English Dark Mild

I decided that over the next few months (probably weeks who are we kidding) I’ll only have high alcohol beers on tap. To counter that I decided to brew a low ABV beer, but since it’s winter I didn’t want to brew something like I would for the summer. I wanted to brew something malty for a change, instead of my usual dry finishing beers. For that reason I came up with the idea to brew an English Mild. 

This is one of the few beers that I am actually attempting to brew to style. My plan is to have it mimic the creamy mouthfeel you would get from a cask by adding Golden Naked oats. I also want to have a touch of sweetness from Crystal Malt, but since I’m terrified of Crystal Malt sweetness I’m adding brown sugar to hopefully dry the beer out a little bit more. The brown sugar might seem counterproductive for reducing sweetness, but the brown sugar is essentially 100% fermentable, while adding color and some extra caramelized sugar.  The Golden Naked oats should balance out the lack of body provided by the sugar and the possible over attenuation of the yeast. Personally I like dry beers, but on a low gravity beer a dry finish can make the beer seem thin. 

There are not a lot of commercial examples for English Mild, in fact there are probably more examples in America then there are in England. The recipe that I formulated comes from the BJCP style guidelines for English Mild, a touch of sweetness, medium-body, low carbonation, and dark brown in color. I generally don’t care for English beers, but I think that is just because I can’t find good examples of them. If that’s the problem then why not make my own. Part of my brewing philosophy is that if I can’t buy it on the shelves, then I should brew it. One of the fun parts of home brewing is being able to brew beers you cannot find or recreate extinct styles. 

I only encountered two problems while brewing this time. First I’m still trying to figure out my grain mill, it shouldn’t take me as long as it does to mill grain, this time it wasn’t a battery issue on my drill. I had trouble getting both rollers to mill. Secondly I completely forgot that I was out of CO₂ until I started my boil. After flame out I was forced to add a 25 minute whirlpool while I ran to get more CO₂ (I use it to transfer beer through my wort chiller), one more reason I need to get a pump.

Beer Stats

Batch Size: 5.5 Gallons

Boil Time: 90 minutes

Estimated OG: 1.042

Measured OG: 1.041

Measured FG: 1.012

ABV: 3.7 %

SRM: 25^o

IBU: 16

Grain Bill

7.5 lbs - Pearl Malt

0.75 lbs – Crystal 80L

0.25 lbs – Chocolate Malt

0.5 lbs – Golden Naked Oats

0.5 lbs – Brown Sugar

Hop Schedule

1 oz – Fuggles – 60 minutes

Yeast

Wyeast 1335 – Brittish Ale II

Mash Schedule

154F –Single Infusion – 60 minutes

Notes:

10/26/14 – Brewed by myself. Pretty standard besides issues milling and having to make a CO₂ run after boiling, but that should only add maybe 5 more IBUs. Added 0.5 grams of CaCl to the mash. Mash runnings came in at 1.032. Chilled to 68^oF pitched yeast straight from the smack pack. I figured there was no need for a starter due to the low gravity of the beer. Shook to aerate since my air stone is still submerged in the Heady clone. Fermentation temperature set to 64^oF.

10/27/14 – Fermentation had taken off in the morning with a nice inch thick layer or krausen.

11/3/14 - Moved up stairs to finish off fermentation.

11/10/14 - Placed in chest freezer at 33^oF to cold crash and clarify.

11/13/14 - Gravity down to 1.012. Kegged and pressurized under 8psi. 

Clone Wars Episode II: Heady Topper-ish

This is my second attempt at brewing a Heady Topper clone, or something that resembles Heady Topper. I very much believe that even given a recipe it’s still almost impossible to replicate a beer brewed by someone else due to process and equipment size. However, I’m giving it another try because I wasn’t exactly pleased with my first attempt and if I could get close to the actual Heady Topper, I would be very pleased.

Part of the problem with my first attempt was I think due to some autolysis and mash pH. That beer is what caused me to force myself to sit down and learn about mash chemistry. It’s my assumption that the harsh astringent bitterness I got came from my mash pH being too high. After learning about the importance of mash pH I’ve been adding some acid malt to all of my beers and have noticed an improvement in flavor and clarity. I also recently bought an oxygen diffuser stone so that I can inject pure O2 into my wort. This should help with yeast attenuation and help to prevent off flavors and aromas by improving yeast health. 

My brewday started off slow. I didn’t know that I didn’t have a single charged battery for my drill, which caused my grain crush to take an hour and a half. Although I will say that it was nice to be able to control the crush of my grain. Beyond that I didn’t have any other problems until I stated to oxygenate and the oxygen wand blew out of the hose and into my carboy. On the plus side the actual brewing was smooth and easy. 

I used a previous method for a “hopback” that I used in the past. Essentially I pump the hot wort through my “jockey box wort chiller” but leave the coils out of the ice bath. This will chill the beer to 140F, which is still hot enough to extract hop oils in a reasonable amount of time and preserve the hop aroma but not too hot to extract bitterness. I left the wort on the hops for about 50 minutes including the amount of time to pump it from the keg to the carboy to fully chill the wort. 

Beer Stats

Est OG: 1.077

Measured OG: 1.076

Final Gravity: 1.018

ABV%: 7.6%

SRM: 10^o

IBU: 110

Boil Time: 90 minutes

Batch Volume: 6 gallons

Grain Bill

16 lbs - Pearl Malt

1.25 lbs – Carapils

1.25 lbs – White wheat

1 lb – Cane Sugar

0.5 lbs – Acid Malt

Hop Schedule

10.00 ml - Hopshot- Boil 90.0 min
1.00 oz -  Simcoe-  Boil 5.0 min
0.50 oz – Apollo - Boil 5.0 min
1.00 oz - Columbus  - Boil 0.0 min
2.00 oz - Simcoe - Boil 0.0 min
1.00 oz - Columbus - Whirlpool 30.0 min
1.00 oz - Simcoe - Whirlpool 30.0 min

1.00 oz - Columbus - Whirlpool 30.0 min
1.00 oz - Simcoe - Whirlpool 30.0 min
1.00oz – Amarillo - Hopback 30.0 min
0.50 oz - Centennial - Hopback 30.0 min
0.50 oz - Apollo – Hopback- 30.0 min
1.00 oz - Columbus - Dry Hop 4.0 Days
1.00 oz - Simcoe - Dry Hop 4.0 Days
0.5 oz - Amarillo - Dry Hop 4.0 Days
0.5 oz - Centennial - Dry Hop 4.0 Days
0.25 oz - Apollo - Dry Hop 4.0 Days

1 oz - Columbus - Dry Hop 4.0 Days
0.5 oz - Simcoe - Dry Hop 4.0 Days
0.5 oz - Amarillo - Dry Hop 4.0 Days
0.5 oz - Centennial - Dry Hop 4.0 Days
0.25 oz - Apollo - Dry Hop 4.0 Days

Mash Schedule

Single infusion – 152^oF

Mash Out – 168^oF

Yeast

1.5L - Conan Yeast stepped up from a can

Notes:

10/12/14 – Stock from fridge added to 1L 1.020 starter

10/15/14 – Starter decanted and stepped up to 1.5L 1.040 starter

10/17/14 – Starter placed in the fridge

10/18/14 – Brewed by myself. Mash pH was 5.32 (estimated 5.34). Water profile was 84% RO water with 4 grams of Gypsum and 6 grams of CaCl. Wort chilled to 60^oF and decanted starter pitched. Oxygenated for 30 seconds with pure O2.

10/19/14 – Fermentation started 12 hours after pitching.

10/20/14 – Had to take the air lock out and add a blow off tube. I thought I had enough room, but I think the O2 really helped give me a strong fermentation.

10/23/14 - Increased temperature to 70F.

10/26/14 - Removed from chest freezer and placed in beer room to finish out fermentation at ambient temperature.

11/3/14 - First round of dry hops added to new "brite" tank, aka sawed off dip tube in a corny.

11/9/14 - Racked to finishing keg and added a second round of dry hops in a hop bag.

11/15/14 - Bag of dry hops removed and keg placed in the chest freezer under 10psi. Final pH down to 4.63

12/09/14 - First tasting. Under attenuated but much more enjoyable then the first batch. 

First Tasting: Traditional Hefeweizen

This beer initially started out as a diacetyl bomb when it warmed up, but with a little extra effort I was able to clear that issue up. I knew that if I could detect diacetyl when the beer was warm and not cold that it was not an issue with infection, but a fermentation issue. My thought was that if I let the beer warm up in a keg and sit in a warm room for a little while the yeast (being a Hefeweizen it should still be in suspension) clean up the diacetyl. If that didn’t work I had no idea what to do. Happily after a week and a half of sitting in the laundry room they yeast cleaned up any aromatic problems. 

I’ve brewed this beer a few times in the past and have been happy with it, but I’ve never actually brewed it for myself. I like to think this beer is somewhat similar to Live Oak Hefeweizen, although a lazy man’s version because I don’t perform a decoction like they do at their brewery. 

Appearance:  It pours a hazy orangish-yellow with a fluffy white head. The head retention leaves a little to be desired, which I think comes from the extended warm conditioning after the fact or due to the low gravity of the beer. I really love the color of the beer that the melanoidin malt adds. 

Aroma: I’ve very pleased with the aroma, now that the diacetyl is gone. There is a nice balance of clove and spice upfront. The spices remind me of cinnamon and nutmeg, with a touch of citrus. As it warms up I get a bit of banana, a hint of bubblegum and even some bready malt, but the spices continue to come through to provide balance. 

Flavor: Clove and banana are the predominate flavor with some bready malt in the back ground. I think the melanoidin malt did a good job of giving the perception of a decoction mash. There is a bit of wheat twang and the pH might be a touch too low, but I think that was more of an issue with my gravity being too low so there isn’t enough residual sweetness to balance it out. 

Mouthfeel: I think the body is a little too thin. My calculator was had the wrong equation for calculating initial gravity, so I was coming under my target, which caused my final gravity to be lower than I would have liked. Ideally I would have preferred 1.012, but I was closer to 1.008, which thinned out the beer a bit. I think my mash was also a little too low. I went with 149^oF for the Berliner, but normally I would go with 151-152^oF. Carbonation is prickly and the finish is dry. 

Overall: I’m very happy with this beer, but there are a few issues I need to tweak. The gravity issue shouldn’t be a problem now that I have corrected my equation and I even bought a grain mill so I can no longer use the LHBS as an excuse. I think this is the first beer that I’ve started to dial in on a recipe that I really like. I’ve also got a fermentation schedule that I think keeps the phenols in check and provides balance that is not just banana.