Mild Brown Ale advice

Hi everyone,

I am planing to brew some mild brown ale (i want it to be kinda soft) and here is what i got to so far:

Mild Brown Ale
5.5 gallons, All-Grain
OG: 1.036
Bitterness: 20.7 IBUs
Color: 16.4 SRM
Est ABV: 3.8%
Single infusion, batch sparge, light body (148° F mash temp for 75 mins)
60 minute boil

7 lbs Pale Malt(2 Row)
1.38 lbs Amber Malt
4 oz Chocolate Malt

1 tsb Irish Moss @ 15 minutes
1 oz Northern Brewer (8.5%) @ 10 or 15 minutes (still not sure)
1 oz Fuggle (4.5%) @ 5 minutes

SafAle S-04

Everything fits in style guidelines, but since i do not have much experience with all-grain (couple of batches) i am not sure will this hit proper taste.

Thoughts?

I would sub the amber malt for a pound of Caramunich type II or type III, II for mild toast flavor, III for a bit stronger flavor. Or do a bit of both. I use it in my browns all of the time.

I might keep the amber, but add a little crystal (maybe C60L) to it.

Northern Brewer is an interesting choice - more piney than I would expect in a brown ale. Brewer's Gold or Goldings would be good choices, too, if you like.

Post your result.

I like the Amber malt. I think adding Crystal malt would make it more like an Amber Ale instead of a mild brown ale.

I'm just wondering why you're not doing a real bittering addition of hops.

And here i come 15 days later.

I think i will try to make gravity a bit bigger...who says i gotta follow style guides

I agree with the bittering hops. If anything I would just do a 60 minute hop for bittering and skip the rest. I'm not real familiar with Amber malt but it sounds like it might be like a Special B malt which I really like. I would raise the mash temp up to 154 or so to get some more mouth feel, 148 is great for lagers and kolsch but an English style beer should be mashed a little higher. We just kegged our American Brown and entered it in competition. We used Marris Otter malt but with American hops at 60 minutes. The beer was very malty yet balanced. Very drinkable.

Amber is more like biscuit than it is like any crystal malt. Sort of like a roasted biscuit. Very traditional English.

I've been brewing a mild for years that's seems to go over really well. I use 90% Marris Otter and split the other 10% evenly between Crystal 20, Crystal 120, and Chocolate Malt. 1oz EKG @ 60 minutes, and ferment with WLP002. I've tried it with several different yeast strains and I always go back to 002. It doesn't attenuate very well and the little bit of residual sweetness that it leaves makes the beer in my humble opinion.

Amber is great, toasty and can lend a vanilla/caramel note after conditioning. I'd add a bit of crystal malt or invert sugar #3, maybe replace some amber with the invert. More like 1lb amber and 1/2lb inverr sugar #3 as more than a pound of amber is quite a lot (it's neither crystal nor biscuit, both of which are more friendly to non-Brits)

There have been lots of good posts above about the grain and hops, so I won't comment on that. However, when I brew my mild, I always use the Wyeast Scottish Ale yeast and aim for 3.2 to 3.5 ABV. It leaves a nice residual sweetness that combined with a higher mash temp (mentioned above) really brings out the malty character, which it sounds like you're looking for.

The Newcastle Dark from MJ is a good dry yeast option but it has an attenuation around 65-58% and that is with the occasional stir so you'd have to adjust for that.

If you can find it, Mild Malt (2-row) is fantastic. I did a Mild and a session Brown recently with it. Actually, in the brown I did 50% Mild Malt and 50% Halcyon. That keg lasted a week. Everyone loved it.

Like others have said, I'd throw in some Crystal as well.

I like mild malt too, first base malt I bought. It's just cheap 2-row that has been kilned a bit darker to compensate for the lack of flavour (I believe that traditionally it was the cheap malt that couldn't make it as pale).

sptaylor70 said:

Amber is more like biscuit than it is like any crystal malt. Sort of like a roasted biscuit. Very traditional English.

Click to expand...

Yes, very good description and exactly the reasons that I like it. Perfect for a mild, imho. Although, like somebody else suggested, maybe keep it to a pound or less.

With MJ Newcastle Dark as a yeast I'd look at a grist like this (OG 1.041, FG 1.013, 3.7% ABV, 18SRM):
6lb Mild Malt (or Maris Otter)
1lb Amber Malt
1/2lb Medium Crystal Malt
1/2lb Invert Sugar #3 (or Dark Candi syrup)
4oz Chocolate Malt

Some mild roast and coffee from the Chocolate Malt, some toast and bread from the Amber Malt, nuttiness and caramel from the Crystal Malt, and fig, dry finish and dark fruits from the invert sugar... always sounds great in theory, but with most ingredients being present in moderation it should work out ok...

I use Windsor ale yeast but tend to mash lower to get it a bit drier. Windsor works great in my mild but doesn't attenuate well hence the lower mash.

Well it's kinda hard to find some of ingredients here in Serbia (Mild malt and liquid yeast), so i have to work with what i have