Suggestions for simple ESB recipe

Hi All,
I bulk ordered some Cascade and Willamette hops and wanted to use that combo in a Bitter/ESB, and also use Notty as I just ordered several packets of that yeast. Here's what I came up with for a simple Bitter, please let me know what you think regarding the grain bill/hop schedule:

Style: Extra Special/Strong Bitter (English Pale Ale)
TYPE: All Grain
Taste: (35.0)

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 5.00 gal
Boil Size: 6.41 gal
Estimated OG: 1.055 SG
Estimated Color: 13.7 SRM
Estimated IBU: 40.5 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU
9 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) UK (3.0 SRM) Grain 81.82 %
1 lbs Victory Malt (25.0 SRM) Grain 9.09 %
12.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 6.82 %
4.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L (120.0 SRM) Grain 2.27 %
1.00 oz Cascade [7.50 %] (60 min) Hops 26.6 IBU
0.50 oz Cascade [7.50 %] (20 min) Hops 8.0 IBU
0.50 oz Williamette [5.50 %] (20 min) Hops 5.9 IBU
0.50 oz Cascade [7.50 %] (0 min) (Aroma Hop-SteepHops -
0.50 oz Williamette [5.50 %] (0 min) (Aroma Hop-SHops -
1 Pkgs Nottingham (Danstar #-) Yeast-Ale


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Medium Body, Batch Sparge
Total Grain Weight: 11.00 lb
----------------------------
Single Infusion, Medium Body, Batch Sparge
Step Time Name Description Step Temp
60 min Mash In Add 13.75 qt of water at 165.9 F 154.0 F

It isn't to style for a true ESB to use cascade and I would never use it for bittering. The grain bill looks good and the Willamette will work great.

DeathBrewer said:

It isn't to style for a true ESB to use cascade and I would never use it for bittering. The grain bill looks good and the Willamette will work great.

Click to expand...

I'm trying to use up what I have on hand... maybe I could use a little Magnum for bittering? Or possibly all Willamette?

Or I might just keep the Cascade, it's derived from fuggles I believe. This could be like an American Bitter or something like that... I just want a nice, simple, malty beer with a decent amount of bitterness. I'd like to get the biscuity flavors from the Victory malt as well as the additional flavor from teh Notty vs. US-05/1056.

Magnum would be good for bittering. A little flavor cascade would be ok...if you want an "American" bitter.

Move your aroma Cascades to 60 minutes and just have the Willamette at zero. Drop the Cascade flavor add. This will boost the IBUs a bit and give you a more authentic flavor/aroma.

DrinkNoH2O said:

I'm trying to use up what I have on hand... maybe I could use a little Magnum for bittering? Or possibly all Willamette?

Click to expand...

I've made several brews with all willamette and they were quite tastey. Of course non of them were ESBs, but I love willamette as an all around hop, so I think it would come out tastey regardless

david_42 said:

Move your aroma Cascades to 60 minutes and just have the Willamette at zero. Drop the Cascade flavor add. This will boost the IBUs a bit and give you a more authentic flavor/aroma.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the suggestions, that does make more sense. I'll just use the Cascades as a bittering hop, and with this shipment being 7.5% AA I think they will do the job nicely. I'll then use the Willamettes for flavor and aroma hopping.

Here's the new schedule I came up with, still gives me 38 IBU's which is right around what I was shooting for:

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU
9 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) UK (3.0 SRM) Grain 81.82 %
1 lbs Victory Malt (25.0 SRM) Grain 9.09 %
12.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 6.82 %
4.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L (120.0 SRM) Grain 2.27 %
1.00 oz Cascade [7.50 %] (60 min) Hops 26.6 IBU
1.00 oz Williamette [5.50 %] (20 min) Hops 11.8 IBU
1.00 oz Williamette [5.50 %] (0 min) (Aroma Hop-SHops -
1 Pkgs Nottingham (Danstar #-) Yeast-Ale

Sorry to cause controversy, but I wouldn't use cascade for bittering. It's a rather harsh bittering hop.

DeathBrewer said:

Sorry to cause controversy, but I wouldn't use cascade for bittering. It's a rather harsh bittering hop.

Click to expand...

What would be a good substitute then? Either way I have to go the LHBS to get the grain, maybe I'll pick up an oz or two of something.

I def. want to keep the Willamette as the featured hops in the recipe.

DrinkNoH2O said:

What would be a good substitute then? Either way I have to go the LHBS to get the grain, maybe I'll pick up an oz or two of something.

I def. want to keep the Willamette as the featured hops in the recipe.

Click to expand...

I just made a very tasty ESB. I used Saaz at 60/20/1 minute.

Looks like an APA to me. Try this for an ESB:

For 5 gallons, 75% efficiency

10 lb Maris Otter
0.5 lb Crystal Malt 40L
0.5 lb Crystal Malt 120L

If you only have Willamette and Cascade just go with the Willamette. I prefer EKG.

Bitter to 35 IBU @ 60
0.5 oz Willamette @ 15
0.5 oz Willamette @ 0
Optional: Dry hop with 0.5 oz Willamette

Ferment with Wyeast 1028 or 1968 at 68 degrees.

DrinkNoH2O said:

What would be a good substitute then? Either way I have to go the LHBS to get the grain, maybe I'll pick up an oz or two of something.

I def. want to keep the Willamette as the featured hops in the recipe.

Click to expand...

Fuggle or EKG are the definitive hops for english beers. Magnum is a great high alpha bittering hop. Warrior is a good bittering hop, as well.

Willamette is a Fuggle variety, and is great for bitters or other english-style ales.

NCBeernut said:

Looks like an APA to me. Try this for an ESB:

For 5 gallons, 75% efficiency

10 lb Maris Otter
0.5 lb Crystal Malt 40L
0.5 lb Crystal Malt 120L

If you only have Willamette and Cascade just go with the Willamette. I prefer EKG.

Bitter to 35 IBU @ 60
0.5 oz Willamette @ 15
0.5 oz Willamette @ 0
Optional: Dry hop with 0.5 oz Willamette

Ferment with Wyeast 1028 or 1968 at 68 degrees.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I was planning on using Maris Otter if my LHBS has it.

DeathBrewer said:

Fuggle or EKG are the definitive hops for english beers. Magnum is a great high alpha bittering hop. Warrior is a good bittering hop, as well.

Willamette is a Fuggle variety, and is great for bitters or other english-style ales.

Click to expand...

The more I think about it the more I think I'll just use all Willamette. After all, I started planning this beer to use the bulk of Willamette that I just purchased, and I've actually never used that variety before. Would be a good way to get to know the taste of the hop.

What hop schedule would you all recommend? I was thinking something like:

1.50 oz Williamette [5.50 %] (60 min) Hops 29.2 IBU
0.50 oz Williamette [5.50 %] (20 min) Hops 5.9 IBU
1.00 oz Williamette [5.50 %] (0 min) (Aroma Hop)

For a total of 35.1 IBUs.

Or maybe even 0.75/0.75 on the flavor/aroma.

Also, would you recommend 20 or 30 minutes on the flavor addition? For the aroma, add right at flameout or boil for a couple of minutes?

Looks good to me! I would go with the 0.75/0.75 for flavor/aroma...aroma is definitely lighter on bitters than with American pale ales.

I usually add aroma additions right at flameout these days. Otherwise, you're just boiling off aroma and getting a tiny bit of flavor.

I'd cut the Crystal 120 down to 4 oz, and replace the Nottingham with S-04. In my experience, Nottingham is far to clean for a tasty ESB.

-a.

See if you can get British Crystal malts, too. Makes a difference.

+1 on the Maris Otter

+1 on british crystal malts. I love 55L and 135L British crystal, I use these in most of my beers.

Cool, thanks guys. I haven't bought any grain yet (will tomorrow) so I'll check and see if the LHBS has British malt. Not sure if I mentioned it before, but this will be my first AG so I'm not too familiar with the grain varieties that my store carries.

This is Jamil's Zainescheff's ESB recipe. I used saaz and S-04 yeast. It is a fantastic beer. The british pale ale malt (i.e., Maris Otter) really makes a difference.

http://beerdujour.com/Recipes/Jamil/JamilsESB.htm

Well I went to the LHBS today and picked up all of my ingredients. They did have all of the UK malts so I went with those, and I also picked up a packet of S-04 based on the recommendations here.

Here's the final recipe I'll be using:

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 5.00 gal
Boil Size: 6.41 gal
Estimated OG: 1.057 SG
Estimated Color: 12.6 SRM
Estimated IBU: 37.3 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:

9 lbs Pale Malt, Maris Otter
1 lbs Victory Malt
12.0 oz UK Crystal Malt - 30-35L
4.0 oz UK Crystal Malt -150L
1.50 oz Williamette [5.50 %] (60 min)
0.75 oz Williamette [5.50 %] (20 min)
0.75 oz Williamette [5.50 %] (0 min)

1 Pkgs SafAle English Ale (DCL Yeast #S-04) Yeast-Ale


Mash Temp 152.0 F



Only thing that stinks is I couldn't find the UK Crystal malts in BeerSmith, nor could I find their specific properties to enter them in manually.

Looks like a nice bitter! Let us know how it turns out!

DeathBrewer said:

Looks like a nice bitter! Let us know how it turns out!

Click to expand...

Will do, thanks for the help!

I'd drink a ton of that, well, I'd tone down the victory, but looks tasty as hell.

I brewed this up on Saturday - went pretty well for my first all grain attempt.

I used Beersmith and my mash temp came out perfectly to 152 and the mash tun I made out of a 10 gallon cylindrical Rubbermaid cooler held the temp perfectly for an hour.

I guess my grain absorption wasn't as high as the default on Beersmith, because I ended up with an extra 2 quarts of wort after my sparge that wouldn't fit into my brew kettle. The gravity on that leftover sparge water/wort was 1.040 so it's perfect for starters - I just froze it for later use.

Because of the extra wort my gravity into the fermenter was a little low - 1.053 - but I'm still very pleased with the results.

Well I just bottled this one last night. 7 days in the primary then 10 days in the secondary. I didn't age as long as usual but it's a pretty mild beer so I went ahead. The hydrometer sample tasted great and it had a beautiful copper color.

My FG was 1.016 which I guess is about what I should expect with this grain bill/mash temp/S-04 yeast but I wish it would have gone a little lower. Maybe I'll mash a little lower next time.

Man the S-04 is the most flocculant yeast I've used so far - even more than Notty. There was a solid firm cake left in the primary and the rest of the yeast formed a small cake in the secondary as well. The end result was absolutely sparkling clear beer.

While brewing I noticed that my Willamette were only 4.9% AA instead of 5.5% so the IBUs dropped down to about 33. Next time I'll probably up the hops a little bit.

I can't wait to taste the final product!

Just wanted to update on this one - the beer tastes fantastic! My first all grain and 6th batch overall. Definitely my best to date.

Next time around I'll bump up the hops just a bit, mash a couple degrees lower, and maybe drop the Victory malt to about 12oz.

Sounds great all around. Love me some Willamette but haven't tried it in a bitter. Glad it turned out!

Congratulations on the first AG! I'm curious why you want to drop the Victory 25% in your next batch? I'm thinking in a future batch I might compliment Maris Otter with some toasted malt (like Victory). I've used Victory before, as well as Amber malt, but those were in beers with other specialty malts that its contribution was masked somewhat.

I was out of town for 3 weeks so this beer had a little time to age in between tastings. Man, it's improved even further!

Initially I wanted to drop the Victory malt down a bit to lessen the biscuit flavor but now I think it's perfect. When I brew this again I'll just add an extra 1/2 oz. of Willamette for bittering hops and I'll be all set.

Fantastic beer that will definitely become one of my house recipes. Thanks for all of the input along the way!

Thanks for the info. I'm going to use this info to try something similar tonight. I'm new to brewing (10 batches in) and want to know what each hop tastes like. I made an APA with only Cascade (love it) and next want to make something with only Willamette. Here's the extract recipe I'm planning on trying (of course, let me know if you have a suggestion):

3 gallon boil
5lbs Light DME
2.0oz Willamette pellets (4.7%) - 60 min
1.0oz Willamette pellets (4.7%) - 15 min
1.0oz Willamette pellets (4.7%) - flameout

I added a bit more hops since a) it's not a full boil and b) my goal is to gain an understanding of what Willamette tastes like for future recipes. And I changed the time to 15min and flameout since I do not have a wort chiller (yet).

Should I adjust more to meet my goal?