Brewday : Boddingtons Mild aka (House Mild)

Well today is the day to try out the new boiler and the BIABacus spreadsheet for the first time.

Decided that I would do a "Mild" as I haven't got any mild in The Cabin Brewery to drink. Graham Wheeler in his book Brew Your Own British Real Ale has a recipe for a Boddingtons Mild so I have used this recipe as the template for this brew.



The recipe using BIABacus is as follows.

BIABacus Pre-Release 1.3K RECIPE REPORT
BIAB Recipe Designer, Calculator and Scaler.
(Please visit www.biabrewer.info for the latest version.)
Boddingtons Mild - Batch 1

Recipe Overview

Brewer: Simon Scott
Style: Mild
Source Recipe Link:
ABV: 3.1% (assumes any priming sugar used is diluted.)

Original Gravity (OG): 1.032
IBU's (Tinseth): 23.7
Bitterness to Gravity Ratio: 0.74
Colour: 40.2 EBC = 20.4 SRM

Kettle Efficiency (as in EIB and EAW): 75 % (default setting)
Efficiency into Fermentor (EIF): 67.6 %

Note: BIAB Variations have been made - See 'BIAB Variations' at end.

Times and Temperatures

Mash: 90 mins at 67 C = 152.6 F
Boil: 90 min
Ferment:

Volumes & Gravities

(Note that VAW below is the Volume at Flame-Out (VFO) less shrinkage.)
The, "Clear Brewing Terminology," thread at http://www.biabrewer.info/

Total Water Needed (TWN): 34.47 L = 9.11 G
Volume into Boil (VIB): 32.42 L = 8.56 G @ 1.026
Volume of Ambient Wort (VAW): 25.53 L = 6.74 G @ 1.032
Volume into Fermentor (VIF): 23 L = 6.08 G @ 1.032
Volume into Packaging (VIP): 21.3 L = 5.63 G @ 1.008 assuming apparent attenuation of 75 %

The Grain Bill (Also includes extracts, sugars and adjuncts)

Note: If extracts, sugars or adjuncts are not followed by an exclamation mark, go to www.biabrewer.info (needs link)

84.9% Pale Malt (6 EBC = 3 SRM)   3121 grams = 6.88 pounds
10.2% Crystal Malt (150 EBC = 76.1 SRM)   376 grams = 0.83 pounds
3% Chocolate Malt (1060 EBC = 538.1 SRM)   111 grams = 0.24 pounds
1.9% Black Malt (1160 EBC = 588.8 SRM)   70 grams = 0.15 pounds

The Hop Bill

10 IBU Fuggle Flowers (3.95%AA)  22.2 grams = 0.783 ounces at  90 mins
12.2 IBU Golding Flowers (5.69%AA)  18.9 grams = 0.666 ounces at  90 mins

1.5 IBU Fuggle Flowers (4%AA)  10 grams = 0.352 ounces at  10 mins (added to the No-Chill Cube)

Mash Steps

Mash Type: BIAB Variation (Non Full-Volume Mash)   for 90 mins at 67 C = 152.6 F
Water Held Back from Mash: 1 L = 0.26 G

Water Added During Boil: 1 L = 0.26 G

Miscellaneous Ingredients

1 Protofloc Tab (Boil) 15 Mins - Clarity

Chilling & Hop Management Methods

Hopsock Used: N
Whirlpool: 15 mins after boil end.
Chilling Method: No-Chill (Employed 20 mins after boil end @85'C.)

Fermentation & Conditioning

Secondary Used: N
Crash-Chilled: N
Filtered: N

Special Instructions/Notes on this Beer

BIAB Variations

Water Held Back from Mash: 1 L = 0.26 G
Water Added During Boil: 1 L = 0.26 G

How The Brewday Went

Well BIABacus wanted nearly 35 litres of Strike water, which would nearly max out the boiler. I got nervous due to my first time using this boiler so I filled it up to the 35 litre mark or 32.1cm as per the spreadsheet then took out 5 litres just to be safe. Brought this water up to 70'C Strike Temp to allow for the BIAB bag and the grains to bring it down to the Mash temp of 67'C.

I should have had faith in the BIABacus spreadsheet after raining in the grain bill as I then ended up topping the volume up with 4 litres of water at 67'C, still short 1 litre but I left it at that because I didn't know what type of boil this new Boiler would kick out.

Mashed the grains for 90mins and did a good stir at the 45min mark.

After lifting the Bag and giving it a good old squeeze I ended up with a pre-boil gravity of 1.027 which was pretty much spot on what the spreadsheet said it would be ( 1.026 estimated ) and a pre-boil volume of just under 33 litres. So far so good.

Now onto the Boil, my old 20 liter boiler used to kick out Wort all over the place so I was glad I had the extra litre of water to add later on in the boil. It took about 40 mins to get up to the boil, and a lovely calm boil it is as well, very very happy. Added the extra litre of water held back from the mash and continued the boil with the hops for the full 90 mins.

The evaporation was a lot lower that my old boiler, also it's a nice warm day but I have ended up with about  28.5 litres of Bitter Wort giving a very low evaporation rate of only 4.3 liters over the full 90 mins, which could be a bit of a problem as my No-Chill cubes are 25 litres in size. That's less that 3 liters per hour evaporation. (2.86 per hour)

The Wort is still quite warm to take a SG reading but at 27'C the SG is 1.030 or 1.032 corrected. Which is bang on target.

Well I have just drained the Boiler, and panic over, all the Wort went into the No-Chill cube along with the 10g of Fuggle Hops (leaf), and still left about only 1.8 liters of liquid gunk and the Trub/Hops in the boiler. Loadsa BEER!!! 

I'll get some loss due to having Trub in the No-Chill cube and the Cube hops will soak some more Wort up, but I'll have plenty of Wort come fermenting day.