ESB Blues

I brewed a revised ESB with Lyle's Golden Syrup as it was in a clone recipe I had seen for Old Speckled Hen, my favorite by far.

Being very anxious I shaved a few days off of conditioning and carbonation as I just couldn't wait (2.5 weeks cond and 3 days carb). What I poured tasted like unsweetened tea, which is similar to what my first attempt at an ESB tasted like. I'm wondering if it's an overpowering bittering addition.

This is the 5.5 gal partial mash recipe I came up with:

4 lbs Maris Otter
3 lbs MO LME (FO)
1 lb Lyle's Golden Syrup (FO)
1 lb British crystal 70/80
0.5 lb carafoam
1.5 oz EKG (4.5%) @ 70 mins
1 oz EKG @ 21 mins
0.5 oz EKG @ 7 mins
S-04

1.055/1.014
5.4%
34 IBUs
10 SRM

I mashed at 154* for 70 mins and fermented at 64* for 7 days and 75* for another 14 days.

My water (I don't have testing equipment and go off of the yearly water report and use Brewer's Friend advanced water calculator) was adjusted to Ca 83, Mg 19, Na 40, Cl 70, SO 143, pH 5.32.

My first one mellowed a little with time, and so I expect this one too as well, but I'm at a loss for the unsweetened tea-like taste. It's nothing remotely similar to OSH!

Any ideas? I'm guessing there's just too much in the bittering section.

Not sure tbh. The recipe looks fine for an ESB.

Water wise I have been reading up and your sulfate:chloride ratio looks rather even for this kind of beer, I reckon you need another 10g of gypsum to increase the sulfates. This might explain some of it.

SO4 yeast is popular with some people but very unpopular with others. I'm not keen. A good liquid yeast could improve things a fair bit I reckon.

But also give it time. I've had very disappointing beers at that stage turn into great beers with a few weeks waiting. Really major difference.

On my American forum I was told my sulfate levels were a bit high and could explain this. But then it seems a higher SO wouldn't be out of character for an ESB, right?

Ah, yes, and the reason why I felt the need to a member of a British beer forum. Who best to explain these things?

I'm still disappointed that it's nothing remotely similar to Old Speckled Hen though. It's what I've been after.

This fella claims to have made a good clone...

http://www.britishbrewer.com/tag/old-speckled-hen/

I'm not the person to be giving water advice. But my understanding is that sulfate accentuates bitterness and chloride accentuates sweet maltiness. Which supports the American forum advice, your sulfates at 143 are double your chloride at 70. Maybe both are high, and your water is hard? But the forum water calculator indicates that for a bitter you need to add about 9g gypsum if you are using 30 litres of water. We need somebody who understands brewing water chemistry better than me.

I also think cloning OSH is not an easy thing to do. It's a mass produced beer. We don't have a definitive recipe. We don't have the yeast. You could get close to Fullers ESB, as we have the recipe and the ingredients, and Fullers is brewed in a traditional way. I think your use of S04 yeast won't have helped. Yeasts are crucial to this kind of beer. I'd be using a liquid yeast to get closer, I don't know what the best match is, but the clone in the link above uses Wyeast 1275.

Yesterday it was similar enough to OSH. Apparently this beer needed a little longer to mature.

I give 3 weeks to ferment, 3 weeks to condition, and 1 week in the fridge, but I've been cutting 3 days from the conditioning and chilling for the typical 3 days with those bottles that didn't fill a 6 pack. It's not like I tried it well before it's assumed time.

I've not had a lighter style of beer change so drastically, nor have I had the hop flavors change like this.

clibit said:

This fella claims to have made a good clone...

http://www.britishbrewer.com/tag/old-speckled-hen/

I'm not the person to be giving water advice. But my understanding is that sulfate accentuates bitterness and chloride accentuates sweet maltiness. Which supports the American forum advice, your sulfates at 143 are double your chloride at 70. Maybe both are high, and your water is hard? But the forum water calculator indicates that for a bitter you need to add about 9g gypsum if you are using 30 litres of water. We need somebody who understands brewing water chemistry better than me.

I also think cloning OSH is not an easy thing to do. It's a mass produced beer. We don't have a definitive recipe. We don't have the yeast. You could get close to Fullers ESB, as we have the recipe and the ingredients, and Fullers is brewed in a traditional way. I think your use of S04 yeast won't have helped. Yeasts are crucial to this kind of beer. I'd be using a liquid yeast to get closer, I don't know what the best match is, but the clone in the link above uses Wyeast 1275.

Click to expand...

That was the recipe I followed when I did my first and only extract.

It wasn't far off but not the same.. my hops could have been boosted but like you say the yeast is something I wasn't able to replicate..

I don't bother with clones now

rodwha said:

Yesterday it was similar enough to OSH. Apparently this beer needed a little longer to mature.

I give 3 weeks to ferment, 3 weeks to condition, and 1 week in the fridge, but I've been cutting 3 days from the conditioning and chilling for the typical 3 days with those bottles that didn't fill a 6 pack. It's not like I tried it well before it's assumed time.

I've not had a lighter style of beer change so drastically, nor have I had the hop flavors change like this.

Click to expand...

The more complex beers can change flavour wise quite a lot over time. A recent DIPA I did had very little hop flavour or aroma within the first few weeks but after a couple of months the hops really shone through.

I wouldn't have figured this to be a complex beer. The only beers I've seen take longer were very dark beers, mostly stouts.

rodwha said:

I wouldn't have figured this to be a complex beer. The only beers I've seen take longer were very dark beers, mostly stouts.

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Ah by complex I eluded to the addition of golden syrup.

Dads_Ale said:

The more complex beers can change flavour wise quite a lot over time. A recent DIPA I did had very little hop flavour or aroma within the first few weeks but after a couple of months the hops really shone through.

Click to expand...

Hmm could that have been the high abv needed to smooth and mellow out?

Covrich said:

Hmm could that have been the high abv needed to smooth and mellow out?

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Indeed it could have been. But it improved with age whatever. So much so that I have bought another kit from HBC......

Covrich said:

Hmm could that have been the high abv needed to smooth and mellow out?

Click to expand...

Most of the beers I brew are from 5.4-7% and get fully matured beer with 3 weeks of conditioning as long as it's not a roasty beer. This ESB was brew #60 not counting a few kits so there's a large sample number to compare to. Most are 5.6-6.2%.