ESB recipe critique

Ive come to love English pale ales during the past few months and I'm looking to brew my second attempt at the style tomorrow. The proposed recipe is an ESB. Any input from those of you who have brewed the style would be greatly appreciated.

5.5gal
OG 1.054
35 IBU

9lbs Maris Otter
10oz Simpsons Dark Crystal 75L
8oz Amber Malt
0.5oz Magnum (16%aa) @ 60 min
0.5oz Bramling Cross (4.76%aa) @ 10 min
0.5oz EKG (5%aa) @ 10 min
0.5oz Bramling Cross (4.76%aa) @ 5 min
0.5oz EKG (5%aa) @ 5 min
2L Starter of White Labs 002

Any standout errors in my recipe?

I don't see any problems with your recipe. What temperature do you plan on mashing at?

I recently tried a take on an ESB and was not pleased with my results. I'll throw out some things I noticed just to see what others think and to see if I can help tinker your recipe a bit.

The recipe I had was:
10 lbs Maris Otter
1 lb Caramel 80L
1 lb Caramel 20L

mashed at 154 F 60 mins

hops were Cluster, EKG, Sterling and came out to roughly ~50 IBUs

I used WLP002 as well. I noticed a lack of malt character when I compared my ESB to commercial examples, especially those traditional examples from the UK such as Fuller's. I over-hopped mine and it lacked the characteristic sweet, doughy, biscuit presence. I dont know if the Amber malt addition will supply enough of that character, but just something I wanted to point out.

Your lower IBU will likely lend more way for the malt sweetness to shine through. Why such a big starter though? I am under the impression that the larger your yeast pitch rate, the less yeast character comes through in the final product. Just some thoughts, hope it helps.

I like to use victory malt for mine because it sounds cool and fits the style.

Personally I would move the 5 minute additions to 1 minute or knockout.

A judicious amount of Victory or home toasted 2-row (I like @350*F for 15 mins to get "amber" by the Mosher description of things) is never a bad thing for English pale ales.

Thoughts on Briess Special Roast in an ESB recipe?

I've never used Magnum in a bitter, might be a little too nuetral IMHO.I'd use an oz. of challenger or maybe 2oz. of EKG @ 60 min addition

During the Fullers "can you brew it" episode, the interviewer was shocked at how much hop power was in the ESB. Apparently a lot of that sweet, biscuity character is from oxidation and warm storage on the boat trip to the states. So if you're beer is sharper but fairly close you may have hit it dead on...just gotta let it sit a while and age. You could also be over attenuating.

Also, I believe Fullers uses EKG, target, and challenger - and they brew it partygyle style with London Pride to make things consistent (read: unnecessarily complicated)

http://thebrewingnetwork.com/shows/632

FYI - he whiffs on the first clone - iTunes has the "Fullers rebrews" where he nail the flavor. Apparently the crazy fermentation temps plus the partygyle make a world of difference.

KraphtBier said:

Ive come to love English pale ales during the past few months and I'm looking to brew my second attempt at the style tomorrow. The proposed recipe is an ESB. Any input from those of you who have brewed the style would be greatly appreciated.

5.5gal
OG 1.054
35 IBU

9lbs Maris Otter
10oz Simpsons Dark Crystal 75L
8oz Amber Malt
0.5oz Magnum (16%aa) @ 60 min
0.5oz Bramling Cross (4.76%aa) @ 10 min
0.5oz EKG (5%aa) @ 10 min
0.5oz Bramling Cross (4.76%aa) @ 5 min
0.5oz EKG (5%aa) @ 5 min
2L Starter of White Labs 002

Any standout errors in my recipe?

Click to expand...

Looks OK, however, your hop schedule is overly complicated IMO. I tried all sorts of hop schedules over the years for bitters and when I finally went with the traditional English schedule of a 90 minute boil combined with two hop additions, one @ 90 min and one late (15-5 minutes) the beers suddenly seemed to fall into place.

Possibly sub Colombus for magnum as the bittering hop? I have some on hand I could use. Also if I pushed the 5 min addition to flameout I drop the BU:GU ratio closer to .59 I'm thinking this is a bit low for the style. Thoughts?

I plan on mashing around 152-153

brewguyver said:

Also, I believe Fullers uses EKG, target, and challenger - and they brew it partygyle style with London Pride to make things consistent (read: unnecessarily complicated)

Click to expand...

Currently they use Goldings, Northdown and Challenger.

ESB isn't just parti-gyled with London Pride. They parti-gyle just about every combination of Chiswick Bitter, ESB, Export ESB, London Pride, Export London Pride and Golden Pride.

The last time I had Fullers (a week or 2 ago), it definitely tasted like special roast. I would say that if you aren't using a very dark caramel malt or special roast then you aren't going to end up near Fullers ESB, maybe a hint of chocolate too. Of course Fullers is not the only extra strong/special bitter on the market.

Pivovar_Koucky said:

The last time I had Fullers (a week or 2 ago), it definitely tasted like special roast. I would say that if you aren't using a very dark caramel malt or special roast then you aren't going to end up near Fullers ESB, maybe a hint of chocolate too. Of course Fullers is not the only extra strong/special bitter on the market.

Click to expand...

The grist of ESB is Tipple pale malt, crystal malt and chocolate malt.

how about a 20 minute addition instead of 15, that way you get the flavour fully coming through AND you get the aroma from the later addition

Brew day was postponed due to weather and equipment issues so I still haven't gotten around to this one. I have done some reading and tasting this week and as a result the recipe has been altered a bit. I'm adding a touch of english chocolate malt for color and complexity. I'm also planning on boiling for 90 minutes as this seems to be the way english beers are traditionally done. I'm not trying to clone Fullers, I'm really more interested in building a solid ESB recipe.

Brewed today. Got 83% efficiency and ended up with an og of 1.059. Final recipe was:

9lbs Maris Otter
10oz C75
8oz Amber Malt
2oz English Chocolate

0.5oz Warrior @ 75
0.5oz EKG and 0.5oz Bramling Cross @ 10
0.5oz EKG and 0.5oz Bramling Cross @ Knockout

Wort tasted and smelled awesome, can't wait to taste the finished product.