Simply Bitter

[Lesinge]

Simply Bitter 10/06/14. Brewed with 730g brewing sugar, 500g Medium spray malt. Pitched at 24 degrees. OG 1044/1046. Taste before yeast. Malty with hint of lingering bitterness at back of mouth, sweet and smooth but not too much depth on tip of tongue. Racked 24th June. Taste at racking light and very bitter as was the Simply IPA at this stage. At bottling after 17 days this beer is very light in colour, still bitter but more mellow than previously. No great flavour beyond this so it will interesting how this mellows out over the next month or so. FG is 1010 so it will be 4.5% to 4.8% which is understandable given the 250g extra of sugar!



At 15/07/14 this is a seriously nice strong beer, smooth with both sweetness and bitterness but very warming alcohol . Make this again like this!


At 03/10/14 - just under four months old. Light golden/orange in colour, smell is "vanilla"? and a bit fruity with sweetish undertones (may not be as I cant trust my nose here). Taste, warm, with sweetish edges and a good bitterness. Really nice...pity its one of my last


Simply beers are great value for the cost,

 

[upthepool]

Complete newbie to HB, and this is my first post.

Lesinge, have been lurking for a fesw weeks now and have read a lot of your posts that have been very helpful to me - thanks.

My first ever brew, Simply beer Bitter kit.
I used 1kg of Muntons BE
Tap water
1/2tsp white granulated sugar when I bottled.

Think I made loads of newbie type mistakes, sanitised everything then forgot to sanitise the airlock for example, also think I pitched the yeast too hot and also fermented too hot (have bought a probe type thermometer now to help with that).

Anyway the numbers.
SG 1039
FG 1013
9 days in FV then straight into the bottles.
Bottled on 8th August 2015, kept in a warmer area for a week and then put them into the cellar on 16th August.

Advertised abv for this is around 4.5%. Think mine will come out about 3.8% which is low but from my research using BE will lead to a higher FG.

Just got to wait now. Might have a cheeky slurp after a couple of weeks and see where it is at.

Have got a Geordie Bitter Kit in the FV at the moment. Have used bottled water this time (17p for 2 ltr at Tesco) and have put 20 Ltr of water in.
As I've read on here, change one thing at a time and patience is the game. I pitched the yeast for this at 23C and have kept the temperature pretty contant around the 18C - 19C, so will see how that goes.

God, I've got a lot to learn on this :rofl: