Ordinary Bitter Two Kids Brewing Incredulous (Engish Ordinary Bitter)

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daksin

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HBT Supporter
Joined
Aug 29, 2011
Messages
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Location
San Diego
Recipe Type
All Grain
Yeast
WLP002
Yeast Starter
Small, if your yeast isn\\'t fresh.
Batch Size (Gallons)
5
Original Gravity
1.037
Final Gravity
1.008-1.010
Boiling Time (Minutes)
60
IBU
24
Color
5 SRM
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp)
4
Tasting Notes
Dry, but extremely flavorful. Bready and smooth with a tangy finish.
This recipe is for 80% efficiency, which is what I get on my equipment.

5.5 lbs Maris Otter
1/2 lb English medium crystal
1/4 lb Special roast

1oz Whitbread Goldings Variety (WGV) 60m to bitter (looking for ~25 IBU)
1/2oz WGV 20m
1/2oz WGV Flameout

Mash at 156 or higher to prevent this beer from drying out too much. You could also go up on the crystal to a pound for a sweeter beer.

This is my house ale and I try to have it on tap all the time. It's nice to be able to have 5 or 6 pints of something and still be able to carry on a conversation.
 
A small update- this beer is awesome if you cut the Maris with some 2-row (50/50). I also like to mash hot and fast- 160F for 30 minutes does it for me. Maintains plenty of body and enough residual sweetness to deal with the bitterness. I've also moved all the aroma hops to one 5m addition, but you could go without them entirely if you want.
 
What yeast are you using?

WLP002, but I would love to get my hands on some WLP025. If someone has a slant of it somewhere I would trade lots of beer!
I have also done this with S-04 but it gets pretty dry. I've been playing around with this recipe a lot lately. I love to mess with this beer.
 
Hey all
We're pretty new to brewing (1st brew just bottled and 2nd brew put away to ferment on Sunday) so please excuse the ignorance.
The grain bill here says 4 days primary fermentation - does this mean it spends only 4 days in the carboy? Cheers!
 
Hey all
We're pretty new to brewing (1st brew just bottled and 2nd brew put away to ferment on Sunday) so please excuse the ignorance.
The grain bill here says 4 days primary fermentation - does this mean it spends only 4 days in the carboy? Cheers!

Sorry- been away for a bit! The beer is pretty low gravity, plus WLP002 ferments pretty fast, and my fermentation control game is strong. I have definitely brewed this beer Sunday and served it Friday before- any leftover yeast drops out in the keg. However, you'd be absoutely fine letting it go for two weeks before packaging if you've never brewed it before. Just make sure you taste it first- as long as it tastes good it's ready to go!
 
Thanks!
As we're still new to the game we don't have a kegging or casking set-up yet. Does this one work at all in bottles?
If you think it might, how much priming sugar would you recommend to get the right carbonation
 
I'm sure this beer would be great in bottles! Nice looking recipe.

I'd recommend using an online priming sugar calculator to get it carbonated to around 2 volumes, but daskin might have a different carbonation level he would recommend.
 
I'm sure this beer would be great in bottles! Nice looking recipe.

I'd recommend using an online priming sugar calculator to get it carbonated to around 2 volumes, but daskin might have a different carbonation level he would recommend.

Excellent. Brewing tonight! Will report back once she gets going.
 
Brewed last night - the wort tasted great.
Made a potentially critical error when shopping on Saturday - didn't do enough research... The shopkeep thought crystal 40 would make a decent 'English Med Crystal' - but further looking shows it should've been 60-70. I had some 85 and some 30 kicking around so I did half of each - we'll see what happens!

Question regarding bottle priming. Since we're going for such a low volume - how long d'you reckon it'll take to get to drinkable? The typical 2 weeks - or less?
 
So, I'm of the opinion that unless you're going to be serving this beer from cask, you'll probably just want to go with a standard carbonation. 2 volumes is going to seem nearly flat to most people. You could hedge it a little bit and shoot for 2.3-2.4 if you wanted, but bottled bitters tend to be as carbonated as other beers. My house is very warm and bottles typically carb up in about a week- if you're in the 70s indoors, that should be all you need.
 
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