Mild Ale

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Reg
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Mild Ale

Post by Reg » Wed Dec 14, 2005 12:11 am

QUOTE (Brew Your Own Real Ale at Home - Graham Wheeler / Roger Protz)Over the centuries dark mild has evolved to its present form, after being firstly influenced by 18th century Porter, 19th century tastes, and the 20th century greed, the term "mild" coming to mean lightly hopped rather than not sour. The character of a modern dark mild is derived from the use of dark roasted malts and cereal adjuncts, giving it a luscious depth of flavour. In 1805 a mild would have had a gravity of OG1085. In 1871 mild was typically brewed at OG1070 and in 1913 at OG1050. Alas, a modern-day mild would be about OG1034 - 20th century greed!

So how would we go about making a mild but with an ever so slightly retro 1913 strength?

It's not an exam question chaps and chapesses, but let's talk about our fictional beer named JHB's 1913 Mild in honour of this very fine forum. :D

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Post by Reg » Wed Dec 14, 2005 12:50 am

QUOTE (Daft as a Brush @ Dec 13 2005, 10:45 PM) I drink a fictional beer evey week, it's know as Cuckoo at the pub I go to but in fact is HopBacks GFB.

I like pale and golden ales so if I had to come up with a name it would have to cover up for the times my brew hasn't cleared properly, maybe Winter Haze or Not Quite Clear :P
:lol:

That would cover alot of my brews too! ;)

I was thinking of working out a forum beer recipe though. I thought a 1913 strength mild might be a quite interesting project.

There are a number of recipes in the Bible I quoted above, most seem to revolve around either mixing pale and crystal malts or go the whole hog and demand properly roasted mild ale malt. Torrified wheat or roasted barley seems to be the most common adjuncts and there are a distrubing amount of recipes that demand sugar or syrups. The hops are rarely unusual ones so we could work out our own recipe for a OG1050, (1913 strength), mild... :D

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Post by Reg » Wed Dec 14, 2005 1:18 am

Mmm... Definitely some good stuff there...

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Post by Reg » Wed Dec 14, 2005 1:27 am

Well the GW/RP recipes do suggest you can replace proper mild ale malt with NON-diastatic, dark-coloured malt extract and obtain a similar result although you arn't quite going to get all those toasty falvours of a mild ale malt, that would allow us to do a mix and match option that would give the grain purists their fun working with a specific malt and the extract brewers the chance to brew a good facsimile... :D

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Post by Reg » Wed Dec 14, 2005 2:50 pm

QUOTE (Daft as a Brush @ Dec 13 2005, 11:45 PM) The GW recipe seems a good starting point then, i've never devised an AG though. More input is required I think.
Errrm Jim! :huh:

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Post by Jim » Thu Dec 15, 2005 6:47 pm

QUOTE (Reg @ Dec 14 2005, 01:50 PM) QUOTE (Daft as a Brush @ Dec 13 2005, 11:45 PM) The GW recipe seems a good starting point then, i've never devised an AG though. More input is required I think.
Errrm Jim! :huh:
Err, I'm thinking! :stun


There are a couple of mild recipes in David Line's Big Book of Brewing, both of which use pale malt plus a mixture of roast barley, black malt and crystal malt. To get the required starting gravity we're talking around 10lbs of pale malt (at 80% efficiency) or a mixture of pale malt, crystal malt and maybe dark sugars totalling the equivalent of 10lb of grain.


I would think for hops, around 20 IBUs of fuggles would match the style (low hop rate, traditional British hops).

I'll do a bit more research and do an update.

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Post by Reg » Tue Dec 20, 2005 11:09 pm

QUOTE (jim @ Dec 15 2005, 04:47 PM) QUOTE (Reg @ Dec 14 2005, 01:50 PM) QUOTE (Daft as a Brush @ Dec 13 2005, 11:45 PM) The GW recipe seems a good starting point then, i've never devised an AG though. More input is required I think.
Errrm Jim! :huh:
Err, I'm thinking! :stun


There are a couple of mild recipes in David Line's Big Book of Brewing, both of which use pale malt plus a mixture of roast barley, black malt and crystal malt. To get the required starting gravity we're talking around 10lbs of pale malt (at 80% efficiency) or a mixture of pale malt, crystal malt and maybe dark sugars totalling the equivalent of 10lb of grain.


I would think for hops, around 20 IBUs of fuggles would match the style (low hop rate, traditional British hops).

I'll do a bit more research and do an update.
Well the 10lb is a good starting point, would that be all grains including adjuncts?

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Post by Jim » Wed Dec 21, 2005 7:53 pm

QUOTE (Reg @ Dec 20 2005, 10:09 PM) QUOTE (jim @ Dec 15 2005, 04:47 PM) QUOTE (Reg @ Dec 14 2005, 01:50 PM) QUOTE (Daft as a Brush @ Dec 13 2005, 11:45 PM) The GW recipe seems a good starting point then, i've never devised an AG though. More input is required I think.
Errrm Jim! :huh:
Err, I'm thinking! :stun


There are a couple of mild recipes in David Line's Big Book of Brewing, both of which use pale malt plus a mixture of roast barley, black malt and crystal malt. To get the required starting gravity we're talking around 10lbs of pale malt (at 80% efficiency) or a mixture of pale malt, crystal malt and maybe dark sugars totalling the equivalent of 10lb of grain.


I would think for hops, around 20 IBUs of fuggles would match the style (low hop rate, traditional British hops).

I'll do a bit more research and do an update.
Well the 10lb is a good starting point, would that be all grains including adjuncts?
Yeah, that would be 10lb for the whole of the grist and including any sugar added in the boil. Maybe something like: -


8lb 6oz Pale malt
10oz Crystal malt
8oz Roasted Barley (or black malt, but I think roast barley is better)

1lb of Soft Dark Brown sugar in the boil.
Fuggles to 20 IBUs.

Edit: The roast barley/black malt doesn't contribute any extract, by the way, in case you thought I couldn't add up! :P

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Post by Reg » Wed Dec 28, 2005 1:04 am

QUOTE (Daft as a Brush @ Dec 21 2005, 07:59 PM) I'll have a crack at that one in the New Year although there is one more ahead of it in the que.
I think I might have a micropop at it whan I get back, although I'm still keen to see if I can find some mild ale malt from somewhere...

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Post by Jim » Sun Jan 01, 2006 10:54 am

I've moved this thread to 'Recipes', as that seems a more appropriate place for it.

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