AG #68 Dark Mild - Dual Strain Yeast

[BrewerBen]

Kyle_T's posts on Ridleys Mild has tempted me to brew a dark mild, after a few stronger ales of 5%+ i though a nice dark quaffing pint would make refreshing change. I based it on his recipe but altered it a little to use up some Melanoidin malt i had leftover from the Vienna lager and changed the hops a little, again to use what i had in the freezer but i hope its still in keeping with the style. I was going to use the Gales yeast i have bottled but i've been wanting to try blending yeasts so thought i'd give it a go on this beer. The other yeast i have is the WLP002 (Fullers) yeast from White labs so i hope they will play nice together.
I also don't have the No.3 Invert so i;m using the calculator from http://www.unholymess.com/blog/beer-bre ... ers-invert to get as close as i can. The brewday will either be tomorrow or Monday depending on when the yeast gets going.

Dark Mild
Target Gravity: 1.036
Batch size: 30L
Bitterness:24.8 IBU

Grains
3600g Maris Otter 80.35%
200g Melanoidin 4.46%
180g Black Malt 4.02%
100g Acid Malt 2.23%

387g Golden Syrup 8.64%
13.5g Treacle 0.3%

Water Additions
12ml CRS
Camden tablet
1.5g Gypsum
1.6G Calcium Chloride
1.2g Sodium Chloride

Mash Schedule
Mash in 30L @ 38C
Step 1: 75 mins @68C
Step 2: 10 mins @75C
Sparge 12.5L @75C

Hop Schedule
30.00 gm Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] (60 min) 12.4 IBU
18.00 gm Challenger [7.50 %] (60 min) 12.4 IBU
16.00 gm Styrian Goldings [5.40 %] (Dry Hop)


Yeast
White Labs WLP002 (Fullers)
Brewlab Gales
Fement @ 20C

Fresh from the brew shop:


Guess which one is Gales and which is Fullers
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[Good Ed]

It will be interesting to see how you get on with the yeasts as they can be a bit Darwinian when combined. Not knowing what your water is, I would use a 1:3 ratio for SO4:Cl and not use the salt, also dry hopping a mild is anathema to me.

[BrewerBen]

I'm trying 2 yeasts mainly because i can but it will be interesting to see if i can notice each yeasts contribution or if one yeast dominates. I've found both yeast attenuate much better than expected but the WLP002 is very flocculent where the Gales is not so its hard to guess which will be most noticible.
Water profile wise i'm using the brewsfriend calculator and was aiming for the "London(Porter,Dark Ales)" profile and ended up with:
Ca - 115.1
Mg - 3.5
Na - 36.1
Cl - 64.3
SO4 - 59.1
HCO - 90.486
PH - 5.4
I'm still getting used to water treatment so am just plugging number's in calculator for now but i did get my water analysed by Murphy and Son so at least what i put in at the start is decent.
If you not keen on dry hopping a mild i wont mention the sherry/whisky oak cubes i'm thinking about putting in

[McMullan]

Interesting, BrewerBen. I agree with Good Ed, but hopefully the separate starters have levelled the playing field enough to allow detection of something pleasant and different in the final product.

[BrewerBen]

Mashing in:


Measuring out sugar:


Not as dark as expected but i should probably find some blackstrap molasses instead of using treacle:


Single hop addition for the boil:


Mash all done:


Run off:


Starters were going nicely. The Fullers yeast was more active than the Gales and giving them a swirl shows the difference between the two:


Not much left in the BM after siphoning:


I got 28L of wort (held back some sparge water) at 1.042 and after pitching the starters i ended up with 30L @1.040 so overshot on the gravity. I could have added the sparge water i held back but at 30L i cant really get anymore in so left it as it was.