Brewday: Dark Mild Ale (Slightly modified)

Yesterday I brewed the dark mild recipe that I made back in March. Unfortunately, the local homebrew shops had none of the Wyeast 1028 London Ale yeast that I used the first time, so I had to use Wyeast 1098 British Ale yeast. It’s been a while since I’ve used 1098, so I’m not exactly sure how this will change the beer, but it’ll be an interesting experiment.

This will also be the first time that I’ve instituted fermentation temperature controls during the summer. All my beers, even in the basement, have been fermenting a bit too warm for my tastes this summer. Now the fermenters are being placed in large plastic containers in the basement that are half-filled with cold water and cooled with gallon milk jugs full of ice. The dark mild has been fermenting like that for the past day and the temperature is down in the 64-66 degree range, which will keep any bad off flavors from forming like when it’s in the 70-74 degree range.

Dark Mild Ale

Boil Volume: 7 gallons

Batch Volume: 5.5 gallons

Malt:

• 6.50 lb Maris Otter
• 0.50 lb Crystal 60L
• 0.50 lb Chocolate Malt
• 0.25 lb Carafa III Special

Hops:

• 0.50 oz First Gold pellets (9.5% Alpha Acid, 60 minutes)

Mash:

Mash at 156 degrees for 60 minutes

My efficiency from the malt came in just a bit higher than last time, so the starting gravity was 1.042.