Winter red ale recipe...critique please!

I have been brewing for a couple years and recently made the switch to AG (this is my 8th or 9th brew). I've been brewing mostly recipes found on here or in books and am now starting to design my own recipes (this is my 3rd)...please critique this recipe. I'm looking for a smooth english amber ale with a little spice from the rye. Thanks!


Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 7.04 gal
Post Boil Volume: 6.24 gal
Batch Size (fermenter): 5.00 gal
Bottling Volume: 5.00 gal
Estimated OG: 1.055 SG
Estimated Color: 16.2 SRM
Estimated IBU: 36.8 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 84.0 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
7 lbs 8.0 oz Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM) 68.2 %
1 lbs 8.0 oz Rye Malt (4.7 SRM) 13.6 %
1 lbs Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) 9.1 %
8.0 oz Biscuit Malt (23.0 SRM) 4.5 %
4.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L (120.0 SRM) 2.3 %
4.0 oz Chocolate Rye Malt (250.0 SRM) 2.3 %

Hops
1.00 oz Brewer's Gold [8.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min 25.9 IBUs
0.50 oz Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] - Boil 15.0 4.0 IBUs
1.00 oz Fuggles [4.50 %] - Boil 10.0 min 5.3 IBUs
0.50 oz Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] - Boil 5.0 1.6 IBUs

Yeast
1.0 pkg SafAle English Ale (DCL/Fermentis #S-04) Yeast


Mash Schedule:
-Mash at 153 for 60 minutes, no mash out.

I like where you are headed. My only concern is that you have a lot of strong flavors in your malt bill and the specialty grains are over 30% of the total mash. I think I might consider a slightly simpler recipe and let the base malt and hops shine through a little more.

I was thinking something like

8.5# pale malt
1# crystal 60
1 # rye malt
.5# crystal 120
.15# rice hulls

I always add rice hulls to the mash with rye. It apparently is helpful to prevent stuck mash and stuff.

Thanks for the feedback! I like the idea of going simpler as well, most of my recipes so far have been a little specialty malt heavy, maybe just because I'm a newbie to writing recipes. Good point on the rice hulls as well, will definitely do that. I have some leftover from when I brewed Denny's rye pale ale recipe.

I just brewed this 3 ago with a very similar recipe to yours, but used chico yeast instead. here is my recipe. the sample the other night was delicious with just enough spice from the rye and with a very malty, toasty notes, but with very little sweetness. I don't think that your original recipe was all that overly complexed.

SG 1.056
SRM 18
Yeast California Ale
Final Volume 5.5 us gal

Grains
2- row 8.5 lbs
Munich-10 2 lbs
crystal-40 .5 lbs
Sp. Roast .25 lbs
Rye Malt- 1lbs
Chocalate Malt 3.5 ounces

@ wiseeyes

I think your recipe is very good. I would suggest going towards the direction you are looking. I would also point out that if he is using marris otter he can probably take out some munich because his base malt will have its own great contribution.

@ hoplife, ya I definitely agree on the maris otter there not being a need for munich, I buy 2 row in bulk, I would maybe drop the biscuit too