English Mild Ale Recipe: Need some thoughts from experienced homebrewers

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Ruwindu

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Uni Student searching for a fun hobby here. So far brewed 3 beers which were all... homebrewy in flavour. Wanted a crack at some English ales for their amazing drinkability and my sheer interest. Due to some sourcing problems I did have to improvise a fair bit to make this recipe so I just want any thoughts on what to add or remove or even change in this recipe I developed. I chose the english dark mild since that seemed a decent place to start from. I did finish brewing and it's doing its carbonation magic in my also improvised keg so without further ado here's my recipe.

HTML:
A Mild Improv
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Batch Size: 5 Litres (fermenter)
Infusion Method: BIAB
Intended OG: 1.035
ABV (intended): 3.47%
==============================================================
Ingredients

600g Pale Maris Otter
100g Caramalt (Joe White)
50g Toasted Pale Maris Otter*

'Handful' of Super Pride T90**

1/4 tsp Table Salt (Uniodised)

Whitelabs WLP002 Engish Ale Yeast

50g Caramel Colouring***
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*   - Toasted at home in an oven at 150C for about an hour
**  - Don't have an accurate enough scale... yet so just put a small amount
      on the palm of my hand (approx 1.5 tsp I reckon)
*** - Some chinese rock sugar in a well cleaned wok and some water did the magic
      Almost black in colour once the syrup was made
==============================================================
Mash

*Single infusion mash at 68C for one hour 4l
(Was limited by the size of my mash tun)
*Took my first runnings (did not take volumetric measurements)
*Batch Sparged for 30 minutes with 1.5l of water at 90C
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Boil

*90 Minute vigorous boil to encourage malty caramel centric flavours
Hops addition at 60 minutes to flame out
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Fermentation

*Pitched whole starter packet at 21C and fermented in a
pressure cooker with free venting submerged in a water bath.
*Fermented one week at temperature range 19.5 - 21.5 C
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'Kegging'
*After One week siphoned into a well sanitised bag in a box setup
*Poured in syrup of 5tsp (approx 20g) Brown Sugar
*Dry Hopped with (guesstimate 5g) Galaxy Hops T90
*Letting her rip for 3 days before fridge time and drinking
==============================================================
 
Last edited:
Interesting. Are you based in Australia?

You really need to take measurements. On such a small volume, a Refractometet will allow you to take gravity samples without using up your wort. A few drops is all you need.

Thats a lot of a single caramel flavour, so you may find the beer to be a little one dimensional. If possible, a few specialty malts spread out give a bit more complexity. I usually go with a medium crystal, a biscuit and an Amber. About 5% each.

Super Pride won't give you much if an English vibe, something like East Kent Golding or Fuggles.

The Galaxy will give it a new world twist, which may or may not suit. It's not anything English in my opinion. More an Aussie Ale style-ish.

You really do need to measure the basics like volume, gravity and hops. Different volumes and gravity will affect hop utilisation and on a small scale will have a larger impact than being out by a gram or two on a standard 20L batch.

Also, 3 days won't be enough to carbonate I don't think, but will be interested to see how it goes.
 

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