The Drunk Scotsman "Wee Heavy"

I've always wanted to do a Strong Scotch Ale better known as a "Wee Heavy" due to the alcohol content in the beer. I'm not going to go into a history lesson here on how the Scotch actually went about making their beer, lets say it's a very unique process that I don't really find too much fun or efficient. They would normally do a "Double Mash" and get 2 beers out of it. The 140-/ Shilling and the 2 Penny Ale. I guess I could have done that with this, but the brew day would have lasted 10 hours. I love brewing I just don't feel like staying up to 2:00 in the morning finishing up a brew day. So what I did was brewed 3 gallons in my brew kettle then brewed 1 gallon on the stove by itself and really cranked it up to let it boil down to 1/2 gallon or less. I wanted to go for a caramelized flavor and aroma in the beer. So we will see where this little experiment gets me in a few months. I want age this beer on top of some french oak chips for a few months so that it may add some complexity to the beer.

The Drunk Scotsman "Wee Heavy"

Malt:

13 lbs: American 2-Row Pale

3 lbs: American 2-Row (Baked for 15 min @350)

Hops:

1.0 oz: EKG 4.2aa 60 min

1.0 oz: EKG 4.2aa 45 min

Yeast:

White Labs Edinburgh Scottish Ale (WLP028)

Mash Temp: 156deg Held for 1 hour 15 minutes
Sparge Temp: 165deg Held for 15 minutes
Boil Time: 60 minutes

Actual OG: 1.110

Actual FG: 1.030

ABV: 11.9%
Apparent Attenuation: 70.9%

Hopville Recipe

Update 5.5.2009: Day after brew day. Fermentation has started and beer is a nice cool 58 degrees right now. I am going to try and ferment this around that temperature due to that is what the Scots did and I don't want any off phenol flavors in this beer. So this will be on low and slow for a few weeks.

Update 5.10.2009: Took gravity reading and its at 1.040 and still fermenting away. I don't really know if this will come out being a "Wee Heavy" or not. Its tasting more of a Strong Ale type beer. I am getting some noble hops from the EKG, but hopefully that will drop out over time. Ill take another reading in a few days and then rack to secondary.

Update 5.12.2009: Gravity now at 1.034 which is 11.3% abv. I racked to secondary and added about 1oz of French Oak chips that have been sitting in some Bourbon for about 2 months now. Im sure the gravity will drop move over the next few days but I am thinking that the alcohol will kill off the remainder of the yeast before it gets too dry. Im shooting for 1.030 which would be about right. Now it sits for a few months on top of the oak and lets hope this turns out good.

Update 5.14.2009: We have reached the end of fermentation. FG is 1.030 which is what I was shooting for. 11.9%abv is quite high and you can taste it. Its not a Scotch Ale but something completely different all together. After some months aging on the oak chips we shall see how it turns out. Getting ~70% attenuation out of the yeast I used I think its really good. Keep in mind that normal scotch ale yeasts only attenuate to around 60-65%.