Why is traditional bitter so tricky?

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Is EKG available? If it is that all you need really, hop-wise

Nope. A few noble hops then nugget, cascade, saaz, fuggles, and I think that's it. So you really have to mix and tweak to off set flavors.
 
Nope. A few noble hops then nugget, cascade, saaz, fuggles, and I think that's it. So you really have to mix and tweak to off set flavors.

You could do maybe something do some sort of bitter with fuggles and cascade? I had a pint of fugg life (by tiny rebel, which the claim is "Brit PA") earlier and I also saw ASDA have Marstons EPA (English Pale Ale) which is made with cascade and styrian goldings when I was shopping
 
I'm doing a brew right now with fuggles and cascade. I love cascade but it can over power so I mixed it like 35% cascade and 65 fuggles. So we'll see
 
I thought that too before I tried it, but it worked for me.

Here's a recipe I've recently made, my own loosely based on Wells Bombardier. It turned out really nice. It's a 13L brew as it fits nicely with standard-packet sizes of DME (1kg and 500g).

Recipe Specs
----------------
Batch Size (L): 13.0
Original Gravity (OG): 1.049 (°P): 12.1
Final Gravity (FG): 1.012 (°P): 3.1
Alcohol by Volume (ABV): 4.81 %
Colour (SRM): 15.8 (EBC): 31.1
Bitterness (IBU): 39.2 (Average)

Grain Bill
----------------
1.500 kg Dry Malt Extract - Light (81.52%)
0.200 kg Crystal 60 standard (10.87%)
0.100 kg Carahell (5.43%)
0.040 kg Black Malt (2.17%)

Hop Bill
----------------
29.0 g Challenger Leaf (6.1% Alpha) @ 60 Minutes (Boil) (2.2 g/L)
12.0 g Styrian Golding Leaf (4.4% Alpha) @ 15 Minutes (Boil) (0.9 g/L)
9.0 g Styrian Golding Leaf (4.4% Alpha) @ 0 Minutes (Aroma) (0.7 g/L)

I liked your recipe so I've started a clone of your clone today :thumb:, based on what I have and what I was aiming for :-
1.95kg LME
100g Crystal (30 min steep at 65*C)
25g Black Malt (ditto)
200g Table Sugar*
(*I haven't using table sugar directly in a brew for over 30 years , but Graham Wheeler uses it extensively in his recipes presumably to up the ABV and give a bit of dryness so I thought I'd give it a try especially since it's not really very much)

25g Challenger pellets 70m
15g Styrian Goldings pellets 15m
10g Styrian Goldings pellets -0min at 80C

All up 16 litres, OG 1.042, IBUs about 40 ish

Even though its 'only extract brewing' it still took me 3.5 hours start to finish!
Anyway it's now sitting in my water bath at 19*C, and I'll come back in a few weeks with a few words on how it's turned out.
 
Thanks for all the tips. My wife now wants me to get a golden ale on (see other thread), so it looks like my explorations in extract English ale styles are set to continue.
 
I liked your recipe so I've started a clone of your clone today :thumb:, based on what I have and what I was aiming for :-
1.95kg LME

Excellent, let us know how it turns out. I'm really enjoying mine.

What brand of LME did you use? Not sure if I've had a run of bad luck lately, but my latest 4 brews with LME have had some sort of odd taste - not sure if it's the homebrew "twang"? Previously I used more expensive Coopers branded LME and didn't taste it, so I've now gone back to DME, which is a bit more fiddly to use but doesn't seem to suffer from off tastes.
 
I liked your recipe so I've started a clone of your clone today :thumb:, based on what I have and what I was aiming for :-
1.95kg LME
100g Crystal (30 min steep at 65*C)
25g Black Malt (ditto)
200g Table Sugar*
(*I haven't using table sugar directly in a brew for over 30 years , but Graham Wheeler uses it extensively in his recipes presumably to up the ABV and give a bit of dryness so I thought I'd give it a try especially since it's not really very much)

25g Challenger pellets 70m
15g Styrian Goldings pellets 15m
10g Styrian Goldings pellets -0min at 80C

All up 16 litres, OG 1.042, IBUs about 40 ish

Even though its 'only extract brewing' it still took me 3.5 hours start to finish!
Anyway it's now sitting in my water bath at 19*C, and I'll come back in a few weeks with a few words on how it's turned out.
:thumb:Looks good.I personally really like Challenger and S Goldings.At some point i intend to do an all Challenger brew.
Have got a pseudo lager on the go at present(brewing) and have small amounts of S Goldings in that as an experiment!
 
Excellent, let us know how it turns out. I'm really enjoying mine.

What brand of LME did you use? Not sure if I've had a run of bad luck lately, but my latest 4 brews with LME have had some sort of odd taste - not sure if it's the homebrew "twang"?
I have been using HBC LME. I've had a twang to varying degrees on several extract brews I've done recently which does seem to go after about 2 months in the bottle. I have bought a can of Coopers LME and a sachet of the Mangrove Jack LME to try to see if its the HBC stuff. As I have said elsewhere previous extract brews with H&B LME have turned out OK.
 
Are there any grains you'd particularly recommend for that nutty, biscuity flavour?
 
I did a bass bitter clone from whs with Challengers on a 90 min boil and it turned out grate
 
I did a bass bitter clone from whs with Challengers on a 90 min boil and it turned out grate

Did it taste anything like Bass ? If so, what yeast did you use ? I find it's hard to get a decent pint of Bass ... don't think I could get anywhere near cloning it, it does have a reputation of being a bit temperamental.
 
I'd love to be able to clone Bass. That is the only beer I've ever had a diser to clone. But the lack of decent items in Japan to work with makes it untouchable.
 
Did it taste anything like Bass ? If so, what yeast did you use ? I find it's hard to get a decent pint of Bass ... don't think I could get anywhere near cloning it, it does have a reputation of being a bit temperamental.

grain bill
pale malt (maris otter) 4190 grams
crystal malt 220 grams
mash at 67c for 90mins

hop bill
challenger hops 32 grams
boil for 90mins

protafloc tablet at last 15mins

yeast s-04
pitched at 18-20c in fv till about 10 days time
when you have 1.010 for four days
then rack into primed bottles or keg two weeks in warm room my room was about 22c
then two weeks in cold place my room was 16c
then enjoy
 
grain bill
pale malt (maris otter) 4190 grams
crystal malt 220 grams
mash at 67c for 90mins

hop bill
challenger hops 32 grams
boil for 90mins

protafloc tablet at last 15mins

yeast s-04
pitched at 18-20c in fv till about 10 days time
when you have 1.010 for four days
then rack into primed bottles or keg two weeks in warm room my room was about 22c
then two weeks in cold place my room was 16c
then enjoy

Thanks for the reply, that is pretty much in line with one of my standard bitter recipes. I have given up on S04 ... I get woody, leathery type esters coming through in my brewery. I have done something pretty similar using Windsor yeast and putting it on draught ... it was very nice but didn't taste anything like Bass ... so I am looking to experiment with some more of the Wyeast strains, if I can get hold of them. :thumb::thumb:
 
All the recipes I've seen use maize, corn. But there's got to be more to it. My tastebuds pull out molasses. So last weeks brew I used dried molasses in the boil and mashed higher than usual. It's only been in primary for a week but tomorrow I'll move it to secondary and possibly dry hop just a tad. I used t-78.
 
I liked your recipe so I've started a clone of your clone today :thumb:, based on what I have and what I was aiming for :-
1.95kg LME
100g Crystal (30 min steep at 65*C)
25g Black Malt (ditto)
200g Table Sugar*
(*I haven't using table sugar directly in a brew for over 30 years , but Graham Wheeler uses it extensively in his recipes presumably to up the ABV and give a bit of dryness so I thought I'd give it a try especially since it's not really very much)

25g Challenger pellets 70m
15g Styrian Goldings pellets 15m
10g Styrian Goldings pellets -0min at 80C

All up 16 litres, OG 1.042, IBUs about 40 ish

Even though its 'only extract brewing' it still took me 3.5 hours start to finish!
Anyway it's now sitting in my water bath at 19*C, and I'll come back in a few weeks with a few words on how it's turned out.

Update
Just put above into a PB today based on @darrellm recipe... http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/showpost.php?p=649066&postcount=15 .
8 days primary, rack off 6 more days in the warm, 2 days in the cool.
FG 1.011.
Nearly fully clear.
Very impressive taster
Quite malty and hops come through well.
Would be pleased to get that in a pub even at this stage.
Looking forward to it when its settled down. :thumb:
 

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