Dark English Mild Take III

This will be my third attempt at a Dark English Mild (read about First and Second).  This is a low alcohol and malt forward beer meant to be consumed in volume - easy drinking but flavorful and complex.  The style is very rare to see in the US although it is now something you can find from some craft breweries.  It seems to be unreasonably expensive as sold today for a beer that you don't just have one of - that is one reason why it's better to be a homebrewer than a craft beer drinker.  

For this attempt I'm going to use a historical recipe from the Shut Up about Barclay Perkins Blog:  1952 Lees Best Mild.  This beer has a fairly complex malt bill with 4 dark specialty malts, used in small amounts, to bring complexity to the beer.  It also features invert syrup (like many historical English recipe) to dry it out.  Finally, it also uses a small amount of brewers caramel for color.  I'm going to make my own invert and caramel for this beer.

For hops, the recipe called for a fairly restrained dose of Fuggle.  I had Willamette on hand which is quite similar so I've used that instead in the same amounts.  This is a malt forward beer where the hops will provide some balance but not make too much of a flavor contribution.

Finally, the recipe calls for Wyeast London Ale III which is the same strain as Imperial Juice.  I have a saved pitch from a previous batch to use here.  This helps keep the cost low on this beer.  I haven't found this to be that estery a strain when used in a hoppy beer.  We'll see how it does here in a beer without bold hop flavors to compete with.  It will be fermented cool at 63 F which will probably keep it pretty clean

Have an empty keg and can't wait to get this on tap.  Will give fermentation 3 weeks I think.  Should be a beer that will be good young.

Recipe Details:

• Grain/Adjunct:
• 6 lb Golden Promise
• 4 oz Crystal 60L
• 4 oz Chocolate Malt
• 2 oz Brown Malt
• 2 oz Black Malt
• 2 oz Acid Malt
• 1 lb Invert #1
• 2..2 oz Brewers Caramel
• Hops:
• 1 oz Willamette (Leaf, 5.7% AA) at 90 min
• 0.5 oz Willamette (Leaf, 5.7% AA) at 30 min
• Yeast:
• Imperial Yeast A38 Juice (2nd Pitch)
• Water:
• 10 gal spring water
• 1 tsp Gypsum
• 1 tsp CaCl
• 1 tsp Irish Moss at 15 min

Process Details:

• Batch Size:
• 6 gal
• Mash:
• 150 F for 60 min
• Boil:
• 90 min
• Fermentation Temp:
• 63 F
• Primary Duration:
• 3 weeks
• Secondary Duration:
• NA

Results:

• OG:
• 1.039 (Target 1.035)
• Efficiency:
• 79% (Target 70%)
• FG:
• 1.008 (Target 1.008)
• Apparent Attenuation:
• 79% (Target 77%)
• ABV:
• 4.1% (Target 3.5%)

Brewing Notes:

• 3/20/21 - Quite a bit of prep for this one:
• Replaced my RIMS heating element.  Swapped from a 120 V 1500W to a 120 V 2200 W.  Did a bit of a test run and it didn't cause the breaker to flip on a 15 A circuit which is good.
• Created a yeast starter with 100 G of DME and 1 L of water.  Took the mason jar containing my yeast out of the fridge a few hrs before pitching and it was bubbling pretty good by the end of that which is nice.  Set it up an a stir plate to grow over night

• Brewers caramel:
• Heated 2.2 oz of Turbinado sugar on a pan at medium
• Let this cook until the sugar was bubbling and smoking - only took a couple minutes
• Let it cool down in the pan.  I'll dissolve it tomorrow with boiling wort
• Invert #1:
• Combined 1 lb of white sugar with 2 cups of spring water and 1/4 tsp of Citric Acid
• Heated this at medium low for 1 hrs until it was a light gold in color
• It's still liquid enough to pour
• 3/21/21 - Brewday - 11 AM to 3:45 PM- Including Setup and Cleanup
• Heated 8 gal up to 175 F (5 gal spring water and 3 gal tap)
• Milled my grains - adding brewing salts to the milled grain so I wouldn't forget
• Moved 5 gal of water to the mash tun.  Cycled through the RIMS until the system had settled to 160 F
• Stopped the RIMS cycle.  Added the grain - stirred well to eliminate clumps.  Let this sit for 10 min.  Settled at 152 F
• Cycled the RIMS at 150 F for 50 min

Wort Cycling through grant - looks good

• Heated 8 gal of sparge water to 190 F
• Drained the mash tun to the boil kettle until I'd collected 4 gal of wart.  Did a bit of a modified fly sparge here
• Started heating the wort after collecting 3 gal
• Added enough water to cover the grain bed to the mash tun.  Let this sit for 10 min
• Drained the mash tun again to the boil kettle.  Added more water to the top as I went.  Collected slowly to allow the kettle to keep boiling.  Collected until I had 8 gal of wort.
• Boiled for 60 min.  Added bittering hops at the start of this
• Added the brewers caramel.  I had to pour boiling wart into the ban to dissolve it.  This took multiple rounds to get it all
• Added remaining hops at 30 min
• Added irish moss with 15 min to go.  Also poured in my invert syrup at this point.

• Added wort chiller to sanitize with 5 min left
• Chilled the beer down to 70 F
• Collected 5.25 gal and measured the gravity as 1.044.  So, got quite a bit higher efficiency than planned.  I'll add half 3/4 which should get me to 1.039
• Transferred to the fermenter.  Let it fall a foot to aerate
• Pitched my yeast and moved the fermenter to fermentation chamber set to 64 F
• 3/22/21 - The beer was bubbling pretty well the next morning
• 3/24/21 - Still bubbling away this afternoon
• 4/10/21 - Cold crashed at 38 F.  Added gelatin to fine the beer later in the day
• 4/11/21 - Kegged the beer today.  Measured the FG as 1.008
• 5/28/21 - Tasting Notes - A nice flavorful and fairly complex session beer.  It is light and easy drinking - having a couple of these in the mid-afternoon doesn't impact my ability to do some chores later which is nice.  I think it's a great style of beer and this is a very nice version of it.
• 7/2/21 - Keg has kicked :(