Good Bitter Recipes

[JasonY]

Hey all, anyone got a good all grain bitter recipe? Preferably an ESB or something with some kick. Just picked up 25kg of pale malt so I want to get a second brew down in the next week to stock up for the festive season.

So far I have tried two similar recipes with the last being (ordinary bitter)

3.5kg pale malt
200g crystal 120
200g wheat malt

Northern brewer to bitter and E.Kent for late additions. Whitbread ale yeast.

Its a perfectly drinkable brew, but I think it is lacking body (higher alc will help that I'm sure ) Also it has a sweetish 'tang' which I think is the crystal 120.

What I am after is a nice smooth bitter with lots of depth but not super malty. I have a copy of 'Designing Great Beers' on order but it is probably going to help with brews down the line and I want to get another brew on soon. This one will have to use Wyeast 1272 (american ale II) which I have on the go now.

Got any good bitters you want to share?

 

[Joel]

Did anyone have any bitter recipes?

 

[tdh]

95% ale malt (Maris Otter is a beauty here) and 5% 120EBC British Crystal malt.

Fiddle with the recipe by changing the crystal malts and keeping the percentage the same. (a 40-50EBC Caramalt and a 250-300 EBC Dark Crystal are available at most decent brewshops).

Target, Northern Brewer and Challenger are excellent for bittering with Challenger, Fuggles and Goldings being the choice for flavour and aroma.

Try 1.050 OG, 35-40 IBU, and a gram/litre at 15 minutes and the same at flameout.

Mash at 65*C for 75 minutes (thorough conversion on the drier side).
Try Wyeast ESB 1968 for a richer flavour, London 1028 for a drier flavour or (my choice) British #2 1335 for good malt/hop flavour.

tdh

 

[Joel]

for my first ag I've settled on:

4kg Pale Malt
0.25kg Crystal (about 120 EBC i think)

15g Northern brewer FWH
20g Northern Brewer 60min
20g E.K. Goldings 30 min
20g E.K. Goldings 15 min

1968 ESB wyeast

My main worry is I can't predict hop flavour yet so I don't know how to plan the later hop additions.

I may take your advice tdh and move both the Goldings additions 15 mins forward.

 

[Sean]

95% ale malt (Maris Otter is a beauty here) and 5% 120EBC British Crystal malt.

Anything from 0% - 10% Crystal is good. Needs to be British though - the local crystals don't cut the mustard.

A touch of wheat in some form is good - I like malted wheat, but torrified, flaked or flour is fine.

Fiddle with the recipe by changing the crystal malts and keeping the percentage the same. (a 40-50EBC Caramalt and a 250-300 EBC Dark Crystal are available at most decent brewshops).

Personally I'd stick to one and vary the amount - most English bitters have very simple grain bills.

Target, Northern Brewer and Challenger are excellent for bittering with Challenger, Fuggles and Goldings being the choice for flavour and aroma.

Add Northdown as another excellent choice for bittering and/or aroma. It has pretty much entirely replaced Northern Brewer in the UK as it is has a much nicer flavour, and usually has higher yeald, alpha, and consistancy than UK grown Northern Brewer.

Styrian Goldings and Willamette are also widely used to very good effect.

Mash at 65*C for 75 minutes (thorough conversion on the drier side).
Try Wyeast ESB 1968 for a richer flavour, London 1028 for a drier flavour or (my choice) British #2 1335 for good malt/hop flavour.

I'd favour wyeast Thames Valley, or plain old Coopers - makes an excellent best bitter.

 

[mje1980]

In the last 12 months, i have brewed probably 4 or 5 bitters, and although i brew a lot of styles, bitter is my fave. I dont use a lot of crystal, and like to use a dryish yeast ( white labs dry english ale, essex ale yeast ). Amber and roast malt are a good addition, but only in very small amounts, amber can go up to 5%, but roast malt only .5%, but that's going off my tastes,so those %'s are just a guide. I have one in 2ndary at the moment, and one just bottled a week ago, but they are both modified ( untasted except from primary ) recipes, so here is my best recipe ( brewed ) so far:

3.5kg Maris otter ( 87.1% )
80g British crystal ( medium ) ( 2% )
140g Cara hell ( 3.5% )
200g amber malt ( wouldn't use much more, could even drop 50g if you think its too much ) ( 5% )
100g torrified wheat ( 2.5% )

15g EKG FWH
15g Pacific gem 14.7% 60 min.
15g EKG 4.2% 20 min
30g Cascades dry hopped in 2ndary

Essex ale yeast

1040
31 IBU's

I know that cara hell and cascades aren't traditional ingredients, but i am not a style nazi, and it is the best i have done so far. Just use the same percentages, and up the actual amounts if you want more alc and body til you get to the gravity you want. The good thing about bitter's and pale's, is that the styles are very "wide", and there is a lot of variety, so you can have 2 bitters that fit the guidelines, but taste totally different.

I actually didn't plan on dry hopping at all, but, when i tasted the brew from the primary, all i could taste was the amber malt, and i panicked, and when i racked it to the 2ndary, i threw in the cascades!. After a few weeks in the bottle, all the flavours came together nicely.

Hope i've helped, and good luck

 

[AndrewQLD]

This is by far and away one of my favourite recipes.

Recipe: Bosun Best Bitter
Brewer: Andrew Clark
Asst Brewer:
Style: English Special or Best Bitter
TYPE: All Grain
Taste: (46.0)

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 23.00 L
Boil Size: 28.84 L
Estimated OG: 1.048 SG
Estimated Color: 8.3 SRM
Estimated IBU: 39.0 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.0 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU
4.50 kg Pale Ale Malt (2.0 SRM) Grain 88.2 %
0.40 kg Crystal Malt - 60L (Thomas Fawcett) (60.0 Grain 7.8 %
0.20 kg Wheat Malt Malt Craft (2.0 SRM) Grain 3.9 %
40.00 gm Challenger [7.50%] (60 min) Hops 33.3 IBU
20.00 gm Goldings, East Kent [5.60%] (15 min) Hops 5.7 IBU
20.00 gm Goldings, East Kent [5.60%] (Dry Hop 7 daHops -
1.00 items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 15.0 min) Misc
1 Pkgs Dry English Ale (White Labs #WLP007) Yeast-Ale


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Medium Body, Batch Sparge
Total Grain Weight: 5.10 kg
----------------------------
Name Description Step Temp Step Time
Mash In Add 15.29 L of water at 76.1 C 66.0 C 60 min

 

[Gough]

I'll throw mine in the ring. I'm very happy with this recipe. It is very simple but tastes great. The Target hops are pellets and the EK Goldings are all plugs. The 1272 worked really well in this beer - and yes, I know it aint British


Recipe: Birthday Bitter
Brewer: Shawn
Asst Brewer: Sarah
Style: Special/Best/Premium Bitter
TYPE: All Grain
Taste: (35.0)

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 23.00 L
Boil Size: 29.39 L
Estimated OG: 1.046 SG
Estimated Color: 17.8 EBC
Estimated IBU: 34.6 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 72.0 %
Boil Time: 70 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU
4.50 kg TF Maris Otter Pale Ale Malt (5.9 EBC) Grain 93.2 %
0.33 kg TF Crystal (145.8 EBC) Grain 6.8 %
20.00 gm Target [11.00%] (60 min) Hops 24.9 IBU
42.30 gm Goldings, East Kent [4.20%] (15 min) Hops 9.2 IBU
28.30 gm Goldings, East Kent [4.20%] (1 min) Hops 0.5 IBU
28.30 gm Goldings, East Kent [4.20%] (Dry Hop 12 dHops -
0.50 items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 15.0 min) Misc
1 Pkgs American Ale II (Wyeast Labs #1272) [StartYeast-Ale


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Medium Body, Batch Sparge
Total Grain Weight: 4.83 kg
----------------------------
Name Description Step Temp Step Time
Mash In Add 12.59 L of water at 75.5 C 67.0 C 90 min

 

[AndrewQLD]

Gough,

The Target hops are a nice bittering hop, I have used them in my recipe and it turns out great.

Cheers
Andrew

 

[warrenlw63]

I'm brewing without my usual Target this weekend. Going to use Northdown and Challenger. Haven't brewed this recipe before. Here's hoping. (Or should that be hopping) :beer:

Warren -

A ProMash Recipe Report

BJCP Style and Style Guidelines
-------------------------------

08-B English Pale Ale, Special/Best/Premium Bitter

Min OG: 1.040 Max OG: 1.048
Min IBU: 25 Max IBU: 40
Min Clr: 12 Max Clr: 41 Color in EBC

Recipe Specifics
----------------

Batch Size (L): 40.00 Wort Size (L): 40.00
Total Grain (kg): 7.90
Anticipated OG: 1.045 Plato: 11.25
Anticipated EBC: 27.9
Anticipated IBU: 35.9
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75 %
Wort Boil Time: 60 Minutes


Grain/Extract/Sugar

% Amount Name Origin Potential EBC
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
88.6 7.00 kg. TF Maris Otter Pale Ale Malt UK 1.037 7
6.3 0.50 kg. TF Amber Malt UK 1.033 133
3.8 0.30 kg. TF Crystal UK 1.034 194
1.3 0.10 kg. Weyermann Caraaroma Germany 1.034 470

Potential represented as SG per pound per gallon.


Hops

Amount Name Form Alpha IBU Boil Time
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
30.00 g. Challenger Pellet 6.60 16.3 60 min.
25.00 g. Northdown Pellet 7.20 14.8 60 min.
15.00 g. Goldings - E.K. Plug 5.00 1.5 15 min.
20.00 g. Northdown Pellet 7.20 2.0 5 min.
15.00 g. Challenger Pellet 6.60 1.4 5 min.


Yeast
-----

WYeast 1968 London Extra Special Bitter

 

[Gough]

Gough,

The Target hops are a nice bittering hop, I have used them in my recipe and it turns out great.

Cheers
Andrew

[post="72149"][/post]​

Andrew,

Yep, I've used Target a few times and really like it as well. Funny though when I was looking at your recipe I was thinking it was about time I gave Challenger a go So many good ingredients available to us these days - it's great :beerbang:

I'm brewing one on Sunday which will be the same recipe as above, but mixing some Northdown with the 15 minute EKG addition. I might give some Challenger a go after that. Having said that, I can vouch for the recipe as posted. Makes a nice Bitter

Shawn.

 

[jayse]

Evening bitter brewers,
I love the wyeast 1968 yeast supposedly the fullers strain. The great thing about it is you can give it to the kids afterwards as play dough :blink:
lovely yeast.
I like to add a couple percent choc malt to bring the colour up around the 26-28ebc mark. Amber malt isn't really needed and to much and it'll be very over powering. The only other thing i'll add is if you mash at any less than 67c than you a big girl :excl: I aim for 68c and sometimes all the way up to 70c.
I stick mostly to 120 ebc crystal at around 5% but theres no real reason why you can't use whatever you like, iam a little with the bitter nazi sean here with the comment aussie crystal doesn't cut the mustard.

Out on the tiles :chug:
Jayse

 

[Kai]

I've brewed one bitter only. It was sacrificial lamb for yeast for an imperial stout. I used 2.25kg Maris Otter, 250g Thomas Fawcett Crystal, 1.7kg LME, Target for bittering, 15g Goldings at 15 and flameout for a total of 38 IBU, wyeast 1318 and an OG of 1.049.

 

[warrenlw63]

Amber malt isn't really needed and to much and it'll be very over powering.

[post="72180"][/post]​

Don't be a woozer Jayse. :lol: Few weeks of ageing and Amber blends in nicely. You just don't like the fact it competes with all your beloved hops.

Warren -