First all Grain bitter

[reaperbrew]

Hello to you all

Im a new member and Live in Spain and its just got cool enough to start brewing at a resonable temp for fermentation.

I need some advise though as this is my first all grain brew and i hope you can teach me a few things here.

Im going to try an English bitter i have the following ingredients.(this is only ingredients they had at my local brew shop so had to compromise and use what i could get)

6.6lb of maris otter
Simpsons Crystal medium 500g
Simpsons Chocolat 500g
Fuggles 50g
Yeast is Lallemand London 11g

I want to make 12 litres so i guess i need 18 litres of water, could you all advise me how much of each ingredient to be added and at what time during mash or boil would you recomend it to go in any advise or tips would be very helpfull as its my first time having a go at all grain. Also if i have missed out anything thats needed plese HELP.


Regards to you all and hope to learn alot from this forum.


Carl

 

[The Baron]

While waiting for the answers that will come have a look at some recipes that are online and scale it down to suit your batch size, it will be good to mess around while waiting then you can check where you roughly are.
Good luck and welcome to the forum

 

[Tanglefoot]

What is your system ?
Easiest way to work out recipe for yourself is to try out Brewfather or similar for free, then you can scale batch sizes to suit and work out quantities etc.
I'd do a simple SMASH if it's your first brew - good luck !

 

[Cwrw666]

Most recipes you'll find are for 23L so you'll basically just be halving all the ingredients. Easy enough.

 

[buddsy]

Hi

How are you planing to brew? Ie what is your system?

I can recommend the book "Kitchen Brewing" which details making small batches using standard kitchen equipment to produce 8 pint batches.

Its a simple inexpensive way to get your feet wet with all grain and understand the processes. I started this way.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Kitchen-Brewing-Mikael-Zetterberg/dp/178488183X
buddsy

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

Hello to you all

Im a new member and Live in Spain and its just got cool enough to start brewing at a resonable temp for fermentation.

I need some advise though as this is my first all grain brew and i hope you can teach me a few things here.

Im going to try an English bitter i have the following ingredients.(this is only ingredients they had at my local brew shop so had to compromise and use what i could get)

6.6lb of maris otter
Simpsons Crystal medium 500g
Simpsons Chocolat 500g
Fuggles 50g
Yeast is Lallemand London 11g

I want to make 12 litres so i guess i need 18 litres of water, could you all advise me how much of each ingredient to be added and at what time during mash or boil would you recomend it to go in any advise or tips would be very helpfull as its my first time having a go at all grain. Also if i have missed out anything thats needed plese HELP.


Regards to you all and hope to learn alot from this forum.


Carl

Hi Carl,

Here is a recipe for you using your ingredients. I personally wouldn’t use chocolate malt in my bitters. I would however normally add 100g of flaked barley and 50g Torrified wheat to the grain bill below for improved mouthfeel and head retention but you can add these on a subsequent batch, the beer will still be nice. I would also add 20g East Kent Goldings at 10mins with the Fuggles but again you’ll still get a nice beer without it.

2Kg Maris Otter
100g Medium crystal
Mash for an hour at 65C
Raise the temperature to 72C for 20 mins if this is an option.
Raise the temp to 77C to mash out if this is an option.
(You can omit the two temperature rises if this isn’t practical for you)

20g Fuggles boiled for 60mins
30g Fuggles boiled for 10mins

Use the whole pack of yeast and leave it fermenting for 12 days at 19-20C. The beer is good to drink 2 weeks after packaging.

 

[eyuptm]

Whereabouts in Spain are you? I live near Malaga, and it's been 'kin hot this Autumn, so I brewed a couple of Kviek IPA kits by Mangrove Jack. I bought them from Cocinista.es. The yeast works happily up to about 40°C, so maybe consider using these yeasts for summer brewing, if you haven't got temperature control...

 

[reaperbrew]

Whereabouts in Spain are you? I live near Malaga, and it's been 'kin hot this Autumn, so I brewed a couple of Kviek IPA kits by Mangrove Jack. I bought them from Cocinista.es. The yeast works happily up to about 40°C, so maybe consider using these yeasts for summer brewing, if you haven't got temperature control...

Hi

Im now living closer to Almeria now but lived near Malaga for 30 years, your right its hard to brew in the hot temps but now its cooled down it makes life more easy.

Nice to hear from you Carl

 

[reaperbrew]

Hi Carl,

Here is a recipe for you using your ingredients. I personally wouldn’t use chocolate malt in my bitters. I would however normally add 100g of flaked barley and 50g Torrified wheat to the grain bill below for improved mouthfeel and head retention but you can add these on a subsequent batch, the beer will still be nice. I would also add 20g East Kent Goldings at 10mins with the Fuggles but again you’ll still get a nice beer without it.

2Kg Maris Otter
100g Medium crystal
Mash for an hour at 65C
Raise the temperature to 72C for 20 mins if this is an option.
Raise the temp to 77C to mash out if this is an option.
(You can omit the two temperature rises if this isn’t practical for you)

20g Fuggles boiled for 60mins
30g Fuggles boiled for 10mins

Use the whole pack of yeast and leave it fermenting for 12 days at 19-20C. The beer is good to drink 2 weeks after packaging.

Thank you for the info, what stage are you adding 50g torrified wheat and 100g of flaked barley at, might give this a go.

Thanks

 

[An Ankoù]

A couple of hints if I might make so bold.
Don't mix pounds and ounces with metric measures as it's easier to spot glaring errors when working in the same units.
Have a look at the homebrew company. ie and thehombrewcompany.uk websites they are very reasonable and delivery isn't bad. Better if you use the UK site and pay in £ via PayPal.
I find European stores very expensive and delivery expensive, too.
Get your yeast and odd packets of hops from crossmyloof.
Good luck with the recipe.

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

Thank you for the info, what stage are you adding 50g torrified wheat and 100g of flaked barley at, might give this a go.

Thanks

They go in the mash with the rest of the grain, at the start.

Good luck!

 

[jof]

Start with a brew using just Maris otter & crystal malt.

If you want the next one to be darker, add some of the chocolate malt, but you won't need much, I would suggest just 50g to start with.
Too much and your bitter will turn out as a porter.

 

[reaperbrew]

They go in the mash with the rest of the grain, at the start.

Good luck!

Thanks

 

[reaperbrew]

A couple of hints if I might make so bold.
Don't mix pounds and ounces with metric measures as it's easier to spot glaring errors when working in the same units.
Have a look at the homebrew company. ie and thehombrewcompany.uk websites they are very reasonable and delivery isn't bad. Better if you use the UK site and pay in £ via PayPal.
I find European stores very expensive and delivery expensive, too.
Get your yeast and odd packets of hops from crossmyloof.
Good luck with the recipe.

Well as I live in Spain using a local Spanish supplier is cheapest option for me, UK is not in European Union anymore and now we have to pay import duty on all things purchased from UK before they will deliver it to the door. . , so that's not an option any longer.

 

[Cwrw666]

The homebrew company is based in Ireland, EU. Just order from them, using their Irish website.
Their UK website is for importing into the UK.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

There's a Spanish Association called ACCE (Asociación de Cerveceros Caseros Españoles) they've a forum and usually there's local groups. I've met up with the lads in malaga a couple of times . There's an annual Congreso, next year it's in Pamplona , where they've usually a three day convention , with a mixture of visits to local breweries, lectures on process etc a competition and taster training . I think from memory David Heath may have given a presentation at one of them.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

I've just checked and they have a local group in Almería , here's a link to their Facebook page
https://m.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100077713950787&_rdrAnd here's the ACCE homepage , it's an unusual page design in that the menu and sign up/ log in is at the bottom ( on my phone screen anyway )
https://www.cerveceros-caseros.com/

 

[An Ankoù]

Well as I live in Spain using a local Spanish supplier is cheapest option for me, UK is not in European Union anymore and now we have to pay import duty on all things purchased from UK before they will deliver it to the door. . , so that's not an option any longer.

Not so. I live in France.
The Republic of Ireland is in the European Union. They accept payment in € and in £ as a lot of their business is with the UK. I pay £12 (or €18 ) delivery to France i and that's for 30 Kg. True, the 25Kg bag prices are within €5-6 euros of each other, but if you buy by the kilo it's much cheaper eg. Maris Otter is €15.31 for 5 Kg from Autobrasseur France and it's €16.94 for 10 Kg from thehomebrewcompany. Hops are much cheaper, too.
Crossmyloof is in Glasgow. Yeast and hops don't attract import duty and I've never had a problem. If you buy, say 10 sachets of yeast you can get them down to about £1 a sachet or less, depending on the yeast. Hops are a little dearer, but that's to offset the "free" postage. In fact postage is free in the UK, but I've never paid more than £5 for tracked delivery for up to a kilo of hops. And both companies have a discount code for being a member of this forum, 5% and 10% respectively.
Well worth a look.

Just had a look at Más Malta website masmalta.com. Prices are about the same as here in France. You really need English malt for English bitters, but it doesn't have to be Maris Otter. True, I use Hookhead, which is Irish, but it's just as good. German and Belgian Pale malts are quite different and, when times are hard, I prefer to use Belgian "pilsner" malt instead of their pale malt for making bitters. But I'm unlikely to run out as I'm well stocked up.

 

[reaperbrew]

The homebrew company is based in Ireland, EU. Just order from them, using their Irish website.
Their UK website is for importing into the UK.

Ok great, thanks for the info ill have a look.

 

[reaperbrew]

I've just checked and they have a local group in Almería , here's a link to their Facebook page
https://m.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100077713950787&_rdrAnd here's the ACCE homepage , it's an unusual page design in that the menu and sign up/ log in is at the bottom ( on my phone screen anyway )
https://www.cerveceros-caseros.com/

great thank you , ill check them out