Recipe: Me, Myself, and Mild with House Ale
It's official — our new active dry yeast, House Ale, is now available for homebrewers!
House Ale is a fast, versatile strain that can be used to reliably ferment IPAs, Blond Ales, Stouts, and more. It offers the same high quality fermentation you can expect from Escarpment Labs, but in a dry, easy-to-pitch format.
Click to learn more about House Ale
This made it the perfect candidate yeast for our winter internal homebrew competition this past December. Each team could create any winter style beer, as long as it used some dry yeast we've been working on.
It was a competitive group (even a Shirley Temple inspired brew!), but ultimately a winner was chosen - this Dark Mild made with House Ale by our R&D Scientist, Phillip Jurek.
Winter may be over, but if you're excited to give House Ale a try but don't know where to start, use this recipe as your first brew or your inspiration!
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Me, Myself, and Mild
Batch Size: 19L
Original Gravity: 1.036 / 9.1 P
Final Gravity: 1.008 / 2.1 P (77% attenuation)
ABV (predicted): 3.7%
IBU: ~ 29
Colour: 12.5 SRM
Fermentables (total 3.25 kg):
2.5kg / 76.3% - Maris Otter (Crisp)
400g / 12.3% - Munich I (Weyermann)
310g / 9.5% - Crystal Light 36-42 (Simpsons)
60g / 1.9% - Roast Barley (Bairds)
Mash profile:
pH: ~ 5.3
50 C - Protein Rest - 15 min
63 C - Beta Amylase Rest - 30 min
70 C - Alpha Amylase Rest - 30 min
77 C - Mash Out - 5 min
Water profile: ( 50% RO, 50% Guelph Tap Water)
|
Ca2+ |
Mg2+ |
Na2+ |
Cl1- |
SO42- |
HCO4- |
|
119 |
20 |
50 |
82 |
192 |
162 |
*measurements in ppm
**estimation based on Guelph median values
Water Additions:
Mash - 3.09g - Gypsum (CaSO4)
Mash - 4.4mL - Lactic Acid (88%) for a mash pH of 5.4
Sparge - 0.71g - Gypsum (CaSO4)
Sparge - 1.12mL - Lactic Acid (88%) for sparge pH of 5.6
Hops:
45 min - East Kent Goldings - 5% AA ~ 19 IBU
15 min - East Kent Goldings - 5% AA ~ 10 IBU
Yeast:
EL-D1 - Escarpment Labs - 10g
Fermentation Profile:
Oxygenated with sterile O2 at ~3L/min for 30 seconds. Fermented at 18 C for 6 days at which it hit terminal (1.008 / 2.1 P). Did not pass diacetyl, so raised temp to 22 C for 3 days at which it was “passable”. Cold crashed at 3 C for 2 days, and closed transferred to a fresh, CO2 purged keg. Force carbonated to 18 PSI.
Notes:
While I am a fan of low gravity beers, this one came out a touch thin for my liking. I would recommend adding up to 5% dextrin malt and raising the beta temperature rest in mash to about 65 C. In addition, I would change the water profile to more of a balanced one (1:1 chloride to sulfate). Alternatively, keeping the same ratio of malts, and raising SG to 10 P (and raising the beta rest temp up 2 C) would make for a really solid 4% beer.
I’m not overly surprised that it was quite buttery at 6 days, but what’s really impressive is that it was ready to be served without any issues in under 2 weeks. Even more impressive that the yeast sample I used was about 5 months old (and stored in a 50mL falcon tube), yet it kicked off by the next morning and hit terminal by day 3-4. I didn’t bother doing a D-test until day 6.
That being said - I’m a die hard advocate for giving the beer at least 3 weeks from pitch to mature properly. The only reason I rushed it was due to the cut-off time for submitting it to our homebrew competition was on day 14.
