Advice on Pimping up a Mild

[MartinHaworth]

Hi Folks,

Just collected far too much from my local Tesco store - courtesy of their home brew sale!

(Got loads of Coopers Beer Enhancer and Youngs Beer Enhancer at a great price +a few kits).

I'm going to pimp up a Cooper's Cerveza by dry hopping Cascade for the last 5 days in the FV.

But....

What can I do to pimp up Harvest Mild.It was the very first brew I did 9 months ago...worked fabulously despite the inevitable newbie errors.

What can I do to the'old faithful' Harvest Mild? Or am I trying to put lipstick on a pig...

Thanks

Martin

 

[Tony1951]

I'm a real fan of citra maybe as a flame out hop in an AG brew or as a dry hop hop in a kit brew. Some people think it tastes like 'cat's pee' - I think it tastes of wonderful places full of Mediterranean fruits and flowers.

 

[DoctorMick]

I'm a real fan of citra maybe as a flame out hop in an AG brew or as a dry hop hop in a kit brew. Some people think it tastes like 'cat's pee' - I think it tastes of wonderful places full of Mediterranean fruits and flowers.

Be interesting to see how that would work in a mild, if anyone has ever tried anything similar I'd love to hear how it turned out.

 

[MartinHaworth]

Thanks guys, interesting stuff. I've never heard of anyone using hop additions with a mild kit.

Tempted to try...but would like assurance that it would work!!

 

[clibit]

If you want a traditional mild, don't hop it. But I'd highly recommend it. You could use an English hop, Goldings, Challenger, First Gold, Brewer's Gold are all good, but try an American hop, like Citra, Amarillo, Centennial, Cascade, Simcoe. Those are all great and will change your mild a lot, but in a really good way.

 

[MartinHaworth]

Thanks Clibit,

Dry hop for 5 days in FV?

 

[clibit]

Yes, 5 days is spot on, I think.

 

[MyQul]

As others have said there's nothing inherently wrong with hopping up a mild (heathen! ) but your heading out of mild territory and into ordinary bitter turf. Mild is more of a malt forward(essentially a low ABV% brown ale) beer so you could consider the malt as an avenue to tart your kit up.

Have a look a clibit's Simple kit plus mini-mash on how to get some fresh grains into a kit

http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=52938

 

[MartinHaworth]

Thanks MyQul

I take your point about malt-to-the-fore in Mild. So, if I did a mini mash and boil of 1kg of grain, that would give the kit more legs? (would 1kg of grain substitute for 1kg of brew enhancer?).

Given the dark character of Mild, would I be OK just using MO?

I think that a mini mash + mild kit, would provide a nice counterpoint to Cerveza + Cascade.

(I'm going to be bottling my Black Sheep this week, so I may get BOTH kits on at the same time! - kid away with school camp this week)

THanks

MArtin

 

[MyQul]

Mild usually has some roasted grains added, chocolate , black or maybe roasted barley (in combo with the choccy/black as RB on it's own will give to a red colour in the amounts you need for a mild) to add flavour and colour. You could steep some and add it to the MO.

Steeping grains is something that extract brewers usually do, and I've never brewed that way, I went straight from kits to AG. Hopefully clibit, who wrote the mini mash guide will be along as some point to give advice on amounts

 

[clibit]

If you're going to use pale malt you could just stick to that. The hop suggestion is based on kit extract not being the best malt base. But a mini mash should improve the malt flavours. If you have two FVs you could split it and hop one half.