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.
[…] APA is resting like a golden millpond. There is sufficient to fill the keg currently housing our Dark Garden, plus a further eight bottles or so which will be used for early testing (!), presents and perhaps […]