English Ales - What's your favorite recipe?

[Northern_Brewer]

I see bierhaus has already found it but I've posted elsewhere about selected Brewlab strains being rebranded and sold through Hop & Grape : https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/brewlab-slopes-now-available-via-hop-and-grape.662522/

Sadly there's none of the fun ones like F40 and CC, but hopefully they will get released as seasonals.

 

[bierhaus15]

I think you missed the point of my simplified and glassy eyed remarks, or it was not clear. Obviously mild is more than bitter and caramel color/No 3 invert, although the number of "traditional" UK breweries that use different caramels for coloring/flavor in dark beer is somewhat shocking, and it is one side of the extreme for milds. Is it the norm for breweries brewing premium mild these days? Likely not.

Interesting that none of Ron's mild recipes I've seen included exotic premium ingredients, or 5 types of caramel and roasted malts, with German specialty malts, as is seemingly de rigeur for home brew or micro-brew recipes these days. Bitter and caramel color is a good enough mild for certain UK drinkers in the North, and kitchen sink recipes or not, it seems the heart of the style is drinkability.

Also, as tasty as both Director's and Red Barrel home brew is, I can assure you that today's US craft consumer would consider them as anything but premium.

 

[z-bob]

Here's my updated recipe for a "kitchen sink" mild, using ingredients that I have already. (notice it's 4 gallons, not 5)

Title: English-ish Mild
Brew Method: BIAB
Style Name: Mild
Boil Time: 45 min
Batch Size: 4 gallons (fermentor volume)
Boil Size: 5 gallons
Boil Gravity: 1.028
Efficiency: 75% (brew house)

Original Gravity: 1.037
Final Gravity: 1.009
ABV (standard): 3.59%
IBU (tinseth): 19.13
SRM (morey): 12.76
Mash pH: 5.48

FERMENTABLES:
4 lb - American - Pale Ale (76.2%)
0.5 lb - American - Munich - Dark 20L (9.5%)
4 oz - American - CaraCrystal Wheat Malt 55L (4.8%)
4 oz - United Kingdom - Pale Chocolate (4.8%)
2 oz - Brown Sugar (2.4%)
2 oz - Cane Sugar - (late addition) (2.4%)

HOPS:
0.5 oz - Cluster, Type: Pellet, AA: 6.5, Use: Boil for 30 min, IBU: 14.42
0.5 oz - Fuggles, Type: Pellet, AA: 4.5, Use: Boil for 10 min, IBU: 4.71

MASH GUIDELINES:
1) Infusion, Temp: 150 F, Time: 60 min, Amount: 4 gal
2) Sparge, Temp: 125 F, Time: 10 min, Amount: 1.8 gal

OTHER INGREDIENTS:
450 ml - Lactic acid (1%), Time: 60 min, Type: Water Agt, Use: Mash

YEAST:
Fermentis / Safale - Safbrew - General/Belgian Yeast S-33

Generated by Brewer's Friend - https://www.brewersfriend.com/

The brown sugar goes in the kettle. The white sugar is added when I rack the beer from a bucket to a carboy after a week (maybe just a few days for a beer this weak) I'm not sure whether to use Sauergut to adjust the mash pH (as the recipe is written) or phosphoric acid; I have both.

The Munich malt that I have is a strange one; I'm not sure if it's really Munich or if it's biscuit malt, or light amber, or what. I got a good deal on 50 lbs of it. The color is about 20°L and it has some enzymes but not much. The maltster says it's unique and kinda like Victory malt. http://twotrackmalting.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Denhoff-ROM831-18-002-01.pdf I made an American pale ale recently using 80% Rahr pale ale malt and 20% Denhoff and it turned out really nice.

 

[bwible]

Thank you everybody.

My 'aha' mild moment came while touring a well known UK brewery with a group of brewers and we were all amazed to discover their mild was nothing more than standard bitter with caramel color added.

I’d somehow thought mild was a second running on a porter. Or a decent one might possibly be made that way. With just a little added malt. If one wanted to brew it cheaply.

 

[bwible]

Came across this recently. “Imperial Mild.” Talk about a contradiction of terms. Just when you thought you’d seen everything!

I know the term mild was originally used to differentiate younger beers from ones that had not been aged, which were “old or stock”. The term “Imperial Mild” just seems wrong somehow, though.

https://www.beeradvocate.com/articles/8000/imperial-mild/

 

[bwible]

I wonder if in 50 years, the guys will try to brew an "authentic" bud light

It’s very possible. I recall reading not so long ago where some guys were talking about Lowenbrau and how it had changed since they had it “during the war” or whatever. There were some people on a quest to re-create the old-time Lowenbrau. This was fairly recent.

 

[bwible]

With regard to invert sugar - do you guys make your own or is there a brand you buy? I’ve had Lyle’s Golden Syrup in the past but it comes in a small can and its expensive here. Are there other well distributed invert sugars we can get here in the US?

 

[ba-brewer]

here is link on how to make your own invert sugar, pretty easy if you do it in the oven.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/made-simple-invert-sugars-jeff-alworths-method.628857/

 

[dx250]

I make my own with the above instructions, I did look to buy it and could not find a reasonable price or quantities (500kg).

 

[Hanglow]

Here is the original brewsheet for what became St Austell Tribute, posted by roger ryman on his twitter.also has the temperatures too which is handy. You can culture up st austell yeast from Proper Job very easily

2.5bbl, the salt is table salt, to quote him
"No Styrian Golding in the first brew."
"We used to add a little NaCl in the liquor treatment at Maclay’s before I joined St Austell,and that was something I brought with me although dropped out years ago in favour of a balance of CaCl an CaSO4. MgSO4 also since dropped."

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Here is the original brewsheet for what became St Austell Tribute, posted by roger ryman on his twitter.also has the temperatures too which is handy.

There's a separate thread on this here.

 

[Hanglow]

nice one! was surprised that it hadn't been posted on here

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Sorry, I thought I had linked to it here already. I do try to copy across any "horse's mouth" recipes I come across on Twitter - not least to stop them having second thoughts! - with a separate thread per brewery to keep things manageable, Fuller's have been quite generous in that regard.

 

[z-bob]

Came across this recently. “Imperial Mild.” Talk about a contradiction of terms. Just when you thought you’d seen everything!

I know the term mild was originally used to differentiate younger beers from ones that had not been aged, which were “old or stock”. The term “Imperial Mild” just seems wrong somehow, though.

https://www.beeradvocate.com/articles/8000/imperial-mild/

Summit did a "XXX Mild" a few years ago. Part of their "Union Series". It was about 7%, if I recall. It was very nice. They imported a bunch of invert #2 for it, and I think they collaborated with a UK brewery.

Edit: found a link: https://web.archive.org/web/20160430191826/http://summitbrewing.com/blog/union-series-4-3x-mild-ale

 

[bwible]

I have a handpump, its an Angram clip on. It has the long swan neck, which I understand is the kind used in the north. It has a green sparkler, I think that is 1 mm holes? I use it occasionally for parties or just for fun sometimes.

I have 3 gallon corny kegs. I open the vent valve to depressurize the keg and I leave it open while drawing beer. At the end of the session I close it back up and I purge it with CO2. I know this is not what CAMRA preaches but its the closest us yanks can get. Me, for the volume of beer I go through I could not hope to drink even a pin cask of real ale before it went off let alone anything larger. Much fun as that would be to play with. Even 3 gallons is (32) 12 oz beers or 24 pints.

Anybody know a way to hook up a 5L mini keg to a handpump? Even 5L is (14) 12oz beers or 10.5 pints. This is the problem you run into with real ale. You have to be able to finish it fairly quickly.

There is a business not far from me here who sells handpumps and casks and supplies. I just bought a pump clip you can make and insert your own label into. I want to buy the shorter replacement dispense tube like used in the south from him so I would have both and be able to use either. Right now they are out of stock. Eventually I will get one.

Right now all my kegs are full and I don’t have anything for the handpump. I need to get a keg empty so I can brew!

 

[McKnuckle]

Sorry for the non-sequitur, but I thought I’d show my Sam Smith Stingo starter after a few steps up (now at 1L)... remember this was from a 6 year old bottle. Pretty crazy!

 

[kmarkstevens]

here is link on how to make your own invert sugar, pretty easy if you do it in the oven.
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/made-simple-invert-sugars-jeff-alworths-method.628857/

Honey is 80-90% invert sugar. You can also substitute honey for the homemade invert. I do both on occaision.

I use around 6 mason/canning jars per session. And pull them out at different color levels.

I found that using treacle leaves a distracting molasses taste in the final product. That said, I also found a 1/4 cup treacle in 5 gallons improves the head retention without a detectable taste (at least to me).

 

[Derp]

I use around 6 mason/canning jars per session. And pull them out at different color levels.

You fill the jars before putting them in the oven? Dissolve and do the initial cooking on the stovetop first? Sounds easier than my “remove the pot from the oven at intervals and pour into jars” method, but is there a danger of cracking the glass? All the articles I’ve read say that jars should never be used in the oven, but I guess at 245F we’re not really talking about normal oven temperatures.

 

[ba-brewer]

I heat my invert sugar in a sauce pan then transferred to jars.

When you pressure can jars to 15psi the temp goes up around 250F. Best to preheat the jars to not stress the glass.

 

[z-bob]

I heat my invert sugar in a sauce pan then transferred to jars.

When you pressure can jars to 15psi the temp goes up around 250F. Best to preheat the jars to not stress the glass.

I was wondering if you could make darker invert sugars in canning jars in a pressure cooker. (you can make dulce de leche that way with cans of condensed milk) Or does it rely on a bit of evaporation?

 

[ba-brewer]

never pressure canned invert sugar, but when I can wort for starters there is a shift in color so I think it would work.

I need to make more canned starter so I might throw in a jar or two of invert and see what happens.

A pressure canner does seems harder to fine tune color.

 

[kmarkstevens]

You fill the jars before putting them in the oven? Dissolve and do the initial cooking on the stovetop first?

Correct. Fill the canning jars with honey or your homemade invert. I checked my notes, and I set temp to 240F (115C), check every 15 minutes. I find in my oven that 240F works well and does not boil over. Some folks say 250F is okay as well. Easy to just look in and see the coloring change.

I can't find it but there is a site out there that shows someone who put a dab of invert at different times on a white plate that was pretty straightforward. Here's the bcjp guidelines: https://www.bjcp.org/colorguide.php

Upon re-reading brewing god Kirsten England (he did brewing notes for dozens and dozens of the shut up about barclay perkins recipes), on the unholy mess invert website: http://www.unholymess.com/blog/beer-brewing-info/making-brewers-invert

He stresses "Basically, the point was that you need to choose a very high quality blackstrap molasses. One that has a licorice character rather than bitter sugar. "

His Suggestions for brands of blackstrap:
Plantation Blackstrap Molasses (US)
Golden Barrel Blackstrap (US)
‘Feed grade blackstrap’ (US)
Meridian organic blackstrap (UK)

I can say the Lyle and Tate Blackstrap gives the bitter (or burnt) sugar flavor rather than the licorice character. So, I may be trying some of the above. Regardless, baking honey at 240F is a pretty easy way to get to something that works well.

 

[McKnuckle]

Checking in...

Samuel Smith yeast krausen, 29 hours post-pitch into a 1.049 OG bitter:

 

[ba-brewer]

Correct. Fill the canning jars with honey or your homemade invert. I checked my notes, and I set temp to 240F (115C), check every 15 minutes. I find in my oven that 240F works well and does not boil over. Some folks say 250F is okay as well. Easy to just look in and see the coloring change.

I can't find it but there is a site out there that shows someone who put a dab of invert at different times on a white plate that was pretty straightforward. Here's the bcjp guidelines: https://www.bjcp.org/colorguide.php

Upon re-reading brewing god Kirsten England (he did brewing notes for dozens and dozens of the shut up about barclay perkins recipes), on the unholy mess invert website: http://www.unholymess.com/blog/beer-brewing-info/making-brewers-invert

He stresses "Basically, the point was that you need to choose a very high quality blackstrap molasses. One that has a licorice character rather than bitter sugar. "

His Suggestions for brands of blackstrap:
Plantation Blackstrap Molasses (US)
Golden Barrel Blackstrap (US)
‘Feed grade blackstrap’ (US)
Meridian organic blackstrap (UK)

I can say the Lyle and Tate Blackstrap gives the bitter (or burnt) sugar flavor rather than the licorice character. So, I may be trying some of the above. Regardless, baking honey at 240F is a pretty easy way to get to something that works well.

I have some of the plantation blackstrap molasses and it does have a licorice taste.

 

[HTH1975]

Checking in...

Samuel Smith yeast krausen, 29 hours post-pitch into a 1.049 OG bitter:

View attachment 613480

Nice thick krausen. The only other yeast I’ve seen do that is Wyeast Yorkshire.

 

[McKnuckle]

Agreed... I considered that they might use a different yeast for bottle conditioning, but that concern seems to be for naught at this point.

I pitched at 63ºF and let it rise to 68ºF, which took about 8 hours. I'll hold it there for 3 days, then drop it back to 63º til it's just about finished. Then I'll make another decision about cooling temp. I'm guided by the schedules I've learned about from Fuller's and Black Sheep.

I'm rousing it with a ladle a couple times a day now to simulate what they do in Yorkshire squares. It creeps up a bit higher after each time. I assume that will eventually stop happening.

 

[HTH1975]

Here are some similar yeadts

 

[okiedog]

Supposedly Tim Taylors use a yeast that came from John Smiths via Oldham Brewery, which was bought by Boddington's in the early 80s and TT ended up buying the old equipment from around 1990-ish, but suppposedly they got the yeast from them in the early 80s. The John Smith yeast had a great reputation and also ended up at Harvey's in 1957; one strain from Harvey's has been sequenced and it's one of these POF+ saison types, very different to Wyeast 1469 which is traditionally linked to Taylors but which if anything looks like WLP022 Essex.

I have been re-reading some of these old posts because I find all this history about he origins of TT and associated yeasts. A few years ago, if you had told me that I would be so interested in yeast origins, I would have doubted that. BTW, a few months ago, I started using WLP005. So far, I like it, but would also like to try 1469. Are there any other TT strains out there?

 

[Derp]

Correct. Fill the canning jars with honey or your homemade invert. I checked my notes, and I set temp to 240F (115C), check every 15 minutes. I find in my oven that 240F works well and does not boil over. Some folks say 250F is okay as well. Easy to just look in and see the coloring change.

I spent the afternoon making 8 pounds of invert using this method. It worked perfectly.

The first 4 used Demerara sugar and was, of course, fairly dark. I cooked it for the length of time to hit #3, but it came in much darker. I used a Dutch oven that had what I thought were permanent black stains on the porcelain, but the sugar quickly darkened as I stirred it. Perhaps my milds will benefit from a subtle flavor of roast beef.

I made some #2 with white sugar and it also tastes great. I should be set for several months.

 

[okiedog]

I have made some light yellow invert sugar, but find or determine how to make clear invert sugar. How is clear candi sugar made?

 

[Derp]

I have made some light yellow invert sugar, but find or determine how to make clear invert sugar.

The stuff I made from white/cane sugar was clear until it got to about the 235F-240F mark. Maybe try making a batch and stopping before the color starts to change? That'd probably work, since I think most of the water had evaporated by that point.

 

[okiedog]

Apparently, 236F is conversion temp for invert sugar. If I had such finite control over the temp., I would try to bring it up to 236F, and keep it there for a few minutes. I guess it's something to try anyway.

 

[z-bob]

Is this the right sugar to use to make invert syrup? https://www.walmart.com/ip/Zulka-Pure-Cane-Sugar-8-Lb/28892639 I think Aldi sells their own brands too; one is "organic". It looks a little lighter then demerara sugar; not sure if it's the same as turbinado.

I'm adding this to my todo list, but might not get to it for a while. I assume phosphoric acid will work just as good as lactic acid? (I have a quart of food-grade concentrated phosphoric acid.) The Brits probably use sulfuric, or sulfuric mixed with hydrochloric.

 

[Miraculix]

Why do other recipes add phosphate to it and this one doesn't?

 

[cyberbackpacker]

Is this the right sugar to use to make invert syrup? https://www.walmart.com/ip/Zulka-Pure-Cane-Sugar-8-Lb/28892639

I use that with great success!

 

[cyberbackpacker]

Why do other recipes add phosphate to it and this one doesn't?

For making invert, this is what I have always referenced: http://www.unholymess.com/blog/beer-brewing-info/making-brewers-invert/comment-page-1

Using this method produces invert like is sold in the UK to breweries, and is stupid simple to make: Sugar, water, and a touch of lactic acid. If you want to speed up the process for darker inverts, the site has a great calculator for mixing clear invert with molasses.

Oh, and with regard to molasses, I use the Plantation brand and agree it gives some of the licorice-esque flavors and helps make tasty darker inverts.

 

[z-bob]

Here's an interesting page that I found for making baker's and confectioner's invert: http://www.chefeddy.com/2009/11/invert-sugar/

I'd like to try is kind of a hybrid of that technique and unholymess's, plus using a pressure canner. A little excess water should not be a problem as long as you can get the temperature to at least 236°. What about putting a pound of turbinado sugar in a caning jar (I have some nice 3 cup jars that they don't make anymore), a cup of water, and a touch of acid, then pressure can it at 10 or 11 pounds for an hour? (10 lbs is 240° at sea level, I'm 1000 feet higher than that so a little lower) If it's not dark enough after an hour, fire up the pressure canner again and process at 15 pounds for another half hour.

It might take a lot of trial and error to dial-in specific colors, but the times should be repeatable once you do it. And I don't care about getting the color right. Yet.

My wife will be going out of town in a couple of weeks and I can play with it without having to explain what I'm doing and hearing things like "what's that smell??"

 

[Derp]

Speaking of pressure canners, is there any risk of botulism or other nasties when storing invert sugar that is cooked on the stovetop or oven? Does the small amount of acid lower the pH enough that we don't have to worry about botulism if we don't use a pressure canner?

 

[z-bob]

Speaking of pressure canners, is there any risk of botulism or other nasties when storing invert sugar that is cooked on the stovetop or oven? Does the small amount of acid lower the pH enough that we don't have to worry about botulism if we don't use a pressure canner?

The low available water protects it. Plus, you heated it hot enough when you made it to kill anything that was in there to start with. Natural honey is full of botulism spores but it is shelf-stable unless you add a little water to loosen it up.

 

[ba-brewer]

Speaking of pressure canners, is there any risk of botulism or other nasties when storing invert sugar that is cooked on the stovetop or oven? Does the small amount of acid lower the pH enough that we don't have to worry about botulism if we don't use a pressure canner?

The one site recently linked said 6 months in the fridge. If you have clean jars and make it in clean conditions the chances seem slim.

I have some that was left at room temp for a couple months I plan to use in a week or so, if it doesn't kill me I will let you know.