Help with English bitter

[LuisLozano13]

Hi! I'm thinking of brewing a premium bitter (not ESB) and I was hoping you could tell me what you think of my recipe

5 gal batch

OG: 1.048
Bitterness: 30 IBU's
SRM: 13

9lb-Maris Otter Muntons
.85lb-Crystal 75 Northwest
.03lb-Roasted Barley (for color) Briess

.53 oz Target-60min
.35 oz Northern Brewer-15 min
.35 oz Perle-15min

Mash at 151 F for 60 min
Fermentation at 64.4 F 1 week
Secondary 1week
S-04 or US-05 fermentis yeast

Thank you for your comments

 

[RonPopeil]

Looks pretty good. You'll need to change a few things to get where you're going.

Cut the roasted barley. I think you'll get some color from the boil that will compensate for .03# of roasted.

Add something bready. Try adding a half pound of biscuit or victory. You'll also need a simple sugar like corn sugar/dextrose.

Use more English hops. Swap northern brewer and perle for East Kent Goldings, Fuggles or Challenger.

Finally, you'll want to use an English strain like the US04, Danstar Nottingham or WLP002 from white labs.

 

[Qhrumphf]

A couple suggestions:

1) Adding some Victory or Biscuit wouldn't hurt (I use some Biscuit in mine) but isn't necessary. You should get plenty of character from the Maris Otter.

2) If you're going to add sugar, invert sugar is traditional. Many English breweries use it. Many do not.

3) Agree with the above about the hops. I use EKG only for my smaller Bitters, and a combo of EKG and Challenger for my ESB.

4) Do not use US-05. The character will be entirely wrong. I've never personally used S-04, but it will work well if that's what you've got available. I'd recommend Wyeast 1469 West Yorkshire personally. It's my house yeast (I brew lots of English beers) and will work in anything English, but it's especially suited for a Bitter.

5) Mash temp and ferm temp look good enough, although I'd give it a couple weeks in the primary and skip the secondary. You may want to bump the fermentation up a few degrees depending on your preferences. 64 will be on the cleaner side. Some like em that way (and some commercial examples are that way). I like em a little fruitier and I go 68 or so.

6) I'm assuming that's a US crystal malt? If so I'd swap it for an English one. Crisp makes a 77L crystal I'm very fond of. It actually does make a difference.

7) Agree about cutting the roasted barley. At that level, the impact will be so minimal that it's not even worth adding.

Lots of English brewers make their Bitters using rougly 95% Maris Otter and 5% crystal malt. So you're definitely on the right track.