Critique my pale mild recipe

Having had a few pale mild ales recently, I fancy having a go at one. I want to brew this tomorrow, so it will have to be a store cupboard job, thus the CaraRed instead of pale crystal. Do you guys think this is about right?

HOME BREW RECIPE:
Title: Lindsey Mild
Author: Jjsh

Brew Method: All Grain
Style Name: Scottish Light
Boil Time: 60 min
Batch Size: 20 liters (fermentor volume)
Boil Size: 26.2 liters
Boil Gravity: 1.024
Efficiency: 70% (brew house)


STATS:
Original Gravity: 1.031
Final Gravity: 1.007
ABV (standard): 3.1%
IBU (tinseth): 20.3
SRM (morey): 11.57
Mash pH: 5.58

FERMENTABLES:
1800 g - United Kingdom - Pale 2-Row (62.9%)
500 g - German - CaraRed (17.5%)
500 g - United Kingdom - Munich (17.5%)
60 g - American - Black Malt (2.1%)

HOPS:
15 g - Fuggles, Type: Pellet, AA: 4.5, Use: Boil for 60 min, IBU: 11.95
15 g - Fuggles, Type: Pellet, AA: 4.5, Use: Boil for 30 min, IBU: 8.35

MASH GUIDELINES:
1) Infusion, Temp: 69 C, Time: 90 min, Amount: 8.4 L
2) Sparge, Temp: 78 C, Time: 15 min, Amount: 8.9 L
3) Sparge, Temp: 80 C, Time: 15 min, Amount: 8.9 L
Starting Mash Thickness: 3 L/kg

YEAST:
Mangrove Jack - New World Strong Ale M42
Starter: No
Form: Dry
Attenuation (avg): 79.5%
Flocculation: High
Optimum Temp: 16.11 - 22.22 C
Fermentation Temp: 19 C

It looks fine to me. I'd be tempted to reduce the CaraRed a tad and a bit more PA malt if it was me brewing, but should be fine. If you haven't anymore grain, you could add in a little demerara sugar (5%) to up the ABV a little. But I like my milds on the thin side.

I brew a paler mild (8 SRM) quite often, which is not far off your recipe...

Batch size 22L
1600g PA Malt
1400g Munich Malt
275g Crystal 100 (100 EBC)
250 Flaked Barley
200 Wheat Malt

Fuggles and Goldings to 22 IBUs

I've got plenty of pale malt, so if I drop the CaraRed to 250g and up the pa to 2kg?

I've got EKG as well as fuggles, do you think changing the late addition to EKG?

That looks good. I like goldings later in the boil, I have also combined the two 50/50 as a later addition, which is also nice. I just think goldings work better in a pale mild.

Just one more thing - this will be my first attempt at water treatment and am planning on aiming for a malty amber profile. Seem about right?

yes change the EKG to late addition for me instead of all fuggles

jjsh said:

malty amber profile. Seem about right?

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Yes... :p

Looking good :) Tho black malt in a pale? Amount of cara is high-ish, and those low mash temps are high-ish too, might turn out too sweet, too sweet for my taste anyway! (then again I have a triple down to 1005, even my brewcoach says it's DRY, so we'll see how that turns out). MJ could crank the FG lower again though, so everything's possible!

Try 20 g. Fuggles @60, and 10 g. @10, you'll get some more aroma out of it.

I wouldn't brew it this way, but I'd drink it!

GerritT makes some good points to consider... Especially the black malt and mash temps.

You can take this with a pinch of salt... As I don't follow new fangled mashings techniques, here is what I do with my pale mild...

Starting water/grain ratio: 2.5/1
1st mash --- 20 mins @63c --- 40 mins @66c --- 20 mins @69c. (Adding boiling water at each stage to increase mash temp)

2nd mash --- 20 mins @77c (or sparge instead)

ACBEV said:

GerritT makes some good points to consider... Especially the black malt and mash temps.

You can take this with a pinch of salt... As I don't follow new fangled mashings techniques, here is what I do with my pale mild...

Starting water/grain ratio: 2.5/1
1st mash --- 20 mins @63c --- 40 mins @66c --- 20 mins @69c. (Adding boiling water at each stage to increase mash temp)

2nd mash --- 20 mins @77c (or sparge instead)

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Cheers!

Looks like you have some sort of triple decoction way of upping the temperature!

Cheers for all the help!

• The black malt is for colour adjustment, most pale mild ales being amber in my experience. I'll leave it in this time and see how I get on, this being my first attempt at brewing this style. If it doesn't work, perhaps I'll drop it for the next one but I want to try and keep the crystal addition as light rather than medium or dark.
• I don't think I'll make any of the hop additions any later. My logic for this is that all the really good dark milds I've done don't have anything later than 30 mins, so I'll stick to this for my first attempt. Again, if it's a bit dull, I'll know where I went wrong!
• Looking through my brewing notes, you're all probably right about the mash temp being a too high. I want to leave some body in the beer but I'll drop the mash down a few degrees. I'll go through my logs, perhaps aim for the mid 60's. I've also noticed my sparge volumes are all wrong for the target volume. Basically, I must have been a bit ****** when I worked all that out so I'll start again, lol.

Thanks again for all the input, really appreciate it.

Still: I'd drink it!

Just asking: did you have a brew that inspired you?

Not really, I just love mild. Whenever I see it, cask or keg, I get twitchy until I can have a pint! I've brewed many a dark or ruby mild, never a pale.

I love a good mild ale in the pub, luckily a pub not far from me has a mild on cask most of the time. Another style which I brew is AK pale ale, you could say its a pale mild... Low ABV and IBU.

I've brewed this beer from Shepherd Neame, an AK from 1946... I can down 6-8 bottles on a summers day while gardening and still cut the grass in a straight line.

http://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/2018/08/lets-brew-wednesday-1946-shepherd-neame.html

I like the look of that Ak recipe, might give it a go for the summer. I have a couple of his books but the only ak recipes I can find require invert sugars, something I've never got round to making. This looks much simpler,

ACBEV said:

I love a good mild ale in the pub, luckily a pub not far from me has a mild on cask most of the time. Another style which I brew is AK pale ale, you could say its a pale mild... Low ABV and IBU.

I've brewed this beer from Shepherd Neame, an AK from 1946... I can down 6-8 bottles on a summers day while gardening and still cut the grass in a straight line.

http://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/2018/08/lets-brew-wednesday-1946-shepherd-neame.html

Click to expand...

I like the look of these 20th century AK recipes on Rons blog as well; good midweek chuggers. Did you include the small amount of malt extract? I assume it would have been diastatic in the original, but is it needed with modern malts?

jjsh said:

Did you include the small amount of malt extract?

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I have used the malt extract from Holland and Barrett... Maridian barley malt extract, couple of quid per jar. This is what I always use when Ron's recipes require malt extract. I just mix with wort pre-boil. But I don't think its needed for mashing, just doesn't seem right not to have some if the recipe specxifies it.

Aye, I need to get some in anyway for making staters so perhaps I'll add it as well. Just seems an odd thing to be adding to a commercial brew.

I'd definately stick with the high mash temp. I'd also think about shortening it too. For my house mild I mash at 70C for 40 mins and (unless it's the flaked barley in the recipe, or maybe a combination of the mash schedule and FB ) it defiantley adds loads of body

Just in case you don't know... The malt extract for home brewing i.e. for kits and partial mash recipes, isn't the same thing. The Maridian stuff is more concentrated.