The Aim
I am seeking to create an English Mild ale, refreshing and full of flavour, dark with a nice head that remains all the way to the end something not too strong with a 3.2% alcohol rating. Keeping the hops to a minimum.
In addition to the numerous brewing books that have in my library, below are my selection the online people, blogs and websites that I turn to. Finally Alan, if you get to see this website, thank you for your sharing with me, your brewing set-up.
Why English Dark Mild? basically because I don’t like Bitter, I never have. I was lucky enough to be brought up on Bass Mild and later on, Hull Brewery Mild. I tend to drink Lager (much to the frowning of some of the local Beer Festival Committee members) but would prefer a good pint of Dark Mild.
Our first ever Brew Day
I had a plan and with the assistance of Grainfather I had water and hydrometer targets. And with the help of Rob, we set too.
The day was hot but the show had to go on as they say…
Whilst I got the Star San mixed, programmed the Brew Devil and got the water up to the strike temperature, Rob was measuring out the grains. And, the 90 minute mash commenced (I don’t know why they call it mash as it is more a simmer!). All was going fine, the Mash Out point came and the Sparge commenced. All was going fine until the Sparge, I had 20 mins in mind but the tap was open too much and we never reached the 20 mins.
Next, the Boil, I got the temperature up to boiling point and wanted a 2000W boil but that bleedin’ Brew Devil controller somehow gave me 3000W, I foolishly had the glass lid on and managed to shoot some of the contents up the wall of the Lodge (the brewhouse) Rob thought this hilarious lol – so I took the controller into manual mode and continued with the Boil. This Mild Ale is very lightly hopped and added in half way through the 60min Boil.
With the boiler off I connected the Counterflow chiller that I had made, our water is quite cold and even piping the water from the house, I was able to get the temperature down to 19 degrees – splashing it into the fermenting bucket in good time and with only a barrel of water used.
With the yeast added and lid on, the aim was to keep the Mild cool at 19 degrees when the outside world was at 30 degrees. luckily we have a cooler side of the house and a small room where I could install a chiller fan unit. Where I managed to keep it at 20 degrees, which was the top end of the yeast range.
Fermentation was slow to start and finished after 3.5 days and I left it until 5 days before Bottling in and Putting it into 3 x 5litre poly pins. The FG was low with the AVB at 1.58 and this was down to the Sparging time and not washing all the sugars off the grains.
After a further 5 days Rob & I had a tasting session – Rob produced a Marble Mild (4.1%) and we taste tested them side by side. The Marble was sharp, where our Lodge Mild was smooth.
All in all not bad – Lessons Learned: Sparging flow and duration practice required; Brew Devil controller either master it or attach gelignite to it (and stand back); Make a chiller so that Mild can be fermented all year round.