Brewday: Boxshed Dark Garden

The plan for this brew was to produce a mild with all of the characteristics of a complex porter. My favourite commercial dark beer is probably Darkstar Over The Moon, and so I wanted to brew something with the same layered malt texture and hoppy profile. I realised this wouldn’t strictly result in a Mild, but the ABV certainly would as I wanted this to be a drinker, not a rare treat.

The only other essential ingredient for this brew was to use my own garden grown Fuggles hops in the copper. I was quite excited about using hops I’d planted, harvested and dried myself, and so was extra careful to get this one right. What made this a little tricky was the fact I’d never actually brewed a dark beer before, and simple things like black as oil first runnings and not being able to just clarity very easily at any stage were all things I hadn;t really considered.

As far as the recipe goes, I settled on six different malts, including two pales, three coloured and some wheat for head retention. On the hop front, Fuggles were a given, and East Kent Goldings made a natural partner, with a decent aroma guaranteed from a nice chunk in to steep. Here it is:

 

Boxshed Dark Garden

Mashing (90mins, 66 – sparge at 75)
MO Pale Malt, 2.7Kg (70%) 
Munich Malt, 400g  (10.5%) 
Crystal Malt, 200g  (5.2%) 
Wheat Malt, 200g  (5.2%) 
Chocolate Malt, 180g  (4.7%) 
Roasted Barley, 170g  (4.4%) 

Boiling (90mins)
Fuggles 4%AA, 45g, 90mins
East Kent Goldings, 30g, 15mins
East Kent Goldings 30g, Flameout steep

Other bits
Campden
Whirlfloc
SafAle S-04 rehydrated

Facts & Figures
Est. Brew length: 23L
Est. OG: 1.040
Est. FG: 1.010
Est. Bitterness: 30.6 IBU
Est. ABV: 3.8%

 

The mash and sparge all went very smoothly. Doing the returns was a bit weird because I’ve never brewed a beer as dark as this, so I simply did six litres in jugs and rinsed the grit each time rather than go by clarity. Check out the gallery to see more – sorry the photos are so gloomy but it was a grim, cold night, our fuses had blown on that lighting circuit, and the steam was pretty dense!

 

 

This is the mash with 10.5L liquer. First dark mash for me

First runnings. Black as you like. I took six litres of runnings to be sure

Returning to coolbox mashtun with sophisticated foil thingymajig

Time to drain the mash

Mash drained and ready for sparging

Looks dreadful this picture, but its an HLT with 27L of hot liquer going through the lid mounted sparge manifold of a coolbox mashtun

Boiling point for the 32L sweet wort

In go the Fuggles from my garden. Bless ’em!

First East Kent Goldings aroma hops in; a few IBUs too at 15 minutes. Protofloc aswell

More EKG at flame out

Chilling

Into the FV at 22 degrees

Very pleased there was no clogging and I managed to get 21L at the required 1.040, which will do just fine for a Corni and a couple of bottles

Looked like a giant pint of Guinness after adding 24g Safale S-04 and whipping it up a storm

Safely indoors to ferment. Looks really odd next to a golden ale.