Please review my first recipe

Ok this is my very first recipe, I'm quite new to this so I need any advice I can get. I especially need help on the hop schedule. I'm not going for an IPA/hop bomb so please don't suggest 5 oz of Chinook or anything.

5.0 Gallon
1 pkg Nottingham dry yeast

13.00 lb Marris Otter (2 row)
1lb Cara Pils
1lb Vienna malt
1lb Munich malt
.75lb (12 oz) crystal 60L
.75lb (12 oz) chocolate malt
.25lb (4 oz) roasted barley

1 oz Tettnang (60 min)
1 oz Chinook (35 min)
.5 oz Williamette (30 min)
.5 oz Williamette (15 min)
1 oz Kent Golding (5 min)

What's the goal? English Brown maybe? I can't tell what you're going for exactly.

In general, I think the chinook is a bit out of place. It's a very good bittering hop. I've not used it at 45 minutes except for a real hop bomb myself.

I'm not familiar with Tettnang.

What are you trying to go for here? Imperial Porter or something?

Looks interesting, but out of balance to me. With decent efficiency that is going to be a barely wine type OG, but black, without that much hop bitterness to balance it out. With a big boil you may still get some decent extraction, but still around 50 IBU for a 1.090+ beer seems like it is going to end sweet without bitter balance. You could easy be at 75 and not be a hop bomb with that much sugar in there.

Without knowing what you are going for it is a little hard.

Quite frankly I'm not sure what style I'm going for. Any ideas to balance it out? Should I reduce the pale malt, I'm open to a completely different hop schedule. I am going for a strong beer with medium-high alcohol 8-10% like a stout but not quite as dark and with more malty flavor and good flavor hops, medium bitterness.

It looks similar in grain bill to an amber ale that I brew regularly but with 2 row as the base grain.. Here's the recipe to brew 11 gallon FWIW:
2 Row 20.5 lbs
Victory 7 oz.
Munich 12 oz.
Biscuit 5 oz.
Carmel 80 4 oz.
Chocolate 4oz.

Northern Brewer 2 oz @ 60 min
Hell/Hers 1 oz @ 15 min
Williamette .5 oz. @ 5 min

S 05 2 x 11 gram.

It's a pretty good, balanced 5-6 ish ABV beer. It may not be the one and done ABV that you desire, but it's tasty and you can have a few and still "close the deal".:cross:

Thanks a lot I think I might stick to other peoples recipes for a while longer till I get the hang of it more.

Yeastie said:

Thanks a lot I think I might stick to other peoples recipes for a while longer till I get the hang of it more.

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Don't look at it that way, just set a goal first and then shoot for it. It is hard to just whip up a recipe without having something in mind first that you are shooting for. Just easier to stick with the BJCP Style Guide (BJCP 2008 Style Guidelines - Index) before trying to invent your own style of beer.

Think about the kind of beer you want and then start working on developing a recipe.

steelerguy said:

Don't look at it that way, just set a goal first and then shoot for it. It is hard to just whip up a recipe without having something in mind first that you are shooting for. Just easier to stick with the BJCP Style Guide (BJCP 2008 Style Guidelines - Index) before trying to invent your own style of beer.

Think about the kind of beer you want and then start working on developing a recipe.

Click to expand...

Yea that's how I have come up with my recipes. I'm trying my first 2 Friday, so we'll see how they are.

I look at the BJCP Guidelines and Notes, look at other recipes, and refer to these pages a bit:
Brew Your Own: The How-To Homebrew Beer Magazine - Grains and Adjuncts Chart
Brew Your Own: The How-To Homebrew Beer Magazine - Comparing and Selecting Hops
Brew Your Own: The How-To Homebrew Beer Magazine - Homebrew Yeast Strains Chart

BrewBrain said:

What's the goal?

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Looks like somewhere between American Stout and Baltic Porter. And you know what? The more I look at the recipe, the more tasty it seems!

You have a solid malty base of MO and a skosh of MuMa and ViMa.
You have a bunch of body and light sweetness from Carapils and C60.
You have the rich and roasty from the Choc and RB.
I don't think Chinook, especially in that small amount, is out of place at all. It could be a nice fruity counterpoint to the other more delicate hops.

Maybe I'm just thirsty, but that reads like a mighty fine match with a lamb stew or pumpkin pie.

Sounds pretty tasty to me. Chinook fruitiness and choc malt....mmmm..... Now I'm thirsty. You'll never know until you make it, take good notes and refine it from there. Nice thing about making bad beer is that most people don't know the difference from bad beer and good. You'll be able to peddle it to someone even if it's swill. Lol. Good luck sir and happy brewing. Let me know if you don't mind when you get her all finnished, I'm curious how it'll turn out.

I was assuming a 10-gallon recipe. If it's 5, it definitely isn't an English Brown More of a big porter.

Given the response to what OP was shooting for, it may just turn out very nice

Yes sorry I forgot to mention this was a five gallon batch. I upped the hops a little bit. I think I might brew this sometime but I have too many other recipes lined up and only so much money/fermenters.