Sweet bitter

[Mike123]

In the last year I have sampled a couple of lovely bitters, Butty Bach from the Wye Valley Brewery and also Victoria Bitter from the Earl Soham Brewery. Both had a lovely smooth sweetness to them with just the right amount of hopping. I am just wondering the best way to achieve extra sweetness without the yeast converting it to alcohol. How much can I increase mash temperature before I start to introduce bad flavours? I currently mash at 66 degrees. Are there yeasts that attenuate at a lower percentage? Or do I just add more caramalt? What are your thoughts,

[bitter_dave]

Interested to hear people's responses to this. I am with you in terms of trying to get a bit more sweetness into my beer!

In addition to the things you mention, water treatment is also supposed to affect the perception of malty-ness and, presumably, the perceived sweetness of the beer as well as I understand it. Graham's water treatment calculator contains a setting for 'sweet pale ale': https://www.jimsbeerkit.co.uk/water.html which differs from 'bitter'. I used the calculator for the first time yesterday (to make a mild) so am a novice in things water treatment-related, but I throw that out there for discussion.

[D215Aquitania]

70C or even 72C mash shouldn't be a problem, though I've not gone beyond 72C myself.

As for yeast, there's various lower attenuative yeasts readily available - CML "The Firm", MJ M15 Empire Ale, S-33 or anything "Windsor" spring to mind.

[Eric]

Mashing at higher temperatures quickens alpha enzyme activity while more rapidly denaturing the beta enzyme. This results in a less fermentable wort to produce a beer with more body, which in turn might be sweeter.

Basic Bitters frequently have residual sweetness from crystal malts or less fermentable ingredients of invert sugars. Sweetness can be induced into any beer by a small amount of lactose added to the boil. From a recent experience, an addition of 1 gm/L should be quite noticeable.

Stating the obvious, sweetness can be overridden by aggressive hops or from astringency if mashing or sparging at high pH (aim for below pH 5.6 for a Bitter).
I won't go as far as saying Goldings and Fuggles provide the perfect hop characteristics for a great Bitter, there are a great many other wonderful, suitable and possibly better hops, but they do provide an almost fail-safe base to work with.
Suitable water treatment is essential to avoid haze and undesirable tastes spoiling beer. For a basic Bitter beer, alkalinity should be no more than 50 ppm as CaCO3 in the mash and lower in sparge liquor. Calcium between 100 and 200 ppm with sulphate greater than chloride content, as can be seen in Graham's Water Calculator linked from this forum.

As for sweetness, I find crystal malts close to 200 EBC are best suited, but each maltster's crystal products are different, and it is essential to read their data before jumping headlong into picking that ingredient. Ragus Inverts provide lusciousness from cane sugar, No. 2 more than No. 1 and No. 3 more again, but as PeeBee found, Billington's Muscovado does as Ragus Invert will.

Yeast is as important as ever, but don't want to get far into that topic except to say my opinion is that a good bitter will unlikely be made with so called neutral yeasts used by many with content, and that letting fermentation temperature free rise towards its advised upper temperature before attenuation will add character.

[clarets7]

Which of the beers are you trying to emulate? I've not tried either but in my experience it's much easier to clone a 4.5% beer than a 3.6% one. I would agree with Eric that crystal malts are the way to go if you want sweetness rather than trying higher mash temperatures - never used lactose though.

Stating the obvious, sweetness can be overridden by aggressive hops

Absolutely, I have just made this mistake in my last attempt at a 3.6% bitter, did a no chill and forgot to remove the hop spider. It's sat in the KK now and hopefully will be less bitter once it has cleared

Yeast is as important as ever...

As for the yeast, again Eric is spot on I think, yeast is everything with low ABV beers. This brew was with a 50/50 mix of Crossmyloof Firm and Midland, third time using this mix but results seem to be hit and miss, I ended up with a higher FG than expected. I'm thinking of getting a couple of Brewlab slants though for this style of bitter, any advice on which one Eric?

[MashBag]

The latest cml "Firm" is a different batch and closer to type. Might that explain the variation?

[Mike123]

There is a lot to take in here, thanks for the help. My favourite of the two bitters I mentioned is probably the Earl Soham Victoria, it went down a treat. It is only 3.6%. It was a traditional type of bitter but very drinkable. Why is a lower ABV around 3.6% more difficult to clone?
I suppose the best thing to do is to try one thing at time until I reach something I like.

[Eric]

This brew was with a 50/50 mix of Crossmyloof Firm and Midland, third time using this mix but results seem to be hit and miss, I ended up with a higher FG than expected. I'm thinking of getting a couple of Brewlab slants though for this style of bitter, any advice on which one Eric?

Oh dear, I don't know if I can, but Brewlab has been a Godsend to me.

Located just yards from where I served my apprenticeship, they have at request supplied me several wonderful yeast and slopes. Most have been traditional heavy top fermenting types that may not be suitable for everybody. My gut feeling for a Bitter would be for a high mineral wort, Lancashire, and Tyneside for a lower mineral wort. Both are Northern yeasts, as you might expect from a Northerner.

Make a good size starter as per Brewlab's instructions. Once pitched into a brew and the first krausen has been skimmed of any debris and dead cells, return what remains on the surface into the wort and on the following day, when a thicker and healthier head should be present, harvest yeast for the next brew. Add Yeast Vit to the yeast while it is being brought up to pitching temperature at the next brew and so on. With care you'll likely get a year or two from a slant. Keep the saved yeast in a refrigerated sanitised jar with the lid not fully tight to allow gas to escape, but wrapped with clingfilm to stop ingress of all else.

In time you will derive your own methods for collection and pitching. It is likely to take 3 or 4 pitchings before optimum performance is obtained. If time between pitching is lengthy, make a starter from a small portion of the saved yeast to avoid adding lots of dead and weak yeast. Dead yeast smell and taste awful.

If it goes as it should, you'll never again buy dry yeast for brewing.

Apart from the obvious extra amount of flavour available in a stronger beer, at 4% ABV there is enough alcohol to defeat most interlopers. Low alcohol beers have more limited shelf life and, heaven forbid, coliform can survive in some circumstances.

[IPA]

70C or even 72C mash shouldn't be a problem, though I've not gone beyond 72C myself.

As for yeast, there's various lower attenuative yeasts readily available - CML "The Firm", MJ M15 Empire Ale, S-33 or anything "Windsor" spring to mind.

Sorry to be off topic but your soubriquet "D215 Aquitania" intrigues me and has done for sometime. Is it a French road number? If so I guess you live somewhere near Artigueloutan in department 64.

[IPA]

Here is a quote from
edsbeer.blogspot.pt/2014/11/fermentabiliy-and-mash-temperature.html
Carried out by Jaideep Chandrasekar (whoever he is) with a grist of 90% lager malt and 10% carapils.
65°C. 82%
70°C. 75%
50°C. 50%
80°C. 30%
Fermented with lager yeast

[D215Aquitania]

[quote=IPA post_id=865612 time=1670311076 user_id=9129]
Sorry to be off topic but your soubriquet "D215 Aquitania" intrigues me and has done for sometime. Is it a French road number? If so I guess you live somewhere near Artigueloutan in department 64.
[/quote]

it's from a British Rail Class 40 diesel locomotive, original number D215 latterly 40 015. Named Aquitania after the ship of the same name. Similar to the engine involved in the great train robbery. For my other hobby, I'm a signalman on a steam railway

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/489 ... 5bfc_b.jpg

[clarets7]

The latest cml "Firm" is a different batch and closer to type. Might that explain the variation?

No, same two packets for three small brews. I've found a possible reason though, I made a mistake in my calculations for the last brew and have underpitched compared to the first two.

Where did your info about it being a different batch come from?

[MashBag]

Via email while discussing yeast types with CML

[IPA]

Sorry to be off topic but your soubriquet "D215 Aquitania" intrigues me and has done for sometime. Is it a French road number? If so I guess you live somewhere near Artigueloutan in department 64.

it's from a British Rail Class 40 diesel locomotive, original number D215 latterly 40 015. Named Aquitania after the ship of the same name. Similar to the engine involved in the great train robbery. For my other hobby, I'm a signalman on a steam railway

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/489 ... 5bfc_b.jpg

Many thanks for revealing that. It has puzzled me for a long time.

[f00b4r]

Here is a quote from
edsbeer.blogspot.pt/2014/11/fermentabiliy-and-mash-temperature.html
Carried out by Jaideep Chandrasekar (whoever he is) with a grist of 90% lager malt and 10% carapils.
65°C. 82%
70°C. 75%
50°C. 50%
80°C. 30%
Fermented with lager yeast

Not sure why that came out wrong but here is they corrected version (maybe knocked a key out something):


http://edsbeer.blogspot.com/2014/11/fer ... e.html?m=1

Carried out by Jaideep Chandrasekar (whoever he is) with a grist of 90% lager malt and 10% carapils.

65°C 82%
70°C 70%
75°C 50%
80°C 30%

Fermented with lager yeast