snakeplissken

Yesterday was busy. I brewed my 80 shilling recipe authentically and it took all day. After my initial mash I took 2 gallons of that wort and put it on to boil. An hour and a half later I pulled off my second mash and put a gallon of that stronger wort to a boil. An hour and a half later I pulled off my third mash. I added this to the non-boiled remainder from the first 2 mashes and got it started boiling as the main boil. I let everything cook another 45 minutes. By this time the largest portion (main boil) was reduced to about 3 gallons from about 3.5. The portions I had begun boiling much earlier had reduced from 3 gallons to about 1/2 gallon. The reason? To form the deep caramel flavors that scottish beers authentically have. No commercial breweries do it that I know of for labor and time reasons. Well mine was free, so I went for it.

I tasted the wort that was reduced to see what it was like. It tasted a lot like caramel corn. Actually it was a lot like cracker jacks, due in part to a molasses-like flavor. Some brewers have taken their boils all the way down to soft ball stage, but I didn't want to go that far for fear of scorching my wort. Maybe next time. If I did enough reducing it should appear in the finished product as a distinct candy caramel flavor in the finish. Sometimes it's described as "buttery".

An added bonus was that since I mashed twice one batch of grain I got a 14% increase in my efficiency. That means the same grain I planned to use for a 4.8% beer yielded me a 5.9% beer. Nice.