Ordinary Bitter 17/07/09

[coatesg]

Brewing up this evening for a BBQ next month, and also under orders to reduce the bags of hops in our freezer over the next few brews... an ordinary bitter this evening though, and having a nice pint of cascade/aurora best as I type.

3.1kg Pale
250g Crystal
100g T Wheat
100g Flaked Barley

Aiming for 5 gallons - may add a few hundred grams of sugar depending on the gravity it comes out at.

Mashing at 67C

Of course, once I had it all set up and wrapped up, I looked over to see the mash tun manifold staring back at me. So, there's a bit of pouring the mash out into another bucket, and back into the tun for me after dinner... s'pose it's not as back as forgetting the hop strainer...

Not sure on the hops yet - thinking an all fuggles brew:

60g Fuggles 4.4% 90min
22g Fuggles 15min (that uses that bag up then

[OldSpeckledBadger]

Fuggles are good

[coatesg]

Mmm. Fuggledy dum - lovely smells!

Got 20.5L @ 1041 and so cut it back down to 22L @ 1038. Sure it'll be fine Roll on the good weather...

EDIT: forgot to say I added 200g of dark brown sugar into the kettle at 45min to bump the gravity up a couple of points and get some interesting flavours from the molasses remaining in the sugar.

Just finishing off the evening with a half of barley wine (target/fuggles) I brewed in Feb - nice, but needs a good while yet to age some more.

[WishboneBrewery]

I'm planning a Fuggles Bitter based on hop schedule the grains of Horden Hillbilly's House bitter, though his is all Goldings. I'm really looking forward to it, hope yours is good despite the Manifold misshap!
Can I ask what the Flaked barley adds to the recipe? Is it just a little more alcohol without the need for a sugar and keeping it light?

[Aleman]

Can I ask what the Flaked barley adds to the recipe? Is it just a little more alcohol without the need for a sugar and keeping it light?

Mainly used for head retention, although of course it will add a bit of fermentables . . . plus a bit of mouthfeel as well

[coatesg]

I stuck it in for a bit of head retention - I would have used 200g torrified wheat here, but I only had 100g, so slung in another 100g of flaked barley. Just using up bits and pieces in truth...! With more flaked barley, like in a Guinness style stout (a "7:2:1") it gives a lot more mouthfeel.

All looks good despite the faffing around with mash manifolds...fermenting away nicely at 19C with S04 - about a 3 inch head in the fermenter as I type

[coatesg]

So first samples from this indicate a fairly clean beer. Hints of caramel, and I get a strong minty flavour from the fuggles.

I decided to dry hop it with some Styrians (8g) for about 4 days before I rack this over into the corny - they went in tonight