English Best Bitter Recipe Development

Yeah I screwed up the measurements but eventually ended up mashing at the equivelant of 1.25qt/lb and it worked fine

My smack pack of wyeast 1275 didn't swell in 3 hours so I pitched it anyway. It took 2 days to start but is now fermenting fine. It smells extremely strongly of sweet black current cordial (ribena for you uk people!) is that normal?

Unfortunately I totally ruined this brew - I'll be re-doing it on 22nd January, and will be spending now until then preparing for it. I've got a new better bottle style fermenter and will make sure that this time I start the brew day early so that I can take my time and get it right.

What went wrong ? Infection ?

This is a pretty neat thread... some nice ideas. I always use all EKG in my bitters with a MO base and about 5 or 6% crystal 60L

I have been messing with mash temps, but not thickness.. I will experiment with that next.

Yeah infection and far too high fermentation temps. Hat an argument with my girlfriend while chilling the beer and ended up just transferring and pitching far too soon. Still, Alls good now and I'm hoping to repeat the brew in a week. First though I must work out the best place to keep the fermenter

I repeated this brewday and ended up with a really great beer, pretty much spot on what I was looking for!

onelegout said:

I repeated this brewday and ended up with a really great beer, pretty much spot on what I was looking for!

Click to expand...

What recipe/process did you wind up rolling with?

3250g MO Pale malt
200g Crystal 80L malt
70g Crystal 120l malt
50g Chocolate malt

20g EKG 6.8%, 60 mins
40g EKG 6.8%, 15 mins
protofloc @ 15 mins

Wyeast 1968 London ESB yeast

1 week primary @ 18c

1 month in cornelius keg @ 12c

Turned out really nice, lots of fruityness and caramel, would have liked more toast/roasted/biscuit flavours but other than that it was spot on.

I know this is a bit of an old thread, but did you ever try the recipe again with the 1275 yeast? I was wondering which you liked best.

Discovered this gem of an old thread. Checking in to see if any of the posters are still around, still making best bitters, lessons learned, last yeast standing, etc. Do share if you can.

Some bitters use invert sugar such as Lyle’s Golden Syrup or you can find info how to make invert sugar at home.

You can’t go wrong with Maris Otter or Golden Promise as a base malt. About 5% Crystal malt, as noted in previous posts. Or some recipes call for amber malt. Though its not traditional, I also like to use a little character malt such as Victory malt, light Munich, Biscuit or Aromatic malt. Maybe 2 or 3 %.

Traditional bittering hop choices are Northdown (one of my favorites), Challenger, Target. Kent Goldings is great to use for any or all additions. Fuggle is softer, best for late additions. I discovered First Gold and that is now about my favorite hop for these styles. The last couple I made were all First Gold.

Far as yeast, the 1275 comes off as too clean or neutral for me. I’ve made ribbon Mild Ales with it. Not so much bitter. To me, it’s almost the same as 1056 American Ale yeast. (I’m a Wyeast guy.) I have had great results with 1968. There is a 1768 Cask Ale but I think its a limited release and I have not used it. The other London yeast is 1028, which has too high of an alc tolerance for me for bitter and its better suited to stronger and darker ales like porter. People rave about the 1469, supposedly Timothy Taylor but not really. I’ve not had good luck with that one either. Maybe because I’m not fermenting in a Burton Union system. 1318 is sometimes reported as Boddington’s yeast. I’ve had ok results with that. White Labs has 2 or 3 strains I’d like to try like the WLP025, WLP026 but they are vault strains and the vault never seems to open. “Only 113 more orders til your yeast ships.”