Stone Of Scone Scottish Ale
---------------------------

Brent Newman

I brewed this beer to commemorate the return of the Stone of Scone to Scotland
after many centuries of unlawful possession by those thievin' English to the
south. This is a very malty, high alcohol, wee heavy. It scored 40 points at
the Albuquerque Dukes of Ale Spring Thing and won a gold medal for strong ales.

Began brewing on December 8, 1996.

  1. Prepared 10 gallons of water using 2.5 gallons of distilled water per
  gallon of PUR filtered tap water. Added 2 tbs of gypsum. pH was about
  6.5. Soft water is preferred in Scottish beers as Edinburgh water is soft.

  2. Conducted a single decoction mash using 2# toasted M&F pale ale malt,
  3# Hugh Baird crystal malt (70L) and 10# of M&F pale ale malt. Doughed in
  with 180F water, mash pH was 5.2. After 15 min. at 146-148F, I pulled a
  thick 50% decoction and heated to 167 F in 15 min and held for 20 min. The
  mash was then raised to boiling and kept there for 20 min while stirring
  vigorously. The decoction was added back into the mash tun and temp
  equilibrated at 160F. Starch conversion was achieved in 60 min.

  3. Collected first runnings with no sparge, then struck malt with 2.5 gal
  boiling water. First runnings were boiled and added to the tun along with
  4 oz roasted barley and 3/4 oz chocolate malt (the dark grains were steeped
  for 15 min in a quart of water at 161F). I then let the mash set for 15 min .

  4. Sparged with 5 gal of 200F water and collected 6 gal of 1.07 wort. The
  target gravity was >1.09, so I added 46 oz of light DME to bump up the
  gravity.

  5. Brought wort to boil and added 1.25 oz of centennial hops (10.3% alpha
  pellets) and boiled for 75 min. Added Irish moss and 0.75 oz of Tettnanger
  hops (3.4% alpha pellets) for the last 15 min.

  6. Cooled to 60F with wort chiller. Whirlpooled and siphoned with a hop bag
  over the inlet to reduce the amount of trub transferred to the carboy. The
  wort was allowed to splash a little, but not much because Noonan's Scotch
  Ale book suggested that too much oxygenation results in excessive ester
  production. Final Gravity was 1.090. To compensate for the low amount of
  oxygen, the wort was pitched with a one gallon starter of Wyeast Scottish
  ale #1728. Incidentally, the grains were sparged an additional time to
  collect wort for a mild. The mild recipe was given in the Feb. or March
  1997 issue of the Suds times.

  7. Fermented at 58-60F. Fermentation was vigorous by 12 hrs and blew the
  cork out with a huge blow off. Racked into secondary after 13 days, gravity
  was 1.030.

Bottled with 5/8 cup of dextrose 10 days later. Final gravity was 1.028.

[I can vouch for this one - I judged it at the Spring Thing and it deserved
those 40 points. A great beer! - Bryan Bennett]