Belhaven Scottish Ale clone - oops near recipe

[distiller_dresden]

Hi beer and winos! So I made a deathwish wheat germ with several modifications:

20oz toasted wheat germ boiled for 90 minutes in 4 gallons water, then
add 1lb caramel 60L malt, run through a coffee grinder, boiling this all for another 30 minutes
strain decently, I didn't make a huge effort, just using a handheld spoon-like strainer to get most of it quickly and discard

Then I dumped it into my fermenting container and added:
64oz 100% juice peach mango juice
1lb Lyle's Black Treacle
5lbs homemade inverted sugar (you can find my recipe/instructions here, but it's easy viewtopic.php?f=40&t=70554 )
6lbs light DME
1gal water

When it came down to 80F I pitched 1 packet of Redstar champagne yeast, and ran the ferment for 2 weeks at 74F. It finished around 10-11 days, the DME I think took the time up.


So anyways, I am cooking off this 'mock single malt scotch' today, but when I tasted the wash/beer I really wish I had 10 gallons so I could just bottle. Oh, and a tank of nitrous to pull it with, because it tastes like my favorite N2O draught beer, Belhaven! It's really malty, with of course no hops anywhere in sight. It just tasted like beer right out of the ferment tub. I'm sure some of you beer guys and gals could fiddle the recipe and give it body or something to make it a bit better, but the malt flavor, it even had a very slight fruitiness I assume was from the 64oz of juice, an acidity, it would have been a great beer just bottled right up, IMHO.

How far from a beer is this recipe if I didn't distill it? Or if I make it again, and wanted to make it a beer, besides sterilizing bottles and getting carbonation tabs, what if anything should I do to the recipe to make it a full on beer? After all even though it tasted like a beer just taking a few sips of the wash, that's a long cry from opening a 12oz bottle (or bigger) of something and drinking it all and enjoying several of them.

[still_stirrin]

...what if anything should I do to the recipe to make it a full on beer?

Beer???

Eliminate the adjuncts. Use barley malts and crystals only. Also, you'll need the right yeast. Redstar champagne yeast is not the right thing to use. Belhaven is a very nice, crisp finishing Scottish ale. It indeed is a paradigm. And, I'm wondering where they serve it off tap charged with nitrogen. That bit surprises me.

As a certified beer judge, it is easy to tell when adjuncts have been used. And your recipe would not show well in an AHA contest, especially to the Scottish wee heavy category. You may like it to drink, but you have your blood, sweat, and tears in it....making it a biased opinion.

Just a reality check.
ss

[distiller_dresden]

On tap, only found it at The Heorot, in Muncie, IN. It was divinity off tap... Otherwise, draught can.

[still_stirrin]

DD,

I stand corrected...the export version of Belhaven (80 Shilling / 5.2%ABV) is indeed canned with a nitrogen widget (I have only had it out of bottles). Similarly, their export kegs are also nitrogen (beer gas) served off tap. I guess I’m going to have to try it with the nitrogen charge. I imagine it would give a creamy smooth mouth feel with plenty of fine lacing down the glass.

As a wee heavy, it does have some sweetness although it doesn’t finsh too sweet. This makes it quite enjoyable to consume more than one thistle. In fact, served off tap, I’d have to have a couple, or three. I do much enjoy the classics.

But I would think your added fruit juice would push you a ways away from this classic paradigm. And the sugar added would diminish the true malt character, tending to make it a little cidery.

Perhaps it will give you a nice spirit if distilled and aged in some 2nd-use oak casks. True Scotch whisky indeed presents some fruitiness due to aging in reused Sherry casks.
ss

[distiller_dresden]

The half gal of juice was my thought on point in the fruitiness I've picked up in aged older Glenlivet, my favorite, though I'm not well versed, I do know I don't like peaty single malts. I've had Oban and just can't. I like Glenmorangie I had the port or sherry barrel aged one, and it was great, the barrel came through really well. I think I've also had Glenfiddich. The only time I've had Belhaven is on tap or from the nitro cans, so near to tap, so I can't comment otherwise, but my wash tasted like what I love from the nitro cans and on tap, it had that real sweetness. I gotta say I didn't pick up any of the fruit at all in my wash, so I don't know if it will come out in the near scotch or not.

But even with a thump keg this scotch has been a real REAL bitch to distill today, it has actually coughed or spit through the thump, and I've had to drop/crash the heat and reraise it several times. Even running it very slowly this wash has just been tough. I have never ever ever had this issue with my thump keg. Not even with molasses heavy washes. So I think the DME in the wash is definitely what's doing it to me...