Flint Hill Scotch Ale

Well, this was a fun project to say the least. First of all, this is a special request, because I had already made a Scottish Ale and I prefer not to repeat myself in any way in order to become a more versitle brewer. I made this batch as a birthday present to my dad, who is turning 60 in July. Now that I got the mushy stuff out of the way, let's get to the beer.

Considering this was my first customized recipe, I needed to take it in stages. I started with the goal of having a full-bodied, dark brown or black color, and roughly 6% ABV. Knowing that, I hit the web and made my way to brewersfriend.com, a must for any homebrewer. I played around with the specific grains for a while, but I ended up at:

• 6.6 lbs LME - Amber
• 1 lb DME - Light
• 1.25 Caramel/Crystal 120L
• 1 lb Chocolate

I liked the balance of dark, roasty qualities of the chocolate, and the extra sweetness and body from the crystal. The next trick was figuring out the hops, which turned out to be a true challenge. I wanted the bitterness to be high, but not above 25 IBU. To accomplish this, I used:

• 1.25 oz Centennial ~ 10 AA
• 0.50 oz Fuggles ~ 4.5 AA
• 0.50 oz Willamette ~ 4.6 AA

I also wanted to make this special with a unique ingredient, something that few people would use any more. So, I also threw in:

• 0.75 oz Heather Tips

With the recipe complete, I did my initial steeping in a different way than I had in the past. Instead of boiling 2.5 gal of water, I put in only 0.5 gal and steeped the grains for 40 minutes. I then rinsed them with an additional 0.25 gal of water. This produced a much sweeter and darker wort.

Roughly half of the LME was added, along with 1.5 gal of water and I began the initial boil. (Homebrewer's note: something I consider really important whenever I add an ingredient, especially a malt of any kind, is to turn off the heat source to avoid burned malt on the bottom of the kettle). This took roughly 45 minutes, due to the size of the heat source I had, but as long as it is heating and I have a good beer to enjoy while I wait, all is well in the world.

Once the boil occurs, I add the bittering hops, which could be Centennial, as indicated above, but I also toyed around using Wye Target and Simcoe. Wanting to avoid any pine or excessive earthy tatstes/aromas, I opted for the Centennial. In a steeping bag, the wort boiled for 45 minutes. (Homebrewer's note: as soon as you add hops, DO NOT LEAVE! You will hit the "hot break" shortly, and the unwatched wort loves to boil over.).

Next, I added the remaining LME and returned the wort to a boil for an additional 30 minutes. Next, the Fuggles & Willamette were added in a steeping bag and boiled for 20 minutes. The heather tips were added in a steeping bag in the last 10 minutes of the boil.

Thankfully, this concluded all the boiling. I moved over to the sink, which had an ice bath already prepared, and placed my kettle in it. (Homebrewer's note: be VERY careful not to let any of the water into the kettle, or you will contaminating the wort and potentially ruining the beer.). It took me 20 minutes of carefully stirring the wort in the ice bath, but it did reach the 70°F mark eventually.

My final steps included siphoning the wort into the fermenter, which had been sitting quietly with sanitizer in it the whole time, and pitching the yeast. The yeast I selected was Wyeast liquid yeast 1728, which is my total preference after having a bad experience with dry yeast. Having activated it when I began brewing and keeping it in my cargo pocket for most of the duration, it had not only been mixing, but it had reached room temperature quite quickly.

The last steps completed, I went through the clean up process. (Homebrewer's tip: Clean everything as soon as you are done with it, or you will spend 3X as long cleaning it later.).

Update 1: Fermentation began roughly 12 hours after the yeast was pitched. It has a nice throaty hop note coming from the airlock, and the color has managed to sit comfortably at a heavy brownish black.

Update 2: After almost 3 days of fermentation, the process appears to be slowing down. I am going to give it a few extra days to sit in the primary vessal, due to how long this one needs to age.

Update 3: 8 days have passed, and the passing of the torch took place. I moved it over to the secondary vessal. The trub in this batch was quite impressive, but it was mostly just the grist from the malt. The clean up was a chore, until I found a new technique of siphoning water into the primary vessal instead of trying to pour it in. Another 2 weeks of hanging out in the secondary vessal needs to happen for this batch, because I want to cut down the conditioning time, so the next update will be delayed at least that long.

Update 4: All the trub has settled once again, and the bottling is going to happen in 2 days. This has been aging in the secondary vessal for about 2 weeks, which is on top of the 8 days it had in the primary vessal. I'm going to age the bottles for roughly 2 weeks before sampling the final product, but the current assessment is very promising. The color has balanced out to a nice dark amber brown that shifts to nearly black. The best I can estimate on the rest will be a mild-heavy body, with a nice final ABV of roughly 7.5-8.0. To say that I am excited would be a drastic understatement.

Update 5: All the transfering is complete, and we are looking at something with a very complex attitude. It is in the very traditional style of a Wee Heavy Scotch, but it comes across almost with porter like qualities. I assume this will mellow out as the conditioning takes place, but I am very excited to see how the aging will impact the overall profile. I must admit, I am very proud of this effort. Happy birthday Pops!