beginner dark mild recipe needed.

[Wolfman]

Hi folks,
I am in the middle of fermenting my 6th beerkit homebrew and for my next brew i thought i would take a step up (whilst stepping over the expensive extract brewing) and trying my hand at REAL brewing with grain boil in the bag. I havent a clue when it comes to BIAB brewing and i would even say im nowhere near perfecting beerkit brewing,so can anyone give me a dark mild boil in a bag recipe for total beginners and could you please simplify the abreviations as i havnt got a clue lol.

(P.S- i intend on having blackcurrant/blueberry and chocolate flavours coming through)

cheers,

Wolfman

[dave-o]

I would say stay clear of the roasty malts like roast barley and choc malt. I'm looking for a comforting, malty, slightly sweet taste with a dark mild, and for this i recommend dark crystal and Munich. For a 5 gallon batch i'd go something like:

3200g pale malt
500g munich
300g dark crystal
30g black malt (if you want it a bit darker - currently it will be a similar colour to newkie brown)

Hops i'd use fuggles or EKG to about 25IBU. But if you really want blackcurrant then you'll be using Bramling X but honestly i don't think it's a great hop.

S04

[Wolfman]

cheers dave..but what yeast should i use? and do i really need 3200g of pale malt,as i would need to get 6 or 7 500g packets.

cheers,
Wolfman

[GrowlingDogBeer]

Don't buy your grain in little packets, buy it crushed online from one of the reputable suppliers.

These are commonly used.

http://www.worcesterhopshop.co.uk/index ... 8de73e82f3

http://www.themaltmiller.co.uk/index.ph ... t&catId=17

The ingredients for the above brew should only cost you about £12.00 plus delivery.

I would also recommend getting yourself a copy of this book as it will give you a good introduction to how brewing with grain works.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Brew-Your-Briti ... 266&sr=8-1

Or check out this site for an online version of Palmers book.

http://www.howtobrew.com/intro.html

For yeast S-04 or Nottingham will be fine.

[dave-o]

cheers dave..but what yeast should i use?

S04

and do i really need 3200g of pale malt,as i would need to get 6 or 7 500g packets.

Well it depends how much you want to brew. The grain bill above will give you 3.5-4% abv in a 5 gallon batch, so any less grain and you're talking dark shandy.

As above, do your shopping from one of the online sellers. A 25kg bag of pale malt will cost you perhaps £25. What are you paying per kilo for these little bags? 25kg may seem a lot but it's only 5 or 6 brews.

Also i shudder to think what you'll be paying for hops and speciality grains from someone who sells in 500g bags.

If buying in 5-6 brew batches then i'm usually looking at £7-8 per batch for everything.

[Wolfman]

cheers fellas. the place ive found that sells in 500g packets is leylandhomebrew.com ...and they charge between 95 and 99p for 500g packets of crushed grains. but as ive got quite abit of time before my current brew is ready and im ready to start my next one..so i have abit of time to shop around.

cheers,

Wolfman