scottish heavy 70/-

brew date: 11/5/10

8.5 lbs. british 2 row
3 oz. black malt (500-600L)
1.25 oz. kent golding 4.9 %, 60 minutes
pitch onto yeast cake of 60/-

mashed @ about 152 or 3 for 60 minutes
pre-boil volume: 7.5 gallons
pre-boil gravity: 1.036
OG: 1.047
FG: 1.011

if you are paying attention, you will see that my preboil gravity of the 60/- and this beer are almost the same. only a point off. the reason? two words: grain mill setting. wait- that's three. whatever. this batch, since i was brewing by myself, required that i mill my grain at the LHBS. the grain mill there is set to a much coarser crush than the friend whose mill i usually use. thus, the wort i lautered this time around had less dissolved sugar than what i would get if i was using my buddy's mill. definitely a great real world example of the importance of having the right width setting on your grain mill. the reason i suspect this to be the reason instead of a mashing issue or something like that, is that when at the LBHS i immediately noticed the difference in the crush of the malt. the LBHS mill produced a markedly coarser grind.

lucky for me, a low gravity reading preboil isnt the end of the world. basically, all you do is just extend the boil time, maybe the boil intensity too, and this way you have a greater evaporation rate, which in turn will make your OG closer to where you want it. not very accurate by any means, but for all intensive purposes, it works. that being said though this method would not be ideal for all beer styles. BUT being that traditionally scottish ales have a longer boil to develop the flavor of the beer, this fix worked just fine.

good thing. right around the time i was making this beer, in the las vegas weekly, i had read a most horrible article about homebrewing. in it, among other horrifying details was a guy bragging about how he had forgot hops and how the beer had still turned out great. i was completely disgusted and almost complained about it, but i kept my mouth shut. then what do i do while making this 70/-? yeah, that's right i forgot the hops. but only for an hour. so i ended up with a full 120 minute boil. that'll teach me to get all high and mighty. but like i said, it was appropriate for the style, so it all worked out.