Traditional English Bitter

[Scooby]

My Wife is away in Dublin for a few days so I've been getting the gear ready for brewing tomorrow.

Looking back over my last few brews I seem to have favoured very simple grists, pale malt only or with the addition of one adjunct, crystal or wheat malt.

Likewise with the hops, they have been single hopped beers trying out the more perfumed Amarillo and Cascade.

Nice as they have been I am hankering after an English bitter so it's all change and I have come up with the following:

3500g MO
250g Crystal malt
100g Wheat malt
30g Black malt
200g Molasses sugar

25g Fuggles 5.0% All of boil
25g Challenger 7.4% All of boil
15g Goldings 5.5% All of boil
20g Goldings 5.5% 15 mins
40g Goldings 5.55 In hop back

I've some Nottingham yeast approaching It's BB so I'll use that.

OG 1.039 FG 1.009 IBU 35 ECB 27

I'm batch sparging routinely and expect to get 80% eff'.

Better go and check the timer on the HLT

[monk]

Looks tasty. Is that a recipe you've used before, or a new one? What kind of character do you expect to get from using different types of hop for bittering? I always use just one...am I missing out on something cool?

Good luck!

[Scooby]

Looks tasty. Is that a recipe you've used before, or a new one? What kind of character do you expect to get from using different types of hop for bittering? I always use just one...am I missing out on something cool?

Good luck!

I rarely brew the same recipe twice Monk, in fact I think only once so this is a new one for me.

I've only ever used two hop varieties before, I prefer to keep it simple so not quite sure of the outcome, but I'm aiming for a full flavoured malty brew with plenty of hop flower, I'm hoping that the personality of the typically English hops will come to the fore. I know they are very different brews but something like an Adnams, Wadsworth or the Brakspear of old, not asking to much then

Liquor is up to temp now so lets get brewing.

[Madbrewer]

looks good! I'm no recipe connoisseur without having even a book to turn to for reference I would say that your going to get a rich amber beer - almost a session beer with a decent level of hoppiness. Although completely different, the GW Boddingtons recipe from BYORAAH has some similarities except that is has another few hops added too. But I think you'll get a (cask) Bods-like complexity in a moderately light beer. Let us know how it tastes if a few weeks?

[Vossy1]

Enjoy the brew day Scooby

[Scooby]

I would say that your going to get a rich amber beer - almost a session beer with a decent level of hoppiness.

Sounds ok to me Ill let you know if it is close.

Cheers Vossy, like most I really enjoy brewdays, that is all but the last hour of cleaning

[oblivious]

Molasses sugar do you mean muscavado sugar?

[Scooby]

Molasses sugar do you mean muscavado sugar?

Always use this Oblivious, good stuff.




Cheers DaaB. Just noticed I have past the 1000 post mark

[steve_flack]

I've been thinking of using that Molasses sugar as a replacement for dark candi sugar - has anyone got any experience of using it in that way?

[oblivious]

It has the look of muscavado sugar, could it be refined sugar with Molasses added back to it?

I have used 400g of muscavado sugar in an old ale, nice, but I would ease back on it next time as I think it added to much to the brew

[Aleman]

That is pretty much what I have found with these bags of sugar, Certainly raw molasses has always been a syrup from a tin similar to treacle.

I don't think it would substitute for dark candi

[Scooby]

It's unrefined (See package) sugar with a high %age of molasses, it has a nice bitter sweet flavour.

The syrupy molasses you mention, the pot I have is labeled 'Blackstrap' molasses, is a by-product of the sugar making process and not the same as this sugar.

If I use this type of sugar I generally use no more than 5% and think they all add their particular flavour to the beer.

[Scooby]

Didn't get a chance to give an update earlier, people kept turning up, (hate being disturbed while brewing) and then had to rush out to the pub.

All went well , ended up with 1.040, plus one point on target SG and 83% Eff which is better than I got with the spinny. I see most people are getting improved Eff the more they batch sparge, I cant see why mine shows an improvement as I don't do anything different and the malt is the same batch.

Used Whirlfloc for the second time and it seems to work much better than Irish moss, at least the last lot I had which was the coarse stuff.

The yeast is working hard now and I reckon this brew shows a lot of promise, kiss of death then