British Bitter. Add dry hops? Yes or No?

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

msmith92

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 10, 2012
Messages
272
Reaction score
2
Location
dayton
I brewed the NB british bitter extract kit.

It is only a 2 week in primary beer with no secondary.

I'm going to keg it.

It started out at 1.035 and is now at 1.08 (one week left).

I have some extra (.5 oz) chinook left from a batch I just did.

Would that work at all with this profile?

The hops on this recipe were Kent Golding.

I tasted a bit of the last gravity reading and it seems pretty mellow (expected) but I am wondering if I could improve a bit on the overall finish.

let me know your ideas. I can leave it alone too.

Thanks.
 
Leave it alone. Chinook would not ruin it, but it would change the beer.
 
I hope you mean it's at 1.008 FG - otherwise the gravity is more than double where it started out!:p

I also would not add Chinook, unless you want this to be the most unenglish bitter you've ever had. Get a nice English hop, and dry hopping a bit would be a very fine choice.
 
I hope you mean it's at 1.008 FG - otherwise the gravity is more than double where it started out!:p

I also would not add Chinook, unless you want this to be the most unenglish bitter you've ever had. Get a nice English hop, and dry hopping a bit would be a very fine choice.

In all honesty, even dry hopping is "un-english" unless it's an IPA
 
I'll admit I've never been to England since I've come of drinking age, but I've always understood it's fairly common to dry hop a bitter in the cask. Maybe someone with first hand experience can chime in?
 
GuldTuborg said:
I'll admit I've never been to England since I've come of drinking age, but I've always understood it's fairly common to dry hop a bitter in the cask. Maybe someone with first hand experience can chime in?

Ok. So this raises a good question.

Ill get a different hop to use if this makes sense.

Ps...1.008

My bad ;)
 
Dry-hopping in the cask is very common among British breweries. It's one of the reasons cask ale is better than the same beer from a bottle (other reasons being freshness and the living yeast in there).

It's also becoming more and more common to use American hops over here, but generally in American-style pale ales rather than bitters.

I'd vote for dry-hopping with English hops like fuggles, goldings, bramling cross, first gold, etc, but not chinook. If you think it'll work then go for it, but I'd save the chinook for something more generally associated with those piney flavours, and where you can take advantage of the high alpha acids.
 
I don't claim to be an expert, here, but I've been trying to close in on that cask-conditioned English bitter experience with my bottled bitters, and I find that a very moderate dry hopping with traditional English-style hops really helps. I keep it under 1/2 oz., and I don't exceed 7 days. I like the results, and making use of particular yeasts and fermenting techniques, I think my results are getting increasingly consistent with the bitters that really blew me away when I spent time over there. Much closer than anything I can find in commercially bottled stuff stateside. Just my 2 p.
 
I think I'll add 1/2 oz. of goldings for a few days.

Thanks for the replies.

This beer is only supposed to be in primary for 2 weeks with no secondary.

However...I notice that the British Ale II yeast is pretty weird (flocculant) and it is just hanging on the top and seems "glue-like."

I'm thinking I may need to do a secondary? or do you think that when I add it to the bottling bucket I'll be ok..or gelatin?
 
I did Jami's Od Bitter and did two versions, dry hopped and regular. I entered them both in a comp, and maybe I over dry hopped but the original one won gold in english pale and the dry hopped one scored in the low thirties.

That said, I preferred the dry hopped one. :cross:
 
I did Jami's Od Bitter and did two versions, dry hopped and regular. I entered them both in a comp, and maybe I over dry hopped but the original one won gold in english pale and the dry hopped one scored in the low thirties.

That said, I preferred the dry hopped one. :cross:

i'm thinking 1/2 oz goldings for 1-2 days.
 
I think I'll add 1/2 oz. of goldings for a few days.

Thanks for the replies.

This beer is only supposed to be in primary for 2 weeks with no secondary.

However...I notice that the British Ale II yeast is pretty weird (flocculant) and it is just hanging on the top and seems "glue-like."

I'm thinking I may need to do a secondary? or do you think that when I add it to the bottling bucket I'll be ok..or gelatin?

Let it ride until the kraeusen drops. I have an ESB with WLP022 that is going on 3 weeks and the kraeusen has not yet dropped.
 
The krausen is more like little islands than an overall covering.

I'm thinking a little shake of the carboy might sink them.
 
Back
Top