Scottish Ale, a typical day at the brewery.

[KronoNaut]

I've started a batch of Scottish Ale in my little home brewery, my wife calls it the kitchen.

Extract:

6lbs Pale Malt Syrup

1lb Light Dry Malt

Grains:

1lb Crystal 80L malt

1/4lb Chocolate Malt

1/2lb Flaked Barley

Hops:

Boiling: 1 1/2 oz Kent Golding

Finishing: 1/2 oz Kent Golding

Yeast: Wyeast 1728 Scottish Ale yeast.

I picked the recipe up at Cellar Homebrew in Seattle.

I gathered everything together two nights before brewing, then my wife announced that she needed the kitchen to make dinner. That night I put a gallon of water into a pitcher to remove the chlorine from it overnight. The next morning I slapped the yeast to start the activation and put the bag on top of the fridge.

I cleaned the kitchen, and prepared one side of the sink for sterilizing. I placed all the scientific items in that along with all spoons, funnels, and airlocks. The other side of the sink I filled with extra hot water, and placed the closed tub of malt syrup in it to warm it up and let it flow easier.

The grains were added to the "almost" boiling water and allowed to sit for 10-15 minutes. I then pulled then out with my sterilized tongs and placed them in a sterilized strainer, and poured a couple quarts of water over them that I had heated up from the gallon I de-chlorinatetd overnight.

The strainer slipped, and fell into the wort. My wife came running with a towel to clean up the mess, and I stopped cursing like a sailor.

I pulled everything up again and balanced it all on top of the brewing vessel. I moved over to the sterilizing part of the sink and was sterilzing a collander when I heard the plop of the strainer falling again. My cursing became even worse than a sailors.

I llifted it all out again, positioned the collander under it all and poured the two grain bags into the collander, and rinsed them out with the remaining how water.

I then added the malt extract, and while stirring brought it all to a boil. I cleaned up the remaining mess while the wort began to boil and found that I didn't add the dry malt, and the wort was now too hot to add it. I pulled the wort off the burner, and once it stopped boiling, I slowly added the malt stirring like a madman to mix it in, and prevent it from just melting into hard candy. Then I brought it all to a boil and added the bag of boiling hops. For an hour I was watching the temp to prevent it from boiling over. They lied about a watched pot never boiling, it just boils over when you walk away to pop the cap on another brew.

It boiled over twice.

I added the finishing hops and let it boil for another 5 min and removed the kettle from the burner. I dovered it and let it cool for 20 minutes. This gave me time to clean up the mess from the two boil overs before it solidified into a nasty mess that only a hammer and chisel could remove. I then pulled the hops bags out with my tongs.

My wife placed a towel under the carboy... she knows what usually happens. When it was time, I placed my largest funnel into my carboy and using my strainer...remember by strainer? I placed it in the funnel and poured two gallons of cold water over the hop bags that I put in the strainer. Surprisingly nothing fell out of the funnel and all the hoppy goodness went into the carboy. I tossed the hop bags and poured the wort into the carboy, topping it up just over the 5 gallon mark with the remained of the water left overnight. Then I shook up the yeast packet, and poured it into the carboy. Capping it with an airlock, I placed it in the brewing room, my wife calls it the dining room, and wrapped a blanket around the entire mess.

It had a nice primary fermentation for the first 5 days then settled down. I moved it to the secondary fermenter yesterday, and it is continuing to bubble along slowly. It will settle down for kegging in a couple weeks.

I'll be force carbonate it in a carboy then let it sit for about another week. It should be really nice for drinking at the Seattle Scottish Highlland Games at the end of July.

[KronoNaut]

I just kegged the brew, and the alcohol calculates at 5.4%. The secondary fermentation went without a hitch, and made up for all the mess I created at the start.