On rare occasions you can do lots of wrong things and have still have something end up right, this is the universes' way of lulling you into the kind of false sense of security that allows people to do stupid things like run for public office in Alaska.
Our most recent homebrew should not taste as good as it does. After 1 week in the bottle our 'wee heavy' does have the sweetness, roasty, smoky/peaty, malty, caramel flavors with an alcohol warmth and sweet medium body that is to style. So score.
But here's where we messed up:
1. Too much diacetyl- not just caramel/sweet, its a bit much due to high temperature fermentation. We pitched the yeast at around 80+F because the kitchen was way hot and the wort would not freaking cool down.
2. Only did a primary fermentation and it was too hot for style. We had a bit of a heatwave here and our d-bag landlords recently told us not to store anything in the basement so our Scotch Ale was in the 70's-50's. And we (I) was too lazy to rack and do a secondary letting it cool down even more. So now we've got a not so clear brew and it does not taste as "clean" as it should.
3. The tubing for the bottling siphon was the wrong size. We tried to get a suction with duct tape but not so much- the beer got way too oxygenated when being bottled and too much sediment got stirred up as well. The beers have lots of head (which incidentally isn't bad for the style), but the oxygen also gave us the odd off flavors of oil/gasoline. Since we love old ales, this off flavor is not really a negative for us.
Ingredients for the nerdy: 7 lbs pale LME, 40g peated malt, 1/2lbs roasted barley, 1lb marris otter 2-row, 1/2lb crystal 120, 1/2lb dextrine malt. 1oz kent goldings at 60 minutes, and 1/2oz willamette at 15 minutes.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
