Coming up with a recipe

[Ted89]

Hey everybody,

I wanted to do an English bitter for my second beer, as it is my favorite style. My first was from a kit and taking note of all the different grains while designing my own is a lot to process at once. Anyone have any idea what grain I should use? I was going to use either UK pale or Maris Otter as a base, but I'm not sure what to add to it. From what I could gather, this would usually be a crystal malt, but even then I don't know what percentage it should be. If anyone had any general ratios for what to throw into a English bitter/English pale ale, that would be awesome.

Thanks!

 

[RobInOre]

I don't have a specific answer for you but I think I can help.

Northern Brewer posts their recipes online. You can use them as a resource for designing your own brews. Their prices and service are also exceptional so they are a good place to buy the ingredients for your own recipe. I've done this many, many times myself.

A LHBS might be able to provide the same service, (recipes, ratios, ingredients), and should do it for no charge.

Welcome to the hobby!

 

[ericbw]

Did you look in the recipes section? You'll find a lot. They might be called bitter, ESB, or English pale.

 

[BlueHouseBrewhaus]

Here's a Bass-ish recipe that worked out well for me.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f64/goddess-brew-bass-inspired-449695/

An ESB can also be as simple as a SMaSH of Maris Otter and your favorite British hops with Wyeast 1098 yeast. As said above, check out the recipe section or Brewtoad for other ideas. Have fun with it.

 

[houndsbreath]

Search for Orfy's Mild Mannered Ale. It's a dark mildly and very good. I also second the above post about Northern Brewer's online recipes. I use them (often with my own tweaks) all the time.

 

[beergolf]

Just like in cooking I usually look at several recipes for a specific style and notice the similarities. Then you can decide what your recipe should look like.

Go to the recipe database here on the forum and look at the recipes that have a lot of responses with comments. Then use them as a starting point for your own recipe.

 

[m00ps]

This is the 3rd ESB i've done and the first one I was happy with how well it turned out. Finally mamanged to get an authentic English character going

9 Maris Otter
1 Torrified Wheat
1/2 caramunich
1/2 crystal 80
1/2 special roast
1/8 roasted barley

mashed at 154

hops: EKG 1 oz @60&15&0

used WY 1318 in the mid 60s

 

[Ted89]

Thanks everybody. I went to the homebrew store and they pretty much told me to go with something very similar to m00ps, except I'm going with a little oatmeal instead of wheat. We'll see how it turns out!

 

[ericbw]

This is the 3rd ESB i've done and the first one I was happy with how well it turned out. Finally mamanged to get an authentic English character going

9 Maris Otter
1 Torrified Wheat
1/2 caramunich
1/2 crystal 80
1/2 special roast
1/8 roasted barley

mashed at 154

hops: EKG 1 oz @60&15&0

used WY 1318 in the mid 60s

If you switched the yeast to Irish ale (wlp004) and dropped the last hop addition, you'd have a good Irish red, too