Brews #4 and #5 Scotch Ale and Imperial Black Ale

So I've been slacking on keeping up on logging my brews. Last week my buddy Mike "Shakes" Graham and I brewed the first brew of "shaky graham's scotch ale," a recipe I came up with that I plan to use in the lineup of beers when my brewery opens its doors. Scotch ales are very sweet, malty, and lack any kind of real hop character, so they really throw a lot of people off at first. They're a bit different to make too, you mash the grains a few degrees higher than most, and ferment them a few degrees cooler than most ales.

Today I racked the scotch to a secondary fermenter after 2wks in there. I stuck it out in my storage closet outside, where it stays a pretty constant 40 degrees while the weather is still a bit chilly out. Should be perfect for it to sit and condition for a week or so before bottling.

Here he is pre-closet


So today's brew is an experiment of mine to have a new take on a style of beer I love. This beer I'm calling an IBA, or Imperial Black Ale, which of course is a spinoff of Imperial Pale Ale or IPA. It has the malt and hop makeup of an IPA, but I used a german black malt called Carafa to turn it black. Carafa is unlike the other roasted and chocolate malts in that it really doesn't give off near as much of a roasty flavor. So really, I just used it as a gimmick.

Unfortunately things didn't go so great with the brew, and i'm not confident in its turning out as good as it could. I had a stuck mash (the water wouldn't run out of the mash tun because the grains created a suction or plugged the runoff) and had to pour the grains back and forth several times to get it to go again. I also lost a lot of wort to boil off, and may have had beer come in contact with a non-sanitized surface when I was attempting to strain hop trub out after the cool down. I only yielded about a half gallon out of this brew as opposed to close to a full gallon. Guess time will tell. If it's not smelling so awesome after a week when I go to rack it in to a secondary and dry hop it, i'm going to start over.

Scotch Ale:
Grains:
45.00 oz Pale Malt (2 Row)
4.00 oz Cara-Pils/Dextrine
4.00 oz Smoked Malt (9.0 SRM)
3.00 oz Biscuit Malt (23.0 SRM)
1.25 oz Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM)
Hops:
0.25 oz Fuggles [4.50 %] (60 min)

Scottish Ale Yeast

Est Original Gravity: 1.084 SG

Imperial Black Ale
Grains:
30.00 oz Pale Malt (2 Row)
10.00 oz Munich Malt - 10L
6.00 oz Cara-Pils/Dextrine
2.00 oz Carafa III
2.00 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt

Hops:
0.25 oz Magnum [14.00 %] (60 min)
0.25 oz Cascade [5.50 %] (15 min)
0.50 oz Cascade [5.50 %] (5 min)
0.25 oz Cascade [5.50 %] (Dry Hop 3 days)

Est Original Gravity: 1.067 SG

Scottish Ale Yeast

Primary for 1wk, rack to secondary and dry hop for 3 days.