Mild?

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Another recipe for consideration/comments. :)

What I'm aiming for is a nice dark, chewy mild.

3.00 kg Pale Malt, Maris Otter (5.9 EBC) Grain 1 80.6 %
0.25 kg Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (118.2 EBC) Grain 2 6.7 %
0.22 kg Chocolate Malt (886.5 EBC) Grain 3 5.9 %
0.15 kg Roasted Barley (591.0 EBC) Grain 4 4.0 %
0.10 kg Special B Malt (354.6 EBC) Grain 5 2.7 %
14.00 g Admiral [13.97 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 6 22.6 IBUs
9.00 g Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] - Boil 10.0 Hop 7 1.7 IBUs
1.0 pkg British Ale Yeast (Mangrove Jack's #M07) Yeast 8 -

That should give a 3.2% beer with 24.3 IBUs (right at the top end of bitterness for a mild but that is intentional) and 49.2 EBC so pretty dark. Too hoppy? Too much going on in the grain bill?
 
Mash it high at 69C to give you loads of body. I did this with my last mild. Never used that particular yeast before I used S04 in my mild and only got 70% attenuation so nice and malty. I'm going to leave it for six weeks to condition although it wasvery drinkable after 3 days in the bottle
 
"Chewy mild" has been an ambition of mine for a while. Pretty challenging with a 3% beer.

Too hoppy? I'd say so. I'd aim under 20 IBUs and don't bother with late hops. Milds aren't known for their hop characters.

More roast than I'd choose, but that's more personal thing. I'd definitely drop the roasted barley which is known for its "dry" flavour and something a mild might do without.

Personally I use a tad more "caramel" malts. I'm of the opinion that cramming in the unfermentable sugars is a good thing for milds.

"Too much going on?". Well there is; not that that's wrong, just makes it tricky to decide where to go next with it. If developing a recipe its best to start simple then you know exactly what the "bit of this, bit of that" is doing for you next time round.

You haven't mentioned it, but mash temperature? I've found that making these low gravity beers really do respond well to 68-69C mashes. And I found using the likes of "Windsor" yeast effective (generally considered to be "low" on attenuation), but I can't comment on the "Mangrove" stuff. Powerful caramel malts (like your "special b") are taking things down this road too.

I've also been mucking about with "smoked malt" to make up for lack of flavour ingredients, but no conclusions yet.
 
Mash it high at 69C to give you loads of body. I did this with my last mild. Never used that particular yeast before I used S04 in my mild and only got 70% attenuation so nice and malty. I'm going to leave it for six weeks to condition although it wasvery drinkable after 3 days in the bottle

Ah yes, I meant to say I am going to mash at 69. :) I doubt I'll manage to give it 6 weeks in the bottle before having a sample or two. :drink:
 
"Chewy mild" has been an ambition of mine for a while. Pretty challenging with a 3% beer.

Too hoppy? I'd say so. I'd aim under 20 IBUs and don't bother with late hops. Milds aren't known for their hop characters.

More roast than I'd choose, but that's more personal thing. I'd definitely drop the roasted barley which is known for its "dry" flavour and something a mild might do without.

Personally I use a tad more "caramel" malts. I'm of the opinion that cramming in the unfermentable sugars is a good thing for milds.

"Too much going on?". Well there is; not that that's wrong, just makes it tricky to decide where to go next with it. If developing a recipe its best to start simple then you know exactly what the "bit of this, bit of that" is doing for you next time round.

You haven't mentioned it, but mash temperature? I've found that making these low gravity beers really do respond well to 68-69C mashes. And I found using the likes of "Windsor" yeast effective (generally considered to be "low" on attenuation), but I can't comment on the "Mangrove" stuff. Powerful caramel malts (like your "special b") are taking things down this road too.

I've also been mucking about with "smoked malt" to make up for lack of flavour ingredients, but no conclusions yet.

Thanks, some good stuff in there.

The barley and the late hops are both from the recipe I used as my base (Hopback Mild clone) but I've deviated fairly far from that point. I'll have a play around, I've not brewed anything like a mild before so happy to take on everyone's suggestions.
 
Another thing I've seen done to get more caramel malt flavour is to take a small part of the batch and boil down to a caramel syrup, then add back to the main pan of wort. This is sometimes done when making Scottish (Scotch) ales.
 
Going to brew this over the weekend, here is what I've ended up with.

3.20 kg Pale Malt, Maris Otter (5.9 EBC) Grain 1 77.7 %
0.50 kg Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (118.2 EBC) Grain 2 12.1 %
0.22 kg Chocolate Malt (886.5 EBC) Grain 3 5.3 %
0.20 kg Special B Malt (354.6 EBC) Grain 4 4.9 %
13.00 g Admiral [13.97 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 5 20.3 IBUs
1.0 pkg British Ale Yeast (Mangrove Jack's #M07) Yeast 6 -

Strength increased to 3.6% while keeping IBUs at around 20, still nice and dark at 47 EBC and I'll mash at 69 so hopefully will achieve the chewyness I'm after. Roasted barley and late hop additions dropped.
 
The IBU's are very low even for a mild. All the milds in BYOBRA at that ABV% are about 24/25IBU

According to the style guide 25 is top end for a mild although the original recipe I worked from was 25. A lot of the milds in that book are around 22, maybe I'm a little low so will add another gram of admiral which should bump me up a point or two.
 
According to the style guide 25 is top end for a mild although the original recipe I worked from was 25. A lot of the milds in that book are around 22, maybe I'm a little low so will add another gram of admiral which should bump me up a point or two.

You know when you've hit the "splitting hairs" zone when you've got folk (like me) arguing for <20IBU and others arguing for 20-25IBU. Definitely time to make up your own mind!

I mentioned using smoked malt earlier: I'd used 15% and was rather disappointed when the flavour "disappeared". Six weeks of maturing and its back again! Not smoke but definitely something. Sort of developed a comforting "old leather bound book" quality. Anyway, ingredients for the next at 100% smoked malt on the way. Odd; you don't think of mild as "maturing".

Other thing I learnt with this last mild: I serve from a hand-pump, and the sparkler was completely trashing the beer (gave it a "watered down" feel). Would never have believed it without direct comparison. Went and got a "southern pour" nozzle with no sparkler! Keep in mind if using any trick to force a "head" on your mild.

And talking of head. Don't over-carbonate. Or you've not got "mild" anymore!
 
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