Not going for historically oriented bitter but more bjcp compliant.
Imagine if I came along wanting advice on a paella recipe, but said I wasn't interested in how it was made historically in Valencia, I just wanted it to be compliant with the German Food Judges Association idea of paella. Wouldn't you say that was a strange way to do things?
Bitter isn't something that's a historical document, or a set of guidelines - it's a living thing, that people like me drink every week. As it happens, the 2015 BJCP guidelines aren't bad (whereas the 2008 ones were pretty hopeless for British beer) - although personally I'd split bitter into Thames Valley, Manchester and Yorkshire subdivisions at the very least - the current guidelines don't really give a good idea of those regional variations.
90% Maris Otter
7% Crystal T50
3% Amber malt
for an og of 1.039
As someone who's drunk bitter all my life, I'd aim for 4.2% - I know that's sneaking into Best territory but it makes a big difference over 3.8% in my opinion. It's not just the alcohol, it's that extra bit of dextrins and whatever, that just balance the mouthfeel up.
Following on from the above comments, 7% is the upper limit for crystal in bitters - and that much is very specific to the Thames Valley style. Most bitter has less or none. To stretch the analogy a bit further, it's like how the rest of the world think that all Spaniards eat paella de marisco, because that's the dish local to the tourist areas. The high-crystal version of bitter is pretty specific to the area between London, Oxford and Stonehenge - but that's where the tourists go in Britain.
I know I'm a bit biased as I grew up on Boddington's, which is the archetypal zero-crystal beer (if you believe the story that 1318 is from Boddies, then you should be using 1318 on a pale malt/Goldings SMaSH with perhaps a bit of invert). But to take some other examples from history :
1917 Kidd BB is just 79%/21% pale/sugar
1937 Greene King IPA is 77%/11%/6%/3%/3% pale/sugar/maize/diastatic/crystal
1956 Sheps PA is 99%/1% pale/sugar
1956 Sheps SXX is 98%/2% pale/sugar
1958 Whitbread IPA is 85%/11%/4% pale/sugar/crystal
1960s Watney Red Barrel is 89%/5.5%/4.5%/1% pale/sugars/crystal/enzymic (that link has a couple more examples)
I'm not trying to get you to brew exactly those beers, but Kristen England, who helps Ron to convert his historical recipes to homebrew form, worked for BJCP and played a big part in rewriting the guidelines. So I think it's safe to say that this is close to the horse's mouth. But note that there was always at least as much sugar as crystal, and I think that's a pretty good rule to follow if you want to get the balance right. Your body comes from the lovely English malt, kilned the English way - let the Otter do the talking.
There's a reasonable argument to say that bitter has changed a bit since then - crystal did become more popular, particularly inn southern England, after WWII, but has become less popular in the last 10 years as "bitter" has increasingly meant "golden ale", particularly when <4%. But generally brewers seem to be using less of it. Also the use of adjuncts has reduced since the 1990s, partly thanks to pressure from CAMRA even though you could argue they're a key part of the taste of British beer. And hopping rates have increased somewhat.
Oh, and I don't think I've ever seen a bitter recipe with amber malt. You get the dryness from adjuncts and sulphate.
5% torrified wheat if you want a Northern head.
28.5ibu of Loral @ FWH 60 min
15Gr of EKG at Flame out
5Gr of Loral Flame out
The BU:GU ratio is pretty key to getting a bitter right. Since my tastes are more northern, I like it at about 0.9, whereas southerners might go down to 0.7, but not much below that.
You can probably be a bit more generous with the copper hops - and add some before flame out. And some as dry hops. If you look at Ron's historical recipes then you're probably looking at something like 20-30g of bittering hops, and 25-40g of copper/dry hops. Bearing in mind that commercial beers have become a bit hoppier, and I like things on the hoppy side, I generally just throw a 100g pack into a 19l batch across bittering/copper/dry. That Kidd beer had more than that, so it's not outside what was done historically and it certainly doesn't taste out of place compared to modern commercial bitters.
I've not used Loral but it sounds fine. But I do love Goldings! Goldings with 20-30% Bramling Cross is even better...
For the water I was thinking of for the first trying to go toward sulfate but for a small beer like this Iam afraid of drying out totally.
Your BJCP guidelines explicitly say you should have "a dry finish" - and that's true. Don't be afraid of the dryness, use sugar and sulphate to get there. Non-Brits tend to under-mineralise their beers - remember that Burton well water is 800-1000ppm sulphate, and I'd certainly regard 200-250ppm SO4 as a minimum for a proper brown bitter.
