I’m thinking about making a brew day direction change from a smoke porter to a Belhaven Wee Heavy clone. Cloning this recipe has particularly soft spot in my heart as it was the beer that got me into craft. There really doesn’t seem to a lot on this brew and from what I do see recipe wise, seems a little too complex, missing ingredients or too simple. Here’s one recipe I found: Grain Bill: 12 lbs Maris Otter 0.68 lbs Caramel 60L 0.30 lbs Biscuit 0.23 lbs Aromatic 0.15 lbs Peat Smoked 0.12 lbs Patent 0.12 lbs Roasted Barley Hops: 1.25 oz @ 60 mins Styrian 0.26 oz @ 30 EKG 0.26 oz @ 15 Fuggles Wyeast Scottish Ale 1728 75% Brewhouse Efficiency Mash 155 deg OG 1.072 IBU 32 STC 16.5 ABV 6.5% Couple questions: 1. This one seems to be a complex and small quantity recipe. Simplification needed? 2. I read, this it was Radical Brewing, doing almost a fluid only decoction gives a nice caramel flavor. With this method, you pull fluid from the mash tun and rise to a boil and add back. Any process feedback? 3. I get a medium peat flavor tasting Belhaven Wee Heavy. I know Peat Smoked is a strong flavor, but the amount seems pretty small. Thoughts?
I don't know much about this particular brew, but I have read in numerous locations that peat smoked malt has no place in a "real" scotch ale. Most of what I have found on the style says all the flavor comes from a long boil and wort caramelization - which is why the recipes are all very simple.
@redmaw Thanks for the feedback! What is long for a boil, more than 90 mins? I don't care too much for historically based verses duplication of flavor and I sure add hell taste Peat Smoked, regardless of process or grain bill.
Let me give you a disclaimer here, I am only repeating what I have found online, mostly because I asked for recipe advise on this style and didn't receive a whole lot of feedback. I have yet to make one myself, so take anything I say with a grain of salt. I am not entirely sure what the long boil is, but i hear things like 6+ hours. Which is obviously more than a home brewer wants to do. The technique I hear about for replicating the flavor to take a smallish amount of wort (a gallon or so) and boil it down until it is a thick syrup and add it back to the rest of the wort. This is a technique used by a lot of home brewers on a simple recipe to get the heavy caramel and toffee flavors associated with wee heavy's. The reason I brought it up was because you seemed to think alot of the recipes you saw were to simple - this is likely the reason. I am also not really interested in a historically accurate brew day, but I have heard the "peat" flavor can be result of the yeast. I hope this helps, but I don't think I can give you any more specific advise.
Recipe looks fine, the small amount are there for a reason. It's enough of those small ones to add, the smoke flavor, and the color to the beer with a slight roast note. Hop bill looks a little stupid, but no real reason to stray if you think it's good and someone has brewed it. No real reason to change your mash/sparge process for the beer, IMO. Peat smoke malt is very potent stuff. I would brew it as is, and then judge it. I hate peat malt, so I'm certainly not one to comment on how much to add, as I think that is PLENTY already.
yes skip the peat smoked malt, it is not part of the original recipe plus you'll incur the wrath of marquis or Ron….Wyeat 1728 does produce that peat-smoke ester when used at a cool temperature. I also believe they use corn sugar in the mash, which is heresy i know but i've read two recipes for it and it's mentioned.
I'd skip the peat smoked malt too. I've done a couple of decoctions and I can't say that they were worth all the extra work. I'd take out a gallon of the wort and boil it separately down to about half the volume and add it back to the main batch. You can also add melanoiden malt if you want more carmel-y long boil flavors.
For the gallon boiled separately maybe dont boil down to about half but boil the shit out of it and keep tasting it. You should notice when it is ready and it may not be until a lot of it is gone.
Here is the recipe I have for it. Belhaven 90/- (Scotch Ale) Greene King/Belhaven - Dunbar, East Lothian, Scotland OG: 1070 IBU: 34 Colour: 38/75, very dark brown Grainbill: 84% Pale, 4% Black Malt, 12% Invert Syrup Bittering Hops: Fuggles, Goldings, Bramling Cross, Whitbread Goldings Variety Aroma Hops: Fuggles, Goldings
Don't simplify it. Sometimes nuances in beer are a good thing. I'd avoid decocting peat malt. I'dd add the peat at the end of your mash and just pour your sparge water over it after stirring it into the mash. As for the almost all liquid decoction, I don't think there'd be a difference with an ALL liquid decoction. Boil a portion of the first runnings down pretty far and add it back to the main kettle for the boil. This would be a safe amount of peat malt to start out with and see if you're a fan or not.
Definitely do a small decoction, that is likely to add complexity and caramelisation to the brew. I wouldn't add the peak smoked malt, it is a bit of a fabrication and I severely doubt it is used in the real thing. The smokey/peat types of aromas actually come from the relevant Scottish strain of yeast.
That's as much bollocks as the peated malt stuff. A typical Scottish recipe? Pale malt, corn grits and caramel for colour. Scottish breweries almost never used coloured malts.
I am legitimately confused about what I said that conflicts with this. I stated the recipes are simple, and didn't advocate the use of color malt in anyway.
You said the colour came from a long boil. That just isn't the way Scottish brewers worked. They preferred short boils if anything.
This is a fairly typical strong Scottish Ale: 1928 Usher OSA pale malt 2 row 5.00 lb pale malt 6 row 9.25 lb No.2 invert sugar 2.00 lb Caramel Flaked corn 2.00 lb Cluster 90 min 1.50 oz Fuggles 60 min 1.50 oz Goldings 30 min 1.50 oz OG 1085 FG 1026 ABV 7.81 Apparent attenuation 69.41% IBU 56 SRM 24 Mash at 150º F Sparge at 170º F Boil time 90 minutes pitching temp 60º F Yeast WLP028 Edinburgh Ale You add enough caramel to hit the SRM figure. The amount will vary depending on the colour of the caramel.
