RCE Foothiller/Braukasper: Scotch Ale - Irish Red Partigyle

[Foothiller]

After style-related delays, I have brewed my side of the Fall RCE between Braukasper and me, which is a partigyle of Scottish Wee Heavy and Irish Red Ale. The delay for me has been waiting for cold-enough temperatures in my work room, since I have wanted to brew Part 1, the Scottish Wee Heavy, at a temperature around 60 F and have limited available room in my beer fridge. Braukasper's health issues have delayed his brewing. (I saw his "bye bye" message, and hope it is not a serious problem.)

Our planned recipe for the Scottish Wee Heavy ("Part 1") is all-grain, as a 2.25 gallon batch, with adjustment for the hops I ended up having available, is:

Recipe Gravity: about 1.084 OG (would be higher based on the grain, but the mash gets saturated at about this point)
Recipe Bitterness: 35 IBU
Recipe Color: 22° SRM
Estimated FG: 1.021
Alcohol by Volume: about 8.2%

Maris Otter Malt - 8.00 lb
Munich - 1.25 lb
Biscuit - 0.50 lb
Honey Malt - 0.50 lb
Roasted Barley - 0.06 lb

Fuggles (4.2% AA) - 0.50 oz, Pellet hops, 60 minute boil
Goldings (4.9% AA) - 0.50 oz, Pellet hops, 60 minute boil

Irish Moss, 1 tsp
Wyeast 1728 - Scottish Ale Yeast
My water additions to a very soft local water in the Sierra Nevada foothills target a profile of 80 ppm Calcium, 8 ppm Magnesium, 5 ppm Sodium, 56 ppm Sulfate, 77 ppm Bicarbonate, 47 ppm Chloride, 63 ppm Alkalinity, 1 ppm Residual Alkalinity. I think Braukasper has considered his native water to have a workable profile.

My mash started at 158 F, and dropped during a 60-minute mash to 152. Choosing to have a challenge in doing the RCE, this time the challenge was to anticipate the required recipe for Part 2 of the partigyle (Irish Red Ale) in advance of knowing the actual composition of the second runnings. The intent was to proceed to use the second runnings from Part 1 (Scottish Wee Heavy) as the foundation for the Irish Red Ale as Part 2, with addition of 4 oz of Crystal 20 and 4 oz of Special Roast for flavor, 1 oz of roasted barley for roasted character and for color, and DME as needed for the desired OG in this part, then the same hop schedule, and S-04 yeast. I ended up having only small windows of time for brewing, with some business travel and my daughter home from college for the holidays, so I have ended up needing to save second runnings from the Scottish Wee Heavy in my beer fridge and brewing the Irish Red Ale a couple of days later. Instead of still being able to use the original grains, this meant adjusting by only using 5.5 lb of the Maris Otter grain in the Scottish Wee Heavy and holding back the rest of the base grain to combine with the second runnings and the added specialty grain -- so my OG in Part 1 was 1.070 instead of 1.090 as I had hoped to have from the Scottish Wee Heavy, but that's still fine and the wort tastes very good. By waiting until late December, my fermentation is running at 60 F, as hoped.

I will update this later when the beer is complete. Just designing the partigyle has provided good experience, and further needing to adapt on-the-fly provides even more experience. I thank FedoraDave again for organizing these, since I have improved my brewing experience with each RCE that I have been part of.

[Foothiller]

My RCE brews are in bottles now. Although the Scottish and English yeasts could be expected to have lower attenuation than many yeasts, and the high mash temperature would reduce the attenuation, I got high attenuation from both parts from the partigyle: 83% for WY1728 Scottish Ale yeast, and 85% for S-04, with both having fermented between 60-62 F. So, my FG were 1.011 and 1.009, respectively. Both tasted great going into the bottles, so I'm looking forward to the end result after carbonating and conditioning. As always, these RCEs are fun in the recipe planning collaboration, and I hope Bob has similar success with his side.

[jimjohson]

The "Wee Heavy" finished a little lower than you thought...that's good.