Fuggles English Bitter

I've got a Magic Hat clone in the fermenter now and I want to brew something to pitch on the Safale 04 yeast cake. I also purchased a pound of fuggles and was thinking that its Bitter time... heres my thought, I'm maybe looking for a good steeping grain to go with

Extract Recipe:

6lbs DME
2oz fuggles at 60min
1pz fuggles at 15min
Safale 04 yest cake

some kind of crystal steeped.. not sure

sugestions?

I would steep some crystal 60 and some victory/biscuit personally. In my bitters I love to have some biscuity flavours. I haven't done an all fuggles bitter yet (I love EKG personally), I'll have to give one a try.

Crystal 60 and a little black patent

i'd go with some crystal and a small amount of chocolate malt. have you tried orfy's hob goblin? i brewed something similar earlier this month. i ended up too light on the hops, but it tastes great. i used only fuggles.

So, I went ahead and brewed this this weekend...... a learning experiance indeed!!

Heres the recpie.. i bet you can guess the results


3lbs Light DME
3lbs Amber DME Late Addition
.5lbs Crystal 60L Steeped
.5lbs Black Patent Steeped
1oz fuggles @ 60min
.5oz Fuggles @ 15min
Pitched over Safale 04 Yeast Cake

The good:
This smelled amazing brewing
Active Fermentation in less than 2 hours
ITS BEER!!

The not-as-good-but-I-wont-say-its-bad:
This beer is DARK!
This beer is SWEET


I wasn't prepared for the darkness of the black patent, doesn't bother me though!! I am concerned about the lack of balance that this ended up having. We will see where it goes.
Qbrew and the recpitator sugest a SG of around 1.057-1.060max. I ended up with a SG of 1.069, so I'm curious as to where this is gonna end up.
I also got impaitent on cooling (was cooling outdoors in the sub-zero snow) and racked over the yeast cake at just under 100 degrees. This didn't seem to make much a difference except I could smell bananna last night in the brew room. That smell was gone this morning.

Whatever I made, its beer, and it will be consumed, but I am deffinatly curious as to where this one ends up.

What you've got is closer to an underhopped robust porter than any kind of bitter.

Unless you got something less than 5 gallons in your fermenter, it's unlikely that your OG was as high as 1.069. Just not enough sugars in the grain bill for that.

I'm getting around 20-25 IBUs (don't know the AA% of your hops), which will make this a pretty sweet-tasting beer. A half-pound of black patent is a fairly large amount...it might take some time for this beer to mellow. It's probably gonna start with a pretty harsh, ashy roastiness to it.

The banana smells you noticed are going to come across as fruitiness (or worse) in the finished product. You may get some harsh fusel alcohols from the high ferment temps. Time will tell.

Good luck, and let us know how it turns out.

Looks like you made a stout. It will still taste good though.

Black Patent does not belong in a bitter, and certainly not a half pound! The only time I use Black Patent is in my stout and even then it is just a few ounces.

I'm sure the beer will still be good but expect a roasted character for quite some time. Next time, skip the black patent and just steep the crystal.

Yea, live and learn.


I'm not sure I'm going to get much in the way of fusels since its fermenting closer to 60-65 degrees and the temp droped quickly after I racked over the yeast cake. The high temp caused those banana smells at first, but as I said they are gone now.

Fortunatly, I wasn't looking to make a bitter as much as looking for an excuse to pitch on the yeast cake and use some fuggles. I guess I could try the hop-tea method of adding some bitterness, or just let it sit and enjoy whatever comes out.

MrShake said:

...Fortunatly, I wasn't looking to make a bitter as much as looking for an excuse to pitch on the yeast cake and use some fuggles. I guess I could try the hop-tea method of adding some bitterness, or just let it sit and enjoy whatever comes out.

Click to expand...

Just enjoy it for what it is. If you like it except for the bitterness you can always make it again and raise the bittering additions a bit. With 0.5lbs of patent you'll definitely want to let it age for a few months I think though - it will probably be pretty acrid for a while.

Well... I took a very newbie step and decided to mess with it. I realised that I never put in the extra gallon of water I intended to to make up for boil-off, so I had less than 5 gal in the fermenter.

SOOO

I boiled up about half a gallon of water on the stove. Added about an ounce and a half of leaf fuggles (just barley fit in the pot) and boiled for about 30 min gently, cooled and added to the fermenter. That should bring the bitterness up a bit and make the gravity a little closer to the expected for this recipe!

I know, I know RDWHAHB, but still, I did it.