English Best Bitter

[Bribie G]

Golden syrup would be more like the breweries use, as it's partly inverted.
I'd go for two hops, the trad UK bitters get a bittering addition - your NZ goldings would be perfect, then Fuggles 10 mins from the end.

I always use NZ fuggles flowers, haven't used the UK stuff for years.

AFAIK Australian "demerara" sugar is just a fancy coffee crystals type sugar nowadays, Blacksheep brewery get it in from the West Indies, I expect ours is just a local CSR lookalike.

Sugars are often used in UK ales in a tradition from the 19th Century. Firstly as a tax dodge then during the two World Wars because of grain shortages. Poms got used to the taste. Some beers like Wells Bombardier use a frightening amount, but still taste amazing. Others such as Brains don't use any. :blink:

Cane sugar may add certain characters to a beer but acids and aldehydes ain't among them. Aussie lagers use up to 30% by gravity and say what you like about VB or Carlton Draught, the sugar doesn't contribute off flavours.

 

[dago001]

We drank a lot of beer in the UK ( and I mean a lot). Most of the Best Bitters we tried were pretty standard brews. Some of the bigger commercial beers may have had sugar of some sorts in them, but the majority of the smaller craft breweries didnt. They were all quite proudly claiming that they didnt as they were all CAMRA approved. We toured only 1 brewery and there was not a bag of sugar in sight.
If I was to go for a recipe, yours is ok, but dump the sugar, add some more malt if you want to up the abv. 31 IBU is fine. Listen to the advice from the 3 post above this one. I think they are on the money.
Cheers
LB

 

[wbosher]

Wow, I go away for a couple of hours and the scroll bar is much smaller. :lol:

Thanks for all the advice guys, got a little bit to digest here. The old man will be happy.

 

[wbosher]

Ok, so dropping the sugar and upping the MO a little. Will have a read about the water, but TBH probably won't do anything with it, for this one anyway. Quite keen to look into it though for future brews.

Bribie, are you suggesting only two hop additions, one at 60 (NZ Goldings), and Fuggles at 10? What sort of amounts would you recommend? I'm guessing maybe 20-30g of Fuggles and take the 60min EKG addition up to 30 - 35 IBU? Any flameout or dry hop?

 

[Adr_0]

Golden syrup would be more like the breweries use, as it's partly inverted.
I'd go for two hops, the trad UK bitters get a bittering addition - your NZ goldings would be perfect, then Fuggles 10 mins from the end.

I always use NZ fuggles flowers, haven't used the UK stuff for years.

AFAIK Australian "demerara" sugar is just a fancy coffee crystals type sugar nowadays, Blacksheep brewery get it in from the West Indies, I expect ours is just a local CSR lookalike.

Sugars are often used in UK ales in a tradition from the 19th Century. Firstly as a tax dodge then during the two World Wars because of grain shortages. Poms got used to the taste. Some beers like Wells Bombardier use a frightening amount, but still taste amazing. Others such as Brains don't use any. :blink:

Cane sugar may add certain characters to a beer but acids and aldehydes ain't among them. Aussie lagers use up to 30% by gravity and say what you like about VB or Carlton Draught, the sugar doesn't contribute off flavours.

My mistake - ethanal (an aldehyde) is an intermediate but it gets further chewed into ethanol so is not a final product. I thought that might have explained the 'cidery' taste in canned homebrew with a lot of cane sugar.

We drank a lot of beer in the UK ( and I mean a lot). Most of the Best Bitters we tried were pretty standard brews. Some of the bigger commercial beers may have had sugar of some sorts in them, but the majority of the smaller craft breweries didnt. They were all quite proudly claiming that they didnt as they were all CAMRA approved. We toured only 1 brewery and there was not a bag of sugar in sight.
If I was to go for a recipe, yours is ok, but dump the sugar, add some more malt if you want to up the abv. 31 IBU is fine. Listen to the advice from the 3 post above this one. I think they are on the money.
Cheers
LB

wbosher, as

Just on the sugars, Ray Daniels reckons the average quantity used in the commercial beers is 10 or 11% I think (from memory), but as per Lagerbomb's I think a lot of the Seppo's and craft brewers didn't use any.

Up to you, pretty hard to go wrong and as we said your starting recipe was 90% there anyway without the rest of us interfering.

 

[wbosher]

All good mate, I like interfering. It's how we learn. You ask several people the same thing, you'll get a lot of different answers. I'd rather have too much information to pick and choose from, than not enough.

 

[Bribie G]

I'd go the Goldings to about 25 IBU then adjust with some Fuggles, depends if you are chilling or no chilling. If no chilling I'd add the Fuggles at 5 mins and use the flowers in a sock, and pull out before draining the kettle.
All goldings isn't too bad either, had a nice drop at Brewvana once, Twisted hop I think.

 

[AndrewQLD]

Haven't seen a lot of recipes using fuggles unless they are a dark milds as it's pretty earthy and is suited well to the darker ales. On the other hand EKG, WGV, Bramling Cross and challenger are all good for a Bitter and ESB.

 

[wbosher]

Ok, I've had another tinker. I've scrapped the sugar and increased the malt a little, also increase the crystal slightly. I've changed the hop schedule as per Bribie's suggestion also (I chill). I've lowered the OG a little to try to bring the alc down a bit also. It was creeping up towards the 5% mark, too high IMO for this beer.

Was going to mash lower but changed my mind, I don't like my beer too dry, and like a little body. Also that would have increase the alc even more, which I don't want.

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 35.54 l
Post Boil Volume: 30.16 l
Batch Size (fermenter): 23.00 l
Bottling Volume: 21.00 l
Estimated OG: 1.044 SG
Estimated Color: 19.5 EBC
Estimated IBU: 32.2 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 88.3 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
4.20 kg Pale Malt, Maris Otter (5.9 EBC) Grain 1 91.3 %
0.35 kg Caramel/Crystal Malt - 80L (130.0 EBC) Grain 2 7.6 %
0.05 kg Chocolate Malt (750.0 EBC) Grain 3 1.1 %
45.00 g NZ Goldings [5.60 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 4 25.0 IBUs
1.00 tsp Irish Moss (Boil 10.0 mins) Fining 5 -
45.00 g Fuggles [4.50 %] - Boil 10.0 min Hop 6 7.3 IBUs
1.0 pkg Windsor Yeast (Lallemand #-) [23.66 ml] Yeast 7 -


Mash Schedule: BIAB, Medium Body
Total Grain Weight: 4.60 kg
----------------------------
Name Description Step Temperat Step Time
Saccharification Add 38.35 l of water at 70.0 C 67.0 C 90 min
Mash Out Add -0.00 l of water and heat to 78.0 C 78.0 C 1 min

Sparge: Remove grains, and prepare to boil wort

 

[DeGarre]

I'd use plain table sugar as not to mask wonderful butterscotchy aromas of Maris Otter. Otherwise, don't change a thing.

With any other pale ale malt 10-15% Munich malt is very nice and somewhat replicates MO.

 

[dago001]

My only other advice would be to not spend too long pondering and debating the recipe. Pick a recipe, brew it, taste it, learn from it and enjoy it. It may not turn out exactly how you expected it to, but then they never really do when you are trying a recipe for the first time.. We all try to replicate beers and sometimes we get pretty close, but most importantly for you and this beer, you father will think its a great beer and appreciate all the effort that you went to for him. Drink it with him, it will be a good beer/good times.
Cheers
LB

 

[wbosher]

Cheers for the help guys.

lagerbomb, agreed will go with this one and we how she goes. Only desicion left to make is the yeast, very tempted to have a go at liquid so might give 1968 a go.

Once again, thanks guys.

 

[manticle]

1968 is a very nice yeast but can be slow to finish. 1469 is a a cracker of a yeast in my experience.

 

[wbosher]

Might give that a go, thanks Manticle. Will probably need to do a bit of reading on making starters though, don't these packs only do US 5 Gallon (19 litres)? I want to do 23L

 

[Screwtop]

1968 is a very nice yeast but can be slow to finish. 1469 is a a cracker of a yeast in my experience.

Agree, 1469 is fantastic for the style. Make a 2-3L starter and pitch when 'active' and you will have plenty for your 23L of 1.044 wort.

Screwy

 

[DennisKing]

As a pom who manly brews best bitters I would say ditch the chocolate. Can't get NZ goldings over here so can't comment but I would go for challenger for bittering and east Kent goldings for aroma, if you can get them over there. For me the yeast would always be Whitelabs WLP002 English, in 35 years of brewing I think this is the best yeast I know for this style of beer, reputed to be the Fullers strain. I've always found the whitelabs one better then the wyeast for some reason. As a twist you could caramelise some of the first runnings.

 

[wbosher]

Thanks Dennis. LHBS is currently out of EKG, and I already have some Fuggles in the freezer. Will likely do the good doctors Landlord sometime soon so will grab some EKG for that when it comes in. Also they only supply wyeast, so 1469 it will be.

I never got the name of the bitter the the ol' boy drinks, and there are soooo many different type of bitters out there, so this will likely be close to one of them...probably just not the one he use to drink. :lol:

 

[wbosher]

Just had a thought about the 1469, what temp would be best? Wondering whether to stay low around the 18 mark, or push it a little higher?