Second Breakfast Brown Ale

Some background: Some years back, I tried the Rogue Maple Bacon beer, the first of their Voodoo Doughnut series. It... left a lot to be desired. Frankly, I couldn't believe I'd paid money for it.

Anyway, fast forward a few years, and I was toying with the idea of trying to do it right. Not with any extracts or anything crazy, but approximating bacon flavors with smoked and roasted malts, and adding some maple syrup to the brew. I got a little crazy, though, and added some breadier, nuttier malts to make it a full-on breakfast beer. The result is Second Breakfast Brown Ale.

For my first attempt at the recipe, I basically used hops that I had left in the freezer. I haven't messed with those, but I wouldn't be opposed to it.

Here's the recipe I used for my latest 2.5 gallon batch. I'm at 57% efficiency (I think sparging is the culprit, but I'm not sure).

2 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) 28.5 %
2 lbs Smoked Malt (3.5 SRM) 28.5 %
8.0 oz Biscuit Malt (23.0 SRM) 7.1 %
8.0 oz Simpson's Golden Naked Oats (12.0 SRM) 7.1 %
8.0 oz Special B Malt (120.0 SRM) 7.1 %
8.0 oz Victory Malt (25.0 SRM) 7.1 %
4.0 oz Melanoiden Malt (30.0 SRM) 3.6 %
3.0 oz Roasted Barley (700.0 SRM) 2.7 %
9.1 oz Maple Syrup (35.0 SRM) 8.1 %
0.40 oz Cascade [7.10 %] - Boil 60.0 min 16.7 IBUs
0.35 oz Fuggles [5.30 %] - Boil 30.0 min 8.4 IBUs
0.30 oz Crystal [3.80 %] - Boil 10.0 min 2.4 IBUs
1.0 pkg London Ale (White Labs #WLP013) [35.49 ml]

Mash @152F for 60Min
Measured OG 1.057
Measured FG 1.008

There's not a lot of smoke to it, honestly. (I was sort of disappointed about that, and I've considered putting some of the specialty malt in the smoker before mashing it.) The FG on this batch definitely makes it feel like a brown ale; with some more body, it could be a porter. I casked it in the Beer Box for Christmas, and the family all loved it. But I'm open to any changes, simplifications, or other suggestions if you have them. Otherwise, if you're looking for something along these lines, give it a shot and let me know what you think!

I did somethign similar (mine was a breakfast porter). I am assuming you used rauch malt? Which will give you good smoke, but if you want more of a bacon smell to it, grab some applewood smoked malt. reminds me very much of bacon and tasted phenominal. I had some fermentation issues and mine didnt come out really where i wanted it to so i am gonna do it again.

looks like about 30% of your bill is specialty and adjuncts. Maybe try changing that ratio a bit to use more base malts, less specialty? Just a suggestion, but i have found that usually less is more. Especially if you base style is a brown imo. Maybe try more of an 80/20 ratio. Just my 2 cents, but your not much off the mark at all.

The LHBS doesn't have anything but the basic rauchmalt (well, they have peated, but that's not quite the same), but I might try to smoke some of the base malt on my Traeger, with applewood pellets, and see what that gives me. I suspect it'll be a little more potent in the smoke flavor.

One of the drawbacks of the 1 gallon pilot experimentation is you tend to get a little crazy on the specialty malts, because smaller amounts just seem so small. I'll have to tweak it and back off some on the next batch.