Nut Brown Ale - Look Good?

I'm just thinking about my next brew which will hopefully be next weekend...I LOVE nut brown ales...however I'm also a big IPA fan and hophead. I just downloaded Beer Smith and have been tooling around with it and came up with this:

6.67lb Amber LME
.5lb Dark DME
2lb Honey (not sure what kind yet)
1lb Crystal malt
.5lb Choc malt
.5lb Munich malt
2oz Northern brewer hops 60 min
.5oz Fuggle 15 min
.5oz Fuggle dry (secondary)
.5 tsp Irish Moss 15 min
White Labs British Ale yeast

60 minute boil, 1-2 weeks in the primary then another week in the secondary where I'll dry hop it. It'll be kegged after that.

So what's the consensus here? I'm a newb so a lot of this is still VERY new to me...I realize that this is probably not a true 'nut brown ale' by any means, however it looks good to me. I'm shooting for a darker ale that has a lot of toasted and sweet caramel-like flavors with enough bitterness to balance it out and then some, plus a very big hop aroma. I also wanted to get the ABV up there a bit which is why I added the honey. I played around with the quantities a bit so I hopefully don't have anything left over...I HATE having small quantities of ingredients left after a batch. I threw teh dark DME in there because it was left over from my previous batch

Does this look OK or is it a case of 'go home and try again'?

what lovibond crystal? I've used 60 with good results.

Also, what IBU does 2 oz northern brewer at 60 give you? Might be a bit high for the style, but youre a hophead so you might not mind.

Also not sure about the honey...I've never seen it in a nut brown, but it will definitely boost the ABV if thats what you want.

In terms of chocolate malt - I use 4 oz and its plenty, but a half pound might be the kind of roastiness you want.

Also, I always use some victory malt, maybe a half pound, to add a bready/nutty flavor.

Thanks for the tips. I was planning on using 60L Crystal.

I figure this will end up being a bastard child of several different beers...but I'm weird like that and want to try something a little different. After all I can go to the store and by a damn good nut brown any day of teh week...

Are there other (or better) ways to increase ABV without honey? I didn't want to add straight corn sugar and wasn't sure if adding more malt extract would also make it a heavier beer.

Drop the Amber and Dark extract and use Light or Extra Light. You have no idea what's in the other extracts and your flavor and color contribution is already coming from the specialty grains.

throw in a cup of brown sugar with about 5 minutes left in the boil.

The thing you're missing is the "nut" part of the nut brown ale. For me, this usually comes from the toasty, biscuity kinds of malts. You could toast your own malt or use Victory or Biscuit malt -- they all are very similar. Additionally, the 50L Special Roast adds some nutty elements, I think. Finally, some homebrew shops carry the Pale Chocolate malt (200L) & this can lend some nutty characteristics too.

I agree with PseudoChef about switching to Light extract and controlling your color and flavor with specialty malts you choose instead of some mystery color/flavor components that come from Amber & Dark extract. I also don't see much coming from the Honey -- if you just want to boost abv, brown sugar would be cheaper & probably add just as much flavor wise.

I was hoping the chocolate malt would add teh nuttiness...perhaps use 1 pound victory, scratch the chocolate and reduce crystal to half pound?

I'll try using brown sugar instead of honey as well.

Joeywhat said:

I was hoping the chocolate malt would add teh nuttiness...perhaps use 1 pound victory, scratch the chocolate and reduce crystal to half pound?

I'll try using brown sugar instead of honey as well.

Click to expand...

You definitely still need the chocolate -- that's where the roast flavors & brown color comes from. If it were me, I'd keep your 1 lb crystal, .5 lb of chocolate, and I'd just add .5lb to 1 lb of victory. And the brown sugar will be fine -- much more economical than honey.

OK, here's what the revisioned version so far:

Batch Size: 5.00 gal
Boil Size: 5.00 gal
Estimated OG: 1.070 SG
Estimated Color: 28.5 SRM
Estimated IBU: 51.9 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: - %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU
6.67 lb Light Dry Extract (8.0 SRM) Dry Extract 62.51 %
1.00 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 9.37 %
1.00 lb Victory Malt (25.0 SRM) Grain 9.37 %
0.50 lb Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain 4.69 %
0.50 lb Munich Malt (9.0 SRM) Grain 4.69 %
2.00 oz Northern Brewer [8.50 %] (60 min) Hops 48.7 IBU
0.50 oz Fuggles [4.50 %] (Dry Hop 7 days) Hops -
0.50 oz Fuggles [4.50 %] (15 min) Hops 3.2 IBU
0.50 tsp Irish Moss (Boil 15.0 min) Misc
1.00 tsp Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate) (Mash 60.0 min) Misc
1.00 lb Brown Sugar, Dark (50.0 SRM) Sugar 9.37 %
1 Pkgs British Ale (White Labs #WLP005) Yeast-Ale

Are there any quirks or anything I should know about when using a lot of ingredients like this? Like I said I'll probably keep it in the primary for about 2 weeks (or until it's done) then another week in the secondary dry hopped...then kegging and consuming!

Thanks everyone for the help!

That looks great. That's a big hoppy brown ale. Should be tasty.