Tag Archives: Recipes

How to brew a Mild

We were lucky enough to have Paddy and Matt from the brewery with us in this month’s meeting and being back in the boardroom almost meant we lost someone in the bar. In the end it was all good though and we enjoyed some great discussions about the beers brought, enzyme use and parti-gyle brewing.

Before we got to the beers though Paddy and Matt were kind enough to spend some time talking about the history and brewing techniques and recipes you need to make a ‘bostin’ mild. I’ve captured what I can recall here so feel free to use these tips and points to make your own ahead of our Mild May meeting based on CAMRA’s Mild month! (That’s a mouthful that sentence)

First the history, and this is where the excellent ‘Designing great beers’ by Ray Daniels shows its value. The chapter looking at Brown ales and Milds gives a real historical view of their origins but the take away for me is that time was the choice in a pub was between a bitter and a mild, two beers at opposite ends of a spectrum. The bitter end is obviously just that, bitter, and the mild end focused on the malty side of the street. A Mild is a beer designed to showcase everything malt has to offer without the sharp tang of the hops taking up too much space.

The low strength many people associate with a Mild appears to be a newer phenomenon maybe based on ‘value engineering’ of recipes by the brewers as their popularity dwindled and they had to maintain the margins. Paddy created some notes around the recipe and process build – including the strength and I’ll share and explain those here. So first what would you aim for in terms of gravity, colour and bitterness.

The gravity, colour and BU of a Mild

So here we have the specification from two breweries Mitchell & Butler and Highgate. You can see the gravity here would give you a beer of about 4.0%. The interesting aspect of this is the PG. This is the gravity that the beer was filled into cask meaning the beer was quite actively fermenting still when it was packaged and so it really was extremely cask conditioned. The bitterness of around 24 is on a par with a modern commercial lager, enough to balance the sweetness but not overwhelm it. The colour here is quite dark – as I’d expect a mild – but the range can be from a chestnut up to black, so a lot of scope there.

Mash ingredients for a Mild

What about the mash? This is a showcase for malt flavours and you can see here where they come from. The values relate to the mash tun at the brewery but the ratio would remain and then scaled down to your own mash tun size to yield 1035 or so. So a solid base of pale ale malt and then around 4% Crystal. This would probably be a medium colour crystal and then about half that amount of Black malt to get the colour up to where you like. Paddy’s tip was to aim low on the colour as you can always add more with liquid caramel (as per the recipes here) to increase it, but you can’t take it away. The 10% torrified barley and 6% malted wheat give you the body and thick head retention and then sugar as well. This is on top of priming sugar added into the cask. On top of the remaining gravity when filled that priming sugar would have made sure it was a real strong fermentation in the cask. I’ve no idea how it cleared. Note at the bottom Calcium Chloride. This should be added as opposed to gypsum to the mash liquor to emphasise the maltiness.

Additional info on a mild

And finally the process details. You can see a slight difference in the mash temperatures between the two breweries here but it didn’t have much difference on the FG. The boil at Highgate you see is aiming for a massive loss of volume, over 8%, and at M&B it’s still high so a long boil is important, I wonder if that helps with the caramel and Maillard flavour development in the beers? Not mentioned in the notes are the hops. These were discussed but used only for their bittering properties the type of hop used is less important. Traditionally they would be English hops so for authenticity Fuggles perhaps, but they’ll not be adding too much to the finished product. We did discuss the likelihood that in the US an American twist on this beer would definitely be hop loaded – so not traditional but something that could be interesting.

Fermentation was pitched at a normal 17-19C and left to rise naturally up to 23-24C as the yeast got going. The relatively low OG should mean this would probably be done in 3-4 days – less if you move to cask with all those point of gravity left. So this is a quick beer to turnaround and it was often gone so fast in the midlands that it would expected to be drunk young. This means you’ve plenty of time to get yours done before the Meeting on the 25th May when Paddy will judge your efforts and interpretation.

Alan’s Raspberry Saison recipe

Alan’s Raspberry & Lemon Saison

BrewerAlan MolloyStyleFruited Saison

Beer details

This beer was brought into the March 2022 meeting and was an instant hit. Fresh, fruity, zesty and bright it was a real summer drink that sings out with the raspberry flavour perfectly balanced against the Saison base.

OG1.034FG1.002
ABV4.0%IBU28
ColourRaspberry pinkBrew size40L

Mash ingredients

IngredientsWeight
Extra Pale Ale5.4kg

Boil additions

IngredientsWeightTime
Target Hops 10.5% AA25gStart of boil
Protafloc tablet1 tab50min
Lemon zest60g55min
Celeia 4.1%AA48gFlame out for 20min

Yeast

Type2 x Wyeast 3711 (French Saison)

Fermenter

IngredientWeightTime
Frozen and crushed raspberries4.0kg5 days
Mash:
On my set-up I required 11L at 78C to give a starting mash temp of 65.2C & ending at 62.4C, after 90mins I sparged with 35L @ 80C.This gave me 35L @ 1.036, which I diluted with 3L treated brew water to reduce OG to 1.032. 

Boil:
38L in the boil for 60mins with Target hops. Protafloc added 10mins before end of boil. Lemon zest added 5mins before end of boil. (TIP: peel the rind of the lemon & chop it up in a food processor, much easier). Celeia added @ switch off & left to cool to 80C stirring twice. Took 20mins. 

Fermenter:
Run wort through plate chiller to reduce temp to 30C & collected 32L @ 1.034.Agitation with a sterilised paddle. Pitched yeast direct from “Smack Pack” into wort @ 28C. (TIP: Spray outside of pack with steriliser before opening). This yeast ferments better at higher temp – 28 to 32C.After 5 days reached 1.002 & dropped temp to 8C overnight. 24hours later I added 4,000g of crushed raspberries in a fine muslin hop bag into the fermenter. The wort was now @ 14C. left them to soak for 5 days. 

Bottling:
31L bottled in 330ml & 500ml bottles. The final gravity was 1.003 giving ABV of 4.1%.I prime each bottle with normal white sugar, 330ml=<1/8tsp, 500ml=1/8tsp.

January Golden ale recipe

JANUARY GOLDEN ALE

Brewer

WEHomebrew

Style

Golden Ale

Beer details

OG 1.0365 FG 1.008
ABV 3.8% IBU 30
Colour 9 EBC Brew size As per brewer’s set up

Mash ingredients

Ingredients %
Pale Ale 85
Wheat malt (Or torrefied) 10
Cara medium 5

Boil additions

Ingredients Weight Time
Bittering hops To 30 IBU 90min
Citrus hops (Citra or Amarillo) 6 g/l 1 min

Yeast

Type Nottingham

Dry hopping

Ingredients Weight Time
Citrus hops (Citra or Amarillo) 2.5 g/l As per normal dry hopping schedule

To be brewed for comparison at the January 2020 WEHomebrew meeting. Looking to understand the differences that the individual set up and process can have on the sensory aspects of the same beer.

This recipe has been kindly supplied by Paddy at Eton & Windsor Brewery and is reminiscent of one of their favourite beers – Knight of the Garter. Paddy’s comments on the brew are below:

1. Golden Ale – OG 36.5, ABV 3.8%

2. Usual Liquor treatment for a Bitter (let people do their own thing as this is a point of debate/learning)

3. Malt Grist:

· 85% Pale Ale malt

· 5% Cara medium

· 10% Wheat (torrified or malted etc)

4. Bitter using standard bittering hop to achieve 30 IBU for a 90 mins (minimum 6%) boil. About 0.3 gms/L for a 13% alpha-acid hop

5. Late Hop using Citrus hops – Amarillo or Citra – 6 gms/L. Added at 1 min before flame out.

6. Nott Ale yeast Ferment at up to 22.5C (usually start about 19C and let it rise to top heat. 0.4 gms yeast/L

7. Dry Hop with same Citrus hops 2.5 gms/L

Very simple and people shouldn’t be tempted to make theirs “more interesting” – this is about comparing yours to a standard and learning what is different about your process that you then need to flex in normal brewing.

Should be an interesting tasting session. If anyone needs help with hop supply then Paddy has offered assistance.

Milled malt barley

SMaSH recipe for Hops experiment

Hop experiment SMaSH

November 2019 WEHomebrew experiment intended to allow the club to taste and compare beers that differ only in the type of hops used (And technique as well)

Brewer

WEHomebrewers

Style

Maris Otter SMaSH

Beer details

OG 1045 FG 1010
ABV 4.55% IBU 30
Colour 10 EBC Brew size Kit dependent

Mash ingredients

Ingredients Weight
Maris Otter Malt 100%

Boil additions

Ingredients Weight Time
Chosen hop X grams 60min
Chosen hop X grams 30min
Chosen hop X grams 15min

Yeast

Type Nottingham

Recommended 1 hour mash at 67C

Hops choice is completely up to you!

Will make three additions into the boil all of the same amount of the hop to hit a total BU of 30. Can use the Brewer’s friend calculator here to work out how much to add at each time point.

Pitch with Nottingham yeast and ferment between 18-20C if you can control the temperature.