Well folks, finally had time to post about my latest brew thats been in the bottle almost a week already! My 60 Shilling Scottish Ale. I originally set out to make an 80/- Scottish Ale but this being my first all grain experience I missed my OG by a few! (details below)

60 Shilling Scottish Ale
9-A Scottish Light 60/-
Date: 9/8/2008

Size: 5.0 gal
Efficiency: 59.5%
Attenuation: 77.3%
Calories: 266.48 kcal per 22 fl oz

Original Gravity: 1.044 (1.030 - 1.035)
Terminal Gravity: 1.010 (1.010 - 1.013)
Color: 16.77 (9.0 - 17.0)
Alcohol: 4.44% (2.5% - 3.2%)
Bitterness: 27.7 (10.0 - 20.0)

Ingredients:
10 lb American 2-row
0.25 lb American Chocolate Malt
0.75 lb American Caramel 60°L
1.0 oz Mt. Hood (5.0%) - added during boil, boiled 60 min
1.0 oz Mt. Hood (5.0%) - added during boil, boiled 15 min
35 mL White Labs WLP028 Edinburgh Ale

Notes
Started mash @ 12:40 for one hour at 149 degrees at start with approx 3.44 gallons of water (@ noon, temp is 145)

Will sparge (rinse) with 2.56 gallons for a total of 6 gallons

NOTE: lost 1.44 gallons in grist, will rinse with 3 gallons and run water voliume addition through for a total of 6
Added 3 gallons of rinse water for 10-15 minutes, will continue untitl I have 6+ gallons of wort
5 gallons of wort after 2nd rinse
Final rinse with 1 gallon then boil @1:25pm

started boil at 1:45 rolling at 2:03
First hop addition 2:05
added second hop addition @ 2:50
Shut off gas and started immersion chiller @ 3:02

im getting a better chill this time by stirring the wort, went from 140 at flame out to 100 in 10 minutes!
Down to 85 degrees @ 3:15
Temp @ 80 @ 3:24

Now I was shooting for an OG of 1.064 but ended up with 1.044 so any advice would be well received! I plan on doing this beer again with a new 10 gallon mash tun in place of my current 5 gallon to see if that will make any difference whatsoever. Many people use a 5 gallon mash tun cooler and get better results so im not so sure of any change that will make. A few more weeks in the bottle and it’s sampling time!

Now a little history on the “shilling” if you thought my title of this post looked a little weird!:

The abbreviation for shilling is s, from the Latin solidus, the name of a Roman coin. Often it was written informally or printed with a slash, e.g., 1/6d as 1 shilling and sixpence (often pronounced “one and six”), or when there were no pence with a slash then a hyphen, e.g., “11/-”. Quite often a triangular shape or (sans serif) apostrophe would be used to give a neater appearance, e.g., “1′6″ and “11′-”. In Africa it is often abbreviated sh.

 Scottish Ales are commonly called “60 Shilling” or “80 Shilling”.

It’s due to the era of Scotland so historically portrayed in “Highlander,” Scots had to pay tax on barley. Thus, the more barley in the beer, the higher the alcohol content and body of the beer.

A 60 Shilling ale would be weaker(let’s say, oh, 3%abv) than a 90 shilling(6% abv).

 Also, because importing hops all the way from England was costly, the Scots compensated by brewing with barely any hops at all.