English Mild/Bitters - Page 2

BioBeing · 09-24-2009, 05:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KCBrew

Aside from all of the obvious reasons why one would homebrew, one of my main incentives to brew was my love for English Bitters and Real Ales the latter which I have, through reading, come to associate with English Milds.

Point of clarification:

A mild is but one example of a beer that might be a real ale. In general, a "real ale" is term used to describe a beer that has been cask conditioned and served through a hand pump, as opposed to forced with CO2. To my mind, a real ale is usually a bitter, as milds aren't that common in the UK anyway (at least not in the South, where I grew up).

That said, I love a good mild!

mkling · 09-24-2009, 05:36 PM

I wouldn't rack an English mild onto the yeast cake from a Pale Ale. The Mild is too small of a beer to do so. It's really important when pitching yeast to both not underpitch and not overpitch. Underpitching is usually the bigger problem for most of us, but overpitching is a problem, too -- You need some yeast reproduction going on to produce many of the right flavor compounds. It works fine pitching on a yeast cake when it's a big beer (e.g., a 1.065 IPA) on the cake from a small beer (e.g., a 1.040 bitter), because the yeast will need to do some reproduction to ferment out the bigger beer. However, going the other way around is probably asking for trouble.

I always operate on a +20 point rule -- I'll consider using the whole cake if the new wort is at least 20 gravity points higher than the old one. If not, just use half the yeast cake, or wash the yeast.

KCBrew · 09-24-2009, 05:57 PM

Cool, I actually was planning on doing just using 3/4 cup from the cake, but my homebrew guy (at the store) said directly pitching would be fine, but we didn't get into the style of beer at that point. I would also be interested in doing a Bitters if that is more suited to the Pale ale yeast (although I got pretty excited about doing the Mild after reading some of the recipes).

Thoughts on whether the bitters would be more well suited to the Pale yeast than the Mild, or would neither really be suggested...

mkling · 09-24-2009, 06:17 PM

Either a bitter or a mild is fine for the yeast from a pale ale.

KCBrew · 09-24-2009, 08:33 PM

So I'm feeling pretty good about doing Orfy's Mild. I am not, however, going to keg as I have yet to even bottle a batch. I am a fan of the mild carbonation of Real Ales. What do you suggest doing for the bottling? 1/4 cup of corn sugar for 5 gallons? None? Thoughts? I have access to a carbonation chart, so alternatively a carbonation # could be helpful. And what would be the carbonation 'profile' if I just bottled after 7-10 days and started drinking 4-7 days after.

TIA

mkling · 09-24-2009, 08:52 PM

The usual rule most use is 3/4 cup sugar at bottling for a 5 gallon batch. I think you could easily drop that down to 1/2 cup. Personally, I wouldn't go much lower. Remember the cask-conditioning of real ale is still a carbonation process.