Wee Heavy

Craigerrr said:
Thinking of adding a Scottish Ale to my repertoire, this one caught my eye, let me know what you think!

https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/662463/highland-hop-scotch-peated-wee-heavy-
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Looks good! - I have three recommendations:

1. Peated malt: I know you are considering cutting it but I have made one wee heavy and it is still heavily talked about! (no pun intended) and I used .6% peated malt - I could taste it in the beer and really liked it. But even at that tiny percentage it was present - I'd reduce it to 1% or less. I too have read that it is out of style but will always keep it in as I liked the results.

2. No oak chips: I agree with @Ward Chillington about the oak. I tried it twice and preferred the base beer without.

3. Warrior hops: I agree with @J A on the Phoenix hop recommendation! LOVE that hop - I'd use it for bittering and as a late addition.

Not a recommendation but I have done a partigyle of sorts with big beers. I've done a second running up to 3 gallons and have made 3%-4% beers with it. Anything more and I'd have to add DME - I think I even did once with a 3 gallon beer. Its cool!
 
I started drilling and my first hurdle is how much water will get me to a 5 1/2 gallon batch of strong stuff from a 17 pound grain bill on my system using my process and ratios for mashing and sparging. I'm finding that with 65% of my normal water requirements (1.5 qt/# mash and 2 qt/# sparge) and losses in grain absorption (1 pt/#)and boil off loss (2 gal/hr) staying constant, I'm in the ballpark that I've been reading about for a split 50/50 volume batch where 60% of your sugars are in your first half of the gyle, 40 % is in the second half.

Experimental Brewing's Drew Beechum cited those proportions along with the other split of 1/3:2/3 where 2/3 of the sugars will be in the first 1/3 of wort and the remaining 1/3 of the sugars will come out in the second running using the remaining hot liquor.I

Now I gotta figure out if my 10 gallon mash tun cash hold the 17# of grain and the 6 or so gallons of hot liquor...math and beer....whowooda thunk it?
 
Ward Chillington said:
I started drilling and my first hurdle is how much water will get me to a 5 1/2 gallon batch of strong stuff from a 17 pound grain bill on my system using my process and ratios for mashing and sparging. I'm finding that with 65% of my normal water requirements (1.5 qt/# mash and 2 qt/# sparge) and losses in grain absorption (1 pt/#)and boil off loss (2 gal/hr) staying constant, I'm in the ballpark that I've been reading about for a split 50/50 volume batch where 60% of your sugars are in your first half of the gyle, 40 % is in the second half.

Experimental Brewing's Drew Beechum cited those proportions along with the other split of 1/3:2/3 where 2/3 of the sugars will be in the first 1/3 of wort and the remaining 1/3 of the sugars will come out in the second running using the remaining hot liquor.I

Now I gotta figure out if my 10 gallon mash tun cash hold the 17# of grain and the 6 or so gallons of hot liquor...math and beer....whowooda thunk it?
Click to expand...
More food for thought and this isn't my idea I borrowed it from. @jmcnamara you could do a side boil of your first runnings let's say 1/2 gal in a little pot.
You boil this down to a syrup and add this back to your main boil at end of fermentation.
Did this on a Porter.

Now that's gunna make volumes a real PITA:p.

But it will give you a big flavour boost...
 
Ward Chillington said:
I started drilling and my first hurdle is how much water will get me to a 5 1/2 gallon batch of strong stuff from a 17 pound grain bill on my system using my process and ratios for mashing and sparging. I'm finding that with 65% of my normal water requirements (1.5 qt/# mash and 2 qt/# sparge) and losses in grain absorption (1 pt/#)and boil off loss (2 gal/hr) staying constant, I'm in the ballpark that I've been reading about for a split 50/50 volume batch where 60% of your sugars are in your first half of the gyle, 40 % is in the second half.

Experimental Brewing's Drew Beechum cited those proportions along with the other split of 1/3:2/3 where 2/3 of the sugars will be in the first 1/3 of wort and the remaining 1/3 of the sugars will come out in the second running using the remaining hot liquor.I

Now I gotta figure out if my 10 gallon mash tun cash hold the 17# of grain and the 6 or so gallons of hot liquor...math and beer....whowooda thunk it?
Click to expand...
I'd help with the math but I haven't even finished my 1st cup o' coffee lol. Keep us posted - equations and all! o_O
 
Long, long ago, I did the party gyle. I loved the first beer, the second, not so much.
It was a long brew day and I had help.
If memory serves me, I capped the mash with some C60 and has a second "wort" of about 1.020.
I clearly remember the second beer being astringent.
If I were to do it again, I'd add all the water needed to get the first wort just by draining the MLT. Then I'd add to the drained grains the exact amount I would need for the second wort. Stir up and drain that to the second boil kettle.
To the second BK I'd add some steeping grains and some DME depending on what I ended up with.
Then boil both and ......
I'd likely only use an English hop for any and all of the first beer as that is what would have been available to them back in the day.
Adding a pinch of peated malt will give complexity, but that's a personal thing and doesn't actually belong in this style.
I like London ale yeast for this as it has a nice earthy background.
Good luck
 
There are a number of youtube videos on party gyle, most of them are doing a high gravity barely wine to start.
 
Thanks for the pointers guys...I'll run the down during the week..gotta cook a steak at the moment
 
Trialben said:
More food for thought and this isn't my idea I borrowed it from. @jmcnamara you could do a side boil of your first runnings let's say 1/2 gal in a little pot.
You boil this down to a syrup and add this back to your main boil at end of fermentation.
Did this on a Porter.

Now that's gunna make volumes a real PITA:p.

But it will give you a big flavour boost...
Click to expand...

I do this as well on my Wee Heavy and my W00t Stout
 
Here's my mash and sparge schedule for the first runnings with a 17 pound grain bill...I will need to run it through the recipe builder for a crap-ton of 6 row base to have an idea what the preboil is gonna be. The column over the check mark is 65% of my normal 1.5 qts mash and 2 qts sparge and a 1 pint per pound grain loss and 2 gallons an hour boil loss......thoughts?

The base recipe I'm considering is the Albany Ale recipe on the site here.
20220814_105012.jpg
 
Ya know, some times I'm glad I have a long commute...I may have had a an epiphany on this driving home today... anyhow...check me here gang....if the 4 gallons of strike water will not fit in the tun with that 17 pounds of grain for the first runnings...why can't I make it up in the sparge?
 
Ward Chillington said:
Ya know, some times I'm glad I have a long commute...I may have had a an epiphany on this driving home today... anyhow...check me here gang....if the 4 gallons of strike water will not fit in the tun with that 17 pounds of grain for the first runnings...why can't I make it up in the sparge?
Click to expand...
Would only depend on sparge gravity towards end suspected tannin extraction below what is it 1.010 gravity but this is brewing superstition.

Why no Ward.
 
Ward Chillington said:
Ya know, some times I'm glad I have a long commute...I may have had a an epiphany on this driving home today... anyhow...check me here gang....if the 4 gallons of strike water will not fit in the tun with that 17 pounds of grain for the first runnings...why can't I make it up in the sparge?
Click to expand...

That's what I do for my Wee Heavy and W00t Stout. I go down to a mash thickness of 1.2 qt/lb and put the rest of the water into the sparge. Since I mash in a cooler, which I fill to the top for the heavies, if I need to do a multi-step mash I have to do a decoction.

Full mash tun.jpg
 
Ward Chillington said:
Ya know, some times I'm glad I have a long commute...I may have had a an epiphany on this driving home today... anyhow...check me here gang....if the 4 gallons of strike water will not fit in the tun with that 17 pounds of grain for the first runnings...why can't I make it up in the sparge?
Click to expand...
Exactly how I get my 5.5 gallons into the fermenter with my Brewzilla 35. 6.25 gallons to mash, but almost 2 gallons lost to grain absorption, so 1.75 gallons sparge and I'm good to go.
 
Donoroto said:
Exactly how I get my 5.5 gallons into the fermenter with my Brewzilla 35. 6.25 gallons to mash, but almost 2 gallons lost to grain absorption, so 1.75 gallons sparge and I'm good to go.
Click to expand...

Yuppers Don, I'm looking at the same loss, 2.125 gallons.

Thanks for the feedback guys.
 
Hello Folks!

Sunday I brewed my first Batch, an all-grain Wee heavy.

I started looking into the subject since the beginning of the year and decided that Wee heavy would be a good Challenge.

Grain Bill:

6.6lb Munich malt type 2
6.6lb Pale Ale
2.2lb Crystal malt
2.2lb Vienna Malt
1lb Biscuit Malt
0.2lb special B Malt

for a 5.3gallon Batch.

Efficiency wasn't so great, got stuck at 1080 (estimated was 1112) and bumped it to 1102 with 1lb molasses.

pitched the whole thing at 77F with 2 packets of nottinhgam ale dry yeast.


it is now sitting in a 10gal bucket with a near the bottom and an airlock bubbling every 2min or so.

One caveat though: I'm in Brasil, in a place where temperature ranges from 65F(at night) and 95F. I placed my bucket in a cellar where average temp is around 77F.

And i have no control over temperature.


Isee people here saying I should not rack to secondary, taking 4 weeks in primary and such... but at my temperature range, won't there be autolysis?

Hope you can help me!
 
I don’t think autolysis is your real concern. If your cellar temp is at 77, then the fermenting wort will be considerably warmer than that. You are likely to get a very fast fermentation, with the yeast getting fruity and producing fusel alcohols. Fruity isn’t such a bad thing, depending, but a lot of hot alcohols could make the beer taste a bit like paint thinner. (Not that I know what paint thinner tastes like, but you get my point. :) )

A long aging, mellowing process may be to your benefit.
 
miaamelia said:
And i have no control over temperature.
Click to expand...

Can you get your 10 gallon into an other pail or container that you could fill with water and ice packs? You can get down another 10 degree F that way.

just curious...how did you arrive at your strike and sparge water amounts?

welcome to the forum!
 
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