Rum & Raisin Stout, few questions!

I'm planning to brew a rum and raisin stout using the raisin character from Special B and Molasses.

I've only ever brewed a few proper stouts (I rarely go past Porter level colour) and what I did brew was quite good. However, the speciality malt bill for what I've come up with looks absolutely massive, to be honest, and I'm worried I'm overdoing it on the speciality malts. I do want something that's flavoursome, but also reasonably sessionable/easy drinking. apologies for weird amounts but I'm getting used to working in grain mode. I'm also aware this isn't to the Dry Irish Stout style, but brewmate seems low on style options and I'm aiming for a quite full bodied and balanced beer, not too bitter. The brown sugar will be Molasses, if it gets darker than expected it's no problem.

Rum & Raisin Stout
Dry Stout

Recipe Specs
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Batch Size (L): 23.0
Total Grain (kg): 4.031
Total Hops (g): 30.00
Original Gravity (OG): 1.038 (°P): 9.5
Final Gravity (FG): 1.007 (°P): 1.8
Alcohol by Volume (ABV): 4.01 %
Colour (SRM): 31.0 (EBC): 61.1
Bitterness (IBU): 29.9 (Average)
Brewhouse Efficiency (%): 70
Boil Time (Minutes): 60

Grain Bill
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3.135 kg Maris Otter Malt (77.78%)
0.358 kg Roasted Barley (UK) (8.89%)
0.269 kg Brown Sugar, Dark (6.67%)
0.269 kg Special-B (6.67%)

Hop Bill
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30.0 g Palisade Pellet (7.3% Alpha) @ 90 Minutes (Boil) (1.3 g/L)

Misc Bill
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Single step Infusion at 66°C for 60 Minutes.
Fermented at 20°C with Danstar Nottingham

Click to expand...

On hand I've also got chocolate, crystal, caraamber, melanoidin, special w and rye, although the latters probably won't find much use in this brew.

I'll also melt down some DME into a gallon of this with some extra hops to make it an imperial and ferment it on elderberries :rockin:

Thanks in advance for any advice, been struggling to get any real solid info on this!

I think it sounds interesting. You might want to add some crystal malt for once. I'd up the OG a bit, to around 1042 or so. With the sugar and low OG it can end up too thin in body. You can have a bit more speciality malt in such a sessionable beer so that's ok. I'd keep the roast character as it is but still slightly up the colour (maybe a tad of crystal would bring it to 33-35?).

I brewed something a bit similar a year ago. It was a brown stout with brown, chocolate malts, and some invert sugar. It was the most easy drinking stout I've ever brewed. I can dig the recipe in a few days. It was based on a Whitbread recipe from the 1950s. Definitively worth departing from Guinness clones!!