Our first seasonal and maybe the last time I ever use Heather Tips. The beer is a deviation from your standard heavy Scotch ale with Heather in it. We wanted something light and floral so it is a very basic blonde ale with about 20 pounds of heather tips loaded into it! This is what I ended up with in the kettle:

Now the big problem is that apparently the tips work as well if not better that the Irish moss that I use to clarify in the kettle and that mass is a solid brick of heather tips and protein. It took me almost 3 hours just to get it washed out of the kettle.

My lovely wife said “Why don’t you climb in there and scoop it out?” Well that crossed my mind but it is 130 degrees in there still.

I finally got the kettle empty. The next day all my drains were stopped up. I had to go out and open our settling tank where I found a 4 inch pipe with a heather terd in it. Once we got that cleared it was smooth sailing.