Pale Mild

My first all grain batch was a Dark English Mild.  It turned out well and the last bottle was consumed over a year ago now.

 I've been brewing quite a few hoppy beers here recently so I decided to try another malty mild ale.  I wanted a paler beer this time so I developed a recipe that should yield a copper colored beer with a good bit of complex malt flavor

I will be brewing with the famous Conan Yeast used by the Alchemist for Heady Topper.  This beer will serve as a big starter for a clone of that beer that I will be attempting for my next batch.  I'm hoping that the yeast character will play an interesting role in this mild.  The yeast is reputed to be a bit finicky so hopefully I'll also get a feel for how to coax it to completion on this cheap batch before trying it on the very expensive double IPA.

Recipe Details:

• Grain:
• 6 lbs Vienna
• 8 oz Crystal 10 L
• 8 oz Crystal 20 L
• 4 oz CaraBrown
• 4 oz Biscuit
• 2 oz Honey Malt
• 2 oz Acid Malt
• Hops:
• 1 oz Fuggle (Pellet, 4.2% AA) at 60 min
• Yeast:
• Yeast Bay Vermont Ale Yeast
• Water:
• 10 gal spring water
• 5 gal tap water
• 1 tsp Calcium Chloride
• 1 tsp Gypsum
• 1 tsp Irish Moss at 20 min

Process Details:

• Batch Size:
• 6 gal(Target 6 gal)
• Mash:
• 156 F for 60 min(Target 156 F for 60 min)
• Boil:
• 60 min(Target 60 min)
• Fermentation Temp:
• 65 F for 1.5 days
• Allowed to raise to Ambient basement temps (70 F) to finish
• Primary Duration:
• 2 weeks
• Secondary Duration:
• NA

Results:

• OG:
• 1.032 (Target 1.032)
• Efficiency:
• 72% (Target 72%)
• FG:
• 1.010 (Target 1.010)
• Apparent Attenuation:
• 68% (Target 68%)
• ABV:
• 2.89% (Target 2.89%)

Brew Notes:

• 8/21/15 - Created a starter with 6 oz of DME in 1.5 liters of water along with 1/8 tsp of yeast nutrient.  Chilled down to ~70 F, pitched the yeast, and set it up on a stirplate down in the 70 F basement.  The yeast didn't stay cool during shipping so I want to make sure I have a good cell count even though the beer will be about at a starter's gravity.
• 8/23/15 - Brewday - 6:45 AM to 10 45 AM - Including setup and cleanup
• Heated 10 gal of water in my HLT and cycled through Mash tun and RIMS trying to get to 161 F.  Ended up overshooting at 170 F.  Had 3 gal of water above the false bottom and a total of 5.5 gal in the system.  It took about 45 min to do this
• Turned off the cycle and added the grain.  This got the volume up to 3.5 gal above the false bottom.
• Restarted the cycle with the RIMS set to 158.  Cycled at around 2qt per min

• The temperature settled at 158 F after 10 min
• Stirred the mash at 30 min.  Temp was down to 154 F.  Raised the RIMS temp to 160 F
• Heated 9.5 gal of sparge water up to 190 F (this included 5 gal of tap water)
• Temp was at 156 F at 45 min.  Stirred the mash one last time
• Gravity was 8.5 brix (1.033) after 55 min of mashing - right on target
• At the end of the mash I drained the grant to the mash tun.  Added sparge water until the mash volume got to 4.5 gal above the false bottom.  Sparged at about 1 gal per 5 min.
• Started heating the kettle once I'd collected a couple gal

• 15 min into the sparge, after collecting 3 gal, the gravity at the grant was 8.8 brix which is 1.035
• Brought the kettle to a boil once I'd collected 4 gal
• Stopped the sparge once the gravity at the grant was down to 3 brix (1.011) - I had only collected 6 gal at this point so I topped up the kettle with 2 gal of sparge water.  Sparge took about 35 min.
• Added the hops after the hot break cleared
• Added irish moss with about 20 min to go
• Added the chiller to sanitize at flameout
• Chilled to 80 F which seemed to be what ground water temps were at
• Measured the gravity with my hydrometer as 8.2 brix or 1.032 and collected 6 gal.  Wort dropped a couple feet to aerate
• Moved to the fermentation fridge to chill down to 65 F
• Pitched the entire starter once it got down to the fermentation temperature
• 8/25/15 - The airlock was bubbling vigorously the night after pitching and for most of yesterday.  It has slowed down a lot this morning.  I moved it out of the fermentation chamber into the 70 F basement to finish up.
• 9/2/15 - Measured the gravity as 1.010.  The sample was clear and light copper.  The aroma and the flavor to some extent had a bit of an odd grainy and slightly buttery flavor (movie theatre variety) that I'm thinking may be Diacetyl.  This beer has only been going for about a week and half which is on the very young side for me.  I will try it in four or five more days.
• 9/6/15 - The odd aroma is still present in the beer after a few more days.  I've started to doubt that it is Diacetyl that I'm getting and that this might be some of the expressive yeast character people report with Conan.  I will need the yeast cake tomorrow so I have chosen to bottle.  Primed with 3.5 oz of corn sugar.  Collected about 6 gal which got me 59 12 oz bottles.
• 10/15/15 - Tasting Notes - An easy drinking malt forward beer.   The beer has very similar flavors to Honey Nut Cheerios which I like.  It's not exciting but I wasn't really going for an exciting beer.
• 7/21/17 - Still have quite a few of these left.  They're so bland that I rarely feel compelled to reach for one given other options.  I tried mixing one with a about a tablespoon of honey with good results.  This gave it a very slight sweetness and added some depth to the flavor profile.  I think I'll drink the remainder this way most likely.  This discovery would almost make the recipe worth brewing again (but not quite).

Lessons Learned:

1. This was a very smooth brewday as a result of my better grasp on how to use my system.  I have gotten much better and quicker at setting up the cycle with the RIMS which really helped with heating the mash tun up prior to doughing in as well as with the fly sparge.  I added another bulkhead and valve to the front of the my kettle to allow for the kettle to be heated while fly sparging wort into it which was a good time saver.
2. I did my cleanup of the mash tun and RIMS in parallel with the boil this time.  I drained it, then heated some water with Oxyclean and cycled that.  I then rinsed with cool water and then finally captured some of the hot water from the wort chiller to do a final rinse.  I'd gotten some bad smells in my mash tun and grant from the last batch - hopefully this extra cycling got everything clean enough.