Ordinary Bitter

[Gedeao]

Hello,
Im here to ask you what you think of this recipe for 20L:

3Kg Pale Ale
300g Special B
300g Carapils
11g Target FWH
20g EKG 20 min
20g EKG 10 min
20g EKG 1 min
40G EKG DH
S-04 fermentis

OG : 1,036; 30,7 IBU; 25,4 EBC; 3,6% ABV

What do you think?
thank you guys

 

[ChelisHubby]

Most regular bitters don't have a dry hop, at least that I know of. otherwise I think it is fine and you can dry hop it but your tending to leave the style. Most bitters would have the fwh and a 20 or a 10 minute addition and leave it at that.

 

[Gedeao]

Thank you,
So, i will do not dh and remove 1min add
do you think it is style's hops?

 

[JohnK93]

EKG is definitely to style

 

[BigEd]

Hello,
Im here to ask you what you think of this recipe for 20L:

3Kg Pale Ale
300g Special B
300g Carapils
11g Target FWH
20g EKG 20 min
20g EKG 10 min
20g EKG 1 min
40G EKG DH
S-04 fermentis

OG : 1,036; 30,7 IBU; 25,4 EBC; 3,6% ABV

What do you think?
thank you guys

Have you used Special B before? It's not a typical ingredient in a bitter especially at the 8% rate in your recipe. Special B is great stuff but it is fairly aggressive and at the very dark end of the scale of crystal malts. IMO the 8% Special B here is going to make the bitter too dark as well as have pretty strong flavors of dark toffee and dried fruit. My suggestion here would be to use a more traditional crystal malt (45-75L; 120-200 EB C) at an approximate rate of 5%. Then if you want some of the flavor touches of Special B use about 1%. You can also back the Carapils down to 3-5% instead of 8%. Keep the overall gristbill weight by adding more pale malt.

While the IBU numbers are within the range for the style, a ratio of 3:4 in terms of IBU:OG will probably deliver the best balance of flavor. I'd ease off some on the hops to get the IBU somewhere in the 25-28 range. Dryhopping is OK if you like but for 20L of beer half of your 40g amount should be more than enough.

 

[TAK]

+1 to subbing the Special B for a bit less of something more mid-range, preferably Brittish in origin.

 

[Hanglow]

Dryhopping is fine, a lot of bitters are dry hopped.

I would also change/reduce the special b and definitely reduce the carapils. I'd increase the bittering slightly although that's personal preference, as I prefer a well bittered bitter like JHB etc. But if you do keep a lot of caramel character then I'd be tempted to reduce it a bit as assertive bitterness and a strong caramel character tends to jar for me in a beer like that

 

[Gedeao]

Thank you guys,
What do you think now?
The BU:GU is close than the style, 0,832 and the style is 0,833

 

[JKaranka]

I'd dial crystal down to 0.25 (you have SB there too). 20g is an appropriate level of dry hop for a typical bitter.

Edit: btw, I'd find it a hint on the strong side for ordinary bitter, maybe drop the malts a little bit (depending on efficiency). An OG of around 1.036-1.038 is quite typical. 32 IBU is quite right, but I'd split the IBU of the additions differently (about 60-80% of the bitterness coming from a bittering addition, and then the rest from an addition at 15 or 20 minutes). If you add too many hops late you get hop flavour rather than bitterness (you want a good snap of bitterness there but no aggressive hop flavour). You get some aroma back by dry hopping.