Feedback on English Best Bitter Recipe

[jmark]

Looking for feedback on a recipe I'm concocting. Basically looking to for a solid easy-drinking English Best/Special Bitter with good malt character, a mild floral/spicy hop aroma and finishing around 1.013-1.014 for ~4.2-4.3% ABV. BTW, the chocolate malt in the bill is simply for color adjustment and will likely just get added near the end of the mash.

Thanks in advance!


Style: Best Bitter
TYPE: All Grain

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 7.3952 gal
Post Boil Volume: 5.8552 gal
Batch Size (fermenter): 5.5000 gal
Bottling Volume: 5.0000 gal
Estimated OG: 1.046 SG
Estimated Color: 13.0 SRM
Estimated IBU: 30.7 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 79.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 80.9 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
7.00 lb Gleneagles Maris Otter (3.5 SRM)
1.00 lb Crystal, Medium (Simpsons) (55.0 SRM)
8.00 oz Corn - Yellow, Flaked (Briess) (1.3 SRM)
2.00 oz Chocolate Dark 6-Row (Briess) (420.0 SRM)
0.75 oz Challenger [8.20 %] - Boil 60.0 min (23.6 IBUs)
0.50 oz Goldings, East Kent [4.10 %] - Boil 15 min (3.9 IBUs)
0.50 oz Goldings, East Kent [4.10 %] - Boil 5 min (1.6 IBUs)
0.25 oz Challenger [8.20 %] - Boil 5.0 min (1.6 IBUs)
1.0 pkg West Yorkshire Ale (Wyeast Labs #1469) Yeast

Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Medium Body
Total Grain Weight: 8 lbs 10.0 oz
----------------------------
Name Description Step Temperature Step Time
Mash In Add 11.2125 qt of water at 163 152.0 F 60 min
Mash Out Heat to 168.0 F over 20 min 168.0 F 10 min

Sparge: Fly sparge with 5.7571 gal water at 168.0 F

 

[lumpher]

Other than the corn, I think that looks good. Why are you putting corn in a Bitter?

 

[JKaranka]

Other than the corn, I think that looks good. Why are you putting corn in a Bitter?

Corn (flaked maize) as well as invert sugar syrups are typical of bitters.

The only two things I'd change is to maybe add the finishing hops a bit earlier (10-20m mark) for a bit more flavour and less aroma. You could compensate by adding a weeny 1/2oz dry hop. Also, I'd reduce the crystal malt to closer to 5% of the grist and compensate the colour by using patent malt rather than chocolate malt.

Looks fairly decent. You might struggle a bit to keep the FG that high.

 

[jmark]

... The only two things I'd change is to maybe add the finishing hops a bit earlier (10-20m mark) for a bit more flavour and less aroma. You could compensate by adding a weeny 1/2oz dry hop. Also, I'd reduce the crystal malt to closer to 5% of the grist and compensate the colour by using patent malt rather than chocolate malt.

Looks fairly decent. You might struggle a bit to keep the FG that high.

Thanks... there's my late-hopping-IPA-thinking getting the better of me I'll move some of the hops up a bit to get more flavor and the dry-hop is definitely a nice idea.

The yeast I'm using specs at around 70% attenuation which is about 1.013 based on my OG so hopefully that will work, but that was also a reason for the amount of Crystal I use - would adding some Carapils in place of some of the Crystal help in that regard?

 

[JKaranka]

Just seems fairly high for FG. 1.010-1.012 is fine. You could always have it a bit paler (8-12SRM) and worry less about malts.

 

[davidst]

I have a very similar recipe to this in my fermenter (except I don't have the chocolate or corn and I used a 1/2 lb of biscuit). It looks good bubbling away, but it'll be three weeks before I try it.

 

[kingwood-kid]

Corn (flaked maize) as well as invert sugar syrups are typical of bitters. ........
You might struggle a bit to keep the FG that high.

Commercial breweries use corn to save money. At the LHBS, for a 5-gallon beer, there's no savings worth mentioning. Use barley instead of corn, and your FG will be higher. If you went with 100% Maris Otter mashed at 156-160, you'd have a delicious beer with decent body. Some specialty malts wouldn't hurt, but I think you've got the basics for what you want.

 

[Gnomebrewer]

That's a great looking recipe.
Why are there two EKG additions at 5mins? Should one of them be 15mins?

 

[jmitchell3]

Fyi bjcp style guidelines allow color range from 8-16 SRM for best bitter. Just for color reference purposes.

 

[Hanglow]

Commercial breweries use corn to save money. At the LHBS, for a 5-gallon beer, there's no savings worth mentioning. Use barley instead of corn, and your FG will be higher. If you went with 100% Maris Otter mashed at 156-160, you'd have a delicious beer with decent body. Some specialty malts wouldn't hurt, but I think you've got the basics for what you want.

It'll taste different though. That's why brewers like Harveys still use flaked maize, if they changed the recipe it would taste different. Not to save money. Brewers like Fullers moved from using flaked maize and sugars in Pride etc as there was a continuous, somewhat ill founded, backlash against those ingredients and "all malt" sounds good to marketing people.

 

[JKaranka]

What Hanglow says. We live in the UK. We know.