First Recipe Formulation (come laugh at me!)

I used the last of my grain yesterday, which means that it is time to start looking at recipes again. This will be my first attempt at formulating my own recipe, so I'm looking for critiques and shouts of "WTF is that n00b???", or maybe words of encouragement if that's your thing. I'm trying to go for an oatmeal brown ale. Something that I'll like drinking once Fall rolls around. Here it goes:

3# LME
3# 2row
2# Munich
12oz 60L
12oz Chocolate malt
12oz Toasted flaked oats

.33oz Columbus @ 60
1oz US Golding @ 20
.5 US Golding @ 5

1 cup Maltodextrine @ 20
1/4 tsp Irish Moss @ 10

Wyeast 1084

Waddyathink? The variety of hops needs to stay the same, because that is what I have, but I'm unsure if the schedule is right. I have the 1084 washed and in the fridge, but might switch it up if something would work better (especially dry because I'm a cheap a$$).

The grain bill is what I'm really unsure of. I like malt forward, but will this be too much? Do you think the oats will come through? I feel like I'm kinda just throwing stuff together. I guess I just really need to know if I'm completely off base. Thanks for your input!

OMG??? WTF are you thinking, n00b?!

Nah, seriously, it actually looks quite tasty. I haven't run the numbers, but I think 12oz of Chocolate might put you a BIT overboard on color/flavor for a brown ale, but not outlandishly so. Do you have a brewing software? I'd try running it at 12oz and at 8oz and see how close you are to standard style guides for a brown.

Other than that (and again, I haven't run the numbers on the chocolate) it looks nicely balanced.

Yeah, I have beersmith. As it stands now the recipe is 29 SRM and with 1/2# it backs it down to 24.2. 29 is about 2/3 of the way up the scale and 24 is a little below halfway up.

Bueller?

bjl110 said:

I have the 1084 washed and in the fridge, but might switch it up if something would work better (especially dry because I'm a cheap a$$).

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Allow me to encourage you to continue to reuse your harvested yeast. Do it. It's a great way to have large quantities of healthy yeast around for not much investment. Still, keep some Notty in the fridge for emergencies.

Recipe looks pretty good to me. Depending on the alphas of your hops, I'd go a bit more bitter, especially if you're doing less than a full boil.

I've never had an oatmeal brown, so I don't even know what it tastes like. But the recipe looks pretty good except maybe for the amount of chocolate. It might just be me, but a little of that seems to go a long way and I can really pick it out when drinking a brew that I've used it in.

Try it and see.

To tell you the truth, I don't know if IV'E ever had an oatmeal brown, but I (and the SWMBO) like brown ales and the kind of slick, creamy mouthfeel of oats in stouts and porters, so I figured why not a brown?. Plus I think that the toasty-ness of the oats might impart a nice flavor. My MO in all of the baking and cooking (and music actually) I do is to take things from different places that I like and throw them into something that isn't all together different, but not where they are usually found. This kind of light experimentation keeps me wanting more, which is good for my craft I think. Anyway....

I reworked the recipe a little last night. I started by taking the chocolate down to a 1/2#, because the consensus seems to be that 3/4 is too much. I also reworked the hop schedule to look like this:

.5 Columbus (14%) @ 60
1 US Goldings (4.5%) @ 10

This gives me an OG of 1.053, ~29 IBU, and ~24 SRM. Better? Thanks for all your input!

The revision sounds tasty to me. Not really a fan of the malto-dextrine part though.

Why? Could you elaborate? Just don't use it in general, or is it specific to the recipe?

theres nothing particularly wrong with it, personally I'd rather just mash a little higher if you want the extra body. the only time I like using it is in sour beers since its unfermentable by sacchro. It can be added at any point tho so it may be worth waiting to see where your FG ends up first.

btw, oatmeal browns are awesome. I made something pretty similar to this, but less oatmeal a few months ago.

Oatmeal Browns are awesome. CCB makes one. Maduro Brown Ale.

dcp27 said:

The revision sounds tasty to me. Not really a fan of the malto-dextrine part though.

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I agree. I'd leave it out, unless the beer really needs a thickener before bottling. I like a full bodied stout, but even so I wouldn't like a "thick" stout if that makes sense.

My son uses a bit of malto-dextine in his root beer. I guess he must have made a mistake and used a bit too much, and he made root beer jell-o. He poured it and it went "glug gloop, glug gloop" out of the bottle. It was really gross! Ever since then, I've been squeamish about using it.

You won't need the MD anyway with that grain bill, but if you really need it for body later it can be added later.

Cool. Nix on the MD then. Actually, that is where my inexperience in formulation shows. I originally thought the MD would not only add body, but increase head retention, which is what I was really after. All of my brews seem to be lacking in this capacity so far. Do you think maybe tossing in 4-8 oz of flaked barley or wheat would do this? How much and of which? Maybe the recipe as it stood would be OK? Again, thanks for your thoughts and suggestions.

I have nothing against maltodextrin, but it seems to me to be most useful in smaller beers where you aren't sure you'll get enough body from the grist.

I can't see a reason the recipe posted shouldn't have a nice foam cap. Counterintuitively, perhaps, hops add to head retention, so if you really want nice head and lacing...

Actually, it makes perfect sense when you think about what styles generally have a nice head and their IBUs. I had just always attributed it to the grain. I have an uneven amount of Goldings anyway, so I'm going to throw that in there. I'll be making the following:

3#LME
3#2row
2#Munich
12oz 60L
12oz Oats, Flaked and toasted
8oz Chocolate
.5oz Columbus @ 60
.5oz US Goldings @ 20
1oz US Goldings @ 5

Irish Moss
1084