Sweet brown ale recipe - thoughts?

Tiber_Brew · Apr 24, 2010

I wrote a recipe for a brown ale, and am curious as to what you all think of it. Feel free to punch it into your recipe calculators and find out what the binary brewing world says. I personally rarely use those, but I'm open to what they can provide.

I'm looking for a medium colored brown ale, on the sweeter side, with a bit of spicy hop flavor, caramel flavor, and some raisiny presence. Higher ABV range, around 6.5% or so.

10 gal

14 lbs 2-row pale
2 lbs Munich
2 lbs c-40
2 lbs c-60
3 lbs c-120
.25 lbs chocolate malt

Mash @ 152-153F for 80 minutes

Boil:
1 oz. columbus 12.2% aa 60 min
1.5 oz. US tettnang 4.8%aa 15 min
irish moss 15 min

US-05 Am ale 1200ml starter in one carboy,
WY1338 European ale 1200ml starter in other carboy

Thanks in advance for the comments!
TB :mug:

ETA: edited recipe. Pulled back Munich and chocolate by 50%.

david_42 · Apr 24, 2010

I'd call it a robust porter (all it lacks is a little Black Patent), but it looks fine.

Airborneguy · Apr 24, 2010

I agree, definitely not a brown ale. That's borderline a barleywine or old ale.

Tiber_Brew · Apr 24, 2010

I think barleywine is a stretch. I've made some Old Ales before, and it wasn't very close to this recipe.

I edited the original recipe, but not by much. I pulled the Munich and choc back by 50%. Kept all other quantities the same. I even entered it into a recipe calculator

and it appears to be well within the "American Brown Ale" category specifics.

No offense, but your old ales must be on the weak side??

Airborneguy · Apr 24, 2010

My last Old Ale, which ended up about 7%, 1% over the minimum, was 15.5 lbs total of grain. I try to stick with the classic parameters.

What Recipe Calculator did you use?

I just plugged this latest version into Beer Alchemy, and at 70% efficiency I got a beer which missed every American Brown Ale marker except for color (on the very dark end for the style), and 11.1% ABV. It went over everything for Old Ale, and hit everything for English Barleywine except for color. According to my program, I was dead on.

Unless your efficiency is super low, you are WAY over 6.5% by any calculation.

Airborneguy · Apr 24, 2010

BTW, what do you consider "on the weak side" for an old ale? Old Ale parameters are 6-9% according to BJCP Guidelines.

Tiber_Brew · Apr 24, 2010

Airborneguy said:
My last Old Ale, which ended up about 7%, 1% over the minimum, was 15.5 lbs total of grain. I try to stick with the classic parameters.

What Recipe Calculator did you use?

I just plugged this latest version into Beer Alchemy, and at 70% efficiency I got a beer which missed every American Brown Ale marker except for color (on the very dark end for the style), and 11.1% ABV. It went over everything for Old Ale, and hit everything for English Barleywine except for color. According to my program, I was dead on.

Unless your efficiency is super low, you are WAY over 6.5% by any calculation.

http://powersbrewery.home.comcast.net/~powersbrewery/mastercalculator.html

That's the calculator I used. It seems to be the one that's most accurate relative to my setup.

specs:
OG: 1.056 (style:1.045-60)
FG: 1.013 (style: 1.010-16)
IBUs: 34 (style: 20-40+)
color: 26 SRM (style: 18-35)
ABV: 5.7% (less with the Euro ale)

That hits the Am brown ale pretty well. Also, this is actually going to be an 11 gal recipe, since I usually fill up two sixers with 5.5 gal each.

As far as this being a weak old ale -well, it would be. I don't know what else to tell you. I'd be disappointed if I bought an old ale from a store and it was 5.5-5.7% ABV. My old ales (and Larry Bell's old ale) would make this recipe seem like Budweiser.

Either way, thanks for providing input.

Airborneguy · Apr 24, 2010

Ooops! I didn't see the 10 gal.. :mug:

That would explain the big grain bill!

I was dead right for 5 gal though

Airborneguy · Apr 24, 2010

Need a five gallon Barleywine recipe and you got it

Tiber_Brew · Apr 24, 2010

Just ran this recipe through beer tools.

Tiber_Brew · Apr 24, 2010

Airborneguy said:
Ooops! I didn't see the 10 gal.. That would explain the big grain bill!

I was dead right for 5 gal though

Airborneguy said:
Need a five gallon Barleywine recipe and you got it

You bet!

Thanks again for the input. I could update this thread on the results once brewed if you're interested at all.

TB

kyleobie · Apr 24, 2010

It's a little too much caramel malt for my taste, personally. I can't imagine that S-05 would bring you down to 1.012 with 5 lbs of crystal in a 10 gallon batch. Good luck though! Let us know how it turns out.

Tiber_Brew · Apr 24, 2010

kyleobie said:
It's a little too much caramel malt for my taste, personally. I can't imagine that S-05 would bring you down to 1.012 with 5 lbs of crystal in a 10 gallon batch. Good luck though! Let us know how it turns out.

You might be right. I am going for that sweet, caramel, raisin like character. Think it's a bit much, considering that still?

StAnthonyB · Apr 24, 2010

Tiber_Brew said:
I wrote a recipe for a brown ale, and am curious as to what you all think of it. Feel free to punch it into your recipe calculators and find out what the binary brewing world says. I personally rarely use those, but I'm open to what they can provide.

I'm looking for a medium colored brown ale, on the sweeter side, with a bit of spicy hop flavor, caramel flavor, and some raisiny presence. Higher ABV range, around 6.5% or so.

10 gal

14 lbs 2-row pale
2 lbs Munich
2 lbs c-40
2 lbs c-60
3 lbs c-120
.25 lbs chocolate malt

Mash @ 152-153F for 80 minutes

Boil:
1 oz. columbus 12.2% aa 60 min
1.5 oz. US tettnang 4.8%aa 15 min
irish moss 15 min

US-05 Am ale 1200ml starter in one carboy,
WY1338 European ale 1200ml starter in other carboy

Thanks in advance for the comments!
TB

ETA: edited recipe. Pulled back Munich and chocolate by 50%.

I'm gonna' be blunt.

Scratch the Munich and replace it with Brown Malt. Without getting into it Brown Malt is dried a manner completely different from Munich. It is not a smoked malt, but it has a character integral to Brown Ales. Typically Brown Malt will comprise about 6% of the grist.

Thomas Fawcett & Sons sells it from outside of Yorkshire. I think you can order it from Rebel Brewer.com buy the once... I know you can order it from the importer North Country Malt supply.

Tiber_Brew · Apr 25, 2010

StAnthonyB said:
I'm gonna' be blunt.

Scratch the Munich and replace it with Brown Malt. Without getting into it Brown Malt is dried a manner completely different from Munich. It is not a smoked malt, but it has a character integral to Brown Ales. Typically Brown Malt will comprise about 6% of the grist.

Thomas Fawcett & Sons sells it from outside of Yorkshire. I think you can order it from Rebel Brewer.com buy the once... I know you can order it from the importer North Country Malt supply.

I don't think you're being blunt. That's a perfectly reasonable suggestion.

Now, would you have brown malt in all brown ales? IOW, would you ever brew a brown w/out brown malt? I ask because I've made spectacular brown ales in the past, and have never used brown malt. If it's an integral part of a brown ale, maybe I'll buy a few pounds and give it a shot.

Thanks for the comments!

Airborneguy · Apr 25, 2010

Brown malt usage is not very common anymore in commercial brown ales, and certainly not in homebrewing. I've never read anywhere that brown malt was important in anything other than traditional porters.

SwampassJ · Apr 25, 2010

Don't you need to age brown malt for a few months for it to mellow?

Tiber_Brew · Apr 26, 2010

Well, I revised the recipe yet again. My starter didn't take, so I have more time to drink about the recipe.

Here's the recipe, version 3.0:

11 gal

15.5 lbs pale
2.25 lbs munich
2.5 lbs c-60
1.5 lbs c-120
7 oz. choc

same mash and hop schedule

I might get some new yeast (the WY1338 turned out to be a dud), or just use one of my in-stock strains (probably S-04).

Thoughts (again)? Thanks a lot guys!

TB

StAnthonyB · Apr 27, 2010

Airborneguy said:
Brown malt usage is not very common anymore in commercial brown ales, and certainly not in homebrewing. I've never read anywhere that brown malt was important in anything other than traditional porters.

From what I understand that is the case. But, I'm a traditional guy I guess... The scuttlebutt is that the term brown malt and amber malt have been abused by some less scrupulous maltsters. :mug:

Now that I think about it: I haven't seen Mild Malt in a while.

Freezeblade · Apr 27, 2010

FWIW I use brown malt in ALL of the browns and porters that I do, and even in some barleywines or old ales.

Tiber_Brew · May 20, 2010

Tiber_Brew said:
Well, I revised the recipe yet again. My starter didn't take, so I have more time to drink about the recipe.

Here's the recipe, version 3.0:

11 gal

15.5 lbs pale
2.25 lbs munich
2.5 lbs c-60
1.5 lbs c-120
7 oz. choc

same mash and hop schedule

I might get some new yeast (the WY1338 turned out to be a dud), or just use one of my in-stock strains (probably S-04).

Thoughts (again)? Thanks a lot guys!

TB

OK, since the "edit post" function isn't working, I'll post again with an update. I used this recipe, one carboy with WY1338, one with US-05. Neither are on tap yet, but at racking, both taste really really good. I'll post more formal tasting notes once they're on tap, cold and carbonated.

Sweet brown ale recipe - thoughts?

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