Mayahuel Mild, January 10 2010

There's an upcoming session challenge for BJCP Category 11: Mild, Southern, and Northern English Brown. QUAFF has a club-only competition prior to an AHA national category competition. QUAFF chooses the best brew from the club and offers the winner reimbursement for shipping and entering the nationals. Shocked that my Oktoberfest was chosen in the fall during the club-only, I decided that it would be fun to participate in such events more often. In the spirit of my recent agave exploration and knowing that mild recipes may contain adjuncts, I'm throwing out a Mexican twist to this English category of beer by adding agave nectar.
When brewing a low gravity low alcohol beer, I feel that efficiency (of time and space) is compromised. Traditionally, brewers employed the parti-gyle strategy to essentially complete two beers in one session. This yields one strong beer and a more diluted mild beer from one grain bill. Seanywonton recently did this for brewing his mild, 2 Stouts, 1 Mash. You still need to boil twice but at least you only need to go through the time consuming process of mashing just once. I decided to to this with a twist by using a grain bill that would probably make a strong English ESB. I then split the runnings collected after sparging and brewed two milds in one day. Rather than making a strong and a mild using parti-gyle, I resorted to a more simple approach with two milds. I'm not even sure if a parti-gyle would work with my system since my mash tun has a limited carrying capacity. Brewing two nearly identical milds allowed me to experiment with a different hop amount and quantities of agave. While the first batch was in the kettle, the second half was stored in my insulated hot liquor tank.
I have to remember that entries are due to AleSmith by Friday, January 29th. Can someone remind me!?
The beer is named after the pre-columbian Aztec goddess of agave, Mayahuel, and our local tequilera, Cantina Mayahuel. Larry at the cantina hooked me up with a bottle of premium, secret sourced, agave nectar and I feel I've put it to good use (though I'm now empty and need to beg for more).

Mayahuel, the goddess of agave.

Mayahuel Mild, January 10 2010
10 Gallons, All Grain, Single Infusion Mash, 60 Minute Boil

10lbs. Maris Otter Pale
1lb. Crystal 60
1lb. Crystal 20
1/2lb. Biscuit
1/4lb. Chocolate
Single Infusion Mash at 152°F

0.75 oz. East Kent Goldings 5.1% AA for 60 min. (2nd batch - 1 oz.)
1 Whirlfloc tab 15 min.
4 oz. Secret Source Agave Nectar at KO (2nd batch - 8 oz.)

White Labs WLP002 English Ale (vial to starter)

1st 5-Gallons OG: 1.036 @ 72°F FG: 1.012 @ 38°F ABV: 3.5%
2nd 5-Gallons OG: 1.038 @ 72°F FG: 1.011 @ 38°F ABV: 3.9%

Bottled out on 1/28 for the QUAFF club-only competition and to share with Larry at the Cantina.

Image Source:
Seler, Eduard. Mayahuel. Digital image. Mayahuel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Wikipedia, 27 Aug. 2006. Web. 10 Jan. 2010. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayahuel.