Tony,
My next brew will be an English pale, where I'll use GO, MO or Vienna, and any specialty malts will go in sparingy; I'll probably use crsytal at 5% and Victory at 3% of fermentables, and hop with EKG. I might later try the pale ale malts in blonde ales where I've previously used JW Vienna. The thread on dark milds has me interested too; I drank many in the UK but have never brewed one. A recent recipe for my evolving blonde is below.
In any recipe, given that I'm doing partial mash, the base malt will provide 40 to 75 percent of fermentables, depending on the volume of wort ready for pitching, the original gravity of the brew, and the amount of specialty malts. My mash-capacity limit is about 3 kg.
Re melanoidin, I tried it twice in 23 L batches of American ambers, along with dark crystal, and JW Vienna was the base malt. The first time, at 300g, I found the malt flavor cloying even though the beer had a low fg. The second time I used 150g and liked what it added. One malthead I know, a Brit, liked both. In future ambers I'll probably stick with Vienna as the base malt.
Galactic blonde:
23 L final volume, boil time 80 minutes
Grain and Extract Bill:
1.6 kg JW Vienna
800 g JW wheat
1.2 kg Briess Golden Light DME, added at -60
Began mash at 68 C.
Hops:
12 g Magnum at -60 minutes
28 g Galaxy at -20
12 g Galaxy, boiling water poured over, steeped 5 minutes and added at knock out, immediately before cooling.
Yeast Danstar Nottingham, fermented at temperature steady between 14 and 15 C.
Primary fermentation 22 days, then primed with cane sugar and bottle conditioned (no secondary).
Notes:
1. o.g 1.045, f.g. 1.015
2. Fermentation began after short lag, was vigorous and largely complete within 72 hours
3. Colour a dirty blonde due to kettle caramelisation in a partial boil
4. Noticeable but round and pleasant malt flavour and aroma, little toast and no noticeable caramel
5. Expected slight sweetness came out too sweet, except two bottles ended up dry and gassy (but tasty), presumably because of secondary fermentation of lingering fermentables.
6. IBUs tasted well under 25, short of a higher target 25 that had been based on Brewheads Rager calculation.
7. Superb hop flavour and aroma, less aggressive than Amarillo or Cascade used in similar recipes, notes of peach, distinct from Galaxy in other of my home brew styles and in Stone & Woods Pacific Ale, all of which used it in higher concentrations.
Possible changes:
Mash at lower temperature to reduce complex sugars
Add DME later, maybe at -15, to reduce kettle caramelisation.
