Brewmaker, Scottish Heavy Review

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lovelldr

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Started brewing this on 06/03/2012.

Was a bit sceptical, as it was a cheapish kit, but thought "what the heck, let's give it a go".

Was gonna nip to local shop to get some medium malt extract, but never had the time to get over there beforehand, and was in a bit of a rush. So, only had granulated sugar in, and that had to do...

Everything sterilised, water treated with half a campdens tab, wort heated to make easier to take out... Started pouring the wart in to the FV. As pouring, something happened to take my mind of things (postman, braindead, can't remember what now :p), but as pouring, some of it ended up on wrong side of the sides of FV, and so lost a little bit of the wort (oops :shock: :eek:). Oh well, brew it a little shorter methinks.

So, boiling water in can to survive as much wort as possible, and the mix the sugar in with... All 1.3kg of sugar goes in the 2 litres of hot water (decided to add a little extra fermentables as well). Topped up to around 21l. OG taken, which was 1.045. Pretty good OG methinks :)

So, leave it in the primary FV for a week, transferred to secondary. Wanted to try a little bit extra for this brew, so I added about 35g of goldings hops to dry hop it. Left this going for another week. Transferred to bottling bucket, took FG, which apparently was 1.005. A little lower than I expected, but not complaining. According to my calculations, that gave me an abv of 5.2%. Nothing to grumble at :D Bottled with 150g of priming sugar in a batch prime in bottling bucket, and stored away in study for 8 days, and then transferred to garage for conditioning.

As I transferred, had to sneak one in the fridge for a sneaky test the following day. Next day, bottle duly opened. A good co2 amount in with a good "psch" sound as it opened. Came out virtually clear, but could see could do with another week or so to clear out. Had a fairly strong aroma, and wondered whether maybe I put too many hops in. Overall though, fairly nice taste.

Waited another 5 days or so with a bottle kept in fridge all that time to help speed absorption of co2. Tried again. Much more mellow. Virtually clear drink. Nice taste to it. Could tell it was a homebrew slightly, but overall a nice drink, and for the price, really good! Look forward to waiting for a few more weeks/months to see how it tastes then.

Here's a pic of the drink:

FsHKx.jpg
 
I made a base for this kit and for a Brewmaker Export Bitter kit as I didn't have any spray malt. The base was as follows.

Base for two beers below was 2kg of Maris, 250g of Carapils, 150g of Aromatic Malt and 70g of Cared with 50g of very dark crystal malt. Mashed this and boiled for 30 mins (wasn't looking for bitter hopping) at 15mins I added 20g of East Kent Golding and at 5mins I added 15g of EKG and 15g of Fuggles.


130th beer Brumaker Scottish heavy, base plus single can and 500g of brewing sugar. I pitched the two yeast packets from this kit and the export bitter as I dint want them getting stuck. OG was 1044 so around 4.5% if it goes to 1010. Colour is caramel brown, smell is malty and taste is quite creamy which fades quickly like candy floss and no real bitterness until hints at back of throat. Mouth feel is very light a front of mouth so will be a light beer I think!
 

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