20 replies to this topic

[ThroatwobblerMangrove]

My Scottish 80/- is animatedly young and needs some time to at least clear but woah! Thanks to whoever told me to boil down some wort and add it back into the main boil. The complexity level is way up compared to my last 80/-. I guess this could just be b/c it's young but I think I can detect some extra stuff going on here.

[ThroatwobblerMangrove]

My Scottish 80/- is admittedly young and needs some time to at least clear but woah! Thanks to whoever told me to boil down some wort and add it back into the main boil. The complexity level is way up compared to my last 80/-. I guess this could just be b/c it's young but I think I can detect some extra stuff going on here.

damn you firefox spell check! Allow me to fix my first post...

[ThroatwobblerMangrove]

damnit this is tasty - I'm actually tearing up a little bit right now, no joke.

[Deerslyr]

My Scottish 80/- is animatedly young and needs some time to at least clear but woah! Thanks to whoever told me to boil down some wort and add it back into the main boil. The complexity level is way up compared to my last 80/-. I guess this could just be b/c it's young but I think I can detect some extra stuff going on here.

I think I was the one who suggested it! I just put a bottle in the fridge. If it is carbonated well enough, I'll put the keg in the fridge. Now I'm looking forward to it!

[ThroatwobblerMangrove]

I think I was the one who suggested it! I just put a bottle in the fridge. If it is carbonated well enough, I'll put the keg in the fridge. Now I'm looking forward to it!

did you bottle and keg it?

[gumballhead]

My Scottish 80/- is animatedly young and needs some time to at least clear but woah! Thanks to whoever told me to boil down some wort and add it back into the main boil. The complexity level is way up compared to my last 80/-. I guess this could just be b/c it's young but I think I can detect some extra stuff going on here.

Glad to hear yours turned out so well. we brewed a Scotish 80/ last weekend. we too took the first gallon or sooff and put on the stove. reduced it way down to almost 3\4 of a gallon. we then brewed up a Founder's Red's Rye after that.

[Deerslyr]

did you bottle and keg it?

Yeah... I primed the keg with sugar and then set the pressure to 2 and filled directly from the keg. I bottled a case. I figured it would be dangerous for my waist line to have it all on tap.

[ThroatwobblerMangrove]

Glad to hear yours turned out so well. we brewed a Scotish 80/ last weekend. we too took the first gallon or sooff and put on the stove. reduced it way down to almost 3\4 of a gallon. we then brewed up a Founder's Red's Rye after that.

I took about 1.5 gallons and reduced it to 0.75 gallons

[cavman]

I took about 1.5 gallons and reduced it to 0.75 gallons

Same boil down I did, I remember going over this in a couple of threads a couple months back. I feel the caramel flavors come out toffelike with the boil down.

[Big Nake]

I just had another brewer contact me through my website and he mentioned this. He told me that he made my Bases Loaded Blonde and he did a "boildown". I had never heard of it and asked him to explain. Is there more information about this and what the results are supposed to be? Is this like a lazy-man's decoction or something? I'd love a link to the complete process and what it's supposed to do. Sounds interesting.

[cavman]

I just had another brewer contact me through my website and he mentioned this. He told me that he made my Bases Loaded Blonde and he did a "boildown". I had never heard of it and asked him to explain. Is there more information about this and what the results are supposed to be? Is this like a lazy-man's decoction or something? I'd love a link to the complete process and what it's supposed to do. Sounds interesting.

It's something common in Scotland; basically you pull off the first gallon or so from your mash and boil it down to half volume, then add it back to the rest of your runnings and boil as normal. It is to make the caramel flavors and malt flavors in general more complex. Some scotch ales are just base malt and hops with the boil down for the complexity.

[VirginiaBeach]

Can an extract brewer do anything like this?

[cavman]

Can an extract brewer do anything like this?

I guess you could try steeping in 1.5 gallons adding a small a portion of your extract and boil that down then add more water and extract and boil as normal. Not sure how well that would work though. Or even just boil down some extract in one pot while you steep in another, then combine and boil from there. Again not sure how well this will work though.

[ThroatwobblerMangrove]

Same boil down I did, I remember going over this in a couple of threads a couple months back. I feel the caramel flavors come out toffelike with the boil down.

I think you were part of that thread.

[ThroatwobblerMangrove]

I guess you could try steeping in 1.5 gallons adding a small a portion of your extract and boil that down then add more water and extract and boil as normal. Not sure how well that would work though. Or even just boil down some extract in one pot while you steep in another, then combine and boil from there. Again not sure how well this will work though.

Since I used to do a late extract addition I would just add all of my extract up front. Does this make sense?

[Deerslyr]

Can an extract brewer do anything like this?

Yes. There is. However I think it would require piggybacking on someones AG data and then running computations on Gravity Points. If I knew what the first running gravity was when I did this, it would give you a start. Then it would be a matter of determining how much of your extract you would add to the aggressive boil. I think you would steep all of your grains in your full water amount and take off a gallon from there. You want your specialty grains to be part of that aggressive boil.Brewer George is great at crunching these types of numbers. Maybe he has some insight. Here is what I'm thinking though...Figure out total water used in your boil. I'm assuming that you typically start with 6.5 to 7 gallons. Steep your grains in the entire amount. Pull out 1.5 gallons after you are done steeping. Assume for the moment a 6.5 gallon start, you would then have a large boil of 5 gallons and a small boil of 1.5 gallons. Here is where you need an AG number to piggyback... If, for instance, I told you that my first running was 1.120 (or higher) you would have to figure out how much extract to add to 1.5 gallons to have that gravity. From that point, this is what you would boil down, and without hops. The remainder of your extract would go into the 5 gallons. Boil down the 1.5 to about 3/4 of a gallon. Boil your large pot, with hops, down to about 4 1/4 gallons. About 10 minutes before finishing (or sooner if it boils down quickly enough) add the aggressive boil to the large boil. This would get you to the same boiling process that I (and Zym) used recently.Zym, you didn't take any first running readings did you? I know we didn't. If anyone sees a flaw in this, let me know. It should be able to be done. Just takes more thought and calculations than with an AG batch.

[Thirsty]

I think you could really do this with almost any kind of sugar, at any time in the process. The DFH Indian brown clone recipe in BYO says to add brown sugar to the kettle and carmelize it as you runoff. I have made this recipe a gazillion times, but never do this step from fear of burning the sugar. I add it in once I have a little runoff already in the kettle. Another note is Westmalle is reported to have "hot spots" in their copper kettles that scorch the wort purposely to produce some caramel/toffee in their tripel. Truth to that? There was someone (sorry cant remember who, but I brewed his recipe- yummy)on the old board a few years back also who made a stovetop invert sugar, and cooked it til deep brown, and added that to a wee heavy. So an extract brewer can have other options as well as just reducing their steeping grains. Although I think just reducing your first runnings in an AG batch will be the easiest.

[ThroatwobblerMangrove]

I think you could really do this with almost any kind of sugar, at any time in the process. The DFH Indian brown clone recipe in BYO says to add brown sugar to the kettle and carmelize it as you runoff. I have made this recipe a gazillion times, but never do this step from fear of burning the sugar. I add it in once I have a little runoff already in the kettle. Another note is Westmalle is reported to have "hot spots" in their copper kettles that scorch the wort purposely to produce some caramel/toffee in their tripel. Truth to that? There was someone (sorry cant remember who, but I brewed his recipe- yummy)on the old board a few years back also who made a stovetop invert sugar, and cooked it til deep brown, and added that to a wee heavy. So an extract brewer can have other options as well as just reducing their steeping grains. Although I think just reducing your first runnings in an AG batch will be the easiest.

I actually think I didn't use first runnings but used my combined 1st and 2nd runnings to boil down.

[Deerslyr]

I actually think I didn't use first runnings but used my combined 1st and 2nd runnings to boil down.

There's probably a dozen different ways to do it and still produce fantastic results. I cracked open one of mine last night and it was nearly what I was looking for. I say nearly because it could use just a bit more time to develop carbonation in the ones I bottled. But that won't stop me from hooking up the keg now.

[ThroatwobblerMangrove]

There's probably a dozen different ways to do it and still produce fantastic results. I cracked open one of mine last night and it was nearly what I was looking for. I say nearly because it could use just a bit more time to develop carbonation in the ones I bottled. But that won't stop me from hooking up the keg now.

yeah - I may use the first runnings next time around just to get it going a little faster.