Dark Mild Session Mild (E)

Yea, the beer is that dark in person. When holding a light behind it, very little to no light shines through the beer itself. The after taste could just be that I notice could be just me not knowing this style of beer. I'd be willing to send a bottle so you can see for yourself.

fuma218 said:

Yea, the beer is that dark in person. When holding a light behind it, very little to no light shines through the beer itself. The after taste could just be that I notice could be just me not knowing this style of beer. I'd be willing to send a bottle so you can see for yourself.

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Weird. Shouldn't end up that dark. If you'd like to send a bottle off, that's fine; I'm pleased to offer what feedback I can. I'll PM you my address.

Bob

Hi Bob
Why do use Hallertauer instead of a traditional English variety?
Bob

Because I had a pound of it in my fridge.

You can use any variety, really; the full boil will get rid of the vast majority of flavor/aroma constituents. Just use a low-alpha variety.

Cheers!

Bob

Good reason. I like your style.
Cheers,
Bob

I have an extra ounce of Hallertauer in the fridge, any thoughts on using it? I don't want to mess with the recipe much, and seeing as you had a pound on hand, I thought you may have dabbled.

That's what I used in the original recipe. Didn't seem to impact the beer adversely.

Go for it!

Bob

I made this partial mash, and its so f-in good. BS told me it came to 2.7, so i'm going all grain and gonna boost it up a bit. think it'd be good with coffee in it? breakfast beer yknow? )

another question..

its been in bottle for a month now. it seems to be getting sourish? kinda bright tasting. is this normal?

I really couldn't say. I've never had that problem. Though I must say I've never had it last much more than a month, and I usually keep it on draught these days.

Cheers,

Bob

yeah i figured its just a result of not being drank fast enough.

Bob said:

Sure! I most often package this in 5L minikegs with built-in taps.

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Bob I'm curious what Minikegs you are using and having so much success with.

They're small kegs which hold 5 liters of beer. You have to have seen them in your local beer store; they're popular for European beers like DAB, Warsteiner, etc. Heineken also ships a LOT of beer in 5L kegs. Some American microbrewers ship 5L kegs, too, like Bell's and Rogue.

Unfortunately, new 5L kegs and spare parts are getting rarer and rarer in the homebrew supply chain. It seems that homebrewers just never took them on, preferring 5-gallon soda kegs instead. I think that's a shame.

Listermann has a supply of spare parts, and their website says they're getting more kegs in the Autumn. Any homebrew store serviced by Crosby & Baker - and that's damn near all of them - can order kegs and parts (or at least C&B used to carry those). Alternately, you can buy 5L kegs full of good beer, drink the beer, and reuse the container.

Cheers,

Bob

I'm going to be brewing this soon. Excited to try out a mild recipe. Great style. I was curious about the steeping procedure. It looks like you basically mash the specialty grains; 155 for 60 min and sparge with 170. I can definitely manage that, but does sparging bring any benefit to grains like chocolate and special roast? I'm a bit tentative with using higher temps on dark grains because I made a horribly astringent porter a while back. While it could have been due to bad milling of the black patent (or perhaps chlorinated tap water), I'm second guessing the 170 temp on the chocolate malt. What do you think? Any risk of astringency?

Well, given as my procedure has worked for me over and over without astringency issues, I'm blithely unconcerned.

I don't hold the grains at a specific temperature like mashing - it's not as though I steep in an insulated container. I simply observed the temperature drop I get from immersing a cheesecloth bag full of crushed grain in a given volume of hot liquor.

Then I "sparge" with hotter liquor to reach my desired pre-boil volume. Basically this "sparge" involves pulling the grain bag and resting it on a colander, then pouring on-the-cool-side-of-boiling liquor over the bag and letting it drip. I get all the nom nom noms from the specialty grains without a lot of mucking about.

Much of my brewing with extracts is "eye of toad, tongue of newt" when it comes to exact temperatures.

See, I do enough historical brewing without instruments that I can tell what's "mash" or "sparge" temperature by looking at the surface of the liquor.

Cheers,

Bob

Thanks for the quick reply and reassurance. Guess I'm just a little gun shy on the dark grains. I'll take the plunge back in and post my progress in a few weeks.

I look forward to reading your results!

Bob

I think I've found my next recipe to try.

Sounds great!

EDIT: If I'm unable to get my hands on the Briess, what could I use in its stead?

Valcarde said:

I think I've found my next recipe to try.

Sounds great!

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I wish you every success!

EDIT: If I'm unable to get my hands on the Briess, what could I use in its stead?

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There's really nothing which works as an exact substitute. You could try Biscuit malt. In fact, I encourage you to do so. Make it your own!

Cheers,

Bob

I think I'll be brewing this tomorrow, although I have one quick question.
My stock pot is only 12quart and I've just been doing 2.5 gal boils... I know you specified that this is for a 3.5gal boil, How can I get around this?
Could I steep the grains in 1.5gal and sparge with another gallon or would this adversely affect the recipe?

I'd not worry about it. Follow your own procedure and you'll be fine.

Cheers!

Bob

Bob said:

I'd not worry about it. Follow your own procedure and you'll be fine.

Cheers!

Bob

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Thanks, I figured I would be fine. But it looks like my brew day will be moved to sometime later this week since my LHBS closed at 4 on saturdays... I didn't realize this 'till I was already there, 65miles away from home...

Oh, dang! That's a bit of a commute. In fact, one might even go so far as to remove the L from LHBS in your case.

Cheers,

Bob

Bob said:

Oh, dang! That's a bit of a commute. In fact, one might even go so far as to remove the L from LHBS in your case.

Cheers,

Bob

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You're pretty much right, but it's the best I can do given my situation (living in Alabama...)
So I changed up this recipe a bit, I'll post it on it's own (with props to you for the inspiration of course) if it turns out good.
it is as follows:
5.5lbs light or amber LME (can't tell, I think it's light)
8oz crystal 60
6oz chocolate malt
4oz Briess special roast
.5oz fuggles (4.8%AA)
.5oz liberty (3%AA)
1oz sweet orange peel
2-3oz chocolate extract liquid (at bottling)
WLP011 White labs European Ale yeast.
I shall call it... Fuggerty's Chocolate covered Orange (mild ale) or something to that extent.
Also, How do you think I should implement the sweet orange peel? Boil 1oz @60mins or .5@60 and .5@15 or flameout?
Also, I am going to have 5-10 litres condition in mini kegs for the 'Real Ale' touch.

MrWiggles said:

Also, How do you think I should implement the sweet orange peel? Boil 1oz @60mins or .5@60 and .5@15 or flameout?

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Add it with five minutes left in the boil or at flameout. The only thing a full boil will do is boil off all the volatiles you're trying to infuse.

Also, I am going to have 5-10 litres condition in mini kegs for the 'Real Ale' touch.

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Outstanding!

Bob

So I steeped and sparged the grains, added the 5.5lb lme at flameout and the orange peel at about 10mins... somehow I got 1.034 with (measured by bucket) 4.5 gallons and somewhere around 16-18 IBU. My brewcalc said I should have had 1.045(which I knew was wrong) but I cant help but think something went wrong. I'm not going to worry about it, I'll just be a little more sad that I have fewer bottles when it's all done. I tasted my gravity sample and it was quite good with an upfront, slightly smokey and citrusy maltiness smoothed over with the freshly boiled hop aroma and bitterness...I think this one is going to come out great, thanks again for the recipe!

I don't think anything went wrong at all. First of all, you're right on-spec. It's just that your volume came in a little low. All malt extract syrups are not alike. They are brewed to different gravities, and will provide different gravity Points Per Gallon (ppg). I expect about 1.036 - 1.037 ppg for LME.

I'm glad the flavors are where you want them to be, and hope you enjoy every last bottle!

Bob

Bottled this up today. I ended up leaving in the primary for 3+ weeks, because my dog passed. But, I finially got a taste today and I'm very pleased with the results. It has all the roasty, chocolatey flavors you would want and a nice crisp palate. From the siphon tube, it looks like it's going to be a deep red, brown color, and I used finings so it should have a nice glow. I went with 2.0 for carbonation. I'll give an update in about 2 weeks!


Based on the initial taste, I think this might make a batch to give away at Christmas and made a label dedicated to the old boy.

I'm terribly sorry to hear of your loss. We lost our Leopold this summer; you've inspired me to rename this after him.

I miss him terribly. I just went looking for photos to share with you, and now I'm crying like a little girl...

I hope the beer turns out well for you!

Bob

So the beer is called Leopold's Mild now ? Very nice name, especially when you know why. A dog is really a man's best friend. Mine had to be put down 10 years ago and I still get the "dust in the eye" syndrom when I think about him.

I'm really thinking about this being my first forray into AG or partial. I know it's extract, but it just looks too good and I haven't been able to find a decent session ale since I have moved away from Quebec and its bars. Sure, we have a nice microbrewery (a very nice one I might even say), but they specialized in Belgian and high grav brews, altough they do have one ESB, but it's not really to style (still delicious, but 6% ABV). Same thing for the beer store that carries almost a hundred different microbrews: Belgian or IPA almost wall to wall. I think we Quebecers are getting more Belgian than the Belgians themselves !

I might just add some toasted oats (less than 2%) just to give it a fuller mouthfeel and even more head retention. I like my brews with a good thick foam on top

Bought the grain for this one (online even), will give update when I'll start brewing this. Had to sub the special roast for Victory, but I have no doubt it'll be a smash anyway. It'll make a nice easy foray into BIAB territory.

Special Roast is fine. I've used it before in this recipe. It'll b different, but still quite tasty. I also think a little oats will be an excellent addition. I don't know if I'd toast them - there's already a broad spectrum of roasty-toasty flavors in there - but the foam enhancement won't suck.

I was thinking about just calling the beer "Leopold". I dunno...

Cheers!

Bob

Should be bottling tomorrow, will update when I do. Side note though, 5l minikegs at my not-so-LHBS are $12! I noticed my local Bruno's grocer sells Warsteiner minis for 20$ so I may have to have some folks help me kill a couple after the bama/florida game tomorrow. Also noticed they have the miller/coors TAD-style mini kegs... I'm moving again within a week or two so I'll be attempting to find a dorm fridge for my mini mini-kegerator...
Side note, redux: Somehow my ingredients for this came out to 44$ at my LHBS, if it werent that much this recipe would be a staple for me...

Are you freakin' kindding me?! $44? That's murder. You're better off ordering online and paying the shipping!

I just did the math on NorthernBrewer.com and it came out to $36.53. I mean, I can see patronizing a local small business, but paying a 25% markup? That's a bit...wow.

Cheers,

Bob

Brewing this this weekend Bob. Will give you news !

Also, my total for this was around 25$ if I remember right, but I paid shipping on it plus a bunch of other stuff, so more around 30$.

30$ for 5 gallons is dirt cheap. Getting something of this quality in Quebec would be murder: our local micro has an ESB (not the same, I know, but still) and it's 3,5$ A 500ml BOTTLE.

PS: Do you have a recipe for an historical porter ? I don't want somethign chewy and ultra sweet, more of a warming session for the winter. Might be fun to brew.

PPS: Thanks again.

Sure! I've got several. The trouble with historical Porter is that it more often than not doesn't look, taste or smell anything like what we'd call Porter these days!

Tell you what - look out for a thread in the Recipes/Ingredients sub-forum. I'll list a few historical Porter recipes.

Cheers,

Bob

Thanks, it's just something I might want to try: I haven't had much experience with modern porters, so I'm golden

Bob said:

Are you freakin' kindding me?! $44? That's murder. You're better off ordering online and paying the shipping!

I just did the math on NorthernBrewer.com and it came out to $36.53. I mean, I can see patronizing a local small business, but paying a 25% markup? That's a bit...wow.

Cheers,

Bob

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I know! I am really confused as to how that happened... maybe the 5$ bag of sweet orange peel or the 8$ vial of WL yeast (which I have two pints of sitting in the fridge to re-use now) or what. But it came out much more pricey than I was expecting. The Newcastle clone I bought from them before was only about 25-30$ so it's not like they're trying to rip of their customers. Anywho, I bottled last night and came out with two 5l mini kegs and 20 bottles full. Pretty good haul considering it was only 4.5gal to begin with plus the leftover from siphoning. Although I will say I was slightly disappointed that the orange flavor didn't come through when I tasted my gravity sample, but with the chocolate extract added it tasted like a light porter almost... It had the cocoa/roasted coffee/malty flavor that I loved in the "Tommyknocker's Cocoa Porter" but lighter. All in all I still think this will be a wonderful beer.

Came out with 1.052 gravity for 3,5 gal of wort (batch as supposed to be 5 gal). Bought a bottle of spring water to to off, contaminated the top by using an old butter knife to try to open it wich dropped into the water.

Well I'll have a strong mild... Maybe it could pass off as a bitter since I'll have the IBUS of a 5 gal boil with 3,5 gal of wort

But it'll be beer. Next time, note to self, don't buy bulk spring water, just two 2 liter bottles with screw caps.

jfr1111 said:

Came out with 1.052 gravity for 3,5 gal of wort (batch as supposed to be 5 gal). Bought a bottle of spring water to to off, contaminated the top by using an old butter knife to try to open it wich dropped into the water.

Well I'll have a strong mild... Maybe it could pass off as a bitter since I'll have the IBUS of a 5 gal boil with 3,5 gal of wort

But it'll be beer. Next time, note to self, don't buy bulk spring water, just two 2 liter bottles with screw caps.

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Just say it's an Imperial Mild and call it a day.