Your "best" English-style ordinary bitter recipe, please!

[opalko]

Hello all, I had pretty much given up on homebrewing after a spell of less than desirable brews. Really outright terrible, if truth be known. No contaminations, just sad tasting brews. After a year long hiatus I am ready to give it a try again. My favorite style of beer is English bitters, and sadly, here in the USA, even with our plethora of IPA's, hoppy this and thats, it is nearly impossible to come by any true representation of an easy drinking bitter. With that said, please give your hard-to-ruin, true-to-style, easy-to-brew recipe recommendation, please! Makes no difference if it extract, partial-mash, all-grain, or BIAB! Thank you!

Cheers,
opalko

[edonald774]

I took gold at our club competition with this one

Bespoke Bitter – Gold Medal
Beer Style: Ordinary Bitter
Recipe Type: all-grain BIAB
Yield: 10 litres
Original Gravity: 1.034

Ingredients:
1.4 kg – Golden Promise
0.1 kg – Cara Malt
0.1 kg – Dark Crystal
0.05 kg – Munich
7 g – Challenger 6.5% Boil 60 min
5 g – East Kent Goldings 5% Boil 60 min
8 g – Styrian Goldings 4.2%Boil 20 min
15 g – East Kent Goldings 5% Whirlpool 20 min

Additional Instructions
Boil: 60 Minutes
Mash: 67c for 60 mins then 75c mash out for 10mins.

[Clibit]

I think yeast choice is a major factor. I'm liking WLP006 at the moment. But there's a good range of liquid English ale yeasts, many I've not tried.

Then, i like some crystal malt, and I vary the colour. Perhaps some Torrified wheat.

Then it's IBUs and aroma hops, again, personal choices. I like bitter to be bitter, so a BU:GU ratio of 0.8+ for me. I like a blend of Northdown and First Gold, but I use various English hops as well as these, like Challenger, EKG, Progress and Brewers Gold, in ordinary bitters. So I'd go:

OG 1038
FG 1008 - 1010
IBUs 33-35
ABV 3.8ish

Maris Otter 87%
Caramalt 5%
Dark. Crystal 3%
TW 5%

First Gold and Northdown at 60 and 15 mins. And either an 80C steep or a dry hop. Around 5g per litre hops in total.

WLP006 or Wyeast 1318. Nottingham if it needs to be dry. Muntons standard yeast (not Premium Gold) is good if you want a higher FG/maltier/less dry beer.

[opalko]

Thank you both

[Dennis King]

Personally my choice would be Pale malt plus around 5% crystal, challenger bittering hops and EK goldings for aroma. My yeast choice would be WLP002.

[jaroporter]

I think yeast choice is a major factor.

this. so much.

i'd go far as to say it's the only factor worth considering at the start. you'll get much more out of a well controlled fermentation with a good english yeast than you will throwing the whole store at the grainbill and hop schedule.

so i'd say similar on recipe too..
pale malt up to 100%, crystal up to 10% (wheat if you like)
OG around 1,040
IBUs around 25-30
around 10g EKGs or fuggles or challenger or whatever last 10 minutes of boil

and the key part being a large healthy pitch of yeast for a strong clean fermentation (that's clean as in no off-flavours, there'll be plenty of character)
i've found wlp002 and wlp005 to both be fantastic, though there's plenty of choice out there

[opalko]

More thanks!

[opalko]

What's the general opinion on Safale S04 here?

[Dennis King]

What's the general opinion on Safale S04 here?

Personally I hate it but many more will say they love it.

[jaroporter]

since you specifically asked..

it's a scourge on brewing. it's awful, foul and has ruined many an ale. i've been left unable to finish a pint of a few local micros ales where the first taste was "oh, no, S-04.. ". where wlp002 (and so many others) gives layers of melded complexity S-04 give one-dimensional blandness with a strong edge of disgusting. it's taken a thick stout with a tonne of roasted malts to get me to drink a beer with it in, and i'd be pretty sure that beer coulda been improved with a proper yeast..

[Dennis King]

since you specifically asked..

it's a scourge on brewing. it's awful, foul and has ruined many an ale. i've been left unable to finish a pint of a few local micros ales where the first taste was "oh, no, S-04.. ". where wlp002 (and so many others) gives layers of melded complexity S-04 give one-dimensional blandness with a strong edge of disgusting. it's taken a thick stout with a tonne of roasted malts to get me to drink a beer with it in, and i'd be pretty sure that beer coulda been improved with a proper yeast..

Glad I'm not the only one.

[opalko]

Great info thanks

[opalko]

Are there any dry yeasts that would do well in place of WLP002?

[Dennis King]

Are there any dry yeasts that would do well in place of WLP002?

I rarely use dried yeast but of the one I have tried Nottingham is OK, available from Wilkos as ale yeast.

[f00b4r]

since you specifically asked..

it's a scourge on brewing. it's awful, foul and has ruined many an ale. i've been left unable to finish a pint of a few local micros ales where the first taste was "oh, no, S-04.. ". where wlp002 (and so many others) gives layers of melded complexity S-04 give one-dimensional blandness with a strong edge of disgusting. it's taken a thick stout with a tonne of roasted malts to get me to drink a beer with it in, and i'd be pretty sure that beer coulda been improved with a proper yeast..

Now you've done it, i'm going to have to split of a demijohns worth from a batch and sacrifice some beer to see how bad it is