Dark English Mild - Take II

My first all grain batch was a Dark English Mild.  It turned out nicely.  It has been a little more than two years since making that beer so I've decided to take another shot at the style.

Found an interesting looking recipe in the January/February 2016 edition of Zymurgy from Charlie Papazian called "Visionary Mild".  It uses of a Caramel Malt by Simpsons called "Double Roasted Crystal 120L" which I hadn't heard of before.  I guess it's pretty new.  It was difficult to find; the major homebrew supply sites don't have it yet.  Ended up ordering from some out of state homebrew shop.  The grain has a nice flavor - it's a combination of cracker, caramel, roast, and maybe some dark fruit.  Didn't do a side by side comparison but it does seem to have a bit more complexity than you'd get from normal Caramel 120L malt.  I bought enough to try in a couple more beers.

I'm making a few modifications to the recipe:

• I am planning for a OG of 1.035 rather than 1.040 and will mash at 158 F to try to get the yeast to stop around 1.013 to get around 3% ABV rather than the 4% ABV from the original recipe.  My attempts to influence (or even predict) how far the yeast will attenuate haven't been successful of late but I keep trying.
• I am skipping the flavoring hop additions called for in the original recipe.  I want the malt to be the star of the show in this beer (it is a mild after all).  I'll also be using Challenger hops for this one as I couldn't find the Northdown hops the original called for (would like to track that one down at some point as I haven't used it yet).

I made a Pale Mild last year that turned out to be pretty bland.  Hoping this one, with roast malt as part of the equation, will be interesting even with the restrained hopping.

Recipe Details:

• Grain:
• 6 lb 8 oz Maris Otter
• 12 oz Double Roasted Crystal 120L
• 12 oz Brown Malt
• Hops:
• 1 oz Challenger (Pellet, 6.1% AA) at 60 min
• Yeast:
• Wyeast 1335 British Ale II
• Water:
• 10 gal spring water
• 5 gal tap water
• 1 tsp Calcium Chloride
• 1 tsp Irish Moss at 15 min

Process Details:

• Batch Size:
• 5.26 gal (Target 6 gal)
• Mash:
• 159 F for 60 min (Target 158 F for 60 min)
• Boil:
• 60 min (Target 60 min)
• Fermentation Temperature:
• 70 F
• Primary Duration:
• 1 Week
• Secondary Duration:
• 1 Week

Results:

• OG:
• 1.037 (Target 1.035)
• Efficiency:
• 66% (Target ~70%)
• FG:
• 1.012 (Target 1.013)
• Apparent Attenuation:
• 67% (Target 62%)
• ABV:
• 3.28% (Target 2.89%)

Brewing Notes:

• 5/22/16 - Brewday - 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM including setup and cleanup
• Heated string water in HLT and cycled through Mash Tun, RIMS, and Grant until the system was at 165 F
• Milled my grain while heating the strike water
• Ended up with 3 gal above the false bottom and 7.5 gal in the system
• Added CaCl to the grain
• Added the grain to the mash and stirred to eliminate dough balls

• Cycled the RIMS at 1 qt per min at 160 F
• Checked the temperature after 20 min and found that it was a bit uneven throughout the grain bed.  Stirred to try to even it out
• Checked again 30 min into the mash and found that the temperature was a bit low.  Raised the RIMS to 163 F

• Mashed for 60 min - temperature was 159 F by the end
• Heated 7.5 gal of sparge water to 190 F
• Fly sparged
• Started heating the kettle after collecting about 3 gal
• Had it to a boil a minute after ending the sparge
• Collected 8 gal of wort.  Gravity at the grant was 2 brix at the end of the sparge
• Added the hops once the hot break cleared
• Ended up losing about half a gal of wort while draining the pump when I forgot to close one of the valves on the boil kettle - damn.
• Boiled for 60 min
• With 15 min left in the boil added the irish moss
• Added the wort chiller to sanitize with 5 min left in the boil
• Chilled the beer down to 75 F
• Drained into the fermenter.  Ended up knocking in a bit of the concrete backer board when I tilted up the kettle to help it drain.

• Pitched the yeast packet directly into the fermenter and then moved the beer down to the fermentation chamber set to 70 F
• Measured the gravity as 1.037
• 5/23/16 - Fermenter was bubbling by the next day and holding steady at 69 - 70 F
• 5/30/16 - Transferred the beer to another bucket fermenter to free up the yeast cake for an English Barleywine.  Made sure to limit the amount of yeast that transferred over to simplify bottling.
• 6/24/16 - Chilled the beer down to the 40s to drop the yeast out of suspension.
• 6/25/16 - Bottled with 3.5 oz of priming sugar (using normal granulated sugar).  Ended up with 5 gal.  This got me 50 bottles.  Measured the gravity as 1.012.  The sample has a really nice malt profile which is a mix of dark caramel and toffee as well as graham cracker.  I'll give this batch a couple weeks to carb up before sampling the first one.
• 8/20/16 - Tasting Notes - Malty, flavorful beer in a nice light package.  Been enjoying this one on weeknights and with lunch on the weekends.

Lessons Learned:

1. Good 4 hr brewday again thanks to only collecting enough wort to boil down in 1 hr
2. Getting more and more tired of my mash tun the longer I use it.  I feel like I'm not getting good cycling of the return water with the auto sparge.  Maybe not leaving enough water on top of the grain bed once it settles to get a good cycle.  It seems that the water just bores a hole in the grain bed.