Just made a brown ale - will it be too sweet?

I just made a pretty simple brown ale recipe. I downloaded the free trial of Beer Smith and plugged in my numbers. I have some pretty low IBU's. I wanted a malty beer, but still a little light. Curious if anyone can give me insight as to how long I should let it bottle condition to knock out a bit of the sweetness.

Recipe Type: Partial Mash
Yeast: US-05
Batch Size (Gallons): 5
Original Gravity: 1.040
Final Gravity: Estimated 1.011
IBU: 18.5
Boiling Time (Minutes): 60
Color: 16.4

Steeped for 30mins at 160°F:
1# Dingemans Cara 20 Malt
0.25# Chocolate Malt

Brought wort to boil, added:
3# Light DME
0.8 oz. Cascade 5.0% AA

At 15 minutes left added:
1# Light DME
0.2 oz. Cascade 5.0% AA

Estimated ABV ~4.0%

Bottle conditioning won't knock out the sweetness if it's under hopped. I'd still let it sit in the bottle for 3 weeks at a minimum and then give it a try. What was the beersmith IBU number for your brown ale?


Oops.. I see it now... it should be fine

Bottle conditioning shouldn't knock out any of the sweetness. You let it ferment completely before you bottle. Then you add a touch of sugar for CO2. Otherwise you may get bottle bombs.

Do you have a hydrometer? If you do, take the SG of the beer. When it remains stable over 3 days, and is near your target gravity, you can add a bit of sugar and bottle.

Your recipe looks fine.

Thanks for the input!

Judging by this chart, http://www.brewsupplies.com/hops-gravity.htm, which BierMuncher uses for his recipes, you should have a nicely balanced beer.

I concur. This looks like a good one. Borderline on a mild.

Boleslaus said:

Judging by this chart, http://www.brewsupplies.com/hops-gravity.htm, which BierMuncher uses for his recipes, you should have a nicely balanced beer.

Click to expand...

That's a great chart. I'm more than curious as to how this beast will turn out now.

Looks like a good dark mild to me. Will probably be awesome.

Here's the specs for a Northern English Brown I brewed

Recipe Type: All Grain
Yeast: Nottingham
Batch Size (Gallons): 5
Original Gravity: 1.063
Final Gravity: Estimated 1.012
IBU: 18.5
Boiling Time (Minutes): 60
Color: 18.2
ABV: 6.7%

Shared it with the guys from work, and got nothing but compliments.

It is going to be just fine. Probably kick-a**

Plus the US-05 will dry it ount nicely.. that yeast is a champ.

One thing - every Brown I have ever made takes an extra week to condition. That "green" flavor seems to stick around for an extra few weeks but once it goes away you should have a very nice brown.

So when you tasted it after 3 weeks in the bottle it'll taste young! No worries 0 just needs a week or 2 of more aging.

Porters, Stouts, IPA all - no probs but Browns always take longer.

Thanks again for the input. Found out I had time to brew last night (wife and kids went out of town to visit family for the night), but not enough time to get my regular LHBS before they closed. So stopped at a new place that I've been told has an "all right" selection from a buddy. It was a convenience store with an aisle of a few brewing items. It wasn't a bad selection given the size of the place, but some of the items had a lot of dust on them and quality seemed suspect. Items on the bottom shelf were just plain beat up and dirty.

After abandoning hopes of making the recipe I originally wanted, I started seeing what I could make with what looked fresh. And after a few back of the envelope calculations, I came up with the recipe in the original post. It was fun seeing what I could do on the fly like that. Sounds like I made some good choices.

Just a follow-up, bottled this tonight and it tastes really good. It's going to be quite nice once it's properly conditioned.

[Edit] And to add that based on the feedback in this thread, I did some research into Mild's a brewed something similar to the recipe in the original post. Milds - never heard of them until this recipe, now I'm kind of a fan.

I have a sweet spot for milds. Orfy's mild in the recipe section was my first beer.