Homebrewing – Northern Brewer Scottish 60

Posted on April 3, 2010 by mike

The Traveling Wortbury’s, the group I brew a bit of beer with, gathered this past weekend for some beer, food, brewing and good ole hang out time. We usually brew at Jay’s house, but today we were over at Marty’s where we decided with it finally becoming spring time, we would brew right outside of the garage. Needless to say, it was a great time talking beer, drinking beer and homebrewing beer!

I decided to brew up Northern Brewer’s Scottish 60 extract kit. I did a little bit of research and found that this beer uses the same yeast as Northern Brewers Imperial Stout. So I decided that I was going to use the Scottish 60 to propagate some yeast for a big beer. I plan to pitch right on top of the old cake after I rake this Scottish 60. I haven’t gotten into figuring out exactly how much yeast I should pitch yet, but my thoughts are a big 1.086 OG on the Imperial Stout could benefit from the massive amounts of yeast that will be waiting for another brew in a week. Now you know the plan, how did the day go?

Homebrewing Northern Brewer Scottish 60

It was pretty uneventful as far as brewing was concerned. My recipe was really basic. Some water, some LME, some DME and very little hops. Everything went really well for me. I had no boil overs. I hit my times perfectly and the hot toddies were yummy.

One thing that I did do differently today that I normally don’t do, was using a Wort Chiller. I have yet to buy one of these, but its on the list. Jay brought his wort chiller and since we were outside it was really easy to hook it up to a hose and use it. As soon as my boil was over I poured my hot wort into a bucket. On top of that I poured in about 3.25 gallons of cool water, probably about 50 degrees. My temperature was immediately below 100 degrees. I hooked up the Wort Chiller and in less than 8 minutes I was down to pitching temperatures. That is a new record for me.

I pitched my yeast and I was done.

The real highlight of the day was Jay’s “maple beer.” Being the experimental type of person Jay is, he tapped some maple trees and brought some 12 gallons of maple tree sap to brew. Using that as his water, he mixed in his DME and hops making one of the lightest colored beers I’ve seen come out of homebrew. It will be interesting to see what it tastes like. If it tastes good, Jay will be happy. I’m more of a style type of person but I’m not 100% sure where to put this one. At first I was thinking a light colored Marzen, but it is just so unique with the amounts of fermentables and hops, that I just can’t classify it.

If anyone has any ideas of what you would classify it as, that would be great. I know Jay doesn’t care as long as its good, but I’d love to have a place to put it, but that’s just me!

Brew Day Journal Stats

Specialty Grain

.5 lbs Briess Caramel Pils

Fermentables

3.15 lbs Amber LME

1 lbs Dark DME

Hops

.5 oz Northern Brewer (60 min)

Yeast

Wyeast Scottish Ale 1728

Notes

O.G. 1.032 | F.G.: 1.011 | ABV: 2.8%

Brewed: 3/27/10
Racked:
Bottled: 4/18/10

Review to come!

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