One perk of the time off is my last brew, a classic dry stout sat in secondary for about 3 months. I bottled it in early January. After three weeks in the bottle it was awesome! By far the best brew I have done. Well, that was until I was moving some bottles around in the basement and found 5 bottles left of a Russian Imperial Stout that I brewed in the summer of '06, just before getting married. It has a nice warmth, with almost some wine-like notes to it. I hid two of the bottles...one to try this winter..the other in the summer of '09.
Ok...enough of the old brews....In February, I hit the ground running starting off with my first attempt at a Scottish Ale. I have to admit that I was a bit rusty after being out of the brewing loops for so long. It was my first chance to try out my keggle (15.5 gallon beer keg with the top cut off). It was the brew day from hell....1) After mashing in, I was trying to figure out why my mash was so hot...i was shooting for 158, and I was at about 165...after adding in cold water, I realized I didn't put all my grains in...Doh!!! 2)I ran out of propane halfway thru my boil. So after a trip up to 7-Eleven to switch out my tank I was able to resume my brewing.
It was well worth the problems though. After taking 3 1/2 weeks to ferment out (White Labs Edinburgh Ale Yeast....who knew it was such a long fermenter), it now sits comfortably in secondary. Hydrometer samples were wonderful. It had a nice "warmth" to it, nice sweet maltiness, and just a hint of piney bitterness from the Simcoe hops.
Shortly after doing my Scottish Ale, I wanted to brew up some more stout, so I did. I tweaked the recipe a bit, and after brewing in the middle of a snow storm. Yes, I was outside, in the snow tending to my boil keggle. It finished out fermenting in about 2 1/2 weeks, and I should be bottling it this week. Depending on how it tastes going into the bottle, it will probably be entered into Siciliano's HB contest.
