Homebrew Recipe: Mild Ale

Alright, with the brown porter keg kicked, I need a new session beer to put on tap. I'm thinking a mild ale would be nice. The recipe I have tentatively put together is below. If anyone has suggestions let me know.

Mild Ale

-4 lbs Mild Ale Malt
-2 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 150F for 45 minutes.

The next beer after that is most likely going to be a wit style as the summer quickly approaches.

Upcoming Recipe: Brown Porter

I've come to a decision on the recipe for the brown porter I plan on making this weekend.

6.00lb British pale malt
1.00lb Brown malt*
0.50lb Crystal 40L
0.25lb Chocolate malt

0.75oz Challenger pellet hops (7%AA) 60 minutes
0.25oz Challenger pellet hops (7%AA) 15 minutes
Wyeast 1098 British Ale yeast

* The 'brown malt' is going to be something made in my kitchen based loosely on instructions from a book on Mild Ale that I have. There's no commercial brown ale malt available around here, so I have to make it. This will consist of one pound of pale malt going into my oven at 350F.
0.40lb for 10 minutes
0.30lb for 20 minutes
0.30lb for 35 minutes
This will develop the different flavors that brown malt typically have, or at least it will come reasonably close, I guess. Either way, it'll be an interesting experiment.

English Bitter

This is my first run at a recipe for an English Bitter using the yeast cake in the Amber's fermenter. I'll play around with it more tonight, then finalize it before bed so I can start brewing after grocery shopping tomorrow.

English Strong Bitter/ESB:
-9lbs British Pale Malt
-1lb Mild Ale Malt
-1/2lb Toasted Malt
-1/4lb Crystal 60L
-1/4lb Crystal 120L

-1oz Challenger Hops (7%AA) 60 Minutes
-1/2oz Liberty Hops (4.1%AA) 30 Minutes
-1/2oz Liberty Hops (4.1%AA) 0 Minutes

Mash in 3.5 gallons of water at 152F for 75 minutes.

Beer Recipe

I've decided on the recipe for this week's batch of beer. I am now planning on brewing Friday morning/afternoon before I hit the road.

The recipe is as follows:

6lbs Belgian 2-row
4lbs Mild Malt
0.5lbs Crystal 120L
0.5lbs Toasted Malt

1oz Kent Goldings (60 min)
0.5oz Fuggles (30 min)
0.5oz Fuggles (5 min)

Wyeast 1098 British Ale Yeast

It's a full boil, so I can use less hops which is nice. It should give me based on some simple calculations, a starting gravity of 1.060 and a 3:1 gravity:bitterness ratio. This should be amber-ish, with the follow up batch looking to be a bitter of some sort.