How much Bramling Cross in a Bittter, or old First Gold

[Zephyr259]

I'm in the mood for another brew of my bitter and was going to up the hops inline with @foxbat fuggleduck (is mainline bitter the same base recipe?). Plan was to go with First Gold and Fuggles like Foxbat since I like these hops and my previous bitters were made with first gold. Unfortunately, I've realised my first gold is about 18 months old now so I'm of a mind to chuck it rather than risk them being a bit mediocre. The only other UK hop I have to hand at the moment is Bramling Cross which I've had a couple of times in other beers but never used, I know it's quite potent so worried it's going to overpower everything else.

Hop schedule I'd worked out was 7 g each at 15 min, 10.5 g each at 10 min and 17.5 each at 5 min (scaled from Foxbat's recipe) so that's 35 g of each hop in a 15 L batch.

Anyone got any experience to share? Thanks

 

[An Ankoù]

I've realised my first gold is about 18 months old now so I'm of a mind to chuck it rather than risk them being a bit mediocre.

I find that if the hops have been kept cool and dark or if the packet is still sealed, the flavour and aroma don't suffer very much at all even though they might be a bit hit and miss in your bittering calculations due to alpha acid loss.
If you've got Bramling Cross then use them otherwise they'll get old, too. They're a lovely hop for trad English beers.

 

[Zephyr259]

I find that if the hops have been kept cool and dark or if the packet is still sealed, the flavour and aroma don't suffer very much at all even though they might be a bit hit and miss in your bittering calculations due to alpha acid loss.
If you've got Bramling Cross then use them otherwise they'll get old, too. They're a lovely hop for trad English beers.

They've been opened but wrapped up tightly and kept in the freezer compartment of my yeast mini-fridge, so could be good still, but yeah that was the other thinking behind the bramling cross, I bought them for a beer I'm not going to brew for a fair while now so thought they would be best used while fresh.

 

[ACBEV]

I really like Bramling Cross - First Gold combo... I'd also be tempted to sneak in some Fuggles too...

 

[Zephyr259]

I really like Bramling Cross - First Gold combo... I'd also be tempted to sneak in some Fuggles too...

Haha, so just use them all then. It was you're winning double brown I judged that made me want to use Bramling Cross in the first place.