Mild Ale

I just poured a sample of the mild ale to check the gravity. Gravity stands at 1.012 right now. It hasn't bubbled in a days, so I think it's done. I'll check again tomorrow night, but if it's done I'm kegging it.

The sample has a nice toasted biscuit malt backbone with a hint of sweetness. A mild toasted aroma with a bit of earthy hops. The bitterness is just up there enough to provide balance, but is otherwise unnoticeable. This is a delicious session beer. I think this one's even better than the first all grain bitter I brewed. YUM! Can't wait to have it kegged, chilled and carbonated.

Mild Ale: Quick Update

It has been twelve days since the Mild Ale was brewed. The fermentation took off really quickly that night and was vigorous for a few days. There is still activity currently, though it is slow. I will keep an eye on it and once I've noticed the fermentation completely trail off, I will take a gravity reading. It would be nice to get this beer in a keg early this week; I've needed a kegged session beer for a while now. This beer should end somewhere around 4%ABV.

Beer Filled Wednesday

I've been trying to plan my next few batches of beer; I've been running low lately (only one keg and one fermentor full). Since it's summer soon I will be brewing a Belgian Wit. That's one of my favorite styles of beer especially in summer. After that I want to brew a tweaked version of my Mocha Porter.

Traditionally, wits are brewed using approximately 50% un-malted wheat in the grain bill. The problem with un-malted wheat is that it needs to not only be mashed, but it also needs to go through a protein rest to break down the high protein content. This requires two separate mash temperatures: 122F for the protein rest and ~145-150F for the mash. The procedure for this will be setting up all the grains in water and equilibrating at 122F for about 15 minutes for the protein rest, followed by a hot water addition to bring the temperature up to 145-150F for the regular mash. Because of the water necessary to increase the temperature enough (thank you thermo!) I will need to use the large mash tun I usually use for 10 gallon batches. This will be interesting. I hope I don't mess anything up. My tentative recipe for this beer is below.

Wit Bier

Malt:
-5.00 lb British 2-row malt
-4.00 lb Flaked Wheat
-1.00 lb Flaked Oats
-0.50 lb Munich malt

Hops:
-1.00 oz Hallertau hop pellets (4.8% AA, 60 minutes)

Other:
-0.50 oz Corriander, crushed (5 minutes)
-2 Orange zests (5 minutes)

Yeast:
Not sure yet. It depends on what yeast strains Beers of the World has. I imagine they have Wyeast #3944 Witbier Yeast, but we'll see.


An update on the Mild Ale, too. The Mild is still bubbling a little bit through the airlock. The yeast went crazy for the first couple days, but they've trailed off. I'm hoping that since the initial gravity was fairly weak (1.042) they finish soon so I can keg it already. I love good session beers.

Recipe Modification: Mocha Porter

A few months ago I brewed my mocha porter. This beer came out really well, now I'm planning on brewing this beer again. I'd like to brew a new batch of the porter soon, with some tweaks in the recipe, and let it age in a keg in the cellar until this coming winter. I want to tweak the recipe before brewing it again because I want it bigger and feel that it could be improved. I have been asking advice from people and doing a lot of reading to try and figure out the best way to modify this beer. The original recipe is below.

Malt
-2.00 lbs X-Light DME
-7.00 lbs British 2-row
-2.00 lbs Flaked Oats
-0.50 lbs Crystal 60L
-0.50 lbs Crystal 120L
-0.50 lbs Chocolate Malt
-0.50 lbs Roasted Barley

Hops
-1.00 oz Northern Brewer (7.7% AA, 60 minutes)
-1.00 oz Fuggles (4% AA, 60 minutes)
-1.00 oz Mt Hood (3.8% AA, 2 minutes)

Misc
-10 oz Ghirardelli Unsweetened Baker's Cocoa
-12 cup pot of Kona Blend coffee from Wegmans
-1 tsp Wyeast yeast nutrients (with Wyeast #1098)
-Mashed at 150F (was supposed to be 154, but it came out a bit low)

The question of how to modify it now comes up. The beer currently has a nice smooth flavor. The coffee and chocolate flavors are present, but a bit on the subtle side. I would also like to boost the alcohol without adding much sweetness. I have a few ideas, see below, and am looking for feedback and any other ideas anyone has.

-Changing some (maybe 5%) of the base pale malt to Munich malt would add some maltiness to the backbone without adding much/any sweetness. The idea would be to have a stronger malt backbone to accentuate the chocolate and coffee flavors.

-Replacing some/all of the chocolate malt with roasted barley would give the beer a slightly richer dark flavor that would play well with the toasted grains and the chocolate/coffee flavors.

-I would like to add some base malt to boost the alcohol, and I will likely need to mash a little lower to make sure I don't add any sweetness. The beer is in a pretty good place with its current level of sweetness.

Let me know if there are any suggestions out there. Any comments on my ideas above would be appreciated, too. I have never tried tweaking a beer recipe before, I typically don't brew the same recipe twice.

Brew Day: Mild Ale

I was looking for a new session beer to put on tap and decided to brew a Mild Ale. The revised recipe is below:

Mild Ale

-4 lbs Mild Ale Malt
-3 lbs Maris Otter
-.25 lbs Chocolate Malt
-.25 lbs Crystal 60L
-.5 oz Kent Golding hops (4%AA 60 minutes)
-.25 oz Kent Golding hops (4%AA 30 minutes)
-.25 oz Kent Golding hops (4%AA 5 minutes)
-Wyeast #1968 London ESB yeast

Mash at 154F for 60 minutes.
Original Gravity: 1.042

The gravity was higher than I expected, based on my usual efficiency, so the longer sparge time I had today must have helped get me some extra extraction from the grains. The volume was dead on, as was the mash temperature, so today was a really good brew day. Hopefully, with the starter going strong yesterday, this brew should be done fermenting by the weekend and should be ready for the keg sometime next week. That's the beauty of low gravity beers: quick turn-around! :)

Now to plan the first real summer beer. That's probably gonna be a Witbier.