Mild #1
This is only my 3rd or 4th time doing a dark mild that is true to style. I kept it pretty simple and resisted the urge to throw a million specialty grains in there. Of course I stuck with all british ingredients. It's in the upper range of the style in terms of alcohol and color which is always a good starting point. Being a fan of historic beer like I am, you can't really talk about mild without mentioning how different it was back in the day. I won't go into detail because Ron Pattinson has covered the topic better than anyone, so if you want some more in depth info go over to his blog. Basically though, mild just meant a fresh beer and they were often high in alcohol, pale in color and highly hopped...so nothing like the modern version.
I used golden promise instead of my usual choice of marris otter for a british base malt because I thought the sweetness that it contributes as opposed to the breadiness from the marris otter would work well in a dark malty style. I'm not a huge fan of crystal malts that are darker than like 70 srm so I stuck with a medium crystal (55 srm). I really love pale chocolate malt because I think it actually lends a chocolaty flavor compared to regular chocolate malt, which to me contributes more of a roast coffee flavor. Mostly for color adjustment but also for a very slight roast character I added some black patent malt. The roast character should be minimal in this style. I'm a huge fan of black patent and actually wasn't aware of all the hate it gets. If you are curious about it, check out this byo article from Kristen England for more info. I also added some flaked oats to help with the mouthfeel which I think did the job well. Not necessarily traditional but it's always important to try and keep the beer from being too thin when doing lower alcohol beers and flaked oats/wheat is great way to do that.
This is the first time I've added the roasted grains at the sparge and didn't mash them which is a technique popularized by Gordon Strong and outlined in one of his books. Roasted grains don't need to be mashed and the theory is that the long hot steep can extract harsh flavors, so adding them at the sparge should diminish that while still giving you what you want out of the grains. I haven't done a side by side or anything but I definitely think the darker grains have a milder more rounded flavor than if they were mashed. I'm a fan and will continue to use this technique.
I mashed high but it still attenuated a good amount even with 002. I did pitch a lot of yeast though so that might have something to do with it. I'll dial back the amount of yeast next time. This was the 3rd generation of this yeast and it was definitely the best so far in terms of flavor. I'm going to go at least another generation. Hops are the easy part, you want a minimal amount of bitterness with really no flavor or aroma contributions so really anything will do. I had some styrian goldings (which are related to fuggles not goldings despite the name) so I went with those to keep it traditional. I did add a small .5 oz charge with 5 min left in the boil for a little hop aroma but you really don't want to add too much towards the end. It gave it just a slight earthy hop aroma which was just what I was looking for. In general I try and keep the mineral additions to the water at a minimum as I'm not a huge fan of minerally beers or even english yeasts that display a minerally character, so I targeted a chloride to sulfate ratio of about 1:1 for balance. To go over a ratio of 1:1 I would have needed to add a lot more calcium chloride. That would enhance the mouthfeel but it wasn't lacking in this beer, maybe that's something I'll play around with in the future.
This beer came out really well and in terms of the recipe I think it's solid and doesn't need any adjustments as is if you want a standard mild recipe. This beer was served to a lot of non-craft beer and non-dark beer drinkers and they all raved about it. It's lower in alcohol than bud light but 100x more flavorful, you can't really go wrong. For the record, I'm not a macro hater, I think what they do is impressive and there is definitely a place for a light adjunct lager on a hot day but generally I prefer more flavorful beers up here on my soapbox. I made some invert sugar which I'll do a blog post on in the future but that's my next move with this mild. Excited to see how it turns out.
This is the first time I've added the roasted grains at the sparge and didn't mash them which is a technique popularized by Gordon Strong and outlined in one of his books. Roasted grains don't need to be mashed and the theory is that the long hot steep can extract harsh flavors, so adding them at the sparge should diminish that while still giving you what you want out of the grains. I haven't done a side by side or anything but I definitely think the darker grains have a milder more rounded flavor than if they were mashed. I'm a fan and will continue to use this technique.
I mashed high but it still attenuated a good amount even with 002. I did pitch a lot of yeast though so that might have something to do with it. I'll dial back the amount of yeast next time. This was the 3rd generation of this yeast and it was definitely the best so far in terms of flavor. I'm going to go at least another generation. Hops are the easy part, you want a minimal amount of bitterness with really no flavor or aroma contributions so really anything will do. I had some styrian goldings (which are related to fuggles not goldings despite the name) so I went with those to keep it traditional. I did add a small .5 oz charge with 5 min left in the boil for a little hop aroma but you really don't want to add too much towards the end. It gave it just a slight earthy hop aroma which was just what I was looking for. In general I try and keep the mineral additions to the water at a minimum as I'm not a huge fan of minerally beers or even english yeasts that display a minerally character, so I targeted a chloride to sulfate ratio of about 1:1 for balance. To go over a ratio of 1:1 I would have needed to add a lot more calcium chloride. That would enhance the mouthfeel but it wasn't lacking in this beer, maybe that's something I'll play around with in the future.
This beer came out really well and in terms of the recipe I think it's solid and doesn't need any adjustments as is if you want a standard mild recipe. This beer was served to a lot of non-craft beer and non-dark beer drinkers and they all raved about it. It's lower in alcohol than bud light but 100x more flavorful, you can't really go wrong. For the record, I'm not a macro hater, I think what they do is impressive and there is definitely a place for a light adjunct lager on a hot day but generally I prefer more flavorful beers up here on my soapbox. I made some invert sugar which I'll do a blog post on in the future but that's my next move with this mild. Excited to see how it turns out.
- og - 1.038
- fg - 1.008
- 3.9% abv
- 15 ibu
- 20 srm
- 75% golden promise (simpsons)
- 10% medium crystal (simpsons)
- 9% flaked oats (quaker)
- 4% pale chocolate (thomas fawcett)
- 2% black patent malt (briess)
- 3rd gen wlp002 1l starter from a 400ml thick slurry harvested from the best bitter #3
- fwh - 1.5 oz styrian goldings - 14.2 ibu
- 5m - .5 oz styrian goldings - 0.9 ibu
Water Profile
ca 49 ppm | mg 7 ppm | na 0 ppm | s04 53 ppm | cl 59 ppm
chloride to sulfate ratio: 1.1
Brew Day 6/25/17
- mashed at 156f for 60m
- boiled for 60m
- fermented at 66f for 60 hours then raised to 69f for the remainder
Tasting Notes 10/26/17
appearance: dark brown, tan colored thin white head with good lacing
aroma: dark chocolate, hint of roast, earthy, english esters
taste: sweet bready malt, creamy, caramel, raisins, dry finish
ca 49 ppm | mg 7 ppm | na 0 ppm | s04 53 ppm | cl 59 ppm
chloride to sulfate ratio: 1.1
Brew Day 6/25/17
- mashed at 156f for 60m
- boiled for 60m
- fermented at 66f for 60 hours then raised to 69f for the remainder
Tasting Notes 10/26/17
appearance: dark brown, tan colored thin white head with good lacing
aroma: dark chocolate, hint of roast, earthy, english esters
taste: sweet bready malt, creamy, caramel, raisins, dry finish
Next Time
For a standard mild recipe I really wouldn't change anything. Sometimes you just get lucky and nail it on the first try. The only thing left to do is to experiment. The main thing I want to do is try some invert #3 and see what that adds to this same recipe.
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