#4 English Bitter

Batch #4 (Brewed Wednesday, January 28, 2009)

Goal:
A lighter, less hoppy version of an ESB; more like a plain English Bitter

Ingredients:
1 lb. Maris Otter Pale Malt – Munton’s
½ lb. Crystal Grain – 40L - Briess
¼ lb. Carapils (Dextrine) Grain - Briess
2 x 1lb. bag Munton’s Amber DME
1 x 3lb. bag Munton’s Light DME
2 oz. Kent Golding (5%) Hop pellets (see addition schedule below)
Publix Brand Spring Water (enough to make almost 5 gallons wort)
About ½ gallons filtered tap water to top off at just over 5 gallons wort
Irish Moss (added with flavoring hops; 15 minutes total boil)
White Labs WPL002 English Ale Yeast

Notes:
Brought 2 gallons water to 150 and steeped grain for 30 minutes. I maintained much closer to exactly 150 than last week when brewing the Hefeweizen. Removed grain bag from pot and placed in colander over another pot. Turned heat to maximum and when temperature reached 180, added all 5 lbs. DME. When wort reached a boil (initially) added just over 2 cups chilled spring water to reduce temperature (and foaming action). I added drained liquid from grain bag. When boil resumed, foaming action was almost nothing.
Added 1 oz. hops with 60 minutes boil time remaining.
Added ½ oz. hops and Irish Moss with 15 minutes boil time remaining.
Added ½ oz. hops with 5 minutes boil time remaining.
Chilled wort in covered pot in ice bath.
Reduced temperature of the wort to 115 and poured the wort through a two stage filter process of colander and strainer filter. Colander took out a good amount of crud, and the strainer filter removed a lot more.
I added water to make just over 5 gallons total wort and took original gravity reading. I pitched the yeast and realized I hadn’t checked the temperature, which proved to be 81 F.
Stirred yeast into wort and placed lid on bucket.

Racked to secondary carboy after 5 days.
Bottled after 5 more days.
Beer was carbonated within a week.

Original Gravity: 1.051 @ 80 degrees (corrected value is 1.0535)
Final Gravity: 1.015 @ 72 degrees (corrected value is 1.0163)
Calculated Alcohol %: 4.8% ABV

Lesson learned: Not a bad batch. Tasted when freshly bottled, and it hadn't carbonated yet. There was a noticeable lack of any body to the beer, however, a week later, the carbonation really brought the body out. There was a VERY noticeable change while the carbonation took place. Great batch!!!