ESB Critique

I'm looking to brew this soon (tomorrow). I haven't really done many of my own recipes. This one is basically a hybrid of several other recipes I've seen.

4 lb Light DME
2 lb British 2-row
1 lb Flaked Barley
1 lb British Crystal 60L

Mash grains at 152 for 60 min

60 min 1.5 oz No. Brewer 8.9%
20 min .5 oz First Gold 8.0%
5 min .5 oz First Gold 8.0%

46.1 IBU
10 deg SRM
1.055 est OG

Pitch on US-04 cake from mild ale.

Whaddaya think?

I'd drop the FB a bit and add a tiny bit of chocolate malt for some extra color. You could probably drop the flaked barley all together. It's not really a big ingredient for this style. No more than 1/4lb of chocolate malt if you do it.

Just a personal opinion, but I don't agree with the addition of chocolate malt, not even for colour. The style can be light golden, and the flavour of chocolate malt does not belong in this beer (Just my take)

I would think of adding 1/2# of biscuit malt and moving the 20 min hop addition to 60 mins. The "bitter" in bitter is usually acheived with bittering hops.

Mash at 154F for a richer malt base.

I agree that maybe you could drop the flaked barley, and maybe replace that with 1/2 pound of demerara or dark brown sugar to add some colour if desired.

I'd swap a pound of pale malt for the flaked barley and call it a day. Dunno what you were after there. Matter of fact, toast that pound of pale malt in your oven before mashing. Nice biscuit flavor without the extra expense (and/or trip to LHBS).

There are all manner of methods to toast pale malt. I like to spread the malt thinly on a cookie sheet, then toast at 350F until the corns start to snap like popcorn. If you break a couple of corns open and the starch has a nice parchment color - not tan, not brown, but not stark white like untoasted malt - you're good to go. Then mill and off to the mash tun.

A full pound of 60L Crystal in 5 gallons will give you a very nice copper color. No need to add dark malts to impact color. Though I do find that one ounce or so of Roasted Barley in five gallons lends an excellent copper/amber color and no flavor at all. Useful to know if you've a recipe where you don't want the body and flavor contribution of Crystal malt but still want a nice reddish color.

I have no beef with your hops schedule. I think you're plenty bitter for that gravity and I like the flavor of First Gold.

Go forth and conquer!

Bob

A. Read my sig
B. Read Bob's post. he's a proper brewer.

I use Crystal 120L for colouring my ESB, adds a little bit of the toffee flavour too, which I like. I would also gree that you should avoid chocolate in this style. If you're adding the flaked barely for some body, I'd not use more than a 1/2# of it for this recipe, though I'm not sure you'll need it at all, just mash the grains you have a little higher, about 155, and you'll get more body to the beer.

Laughing_Gnome_Invisible said:

A. Read my sig
B. Read Bob's post. he's a proper brewer.

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Oh, now, stop.

Being the ex-pat you are, you filthy Limey, you have as much a say as anyone on English styles. As a brewer, you have as much say as anyone else on any style.



Bob

Thanks for the help. The LHBS was out of flaked barley anyway, so I'll definitely be leaving it out. This drops my OG by .004 per beer calculus.

The recipe is more or less a cobbled together version of some simple ESB recipes I saw in different places. I saw flaked barley in several others so I included. The LHBS guy said it wouldn't add much sugar at all to the mix, and is mostly going to increase the body a little. I'll probably bump the mash temp to 154-155 or so as suggested to help with that loss.

The grains are already cracked now, so I can't do any toasting. (Or can I?) Other than the pale malt got replaced with maris otter. We shall see how it goes.

If the pale malt was replaced with Maris Otter, never mind. MO has a nice crackery, biscuity flavor all its own.

Bob

Yep, I always use MO for my English styles... mmmmmmmmm

Laughing_Gnome_Invisible said:

Just a personal opinion, but I don't agree with the addition of chocolate malt, not even for colour. The style can be light golden, and the flavour of chocolate malt does not belong in this beer (Just my take)

I would think of adding 1/2# of biscuit malt and moving the 20 min hop addition to 60 mins. The "bitter" in bitter is usually acheived with bittering hops.

Mash at 154F for a richer malt base.

I agree that maybe you could drop the flaked barley, and maybe replace that with 1/2 pound of demerara or dark brown sugar to add some colour if desired.

Click to expand...

I agree with you that chocolate has no place in this beer...for flavor. My house ESB has less than 2% chocolate malt in the grist. It's not really enough to be noticeable in the beer, unless you have excellent taste buds. I can't notice it anyways. I hit around 15 SRM with my color, so it's perfect IMO. As I said, the color is the only reason I add it.

Suthrncomfrt1884 said:

I agree with you that chocolate has no place in this beer...for flavor. My house ESB has less than 2% chocolate malt in the grist. It's not really enough to be noticeable in the beer, unless you have excellent taste buds. I can't notice it anyways. I hit around 15 SRM with my color, so it's perfect IMO. As I said, the color is the only reason I add it.

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If color is the only reason, why not use carafaII or something, that stuff adds color without any flavor at all. no roasty, etc.

Freezeblade said:

If color is the only reason, why not use carafaII or something, that stuff adds color without any flavor at all. no roasty, etc.

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Good idea. I actually never concidered it. I don't think my LHBS carries it, but I might order a pound for the next time I brew my ESB. I have one going into a keg tomorrow, so it won't be anytime soon, but it's worth a shot.

Roasted barley - yes, the same stuff that makes Stout Stout - performs the same function. In the quantities used to get color, flavor isn't an issue. And it has the fortunate circumstance of being available virtually everywhere. See my post up the thread.

Bob