Critique My American Stout Recipe

I want to brew a big, hoppy American stout before winter is over. I've never made a stout before so I was wondering if anyone could give me some advice regarding this recipe. Ideally it should be rich, hearty, malty, and roasty but balanced by a healthy hopping. So far I have:

4 gallon batch

45% 5 0 American Two-row Pale
18% 2 0 Munich Malt
9% 1 0 Flaked Barley
9% 1 0 White Wheat Malt
7% 0 12 American Chocolate
7% 0 12 American Black Roast
5% 0 8 American Crystal 80L

60 mins 0.5oz Chinook
10 mins 1.0oz Chinook
1 minute 1.0oz Chinook

Safale S-05

About 6.8-7.6 ABV, with an OG of 1.070-1.080 and 50 IBU's. I may add another pound of one of the base malts (probably Munich), to beef it up a little more. How is it sounding?

Pretty good so far - I don't know about the wheat though. I would get rid of that and add more two row. Also - add an oz of another hop (not chinook) at KO. I'd like willamette here.

Great start!

The wheat is there to give a little more complexity to the malt character as well as help head retention. I've heard of it being used in a few commercial stouts that are great.

I thought wheat would be used to thin out the flavor (as it is flavorless), but see the point on head retention. With everything else in there, I doubt you'll need it for head retention though.

Yeah, that may be true. Anyone else have some input?

I would agree aseg and add another type of hop at flame out to give a little more hop character. Chinook's a great hop, but I think that williamette would be a good addition.
I'm going to be brewing an American stout next Monday, planning on basing my recipe off of Rogue's Shakespeare Stout. There was an article in BYO on American stouts written by Jamil back in Winter of '10. I'm not at home right now, but I can scan it and upload it when I do if you think it might help you. He's got some pretty good advice in there.

Let us know how it turns out!

I'm pro wheat! I'm not sure I could pinpoint what I like about it but I'd say leave it in. I think in my experience it gives a kind of crisp dryness that I enjoy. Also looking forward to the article that PaulTheGhost is going to post

PaulTheGhost said:

I'm going to be brewing an American stout next Monday, planning on basing my recipe off of Rogue's Shakespeare Stout. There was an article in BYO on American stouts written by Jamil back in Winter of '10. I'm not at home right now, but I can scan it and upload it when I do if you think it might help you. He's got some pretty good advice in there.

Click to expand...

That would be an interesting read, but no worries if it will take a while.

Is there enough roasted barley and chocolate malt? I'm not too sure what the percentages generally should be with a stout of this stature.

If anything, I'd consider cutting back a bit on the roasted malts. If you're looking for a smooth roasty/chocolaty flavor, Jamil suggests using around 10% roasted malts in many of his Brew Strong podcasts. They're free to download on iTunes & only around 1 hr long. He has a show on pretty much every style in the book & gives one of his award winning recipes for each.

Photo Album - Imgur

Here ya go guys! Hopefully it was helpful to you, it sure helped me a bit.