Dark Mild Reaper's Mild, 1st place 2011 HBT Competition

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MasterOfNone said:
COEBRA, unrelated: what is that on top of your keggle?
Click to expand...

It's a Hop Spider. This isn't the exact post I built mine from, but it's the same thing. It keeps all the hop junk out of the fermenters and is definitely one of my top 5 must haves. Especially when brewing IPA's! Mine is a little warped in the photo because I got caught brewing in a monsoon once and covered the boil to keep the rain water out. The extra heat melted the PVC. I could replace the reducer, but it still works perfectly so I haven't bothered.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=231971
 
Cold crashing this right now. FG spot on, 1.012. OG pre boil was 1.035, post boil was 1.039. So got slightly better efficiency than expected.

My hop scale was also broken, so I used whatever was left of my 4oz package, felt like 2-3 oz of EKG. May have done 1.5 oz and 1.5oz instead of 1 oz and 1 oz.
Will be kegging in a couple days!
 
Finally got around to kegging it. Unfortunately it seems my picnic tap or keg post blew a leak and the c02 tank is empty. Going to fill the tank tomorrow and see if I can have this ready to drink soon.

Flat brief tasting notes: Slightly roasty, like a super sessionable stout. Only comment I have is that it's pretty thin bodied although they could be related to the flat nature of it.
 
The beer will fatten up once kegged, this is one of my favorite beer recipes! easy to make, cheap grainbill, easy drinking, and goes well with food!

Sadly, just moments ago I pulled my last pint after finishing yard work, good thing I have a pipelines from other beers
 
Going to brew a batch of this and split it in half.. what should I do to it? Ferment with two different yeasts.. Notty and 04? Or maybe lightly dry hop one of them?
 
Hmm, I don't know if I'd dry hop a mild. I've made Reaper's before and used it as a base for my own mild, suited to my own tastes. Reaper's is a great recipe though.

I would say use two different yeasts and maybe add a spice tea (cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, etc.) to one to make it a holiday ale.
 
I wouldn't dry hop a mild. As above, if you scale it to be 20-25% stronger you have a good base for winter warmer (with or without spices).
 
This is still on my "to brew list", so I can't speak from experience. but I would bet dry hoping with a little liberty would yield tasty results.

Other options would be to age it on woods typically used for smoking like hickory or mesquite. All of these are on my list. That list is so damn long.. One of these days I'll get around to making a few of these and report back. If you beat me to it please do the same.
 
I've had this on tap for a couple of weeks now and it's going to be my house brew. I'm going to be brewing another batch this weekend and adding in another 4-6oz of Chocolate Malt and possibly 2-6oz of Biscuit Malt.. Has anyone tried this or have thoughts?
 
It has been awhile since I have read through these posts, but has anyone used windsor yeast for this beer. I used nottingham and it was quite yummy. I have a couple of packs of windsor in the fridge and looking for a use. Thoughts?
 
attyindaburgh said:
It has been awhile since I have read through these posts, but has anyone used windsor yeast for this beer. I used nottingham and it was quite yummy. I have a couple of packs of windsor in the fridge and looking for a use. Thoughts?
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I have a packet of Windsor yeast, but never thought of using it in this! Give it a whirl and report back... I've been using 1968 as of late because it's my go-to yeast recently. Turns out fantastic!
 
So I used a pack of dry windsor yeast on this. OG was 1.045. Fermentation started very quickly and the krausen fell in about 3 days. The FG has been stuck at 1.02. Should I leave it at that? I transferred to a secondary hoping that it would maybe wake up the yeast, and because I needed a primary back. Makes it around 3%.
 
I am gonna do the original recipe converted to a 3.5 gal biab batch. I plan on doing a full volume mash. Anything I should keep in mind?
 
So during the mash I came across the temperature drop issue. I do e-biab so pulled the bag out twice and brought the temp back up. I have no idea what kind of effect doing this will have. Makes me think of dunking a tea bag in hot water over and over...
 
Also I only measured out half of the first addition (tired not drinking too much) so I added the rest of the first addition with the second and will boil an extra 10 mins or so

*brew pal says to boil an extra 3 mins to hit my target ibu. Never brewed with fuggles before so I guess I'll get a better look at it
 
Got all the grains for this and will brew it tomorrow. For hops I have Willamette and EKG. Any recommendation on which should be for 60 and which should be for 10?
 
Just bottled my batch. Drank 8 oz worth flat and it was really nice! Very nutty with hints of English chocolate. Really looking forward to it
 
Just kegs mine. Drank the last bit from the racking cane and its seems like it's gonna be a gooder!
 
Brewing a 10g batch of this on Sunday. Increased the Maris Otter to 13 lbs which ups the ABV out of the style range, but I'm ok with that. Otherwise will brew exactly as this reads. Looking forward to it!!!!

Question - could you add oats or anything to help improve the mouthfeel to a bit of a creamier experience?
 
Brewed a 11 g batch of this today. Used 13 lbs of MO to up the ABV a bit, but only ended up hitting a OG of 1.025. Tasted it and it's not very sweet. I'm worried. It may end up tasting a bit thin. Not sure what went wrong - hit all my volumes pretty well (13.6 gal bee-boil)
 
Wow. So I decided that there is no way in heck and he'll that I could have been so waaaaay of with my process as to get such a low original gravity reading, and I got another hydrometer to check and sure enough the actual OG of the wort before fermentation was actually 1.044 instead of 1.025.

WHEW!

That is pretty close to what it should have been based on beersmith, minus a few changes to the sparking process. Which brings up some interesting questions:

- what causes a hydrometer to give such a different reading?

- how does one enter the actual sparging data. I did two batch sparges of 5 and 4 gal each to reach my target volume of 13.6 gal before boil. Would I just select "batch sparge, medium body, two stage" and enter the actual volumes?
 
Oh yeah and I made a hop switch and used US goldings instead of fuggles. Hope it works out. I assumed "it's English so it has to work for a northern mild!"
 
azscoob said:
Looks a smidge strong, still looks great though!
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Remember I upped the MO content to 13 lbs for an 11 G batch........

Should be bang on what I was targeting depending on how well S-04 attenuated this beer - what is everyone's usual FG (1.010-1.015?)
 
eelgerg said:
Wow. So I decided that there is no way in heck
- what causes a hydrometer to give such a different reading?
Click to expand...

Temperature effects the hydrometer reading. Most are calibrated for 70f I believe, so if your wart was hotter than that than, the gravity would read low. You can take the temp and find an online conversion tool if you can't wait to get your gravity.
 
azscoob said:
Looks a smidge strong, still looks great though!
Click to expand...


Remember I upped the MO content to 13 lbs for an 11 G batch........

Should be bang on what I was targeting depending on how well S-04 attenuated this beer - what is everyone's usual FG (1.010-1.015?)
 
Checked the gravity after 10 days in primary and it's at 1.014. Gonna give it another week and see if it can get down to 1.010. Still bubbling so I figure yeast are still eating something.

I wouldn't say that it tastes AWESOME right now - kinda light but my experience is that flavour comes out as it gets carbonated. Hoping to pull my first pint in 10 days from now.
 

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