ESB I'm Brewing Sunday

Here's a recipe for an ESB I threw together to brew Sunday. Let's hear what you think. I'm aiming for a sort of simple traditional ale. The CaraHell is in there because the LHBS didn't have Cara-Pils.

5.5 gal batch

10 lbs. UK pale ale malt
1 lb. UK Light Crystal (~50-65L)
0.5 lb. CaraHell
0.25 UK Dark Crystal (~135-165L)

I have 1 oz. Fuggles (4.0%AA) 1 oz. EKG (5.4%AA) and about 0.5 oz. Willamette (5.0%AA). I was thinking about mixing them up for additions at 60, 20 and flame out to give me about 30 IBU.

OG should be 1.057
IBU ~30
SRM 12.7

Fermenting with S-04

How's that sound?

I'd drink it. Sounds good.

I'm thinking 1.75#'s of Crystal is a little much but YMMV... How 'bout a little Biscuit or Aromatic?

Poobah58 said:

I'm thinking 1.75#'s of Crystal is a little much but YMMV... How 'bout a little Biscuit or Aromatic?

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I was thinking about adding some biscuit malt but the lhbs didn't have any. While I agree it does seem like a lot of crystal malts, it's only 15% of the grain bill, which I think is acceptable. Do you think the crystal character is going to be overbearing?

Unfortunately, yes. CaraHell is not a direct replacement for CaraPils, as CaraHell adds a discernible crystal-malt character. I'd omit both the CaraHell and the dark Crystal. I don't like more than 10% crystal malt in bitter of any type. I prefer the Fuller's version, which has about 10% 55L Crystal and 10% flaked maize. You can bitter it with whatever you like (except varieties with a strong residual flavor, of course), so long as you finish it with EKG.

It's certainly drinkable as written! I'm just uncertain about the crystal; I fear it might be cloying.

Bob

Hmm, the last thing I like my beer to be is cloying. I'd really like to keep the dark crystal in for the flavors and color it brings. The two options I guess I'm considering now are dropping the light crystal to 0.5 lb and leaving the dark crystal and carahell as is, or dropping the light crystal to 0.75 lb, leaving the dark crystal as is, and eliminating the carahell. Which of those options sounds best?

The latter, IMO. If you're after the color and flavor contributions of the dark crystal, dropping the CaraHell makes the most sense.

Cheers,

Bob

I would use 0.50 lbs of UK Light crystal and 0.25 lbs UK Dark Crystal. I think that you need a touch of those darker crystal flavors in a bitter.

I agree with Bob, but be careful with the dark crystal. I've found it to be very variable. Sometimes it has just a caramel flavor, but other times it has a strong roasted barley flavor which really doesn't go well in an ESB.

-a.

BobNQ3X said:

Unfortunately, yes. CaraHell is not a direct replacement for CaraPils, as CaraHell adds a discernible crystal-malt character. I'd omit both the CaraHell and the dark Crystal. I don't like more than 10% crystal malt in bitter of any type. I prefer the Fuller's version, which has about 10% 55L Crystal and 10% flaked maize. You can bitter it with whatever you like (except varieties with a strong residual flavor, of course), so long as you finish it with EKG.

It's certainly drinkable as written! I'm just uncertain about the crystal; I fear it might be cloying.

Bob

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I agree with this. I've recently brewed two recipes (an Amber and a stout) with 16% Crystal (60L in my case) and it is about on the border of undrinkably cloying for me. I'll never go that high again.

ok im convinced. i'm gonna go with 0.75 lbs light crystal and 0.25 lbs dark crystal. hopefully its the good dark crystal and not the roasted-tasting stuff. although that might give it a bit of an irish red taste. the dark crystal smells really good anyway. that should give me 9.1% crystal. hopefully that won't be overwhelming. i doubt it will since that seems to be a pretty popular amount for a lot of esb recipes. ive gotta figure out something to do with that carahell now though! and the rest of the crystal malts. i don't have a crusher so i had them crushed at the lhbs and i hate keeping crushed grain for much more than a week.

your crushed grains will be good for many months if you can seal them up and keep them out of the humidity and heat. I've used sealed crushed grains several months old with no problems at all.

I brewed this last Sunday. Everything went well, had 80% efficiency and pitched a packet of s-04. Fermentation is about done and the krausen is falling. The only thing is, that s-04 is making some weird smells. Is that a characteristic of the yeast? It's my first time using it.

Depends on what you call "weird". All yeasts can have funky aromas during primary. Is it something way off?

Bob

I'm not sure I could adequately describe the smell it was making, almost like the garbage can when you forget to take it out for a few days. Regardless, it is back to smelling like beer now. I moved the carboy yesterday to make room for the hefeweizen and that must have roused some yeast because it's started fermenting rather vigorously again. I'll take a gravity reading today to see where it is.

The gravity sample for this beer tasted awesome! I can only imagine what some aging and carbonation will do to it. I think I'm going to take it straight to bottle after 3 weeks of primary.

a big S-04 smell from what ive read is Bubblegum smell. I personally havent smelled nothing off in my 3 times of using it.