British Bitter 2

It was only a few months ago I brewed my first British Bitter. It was an ESB that turned our very balanced or even slightly toward the malty side. It was still a very drinkable beer just not to style. It lacked any real stand out qualities, it wasn't even as sessionable as it should have been at 6%.

This time around I decided to go to the other end of the spectrum and brew an Ordinary Bitter. This should be the perfect beer for sipping all day long on hot, muggy summer days. Here are the BJCP guidelines for an Ordinary Bitter BJCP 2015 Ordinary Bitter.

I buy my grains in bulk because I live so far from the nearest LHBS and I didn't want to make a trip to buy Marris Otter so instead I used a 75% / 25% blend of Pilsen and Munich malt which should give some nice bread and biscuit malt qualities to the beer. I also pitched in a pound of aromatic and flaked rye to gain some aroma and maybe a twist of spiciness to the beer. Mostly I just had some flaked rye to use up before the Western NY summer humidity made it unusable.

I used mostly late addition Willamette hops to get a fruity hop flavor and aroma with a small .25 oz warrior charge for bittering in an 11 gallon batch.

I like my dry yeast whenever possible because it means I don't have worry about starters on a busy weeknight. Safale S-04 was the yeast of choice to ferment this beer.

It was a pretty typical brew day except it had been nearly two months since I last brewed so I was a little rusty and it showed during prep and lautering. I also forgot to add potassium sorbate to my sparge water so hopefully chlorine/chloramines don't make this beer too astringent. In my experience the mash is the most important place to have perfect water and I think I nailed that. If you have any experience with these types of fuck-ups please comment.

Recipe: https://www.brewtoad.com/recipes/better-bitter-596472

• Mashed at 155 for 60 minutes in 5 gallons of tap water.
• Batch Sparged in two portions with 10.8 gallons of  175F water.
• boiled for 60 minutes
• Cooled with immersion chiller, took about 15-18 minutes. Ground water temp makes a huge difference!
• O.G. 1.033

Shorty Kegs make a perfect height stand for bucket transfer!

Ended up with 10.5 gallons of wort at the end.

Fermentation at 65F for 12 hours then 68 until FG is reached.