# Melbourne Bitter



## cozmocracker (1/1/09)

dont shoot me but MB was my standard drink up until a couple of weeks ago. i would like a recipe to get something like it using kits and bits, not up to all grain just yet. Any help appreciated.

cheers cozmo


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## buttersd70 (2/1/09)

Cozmo, this was just posted. Link. BribieG said it's like a more aromatic, hoppier MB (I wouldn't know, never had MB myself). It's a partial mash, but if you want to do it as an extract, you could replace the mash portion with a tin of unhopped liquid malt extract.


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## Bribie G (2/1/09)

yup, I sort of fluked this one. Fatgodzilla, Big Burper and Cannibal Smurf have had pints and liked it. I really like an ice cold Melbourne at the Beach and lived on the stuff when I was in Alice Springs 43 degrees for a week :beerbang: 

I have a theory - probably more like a fantasy - that because Fosters have concentrated nearly all their advertising and dollars on the likes of Carlton Draught and Carlton Mid. (Carlton Draught has been reformulated and re-invented at least three times since I have been in Australia) that they have probably left some of their other brands like Melbourne Bitter relatively untouched.

I really wouldn't be surprised if you went back in your time machine to the sixties with a bottle, the drinkers of the day would approve of it.

It has none of that vile iso twang of VB, and is a richer hoppier beer than Carlton Draught any day of the week. You can actually pick a nice malt aroma as well, especially as it warms up slightly as opposed to something like TED that tastes like landfill as it warms. Hope they don't ruin it like they did with Powers etc.


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## Bribie G (2/1/09)

Additional post:
If you are interested in trying that partial recipe, don't be put off by the partial mash, they are quite easy and you probably have most of the required gear anyway.

What I was going to say is that I've ordered some nice fresh latest Pride of Ringwood from Ross and will use about 15 g of that as the bittering hops next time and that should get it more authentic but still use the BSaaz for finishing.

I'm also thinking seriously of using the sugar again as well. According to Roger Protz "Complete Encyclopedia of Beer" the Fosters Group main beers are 70% malt and 30% sugar which I found quite shocking. However when I used sugar in the first brew, by sheer coincidence ( because I only got a copy of the book a week ago ) - I just about hit that ratio anyway which would have to account to some degree to the 'fostery' taste of the finished brew.


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## The Big Burper (2/1/09)

BribieG said:


> Additional post:
> If you are interested in trying that partial recipe, don't be put off by the partial mash, they are quite easy and you probably have most of the required gear anyway.
> 
> What I was going to say is that I've ordered some nice fresh latest Pride of Ringwood from Ross and will use about 15 g of that as the bittering hops next time and that should get it more authentic but still use the BSaaz for finishing.
> ...




Hello BG,

I use in a standard brew about 500g dex and 250g white sugar. My reasoning is that
the sugars (especially the sucrose) add a bit of "sour" to the taste, a bit of bite maybe, and as I hate sweet beer, it suits me fine. 

Remember the old "cidery" taste we use to get using 100% white sugar, well that taste counters the effect of the sweetness, only by using only 200g white sugar, it sours without tasting shitty.


That's what I reckon, anyway.

Happy New Year to all

the BB


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## Bribie G (2/1/09)

Of course the breweries could maybe invert their own sugar so that the yeast can ferment it directly without producing the off flavours that can occur when the yeast has to 'crack' the sucrose (enzyme invertase I seem to remember?) Probably a good idea to hedge ones bets and use a mix of dex and sucrose hey.


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## cozmocracker (5/1/09)

thanks for the replies fellas, i will certainly give this recipe ago. i havent had a MB since i started brewing, i have had a couple of other commercial beers which i found to taste like crap so havent been game to have the old fav incase its been ruined for me. one question, how long should i condition it for or is it good to go from fermenter to keg to throat?

a big cheers cozmo


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## buttersd70 (5/1/09)

Conditioning time depends on the beer.....lower gravity beers can go quicker, particularly if to keg. Basically, the more "subtle" the beer to begin with, the quicker it can be drunk. Kit beers take longer to mellow out....extract brews take less time, but can do with a bit of conditioning...grain brews can be drunk quicker still.
Theres no right or wrong answer. But kegging will be better quicker than bottling, without doubt. WIll it be good young? well that is a comparitive thing. Better than mega brew, certainly.

2weeks cold + 2 weeks in keg (or 4 weeks in bottle)= happy times for most kit beer. If it's younger, it will still be good....just not as good as if it's not (if that makes sense).

AG overload.... :icon_drunk:


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## Bribie G (5/1/09)

The trick is to get it crystal clear, I would keep it in secondary for at least a week, chill it down really cold, gelatine fine and leave for three days, polyclar and then keg. Any trace of yeast will give it a home brew twang. Remember MB is a bottled beer and doesn't exist in keg form, so you need to clear it and carbonate it as if it's a bottled beer.


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## cozmocracker (17/1/09)

Hey BribieG,

im about to give this ago and have a couple of questions. basically i dont know what to do when doing a mini mash. 

how much water do i boil up?
do i add the lager malt when the water temp is 68 degrees which then boils for 60 min, at the beginning of boil i add green bullets or POR for the full 60 minutes, then add BSaaz(10 g or less) for last 20 minutes and then again for last 5 minutes ( same quantity?).

then add mash to fermenter which has can of coopers lager in it, or does the can go in the mini mash as well?

cool and pitch nottingham ale yeast, or is there a better yeast considering i have a fermenting fridge?

and what did the sugar replace or add it as well?

cheers cozmo


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## Bribie G (17/1/09)

Hi cosmo

Assuming you have a stockpot of at least 10L you need to mash the kilo of malt (a good one is Galaxy, or BB Pilsener) for one hour at around 68 degrees in around 4 or 5 litres of water, I do mine in a container inside a water bath in an esky, so you will need a good thermometer.







At the end of the hour, strain the grain through a big wire strainer into the stockpot and sparge with hot water to extract as much of the goodness out as possible, collecting 8 or 9 litres of wort.

Then bring to boil, watch out for boilover, and hop additions as suggested and boil for at least an hour. Wire strainer is great because you can strain the wort through the spent hops into the fermenter, makes a good filter bed.

If you have a brew fridge that's great, 18 to 20 is fine. I use Nottingham because I'm familiar with it but other good yeasts could include US-05 which seems very popular.

The reason I use a lot of sugar (Last 2 brews I have used a kilo of dex instead) is because Fosters Group (CUB) use 30 percent sugars in their main brews and you can bet that this is what they do with the good old Melb. :icon_cheers: 
An all grain version would probably turn out more like a Dutch or German beer, not like an Aussie 'traditional' swillin' beer.

Cheers and best of luck if you proceed. 
PS put one down yesterday using a 5L cube of wort I had prepared (four of them) a couple of weeks ago, used a Coopers Lager, the DEX and the Nottingham. Should be drinkable mid Feb.


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## cozmocracker (17/1/09)

ok i think i got it.

1 kilo of galaxy malt grain which has been cracked im guessing sits in 4 or 5 litres of water at 68 degrees for 1 hour.
sparge grain with hot water to get all goodness out giving about 9 litres of wort in the stockpot.
the wort i bring to boil then add hops as suggested for an hour.
add the 9 litrs of wort to the fermenter then add kilo of sugar or dex or combo of both.
add cold water to bring amount up to 23 litres then add yeast at appropriate temp.

sit back and wait.


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## Bribie G (18/1/09)

Yes except for one important detail: *also use a can of coopers original series lager* - this is the base body and alcohol 'goop' for the brew, it has a basic level of bittering similar to most Australian lagers - the kilo mini mash is to give the malty flavour and aroma that you can actually pick up in Melb bitter, the sugar is just for pure alcohol as the breweries do, and the extra hops are for flavour and aroma.

No need to boil the coopers, just dissolve into the rest of the hot stuff in the fermenter.

Also you will end up with quite a warm wort in the fermenter, probably over 30 degrees. What I did with my last lot was chuck a bag of pure drinking party ice into the fermenter and it ended up at 18 degrees, so I pitched immediately. I get the ice from Liquorland, maybe more trustworthy than a bag of Dad & Daves ice from the servo or bait shop :lol:


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## cozmocracker (18/1/09)

ah yes i was going top ask about that, thanks for beating me to the punch.

cheers cozmo

i will be giving this ago once i have a spare fermenter.


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## cozmocracker (19/1/09)

one last question, what amount of Green Bullets or POR did you use for bittering?

cheers cozmo


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## cozmocracker (21/2/09)

ok, i have finally got around to doing this recipe of BribieG's, question, after doing the mini mash the wort came out like muddy water, on all the all grain videos i have seen the wort has been clear and a lot darker, ok the color could be due to the grain i have used which was a Pilsner Pale Malt (Barrett Burston) but i wasnt expecting it to be so cloudy with LOTS of trub( im guessing trub is all the very fine matter that gets through the seive?)
i did a lot of stirring during the mash because i was trying to keep the temp consistent on top of the stove( i know its not ideal but all i have for now).

so can someone ease my mind about the cloudy wort?

time to get ready for my next hop addition!


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## FreemanDC (21/2/09)

A lot of the trub will fall out during ferm, and sec' clearing agents should make it fall also, Try not to disturb the yeast cake ( crap on bottom of fermentor ).

In theory stiring the grain bed may cause excessive tannins in your brew, but Shi*T happens, see how she goes mate.

Follow the previous advise about clearing and she'll be all good.


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## Adamt (21/2/09)

Freemasha said:


> In theory stiring the grain bed may cause excessive tannins in your brew



...?


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## FreemanDC (21/2/09)

No ???? i was under the impression that and higher strike temp and disturbing the grain bed would extract tannins from the grain ? 
No ?

maybe i shouldn't drink so much distilled water/ essential oils before posting


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## cozmocracker (22/2/09)

oh well its up and running now(fermenting), took less than 12 hours for the nottingham yeast to do its thing. i am planning on using gelatine for finning and polyclar as well, so look forward to tasting it out of the keg in the near future!

still curious about the muddy looking wort, is this normal for a mini mash?


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## stew.w (24/1/10)

im going to try make something similar to this tomorrow but ag
this is what ive got so far:

Amount Item Type % or IBU

6.00 kg Pale Malt, Galaxy (Barrett Burston) (3.0 EBC) Grain 75.00%
40.00 gm Pride of Ringwood [9.00%] (60 min) Hops 21.2 IBU
30.00 gm Pride of Ringwood [9.00%] (20 min) Hops 9.6 IBU
30.00 gm Pride of Ringwood [9.00%] (5 min) Hops 3.2 IBU
1.00 items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 15.0 min) Misc 
2.00 kg Dextrose (Briess) (2.0 EBC) Sugar 25.00%
2 Pkgs Nottingham (Danstar #-) Yeast-Ale 

34 IBU's
OG 1.054
5.4% alc. vol.

40L Batch

any other suggestions?
im not using lager yeast as it just ties up the ferm fridge for too long

Cheers,

Stewart


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## Bribie G (25/1/10)

Stew.W said:


> im going to try make something similar to this tomorrow but ag
> this is what ive got so far:
> 
> Amount Item  Type % or IBU
> ...



I'd ditch the late additions of POR, personally, just put in one addition of around 50g at the beginning of the boil and maybe finish with 20g Hersbrucker or something fancy in the last 10 mins. The Notto will strip out a lot of the hops however and I would go for US-05 if using an ale yeast, and ferment around 17 degrees


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