what we were up to. It's great to see a former brewers face light up when he smells the malt and hears the clanging of brew pots. Just kidding, it was great to see you Dean.

I would like to say that the brewing session went off without a hitch... but that I would be lying. Due to the size of the beer and the amount of grain we had, we ended up with a stuck mash, or two, to make the brewing session interesting. We also had a couple of specialty grain bags try to empty their contents into the pot that they were steeping in. Fortunately, we were able to catch them in time and we had little damage. Throughout the brewing, we dined on sweet and hot Italian sausage, Cajun blackened catfish po-boys, Cajun viggies and Italian veggie pie. Needless to say, we didn't starve!

We completed the brewing and cleanup earlier than expected, around 3 o'clock or so, and headed off to Francois house with our precious cargo. Once at Francois, we were ready for an easy transfer and cleanup (yeah, right!), so we could head home to sit back and relax. It started off easy, we drained a couple of the buckets into the cask and then started in on the kegs. Wanting to speed things along we decided to force the wort out of the kegs with CO2. That worked okay for the first keg, but things started to get a little sticky after that. About half of the kegs had problems with either valves that fell apart, or with pickup tubes that got stuck. We ended up dumping the beer into a fermenting bucket and used that to transfer it into the cask. Finally, we added the yeast from Coastal Extreme and oxygenated the wort with Francois oxygen tank. Whew, we were finally done!

Thanks again to everyone who participated in the brewing and transfer of the South Shore Brew Club Russian Imperial Stout and contributed to make this another successful group brew. I can't wait to see how it comes out!

"Homebrew, it's not just a hobby, it's an adventure!"

For pictures, check out the Pitcher Gallery.

Here is the recipe:

SSBC Group Brew Imperial Stout 60 gallon

A ProMash Recipe Report

BJCP Style and Style Guidelines

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12-C Barleywine & Imperial Stout, Russian Imperial Stout

Min OG: 1.075 Max OG: 1.095

Min IBU: 50 Max IBU: 90

Min Clr: 20 Max Clr: 40 Color in SRM, Lovibond

Recipe Specifics

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Batch Size (Gal): 60.00 Wort Size (Gal): 60.00

Total Grain (Lbs): 218.00

Anticipated OG: 1.100 Plato: 23.7

Anticipated SRM: 68.5

Anticipated IBU: 77.7

Brewhouse Efficiency: 66 %

Wort Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Grain/Extract/Sugar

% Amount Name Origin Potential SRM

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29.4 64.00 lbs. Pale Malt(2-row) America 1.036 2

41.3 90.00 lbs. Generic LME - Light Generic 1.035 7

8.3 18.00 lbs. Roasted Barley America 1.028 450

6.9 15.00 lbs. Crystal 60L America 1.034 60

6.9 15.00 lbs. Chocolate Malt America 1.029 350

1.8 4.00 lbs. Flaked Barley America 1.032 2

2.8 6.00 lbs. Crystal 150L Great Britain 1.033 150

2.8 6.00 lbs. Cara-Pils Dextrine Malt 1.033 2

Potential represented as SG per pound per gallon.

Hops

Amount Name Form Alpha IBU Boil Time

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18.00 oz. Tomahawk, F-10 Variety Pellet 12.00 53.9 60 min.

16.50 oz. Goldings - E.K. Whole 4.50 12.9 30 min.

1.50 oz. Goldings - E.K. Pellet 6.00 1.7 30 min.

18.00 oz. Tettnanger Tettnang Whole 4.50 9.1 15 min.

Yeast

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WLP-001 California Ale

Mash Schedule

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Qts Water Per Lbs Grain: 1 - Before Additional Infusions

Saccharification Rest Temp : 154 Time: 90

Sparge Temp : 180 Time: 45

The Holidays are Coming!

At A Glance…

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Dry/Irish Stout Presentation by Jim Blanchette

Dry/Irish Stout Club Competition

It’s All in the De-t-Ales…

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Last modified: March 24, 2008