GF Dark Ale for first time brewer

Ok, this is my first time trying my hand at brewing. What do you think of this recipe?
6 lbs Sorghum extract
1 lb roasted (maybe I'll malt it) Buckwheat
1 lb dark belgian candi sugar
2 oz hops
1 pkg Nottingham ale yeast

Prime with some corn sugar.

Would some cocoa powder at some point give it some depth?

Do not malt for your first time, especially if you are going to roast it anyway. I would also advocate not roasting or using grain at all, but I will leave that one up to you.

Keep it simple, learn the process, learn what flavors you like and didn't like and what caused them. Then, you can start moving into advanced techniques with a good knowledge base to use them.

Not sure what you mean by depth, but adding fat free cocoa powder to the fermenter will make the beer taste more like cocoa.

Your recipe looks good to me if you leave out the grain.

thanks a lot for the feedback. i'll just stick to the sorghum and add malted buckwheat another batch

I would also mention that depending on which hops you choose, 2oz could be way too much or the right amount.

i was planning on doing 1 oz of UK Northern Brewer (Northdown) @60 min and 1 oz liberty hops @ 5 min. too much? too little? just right?

mloster said:

i was planning on doing 1 oz of UK Northern Brewer (Northdown) @60 min and 1 oz liberty hops @ 5 min. too much? too little? just right?

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It sounds like it should be fine, so long as the AA% isnt too extreme on those N.Brewers. Also, I would move the liberty to 0min, no reason to have hop flavor in a standardish british dark ale.

the aa% on the north brewers is 7.2. i'll move to liberty to 0 min too

Should be good, enjoy the process! Especially drinking!

I brewed this a while back. I didn't use any buckwheat and used 7 lbs of sorghum. It's still pretty young, but the beer was decent. It was more lemon-y than I would have liked, a result of the sorghum (I'm hoping this will mellow out over time though). It's ~6% abv. I shared a couple (ok maybe more than a couple with a buddy) and felt as if I was drinking beer again, which is a nice feeling. Hopefully, the pic will post. Sorry for the subpar quality. http://i1180.photobucket.com/albums/x404/mloster/beer.jpg