Dark Mild Mild Mannered Ale (AG) (E) UK/US

If I used the 04 again and then after 3/4 days in the fermenter add a few grams more of the 04. would that be a reasonable way to get the beer down to where I want it?

frankjones said:

What temp would you say to mash with the 1968

Also the WLP 02

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152F should get you about to 70% attenuation, but it's somewhat system-dependent. That's probably about as low as I'd dare go without knowing how the strain worked for me. 153-154F to play it safe so you don't end up too thin-bodied.

frankjones said:

If I used the 04 again and then after 3/4 days in the fermenter add a few grams more of the 04. would that be a reasonable way to get the beer down to where I want it?

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No, based on the reading I've done that wouldn't be an effective way to drive down your FG. The problem is that adding "hibernating" dry yeast to a solution that's mostly void of an available food source (fermented beer), just wakes the cells up with enough time to flocclate and sink. You want energized and active yeast in order to drive down your FG, which is why rousing is often employed since it stirs A TON viable yeast back into solution (they can't swim) so they can get at the remaining sugars. Many times you also bring the temperature of the beer up into the low-mid 70s when rousing since the elevated temperature kind of vitalizes them for a little while. The elevated temperature late in the fermentation cycle does not impart any off characteristics, FYI.

The other option is creating a starter and pitching at high krausen to drive down a high FG, but I'm not a big fan of this method unless you have a ridiculously high FG. It takes a bunch of extra effort, extra time, extra money, and is better suited when your fermentation stalled halfway or less. In your case, you're just a one-to-two points away from a perfect FG, IMO. You don't want a mild to end so low, otherwise it'll come across very watery and thin.

St pug! Thank you for taking time out to share your knowledge here on the board. I'm going to let the secondary rise to 74. And let it sit there for a few more days.

Also. I'm going to start working up a 3.5 gallon batch. With corn sugar and flaked maize. What percentage is suggested for the corn and corn sugar?

Thanks so much!

I brewed a pale ale with 20% flaked maize in summer and it was fine. I'd aim lower for the mild, around 5-10% of grist depending how dry and strong you want it. I'd also use a yeast with medium or even low attenuation (they all deal well with simple sugars), with high attenuation (over 73% or so) they can end up just too dry. Dry is also in style, though, as mild is a very broad church.

I am doing 3.5 gallon batch this time.

I think I'm going to add 8 ounces more m/o
4 ounces corn sugar
4 ounces flaked corn

I think that should give me a little kick.

I really like the taste and balance. If I get 4.4 abv that will be good. I don't want to make any drastic changes.

My other thought is.. What if when I pitch the yeast I use 4 grams 04. And 2 grams 05. And pitch them at the same time. Will that bring the fg down to 1.014/5

St Pug, I gave the brew three more days @ 74 degrees. I checked my notes. It panned out like this:
11 days in primary it was at 1.o18
5 days in secondary no change
3 more days at 74 degrees. It still had no change.
3 days cold crash in fridge
I bottled it yesterday.
Finished up at 1.018

Thanks again.

On the corn/sugar amounts:
I think 5% sugar and 7-10% corn would be a reasonable place to start. They're both serving the same purpose with the exception that the corn can also add a little to the flavor.

On the yeast blend:
It's hard to say of the yeast blend will do that or not. I did a beer using a very low attenuating yeast (Mangrove Jack Newcastle Dark Ale yeast) and blended with US05 at a 75/25% ratio, respectively; for the same purpose you suggest (increased attenuation). What I ended up with was about 1-2% more attenuation; no where near the middle ground; not to mention the yeast characteristics became subdued. IMO, you'd be better served with a vial of yeast. Also, since your beer is such low gravity and low volume, I don't feel that you would need any kind of started as long as the vial is not near it's expiration date.

On your FG notes:
Sometimes there's nothing anyone can do to get a FG to drop a little more . Regardless, I bet those couple points actually help the beer in the flavor department. Let us know how it tastes.

OK. I opened a 12 ounce bottle last night. It's been in the bottle five days. Shame on me. It was carbed up OK...

I really like this beer. I think I'm just going to leave it alone. I bought the good for another batch and I think I may do the batch exactly the way it is.

Maybe in the future I'd like to change the crystal a bit with another grain to get a bit more of a nutty taste.

What grain could I supplement or replace that I can get some nutty or roasted notes?

You could use Amber, Brown, Victory, Biscuit, Special Roast, Pale Chocolate - amongst others - to get you a nutty character (in moderate amounts 0.25-0.5 lb) and moderate roast character (in moderate-heavy amounts 0.75 lb). Victory and Biscuit might not get you to the "roasted" end of the spectrum. If I had to pick from those choices to meld well with this beer I would probably go Pale Chocolate at about 4-6 oz range; leaving the rest of the recipe the same (although, a yeast change-up might be nice).

stpug said:

You could use Amber, Brown, Victory, Biscuit, Special Roast, Pale Chocolate - amongst others - to get you a nutty character (in moderate amounts 0.25-0.5 lb) and moderate roast character (in moderate-heavy amounts 0.75 lb). Victory and Biscuit might not get you to the "roasted" end of the spectrum. If I had to pick from those choices to meld well with this beer I would probably go Pale Chocolate at about 4-6 oz range; leaving the rest of the recipe the same (although, a yeast change-up might be nice).

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I was eager to her this in... I followed the recipe to the letter.. Only think I did differently was the hops.. I put Golding at 45 minutes and fuggle at 20. I had a bit to much water so I did a 90 minute boil... I know what my pot looks like with 2.5 gals .. So I boiled longer.. This batch came out spot on.. No top up water needed. I wonder what the effect of the extra boil time will be? I am set up for 2.5 gal batch.

OK folks. The final testing is in on both batches. I really like this beer. It's easy to drink. Tastes good.

I'm a bit confused. Thought my beer was flat.
Opened cold. Very little fizz.
Opened warm it gushes out if the bottle.

I carbed it at 1.5 volumes to stay true to the style.

I plan on brewing this soon. What do you guys think how's this beer going to be after 6 months in the bottles?

Avinatore said:

I plan on brewing this soon. What do you guys think how's this beer going to be after 6 months in the bottles?

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It would be better the 2nd month than the 6th month, that said it will still be decent beer.

I put down a half batch of this yesterday. My second BIAB attempt. Pretty much hit all the numbers. OG 1039

I used us05 as I couldn't get my hands on any Nottingham.

Really excited about this one.

St pug, it's been a while since I have been on here. The mild was OK at three weeks but not great. At about six weeks I was very pleased with it. Really can't ask for a better outcome. It did take a full four weeks to carb up nicely. Patience and both batches just needed time. Thanks so much!

Six months. Can't say. Right around 2.5 months and it's delicious.

12 days grain to glass - great beer!

Hi all,

I'm planning to brew this recipe seeing that it has received so many fantastic review and honestly, it will be my first all grain. I'll be doing a 5L batch instead of 23L and do you think the conversion seems about right?

schia said:

Hi all,

I'm planning to brew this recipe seeing that it has received so many fantastic review and honestly, it will be my first all grain. I'll be doing a 5L batch instead of 23L and do you think the conversion seems about right?

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Looks good to me. Proportional, which should work.

just brewed this. it's tucked away happily in the fermenter right now waiting for the yeast to kick off. Alas, they were out of Nottingham at the LHBS so I had to go with WLP-002.
I missed gravity by a few points so I topped up with a little bit of light DME that I briefly boiled in the microwave...I will report back when it's kegged and carbed! looking forward to it!!

very tasty...I really hit the right amount of yeast character I was hoping for with this one. love the marris otter.
Delicious brew!! Cheers!!

A slightly modified version of this is in primary as the first ever beer I've brewed. Pale chocolate instead of regular chocolate at a slightly higher percentage. Missed the OG slightly (1.032 instead of 1.035) and the OG sample tasted interesting but it was the first one I've ever tasted.

Can't wait to get this bottled and tasted once it's done.

Even though I missed on the FG so my batch of this turned out at 2%, this turned into a delicious brew.

First taste, warm, a week after bottling was nice but a little thin.

A week later, the next taste at about 50F was very, very yummy. Definitely needed a bit of time conditioning in the bottles to get the best flavour.

Will definitely brew this again.

Anyone try brewing this with S-05? If no, any opinions on trying this? Also since this is such a low gravity beer, do you think you could get away with one pocket of Nottingham for a 10 gallon batch??

thanks for the report. starting mine this weekend and will post my result.

I brewed this one up on the 23rd and repitched on a slurry of S-04.
It was completely fermented out by Tuesday (OG 1.040 FG 1.004), racked into a keg on Thursday and was pulling pints Sunday.

8 days from grain to glass of this wonderful beer.

Going to brew this at some point this week!

Mashing in now.. Excited for this!

I was going to do this recipe, but couldn't help tinkering with it! Basically, I upped the Maris Otter, added some Munich, and changed the hops to East Kent Goldings (I had run out of Fuggles, and I didn't have enough Maris Otter to get me where I wanted to be OG wise) According to Beersmith I'm now in Brown Ale territory, but to be fair, I ignore those guidelines as they tend to ignore history. That said, my mild is now too strong to be a traditional mild...

Been in the keg since Monday. First pour. Delicious!!

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RustyHorn said:

I was going to do this recipe, but couldn't help tinkering with it! Basically, I upped the Maris Otter, added some Munich, and changed the hops to East Kent Goldings.....

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I thought I'd give an update on mine, despite it being different, as it evolved from your recipe and you might actually want to know!

I tasted it today and it's coming along amazingly well! If It stays this tasty it'll become a regular.
It has been fermenting for nine days now and has 3 gravity points to go. I'm guessing it has something to do with the high mash temp? Plus I'm fermenting it at 17c - 19c.

I've wanted to make this for a while, after seeing it here and after buying the "Brewing Britain" book that also includes this recipe. Finally brewed a batch of this three days ago. This morning, already at FG. Fast mover. I adapted the recipe to a 2 gallon batch, and am doing a split batch of this. In one 2 gallon bucket I have a gallon of the wort as-is, in the other one I put some unsweetened chocolate powder and will bottle with hazelnut extract to make a Chocolate Hazelnut Mild (based off of Jamil's CH Porter recipe). I'll bottle next weekend and hope to compare in a few weeks after that.

Has anyone added coffee to this? I'm thinking of doing a split batch, half "dry beaned" or add cold brew to it..

Last weekend, I entered this into a local competition (Fat Heads Brewing - Son of Brewzilla, 450 total entry cap) and brought home a silver medal for this beer.

What kind of FG is everyone getting and with what yeast?

First time I used US-05 and got 1.011 and tasted clean, but a little too clean for this style, IMO. Still a really great beer though.

I just brewed again with S-04 and finished at 1.018 (mashing at 156 was probably too high). I dont have my notes, but I think OG was 1.040 using a little bit more MO. I have not tasted it bottled conditioned yet, but hydro sample was sweet, hoping after a few weeks age and some CO2 it will blossom nicely.

Just curious where everyone else is at with this recipe.

BTW, props to Orfy on this recipe, I will being doing your Hobgoblin clone next week.

Sillybilly said:

What kind of FG is everyone getting and with what yeast?

First time I used US-05 and got 1.011 and tasted clean, but a little too clean for this style, IMO. Still a really great beer though.

I just brewed again with S-04 and finished at 1.018 (mashing at 156 was probably too high). I dont have my notes, but I think OG was 1.040 using a little bit more MO. I have not tasted it bottled conditioned yet, but hydro sample was sweet, hoping after a few weeks age and some CO2 it will blossom nicely.

Just curious where everyone else is at with this recipe.

BTW, props to Orfy on this recipe, I will being doing your Hobgoblin clone next week.

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I kegged a variation of this on Wednesday - subbed Willamette hops. I mashed even higher at 158 and fermented with an expired package of Nottingham. OG was 1.034

There was some lag to start fermentation but once it got going it was pretty aggressive. Final gravity at kegging was 1.014 for a whopping 2.6%!

Nice body, not thin at all for such a small beer. It's got some sweetness to it but not overly sweet or under-attenuated at all. No off-flavors or "green" beer flavors. I think once it carbs a bit this will be perfect.

HopheadNJ said:

I kegged a variation of this on Wednesday - subbed Willamette hops. I mashed even higher at 158 and fermented with an expired package of Nottingham. OG was 1.034
.

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I subbed with Willamette as well on the one I just did

Hey all. Love the original recipe but my girlfriend wants me to last minute brew a beer we can give out for Christmas gifts. I am currently planning on just brewing this as is, but just for giggles does anyone have any suggestions on how to give it a little more of a holiday "spice"? I kind of thought about trying to add peaches and pecans similar to shiners holiday cheer. Any thoughts?