Critique this Pale Mild Recipe

It's pretty basic. Let me know if anything seems amiss. Thanks!

1.035 OG
16 IBU
9 SRM

I'm using the "amber malty" profile in Bru'n Water, with a .7 sulfate/chloride ratio (i.e., slanted a bit more toward chloride than the default).

5 lbs Maris Otter
0.5 lb Victory
0.5 lb Crystal 40
1 ounce Chocolate 350

Mash at 156 F. BIAB.

~0.7ounces UK Goldings (5.8%aa) at 45 minutes.

Wyeast 1968. No starter.

Anyone?

45 minutes has yielded me with very very little hop hop flavor. The flavor contribution is exponential not linear.so if your shooting for some hop flavor I would dig into that some more

I'd up the crystal to at least .75lbs and be sure its an English crystal but the success is really dependent on the ferment as much as the recipe. Any commercial recipe likely would have included some invert sugar or flaked maize. Are you brewing this is a drinkable yeast starter or are you interested in the style?

gbx said:

I'd up the crystal to at least .75lbs and be sure its an English crystal but the success is really dependent on the ferment as much as the recipe. Any commercial recipe likely would have included some invert sugar or flaked maize. Are you brewing this is a drinkable yeast starter or are you interested in the style?

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It's a starter for an Obsidian Stout clone. I'd be happy to use British crystal, but my LHBS only carries domestic, and in this case it doesn't seem worth it to mail order.

I've made a traditional dark mild before with more crystal, but cut it down for this recipe because I wanted to try something different.

The invert sugar bit intrigues me, and always has when I've read about its use in British brewing. If you swap base malt out for sugar, aren't you lightening the body? That would run counter to what I'd like to achieve with this beer.

I wouldn't use sugar in a mild. For me, it would dry out an already light style. Recipe looks good to me. I'd up the crystal s well, but if you are playing off a previous recipe go for it as is. I like the biscuit, yeast, mash temp... Should be tasty.

tonyolympia said:

It's a starter for an Obsidian Stout clone. I'd be happy to use British crystal, but my LHBS only carries domestic, and in this case it doesn't seem worth it to mail order.

I've made a traditional dark mild before with more crystal, but cut it down for this recipe because I wanted to try something different.

The invert sugar bit intrigues me, and always has when I've read about its use in British brewing. If you swap base malt out for sugar, aren't you lightening the body? That would run counter to what I'd like to achieve with this beer.

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Yes it would change the body which is why I was asking if you were doing it as a starter or out of interest in the style. The dark brewers invert would not have been fully fermentable (like adding straight dextrose to beer) and would have added a lot of flavours. Milds were often brewed to be cheap session beers and had really low FGs which probably added to their poundability. A lot of the award winning homebrew recipes no doubt taste bigger and richer with the goal being a delicious 2 oz competition pour vs commercial examples that were brewed for repeated 20oz pints with food.

But all malt is fine to. Milds are just a style i've been nerding out on lately - they are not something we can get here, are quick and easy to brew, easy drinkers and yummy if all things go well.

gbx said:

Milds were often brewed to be cheap session beers and had really low FGs which probably added to their poundability. A lot of the award winning homebrew recipes no doubt taste bigger and richer with the goal being a delicious 2 oz competition pour vs commercial examples that were brewed for repeated 20oz pints with food.

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I don't imagine I'll have a very high finishing gravity with this ale, even without simple sugars. I get really great attenuation on almost every beer; there's something about my stovetop BIAB system that seems to favor beta amylase. With 8% crystal, a 156 mash temp, and Wyeast 1968, I still expect to land no higher than 1.010 on this mild.

I don't want it to be a big chewy beer, but I do want some malt complexity, and to that end I think I'll swap 2 lbs of the MO out for some Munich 10. I think I will also use 2 ounces of Chocolate malt rather than one, and together all of this will bring the beer to 12 SRM, just inside the style guidelines.

Thanks for your input, gbx. I appreciate nerdery in the service of good beer.

gbx said:

Any commercial recipe likely would have included some invert sugar or flaked maize.

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GBX: after everything I said above, last night I brewed my mild and ended up adding turbinado sugar to the kettle. (I took a hit on efficiency--not sure why--and I wanted to get this ale in the neighborhood of my intended OG.)

My sugar addition added 3 gravity points, out of 1.036 total. That's about 9% of fermentables. How does that compare to the use of sugar in a commercial mild? If I've made my mild a bit more authentic by adding an appropriate level of adjuncts, I suppose I'll be happy.

Whenever I do small beers I always get way better efficiency than I was expecting. 9% seems reasonable but ingredients varied greatly depending on year and brewer. I'm currently drinking pale mild with 8% sugar based off this recipe
http://barclayperkins.blogspot.ca/2010/01/lets-brew-wednesday-1843-whitbread-oat.html I came in way over gravity at 1.033 due to the crazy efficiency I got from such a small mash.

But I'm hardly an expert, just a fan. Here is a great source for british beer recipes http://www.unholymess.com/blog/lets-brew/comment-page-1 any of the X ales, XX, 4d are milds.

Graham Wheeler's book has a lot of mild recipes in it but I can't really recommend it as he substitutes plain white sugar for any invert sugar addition and black malt for caramel colourant. That might work in some recipes but I wish he had just given us the unadjusted recipe and added the subs in the notes.

gbx said:

Whenever I do small beers I always get way better efficiency than I was expecting. 9% seems reasonable but ingredients varied greatly depending on year and brewer. I'm currently drinking pale mild with 8% sugar based off this recipe
http://barclayperkins.blogspot.ca/2010/01/lets-brew-wednesday-1843-whitbread-oat.html I came in way over gravity at 1.033 due to the crazy efficiency I got from such a small mash.

But I'm hardly an expert, just a fan. Here is a great source for british beer recipes http://www.unholymess.com/blog/lets-brew/comment-page-1 any of the X ales, XX, 4d are milds.

Graham Wheeler's book has a lot of mild recipes in it but I can't really recommend it as he substitutes plain white sugar for any invert sugar addition and black malt for caramel colourant. That might work in some recipes but I wish he had just given us the unadjusted recipe and added the subs in the notes.

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Thanks for those resources, I'll check them out!