Why is traditional bitter so tricky?

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thehorse

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I'm an extract brewer who has had excellent results making IPAs and porters. But, at the second attempt, I'm still struggling with a traditional best bitter.

My latest recipe (32 pints) was approx 1.5kg of pale extract, 500g DME, 500g each of steeped Crystal, Victiry and Special B malts and 350g of fortified wheat for head retention. Fuggle hops for bittering, Goldings for aroma, then dry hopped with more Goldings; British ale yeast.

The resulting pint has no head, a slightly home brewed malty twang, plenty of bitterness but no great aroma, and is sadly lacking in the nutty, biscuity, berry flavours that I'd hoped the Victory and torrified wheat might bring.

So does anyone have any pointers for a more nutty, creamy pint? Or any foolproof extract recipes?
 
I'm an extract brewer who has had excellent results making IPAs and porters. But, at the second attempt, I'm still struggling with a traditional best bitter.

My latest recipe (32 pints) was approx 1.5kg of pale extract, 500g DME, 500g each of steeped Crystal, Victiry and Special B malts and 350g of fortified wheat for head retention. Fuggle hops for bittering, Goldings for aroma, then dry hopped with more Goldings; British ale yeast.

The resulting pint has no head, a slightly home brewed malty twang, plenty of bitterness but no great aroma, and is sadly lacking in the nutty, biscuity, berry flavours that I'd hoped the Victory and torrified wheat might bring.

So does anyone have any pointers for a more nutty, creamy pint? Or any foolproof extract recipes?

try a different shade of dme like medium. and 500g of DWE. I don't get a malty twang with my extra brews unless I want mr. malty to visit, perhaps the water needs to be considered as well.
 
Excellent, cheers. Muntons do a Maris Otter extract and dark DWE is easy to come by. Any thoughts on the head? Bump up the torrified wheat or add flaked barley, perhaps?
 
Excellent, cheers. Muntons do a Maris Otter extract and dark DWE is easy to come by. Any thoughts on the head? Bump up the torrified wheat or add flaked barley, perhaps?

Torrified wheat and flaked barley have starches in, so they should really be part of a mash. Carapils can be steeped though, and helps with head retention.
 
Torrified wheat and flaked barley have starches in, so they should really be part of a mash. Carapils can be steeped though, and helps with head retention.

I'm with Iain on this. Those grains need protein rest and mashed.
 
I'm an extract brewer who has had excellent results making IPAs and porters. But, at the second attempt, I'm still struggling with a traditional best bitter. ...
Your second attempt? Humm. You are right, traditional British bitter is tricky. I like to think I'm starting to get the hang of them now ... after 45 years. These days home-brewing is dominated by American styles (APA, AIPA, etc.) using newer American hops (Amarillo, Citra, etc.), and with very good reason - it is many times easier to make a respectable version of these beers.

Does depend on what you consider "traditional". You worry about "head" which isn't always a good indicator of "traditional" bitter (having said that I keep getting half a glass of head serving from hand-pumps at virtually no pressure). You quest is made trickier still by brewing from malt extract. But not impossible.

First your hops. Go for something a bit more assertive. A blend of Challenger and Goldings is easily recognisable in commercial examples (you can save the Goldings for late hopping - last 5-10 minutes) but don't worry too much about "aroma" ("flame-out") additions - traditional British bitter isn't often greatly endowed with hop aroma. American hops in a Traditional bitter is horrid (although some seem to like it). No need to over-do hopping; about 27-28 IBU is fine.

Don't worry about loads of "speciality" malts. All plain malt, perhaps up to 10% crystal. Forget "Victory", "Special B", etc. Don't try to make stronger than 3.5-4.5% alcohol (SG 1.038-48). Keep using a good British Ale yeast; I use dried, S-04, at about 19-20C.

The bit you'll struggle most with is speed. Malt extract ferments at a very leisurely pace. I aim to ferment out in two days, rest for four, then cask for four. Traditional British bitter is a "running" beer; not intended to be kept too long.

The biggy is keep the pressure down. Less than 3psi (the pressure can rise to 4-5psi when conditioning, just vent some off before drinking). I serve at 1-2psi. Bottles? They're for brewing something else.

Finally: Start "All Grain" brewing. Or prove me wrong and stick with extract.
 
Your second attempt? Humm. You are right, traditional British bitter is tricky. I like to think I'm starting to get the hang of them now ... after 45 years. These days home-brewing is dominated by American styles (APA, AIPA, etc.) using newer American hops (Amarillo, Citra, etc.), and with very good reason - it is many times easier to make a respectable version of these beers.

Does depend on what you consider "traditional". You worry about "head" which isn't always a good indicator of "traditional" bitter (having said that I keep getting half a glass of head serving from hand-pumps at virtually no pressure). You quest is made trickier still by brewing from malt extract. But not impossible.

First your hops. Go for something a bit more assertive. A blend of Challenger and Goldings is easily recognisable in commercial examples (you can save the Goldings for late hopping - last 5-10 minutes) but don't worry too much about "aroma" ("flame-out") additions - traditional British bitter isn't often greatly endowed with hop aroma. American hops in a Traditional bitter is horrid (although some seem to like it). No need to over-do hopping; about 27-28 IBU is fine.

Don't worry about loads of "speciality" malts. All plain malt, perhaps up to 10% crystal. Forget "Victory", "Special B", etc. Don't try to make stronger than 3.5-4.5% alcohol (SG 1.038-48). Keep using a good British Ale yeast; I use dried, S-04, at about 19-20C.

The bit you'll struggle most with is speed. Malt extract ferments at a very leisurely pace. I aim to ferment out in two days, rest for four, then cask for four. Traditional British bitter is a "running" beer; not intended to be kept too long.

The biggy is keep the pressure down. Less than 3psi (the pressure can rise to 4-5psi when conditioning, just vent some off before drinking). I serve at 1-2psi. Bottles? They're for brewing something else.

Finally: Start "All Grain" brewing. Or prove me wrong and stick with extract.

Fantastic post PeeBee. I'll be drawing on some of those 45yrs exeprience to make a Bitter next week. I'm just finishing culturing up the Fullers strain and have beer reading about how to handle it as their's lots of stuff on the forums about over-attenuation (in bottles) but I think you've hit the nail on the head with, "Bottles? They're for brewing something else." So I'll be mini kegging my Bitters. I'd planned to do this anyway for ease/speed of packaging
 
I've also been struggling to come up with consistently good extract brewed bitters recently. I've made up my own recipes, and adopted or gone directly to the extract based recipes in Graham Wheeler's, and Greg Hughes's books. I have been using LME. I have had good beers and not so good beers.
Thus far my conclusions are
- extract beers need a long time to condition; you can't expect to get a good result four weeks from bottling; if you drink it early there may be a 'twang' present
- I have tried a number of different hops including Challenger, Target, First Gold, Celeia and EKG with varying results; my best beer seemed to come from EKG; using American hops may well disguise unwanted flavours as someone else has suggested
- the selection of top up malts/sugars is important; I have used pale malt, TW, crystal malt, and chocolate in small quantities; I have found that too much crystal will give a cloying sweetness if there is too much so I limit it to 150 g tops usually less; TW is fine provided it is mashed with pale malt (since it has no diastase of its own) but don't use too much, I limit it to 150g but normally go for 100g; and don't use Golden Syrup, fine for stout and Porter but not lighter beers since it brings its own distinctive taste
Further,
-although some beers come out clear others have protein haze; can't understand why; and I use protofloc; and time and temperature make no difference to clearing
-others on here have suggested the unbranded tins of LME from Homebrew Company do not deliver a good result ; since I have been using this recently I have now bought some Mangrove Jack and Coopers LME to compare; ironically one of the best brews came from using H&B LME on its own
My next extract beers will be the Graham Wheeler White Shield clone, which is very simple to make up, and I am going to try a pale ale based on Centennial and Cascade. Hopefully they will both be 'good' rather than 'not so good'
 
Yes, that was a great post. It got me thinking a lot about that style. I'm American but can't take all that jumble in beer. I like old school styles. The down side is the very limited hops here in Japan.
 
What PeeBee said - great post.

It sounds like you enjoy a malty beer so I'd say push the crystal malt up to 15%. And maybe use a variety of crystal malts if you don't want too dark a flavour, I've started using Carahell with standard Crystal as it doesn't add any extra colour. But keep it simple: malt extract, crystal, good British bittering hops like Challenger, Fuggles or Target and some late-addition Goldings.

I'd echo comments earlier in the thread that brewing a good traditional British ale is really hard. I've done 108 brews (kits, extract and AG) and I still haven't brewed what I would consider an excellent British bitter.

Graham Wheeler's book has 100 AG recipes with many of them having Extract equivalents. The Donnington Ale recipes in there are very simple, good and authentic with just a single hop addition at the boil stage. I've made these and can confirm they are good brews and very similar to Cotswold Donnington Ales.
 
What PeeBee said - great post.

It sounds like you enjoy a malty beer so I'd say push the crystal malt up to 15%. And maybe use a variety of crystal malts if you don't want too dark a flavour, I've started using Carahell with standard Crystal as it doesn't add any extra colour. But keep it simple: malt extract, crystal, good British bittering hops like Challenger, Fuggles or Target and some late-addition Goldings.

I'd echo comments earlier in the thread that brewing a good traditional British ale is really hard. I've done 108 brews (kits, extract and AG) and I still haven't brewed what I would consider an excellent British bitter.

Graham Wheeler's book has 100 AG recipes with many of them having Extract equivalents. The Donnington Ale recipes in there are very simple, good and authentic with just a single hop addition at the boil stage. I've made these and can confirm they are good brews and very similar to Cotswold Donnington Ales.

15% crystal is a hell of a lot. I wouldnt go beyond 10%. I normally make my bitters with 5% or 6%.
 
15% crystal is a hell of a lot. I wouldnt go beyond 10%. I normally make my bitters with 5% or 6%.

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 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'll have to take you work for it then, as I've never put that much crystal malt into a bitter.
 
I'll have to take you work for it then, as I've never put that much crystal malt into a bitter.
Bear in mind that 1kg Pale Malt is equivalent to about 0.65kg DME (and 0.75kg LME).
So if you converted darrelm's recipe to AG and substituted Pale Malt for the DME that 10% would fall to roughly 6 -7% crystal
 
I'm not an extract brewer and never have been but a lot of the nuttyness in a bitter will come from Marris Otter malt, it's famous for it. How you'd replicate that with extract brewing, I've no idea
You beat me to it !
 
I'm not an extract brewer and never have been but a lot of the nuttyness in a bitter will come from Marris Otter malt, it's famous for it. How you'd replicate that with extract brewing, I've no idea
Join the dark side of the force, it is calling you ...
 
I brew from grains now (having started with extract a few years back) and remember being vaguely disappointed with the taste (but loved how cheap it was).

Its certainly pretty easy to do most types of English bitter with grains as they are more readily available now than in the 70s or 80s (when my dad was brewing extract only).

turn to the dark side you know you want to !!
 

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