Can you please critique my recipe?

probably my 10th all-grain batch, but the first time I have not been influenced by a recipe.This is an oatmeal stout. I get 65% efficiency. Here it is:

-8 lbs. Maris Otter
-2 lbs. Light Munich
-1 lb. Crystal 80L
-1 lb. Flaked Oats
-8 oz. Roast Barley
-8 oz. Debittered Black Malt
-8 oz. Carapils
-2 oz. Chocolate Rye

60 mins- 1.25 oz. Glacier pellets (6% aa)
30 mins- 0.50 oz. Glacier Pellets
15 mins- 0.50 oz. Glacier Pellets
5 mins- 0.50 oz. Glacier Pellets


Is this too much crystal 80. I was thinking about knocking the crystal 80 down a touch. I want it to have a nice balance between roast, sweet, and hop flavors. Also, do you think it will be roasty enough with the debittered black in there? I added the chocolate rye to increase the roastyness and blackness, but is it essential?

That looks ok to me, but perhaps a little overcomplex? I'm particularly not convinced that you need the carapils or chocolate rye. If this was me I'd probably simplify it right down to:

8 lb Maris Otter
2 lb Munich
1 lb Crystal
1 lb Flaked Oats
1 lb Roast Barley

My only concern is whether there's enough enzymes in the MO and Munich to convert a bit over 3.5 lbs of enzyme-free grain. Traditionally both MO and Munich are thought to have plenty of enzymes to convert themselves and enzymes to convert a bit of other grain, but to me, 3.5 lbs seems like it might be a bit much. If it were me, I'd probably do 4 lbs MO and 4 lbs 2 row.

Otherwise, I think it'll be OK. You've got a lot going on for grains here (8 kinds of grain) -- it might mask the "oatmeal" and "stout" characteristics a bit. If it were me, I'd boost the roast barley over either the black malt or the choc rye and drop both. But that's just me and my personal preferences. I think you can get a very drinkable beer with the grain profile as is (except for maybe sub'ing in some 2 row to help conversion). But the individual flavors of the key grains may not come through as the central flavors.

Maris Otter as a base malt has enough diastatic power to convert a fair amount of unmalted adjuncts, way more than this recipe calls for. At 120*Lintner it could convert a 50% adjunct mash easily.

I think it looks fine as-is. I'd use WLP002 and mash at 150*F so it doesn't finish overly sweet.

On the issue of Diastatic power, the MO will be more than enough for your grain bill. Munich you need to be careful about but Maris Otter is a very well modified malt. Lots of enzymatic action there.

I'd skip the de-bittered black malt. I believe if you upped your roasted barley, crystal and added a little more of the chocolate rye you would make up the color that the black malt gives you and would get more roast.

I gotta get me some of that chocolate rye and flaked rye and make a Rye "Oatmeal" stout. Should be tasty and interesting.

Edit: Don't up the crystal. I miss read the carapils. I'd drop that as well. You won't need to build body with that m uch crystal and oats.

In the future, when posting recipes for critique, it's nice to list batch size, OG, IBU and sometimes SRM. That way, everyone doesn't have to type the recipe into brewing software to get a look at how things stack up. Of course, it's possible to look at the ingredients and see if it's well balanced, but knowing the OG and IBU help too.