Tag Archives: experimental brews

Yule Log Smoked Scottish Ale

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For Christmas this year, I wanted a special small-batch beer to sip on a cold, dark evening. I usually buy some barrel-aged commercial beers (Firestone Walker’s 2019 Old Man Hattan is particularly nice), so that flavor profile didn’t terribly appeal to me as a homebrew, especially not in larger volumes. After a bit of thought, I settled on a smoked ale. I’ve done a handful of those over the years, trying out the porter and brown ale styles previously. For this iteration, something in the Scottish ale space was appealing. I could get plenty of malt and plenty of body, and it would (hopefully) stand up well to any smokiness. Thus, the Yule Log Smoked Scottish Ale was born!

The recipe is built around the Scottish Export Ale BJCP style, which according to my reading sometimes is made with smoked variants. My version was based in part on Brulosophy’s Short & Shoddy Wee Heavy Recipe. To add a bit of smoked character, I put in two pounds (~16% of the total grain bill) of Briess cherrywood smoked malt.

In the spirit of the Short & Shoddy series, I cut a ton of corners in the brew day. I only did a 30 minute, full-volume mash, and a 30 minute boil. I used some oldish yeast, which meant I needed three packages total.

Yule Log Smoked Scottish Ale

  • 9 lbs. Maris Otter malt (Crisp)
  • 2 lb. Cherry wood smoked malt (Briess)
  • 5 oz. Biscuit malt (Dingemans)
  • 5 oz. Caramel 120° malt (Briess)
  • 5 oz. CaraPils malt (Briess)
  • 4 oz. Crystal 75° malt (Bairds)
  • 1 oz. Whitbread Golding Variety hop pellets (8.7% alpha), 15 minute boil
  • 2 pkg. Tartan yeast (Imperial Yeast #A31)
  • 1 pkg. Safale American ale yeast (US-05)

Target Parameters

  • 1.063 s.g, 1.019 f.g., 5.8% abv, 21 IBU, 15 SRM
  • 3.25 gallon batch
  • Full volume infusion mash, 156° target temperature
  • Claremont tap water, with Campden tablet treatment to remove chloramines

Procedure

  • I mashed in with 5.35 gallons of water at 165.5°, hitting a mash temperature of 155°. By the end of the 30 minute mash, temperature was down to 152°.
  • I vorlaufed and collected 3.75 gallons of wort with a gravity of 1.068, for 56% mash efficiency. This is a bit “thicker” than targeted, so I added 0.5 gallons of water to get 4.25 gallons of wort at a slightly lower gravity.
  • I boiled for 30 minutes, adding hops at the 15 minute mark. I then chilled down to 70°, transferred to the fermenter, and pitched the yeast.
  • Starting gravity was 1.066, on 24 November 2019. I fermented at 67°.
  • I kegged the beer on 10 December 2019. It had a final gravity of 1.014, for 6.9% abv.

Tasting

  • Appearance
    • Copper colored beer, moderately hazy, with a thin but persistent head.
  • Aroma
    • Faint smoke aroma, but not overbearing. Slight caramel note, and very mild fruity esters as the beer warms up.
  • Flavor
    • Modestly smoky, balanced nicely against the caramel and bready aspects of the malt. Bitterness is moderate, clean, and just about perfect for this beer. There is a very slight but pleasant sweetness to the beer. As I finish a glass, the smoke disappears behind the rest of the beer. On the one hand, it would be nice to smokiness be a bit more prominent, but on the other hand I think the drinkability would suffer. This is a rare smoked beer that can stand up to multiple pints!
  • Mouthfeel
    • This beer has a reasonable bit of body, and a medium-sweet finish. Carbonation level is moderate.
  • Would I brew this again?
    • I liked this beer pretty well! I find commercial smoked beers to be hit or miss, and I think the very moderate level of smoked malt I use paid off. Pretty much everything works about this one, and it’s a nice beer to enjoy on a cool SoCal winter day. I wish the clarity was a bit better at this point, but I never bothered to cold-crash the beer, nor did I use gelatin or even hot-side finings. I expect a combination of these would clear things significantly. I might also mash just a touch higher, as this beer would benefit from a slight bump in body.
  • Overall
    • 8/10

Beer Tasting: Raspberry Belgian

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20170423_154842My first attempt at a fruit beer was fairly decent…it was quite refreshing on a hot day, and the two gallons or so got depleted pretty quickly. I did squeeze in a tasting before it was all gone, with plenty of ideas for next time.

  • The Basics
    • O.G. = 1.039; f.g. = 1.011; 3.8% abv; 3 SRM; 15 estimated IBU
  • Aroma
    • A very nice raspberry aroma front and center!
  • Appearance
    • Clear and pinkish-red. The head is off-white, low, and modestly persistent.
  • Flavor
    • Slightly tart and dry, with not much in the way of malt character. The raspberries come through as mild and a nice complement to the tartness.
  • Mouthfeel
    • Fairly thin, with moderate carbonation and a dry finish.
  • Would I brew this again?
    • I like where this recipe is heading, but it needs some pretty heavy modifications. I think the low starting gravity (1.039, versus 1.043 as requested by the recipe) hurts things a little bit, and so a bit more attention and adjustment to the starting wort to match the higher gravity is in order. I don’t think mash temperature needs much adjustment–I would likely just add in a bit more base malt and perhaps double the oats to add a bit more mouthfeel. Next time, I might also consider swapping out some or all of the pilsner malt for 2-row, to give the beer a touch more malt character. The raspberry comes across quite nicely; I think the amount and the technique worked out well. I’m pleasantly surprised in particular by how clear this beer turned out! It’s really pretty. Finally, the beer is less tart than I expected. Next time, I might do a 24 hour kettle sour before boiling.
  • Overall
    • 5/10

Raspberry Belgian

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Our brew club is focusing on fruit beers for the April meeting, so I wanted to have something ready to go. Thumbing through the recently published Brew Your Own book, I saw a tasty-looking recipe for a clone of Funkwerks Raspberry Provincial.

One interesting thing about the BYO recipe is that it uses acidulated malt rather than kettle souring to achieve the sourness. I vacillated on which approach I would take, but in the end went for acidulated malt for simplicity.

I modified the recipe slightly for the hop bill, and also scaled it down from 5 gallons to 3 gallons. I figured I didn’t really want 5 gallons of a raspberry beer, tasty though it might be. I also will be using a home-made puree from frozen raspberries, rather than canned raspberry puree. The cans are huge, more than twice the volume I need for this recipe, and a bit expensive, so it didn’t make sense to waste the money buying a whole ton of extra raspberry. Per recommendations on the fruit puree company website, I upped the quantity of fruit by 12 percent a bit to account for all of the stuff that doesn’t make it into a typical puree can (seeds, etc.). The final modification was to go with a full-volume mash, to save a bit of time.

Raspberry Belgian

  • 2.5 lb. floor-malted Bohemian pilsner malt (Weyermann)
  • 1.25 lb. white wheat malt (Great Western Malting Co.)
  • 0.75 lb. acidulated malt (Weyermann), added to last 20 minutes of mash
  • 0.3 lb. flaked oats
  • 0.3 lb. flaked wheat
  • 0.25 lb. Carapils malt
  • 0.16 lb. rice hulls
  • 0.12 oz. Warrior hops (15.8% alpha), 60 minute boil
  • 0.20 oz. Willamette hops (5.1% alpha), 15 minute boil
  • 1 pkg. Belgian Wit Ale yeast (WLP400, White Labs), prepared in 0.5L starter
  • 17 oz. raspberry puree, added after 4 days of fermentation

Target Parameters

  • 155° mash, 60 minutes
  • 1.043 o.g., 1.011 f.g., 4.1% abv, 15 IBU, 3 SRM, 3 gallons into the fermenter

Procedure

  • I added 5.25 gallons of water at 170°, and let it cool down until it hit a temperature of 159.5°. Then, I mashed in with my grains (except for the acidulated malt) and hit a temperature of 155.4°.
  • After 40 minutes, the mash temperature was down to 150.4°. At this piont, I added the acidulated malt.
  • At the end of the 60 minute mash, the temperature was down to 148.7°. I vorlaufed and collected 4.2 gallons of wort with a gravity of 1.030. This equated to 64% efficiency. That is a fair bit below my normal efficiency in the upper 70s, but I figure that was probably due to the full volume mash, no sparge technique, as well as the high number of adjuncts.
  • I added hops per the schedule, over the course of a 60 minute boil.
  • After 60 minutes, I chilled to 70°, transferred to the fermenter while aerating, and pitched the yeast.
  • Starting gravity was 1.039, a bit below target. I think I’m okay with that, given how new this brew is to my experience. I find it interesting that, at least in a casual tasting, the flavor isn’t that prominently sour or tart. I wonder how that will come through in the finished beer?
  • I brewed this on 10 March 2017, and will be fermenting at 71°. On March 14, I will add the raspberry puree.

Red Oak Ale

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Most of my beers recently have been fairly down-the-middle, aiming-for-a-particular-style kinds of brews. Most have turned out quite well, but I’m really feeling the need to do something a little wild and crazy. To heck with BJCP guidelines; let’s brew something interesting!

So, I searched around a bit, searching inspiration from various recipes and beer kits. Then, my eyes landed on the Fire in the Hole Ale kit from More Beer. It had everything…ample hops, ingredients I hadn’t used, a different yeast strain, and even some oak chips for good measure. I modified the ingredient list a bit for what was on hand in the brew store and in my hops stash, and came up with Red Oak Ale. It’s a bit of a kitchen sink beer–gotta get rid of those spare hops in odd quantities after all–but at the least it will be something different.

Red Oak Ale

  • 11 lbs. 2-row malt (Great Western Malting)
  • 1 lbs. 80° crystal malt
  • 1 lb. flaked wheat
  • 0.5 lb. Munich malt
  • 0.5 lb. rye malt
  • 0.15 lb. Carafa II malt
  • 1.15 oz. Magnum hops pellets (12.5% alpha), boil 60 minutes
  • 1 oz. Northern Brewer hops pellets (7.8% alpha), add at flame-out
  • 1 oz. Willamette hops pellets (5.2% alpha), add at flame-out
  • 0.59 oz. El Dorado hops pellets (12.6% alpha), add at flame-out
  • 0.41 oz. Magnum hops pellets (12.5% alpha), add at flame-out
  • 1 tsp. Irish moss, boil for 10 minutes
  • 2 pkg. Pacific Ale liquid yeast (WLP041), in 1.5 L starter prepared 24 hours in advance
  • 2 oz. Willamette hops pellets (5.5% alpha), 14 days dry hop
  • 2 oz. French oak chips, 7 days in secondary
Procedure
  • Because the yeast were ~2 months past prime, I used two vials and made a 1.5L starter (4 oz. DME to 1.5 L water). The starter was a little slow to krausen, but within ~16 hours it was satisfactorily foaming on the stir plate.
  • I mashed in with 4.5 gallons of water at 169°. This hit a mash temperature of 157°, which was down to 155.5° after 15 minutes and 153° after 40 minutes.
  • I added .36 gallons of water at 200°, let it sit for 10 minutes, vorlaufed, and collected 2.8 gallons of wort.
  • I added 3.15 gallons of water at 180°; the mash bed rose to 168°. After 10 minutes, I vorlaufed and collected the remainder of the wort.
  • All told, I collected 6.25 gallons of wort at 1.059 s.g. This works out to ~72% efficiency. A little lower than normal; I wonder if this is because I skipped the pH 5.2 stabilizer? Or maybe because it’s a fairly high gravity recipe with a lot of flaked ingredients?
  • Once reaching a boil, I added the Magnum hops bittering addition.
  • After 50 minutes, I added the Irish moss.
  • Over 60 minutes, I boiled the wort down to 5.5 gallons; at flame-out, I added the aroma hops. These are partly randomly chosen to accentuate earthy aromas, and partly chosen to use up spare stock.
  • I cooled the wort down to ~76°, and transferred to my fermenter while aerating with the Venturi pump. I pitched the yeast, and sealed everything up. I’ll be fermenting at 66°.
  • Starting gravity was 1.070, with ~4.75 gallons into the fermenter.
  • I plan to ferment for ~10 days, transfer to the keg, and dry-hop for 14 days. For the last 7 days, I’ll add the oak chips (boiled in water to sterilize them). Then, carbonation!
  • I brewed the beer on the evening of 15 May 2015. Within 8 hours, the beer had krausened nicely and was fermenting along at a good clip. I expect I’ll agitate it a bit in a few days (as some have recommended for WLP041) to help fermentation along.
A note on refractometer calibration
  • I’ve been noting that the specific gravity scale on my refractometer is not terribly reliable, at least relative to my hydrometer. For instance, the refractometer read 1.065 when the hydrometer read 1.070, and for another batch 1.049 and 1.052, respectively. I had initially assumed a 0.02 difference, but the relationship is not strictly 1:1. So, I gathered up readings from a few batches, and came up with this equation:
    • h=1.1037604457r-0.105597493
      • Where h = hydrometer reading and r = refractometer reading
  • I plan to investigate this a little more thoroughly to come up with a quick-and-easy conversion.