May is Mild month

[Honk]

Been looking at what ingredients I have left and decided that I could probably stretch them to two brews if I went for a fairly low abv mild. I'm also thinking that's a good drink to enjoy sat out in the sunshine whilst on lockdown, anyone else brewing a mild for May?
Also what's your favourite recipe? I usually do Wheelers Sarah Hughes dark ruby mild but am going to try for something a bit more sessionable this time.

 

[An Ankoù]

Been looking at what ingredients I have left and decided that I could probably stretch them to two brews if I went for a fairly low abv mild. I'm also thinking that's a good drink to enjoy sat out in the sunshine whilst on lockdown, anyone else brewing a mild for May?
Also what's your favourite recipe? I usually do Wheelers Sarah Hughes dark ruby mild but am going to try for something a bit more sessionable this time.

At six percent Sarah's Dark Ruby Headache is less than mild. Yep, I love a good mild. I put one on a couple of weekends ago and I've got a different one planned for this weekend. An Ankoù brewday: post 69 for the earlier recipe. This weekend's aims for about 3.5%, nicely roast and with a decent body. Not too dry. I'm using 2% each of Carafa special #1, #2 and #3 some caramalt and a yeast that leaves maltotriose alone. I think I've got an ancient sachet of Lallemand ESB, which should do the trick. Of course, I haven't brewed it so it might be carap.

 

[Honk]

@An Ankoù I will have a look at your brewday post next. I have some carafa special 3 which I'm considering using but also have some chocolate and black malt, I'm hoping to avoid making it too toasty which was why I was considering the carafa special, did a search on using this in a mild yesterday but didn't come up with anything so interesting that your using it.

 

[marshbrewer]

My house mild is here on my blog, but the main points I would make is;

• I used carared because I had it in stock, any light to medium crystal type malt would work IMHO
• The golden syrup + molasses is a home brew substitute for brewers invert (#3 I think in the original recipe, but quantities been tweaked to work with the molasses I use, which is Meridian Blackstrap)
• The above are really important to get that 'pub' cask mild feel to the resultant ale. If you sub them for more pale malt, or whatever, it doesn't come out as authentic. I think this is a mistake many modern craft breweries make when re-creating that aprox 3% post war dark mild recipe, again IM very HO. This might be advantageous for you if you are trying to eek out ingredients as golden syrup and molasses can easily be purchased when you next go food shopping?

Hope that helps!

 

[Sandimas]

One of my local breweries does a Bramling Cross Mild which I attempted to replicate and it came out pretty good, I've made it a few times now.

Batch Size (L): 23L
Original Gravity (OG): 1.042
Final Gravity (FG): 1.011
Alcohol by Volume (ABV): 4.13 %
Colour (SRM): 31.0 (EBC): 61.0
Bitterness (IBU): 21.6
Brewhouse Efficiency (%): 68

Grain Bill
----------------
3.800 kg Maris Otter Malt (82.97%)
0.400 kg Crystal 60 standard (8.73%)
0.150 kg Black Malt (3.28%)
0.130 kg Black Roasted Barley (2.84%)
0.100 kg Chocolate (2.18%)

Hop Bill
----------------
32g Bramling Cross Leaf - 60 Minutes Boil
15g Bramling Cross Leaf - 10 Minutes Boil
20g Bramling Cross Leaf - Aroma 30min Steep

 

[Honk]

@jjsh that's very interesting what you say about adding sugars, I've always avoided the mild recipes with sugars in the past fearing it would dry out or thin the beer too much but maybe I should give it a go.

 

[MyQul]

I need to make a another mild. I haven made one ages

 

[marshbrewer]

Like I say, @Honk , it depends what you are after. If you want that typical 1950s -1980s pub cask mild, I think you need the sugars. If you want something along the lines of Rudgates Ruby Mild (which is superb on cask, but is about 4.5%) you're good to go with all malt, but then you run the risk of really producing a low ABV porter or stout. At the end of the day, it's all down to personal preference.

 

[MrRook]

I'll be brewing this probably in late may.
2 gallons 1.040ish, very low IBUs, not sure on the SRM
1.5 lbs. (.68 kg) Golden light dme
1 lb. (.45 kg) marris otter
8 ozs. (224 g) brumalt
4 ozs. (112 g) victory
4 ozs. (122 g) pale chocolate
2 ozs. (56g) oat malt
.2 oz. (6 g) EKGs
Munton's yeast.

 

[Honk]

Mild is a beer that I've always liked the idea of (low alcohol, quick turnaround, refreshing) but I havent been over impressed with the low abv versions I've tried in the past. I have however done the stronger sh ruby mild several times and its a favourite of mine.
Have spent a fair bit of time looking at mild recipes the last couple of days and looking forward to giving it another go.
@jjsh comments on using sugar are particularly interesting, a lot of old recipes use it in one form or another and I'm currently thinking I will too.
Just waiting on yeast to arrive now and hopefully get this done early next week. Should be able to do two back to back different versions of a mild to use up everything I've got in stock.

Anyone else got a favourite mild recipe then please post it up here?

 

[PhilBrew]

Hi @Honk

@jjsh that's very interesting what you say about adding sugars, I've always avoided the mild recipes with sugars in the past fearing it would dry out or thin the beer too much but maybe I should give it a go.

... I think you should ... there's an interesting section in the Chris White and Jamil Zainasheff book, "Yeast" which is mostly there explaining why you shouldn't use (simple) sugar solutions for growing starters, but malt based starter worts instead but IMHO explains how the invert sugars added into mild recipes counter-intuitively seems to help to make the finished beer more malty, rather than thinner (from p22-23, with my highlighting for emphasis) ...

Because yeast cells utilize some sugars more easily than others, they take up sugar in a specific order, with simple sugars first: glucose, fructose, sucrose, maltose, and then maltotriose. Most of the sugar in a typical all-malt wort is maltose with lesser amounts of glucose and maltotriose. Yeast take glucose into the cell through facilitated diffusion, without expending any metabolic energy, it is so easy for yeast to utilize glucose that the presence of glucose actually suppresses the yeast's ability to utilize maltose and maltotriose. All brewer's yeast can utilize maltose but not all of them can utilize maltotriose to the same extent. The ability to utilize different sugars, the relative proportions of sugars in the wort, and the nutrients present in the wort determine much of the yeast's metabolism. The yeast's metabolism in turn determines the rate of fermentation and the degree of attenuation.

... definitely worth thinking about

Cheers, PhilB

 

[Clint]

I do like a mild...and have everything in to make one. My next two brews will probably be a wheat and an IPA...hmmm,how quick are milds ready?

 

[terrym]

I do like a mild...and have everything in to make one. My next two brews will probably be a wheat and an IPA...hmmm,how quick are milds ready?

The ones I brew (3.5-4%ABV) are ready quite quickly. Certainly very drinkable a month on from bottling, although the flavour does change if left longer.

 

[Honk]

With force carbonation in a corny , I will probably start drinking about 2 weeks after brewing.

 

[marshbrewer]

You've all got my mild senses tingling. I was going to do a brown ale next, but it might have to be a mild now. Fancy doing a light mild. So I've been looking through my beer history books and may have settled on an early 1900's recipe. Watch this space.

 

[Honk]

Got mine on the boil now, loosely based on Wheelers Hooky mild but with some changes based on what I had and suggestions above.
(23litres biab)
2.2 kg Marris otter
300g dark crystal
300g flaked Maize
100g carafa special 3
40g Fuggles @40
1/2 protofloc @ 10
100g molasses and 255g golden syrup at end of boil.
20g Fuggles @ Flame out.

Yeast, I'm hoping the postman is going to arrive with some dried English ale yeast I found on eBay, else it's going to have to be crossmyloof Belgain yeast which would be a bit different.

Nice doing such a small grain bill, I did the mash in a stockpot kept warm in the oven

 

[An Ankoù]

Mild is a beer that I've always liked the idea of (low alcohol, quick turnaround, refreshing) but I havent been over impressed with the low abv versions I've tried in the past. I have however done the stronger sh ruby mild several times and its a favourite of mine.
Have spent a fair bit of time looking at mild recipes the last couple of days and looking forward to giving it another go.
@jjsh comments on using sugar are particularly interesting, a lot of old recipes use it in one form or another and I'm currently thinking I will too.
Just waiting on yeast to arrive now and hopefully get this done early next week. Should be able to do two back to back different versions of a mild to use up everything I've got in stock.

Anyone else got a favourite mild recipe then please post it up here?

This is my favourite mild. It runs in at 4% abv and it's got no sugar in it. Post #69 "Dog's Bolllocks Mild"
https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/threads/an-ankoù-brewday.84797/page-4#post-887716@jish is right about adding dark sugars to mild and I'm not sure those are the milds I like. In the day, some of the less reputable pubs used to pour the slops back into the mild barrel too.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Ron Pattison is obsessed with mild and so has recipes from original brewery brewbooks going back to the 19th century. The Lees Best Milds of the 1950s are fascinating for how much they varied year to year, you can't really say there is a "typical" mild even in that narrow period, let alone when you're comparing the 8% pale milds of the 19th century with the classic <3% dark milds of the 1950s.

+1 on needing dark(ish) invert for the latter.

So what do you mean by mild?

 

[Honk]

Kegged my Mild today after just 7 days, ended up using the Belgian yeast but I enjoyed my sample 1/2 pint Mild, I'm calling it "Mild Thing"

May well start another Mild later this week (or next)

 

[marshbrewer]

I'm hoping to start one tomorrow or Wednesday. Might just squeek a pint in by the end of Mild may if I'm lucky.