A little help with adapting recipes..

O.k. over the Thanksgiving Holiday I thought it would be a cool idea to do 2 brown ales.. One a Northern English Brown and the other an American Brown.. So I went to Jamil's recipes and saw he has 2 award winners.. Fed those into Beersmith and this is what I came up with. Anyone have any suggestions or things you might do to change or tweak these before I brew them? I'm still learning beersmith and all grain so any advice you can give me is much appreciated! Thanks for looking!

Recipe 1

BeerSmith Recipe Printout - www.beersmith.com
Recipe: Pilgrim Brown
Brewer: OhioDad
Asst Brewer:
Style: Northern English Brown Ale
TYPE: All Grain
Taste: (35.0) Jamil's Northern Brown Recipe

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 5.50 gal
Boil Size: 7.00 gal
Estimated OG: 1.052 SG
Estimated Color: 19.4 SRM
Estimated IBU: 16.5 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU
8.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) UK (3.0 SRM) Grain 74.42 %
0.75 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (40.0 SRM) Grain 6.98 %
0.75 lb Special Roast (50.0 SRM) Grain 6.98 %
0.50 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 30L (30.0 SRM) Grain 4.65 %
0.50 lb Victory Malt (25.0 SRM) Grain 4.65 %
0.25 lb Chocolate Malt (450.0 SRM) Grain 2.33 %
1.00 oz Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] (60 min) Hops 16.5 IBU
1 Pkgs London ESB Ale (Wyeast Labs #1968) Yeast-Ale


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Medium Body, Batch Sparge
Total Grain Weight: 10.75 lb
----------------------------
Single Infusion, Medium Body, Batch Sparge
Step Time Name Description Step Temp
60 min Mash In Add 13.44 qt of water at 165.9 F 154.0 F
10 min Mash Out Add 5.00 qt of water at 211.1 F 168.0 F

And Recipe 2

BeerSmith Recipe Printout - www.beersmith.com
Recipe: Indian Brown
Brewer: OhioDad
Asst Brewer:
Style: American Brown Ale
TYPE: All Grain
Taste: (35.0) Jamil's American Brown

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 5.50 gal
Boil Size: 7.00 gal
Estimated OG: 1.052 SG
Estimated Color: 20.6 SRM
Estimated IBU: 44.3 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU
8.00 lb Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM) Grain 76.19 %
0.75 lb Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM) Grain 7.14 %
0.75 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (40.0 SRM) Grain 7.14 %
0.50 lb Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain 4.76 %
0.25 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 2.38 %
0.25 lb Victory Malt (25.0 SRM) Grain 2.38 %
0.50 oz Magnum [14.00 %] (60 min) Hops 22.9 IBU
1.00 oz Amarillo Gold [8.50 %] (30 min) Hops 21.4 IBU
1.00 oz Amarillo Gold [8.50 %] (0 min) Hops -
1 Pkgs American Ale (Wyeast Labs #1056) Yeast-Ale


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Medium Body, Batch Sparge
Total Grain Weight: 10.50 lb
----------------------------
Single Infusion, Medium Body, Batch Sparge
Step Time Name Description Step Temp
60 min Mash In Add 13.13 qt of water at 163.7 F 152.0 F
10 min Mash Out Add 7.97 qt of water at 198.2 F 168.0 F

That sounds like a mighty fine Northern English, alright.

For the American, I'd like another late hop addition around five or ten minutes, as well as a moderate dry hopping addition (~1 oz.) Adjust the amounts accordingly, as the balance looks pretty good. I'm also not a big Amarillo fan, but that's my personal taste.


TL

My first suggestion would be to dial down your efficiency to about 65-68 in Beersmith an then adjust your ingredients to get back up to the target OG.

I doubt that you’re going to hit a 75% efficiency your first time out. I’m on more than my second batch…and I am consistently around 72-75%.

Either one of those looks really good to me. I probably would only tweak those recipes to adjust for what ingredients are available. Since I don't have a good grasp of what all the different malts and hops taste like right now I'm not sure how much help I could be to tweaking your recipe.

I'm really into brown ales right now. That Indian Brown looks really good especially.

BierMuncher said:

My first suggestion would be to dial down your efficiency to about 65-68 in Beersmith an then adjust your ingredients to get back up to the target OG.

I doubt that you’re going to hit a 75% efficiency your first time out. I’m on more than my second batch…and I am consistently around 72-75%.

Click to expand...

Have been wondering how to adjust that... Last time out I made an oatmeal stout and the target was 1.057. I hit 1.053 but I overshot the final volume by about half a gallon so I just attributed it to that.. Figured it will still taste pretty good.. How do i dial that back to about 72% and I presume that would just affect the gravity then right? I don't mind dropping a couple of gravity points on both actually they both come in a little higher than jamil's anyway...

ohiodad said:

Have been wondering how to adjust that... Last time out I made an oatmeal stout and the target was 1.057. I hit 1.053 but I overshot the final volume by about half a gallon so I just attributed it to that.. Figured it will still taste pretty good.. How do i dial that back to about 72% and I presume that would just affect the gravity then right? I don't mind dropping a couple of gravity points on both actually they both come in a little higher than jamil's anyway...

Click to expand...

Yeah. Just type in your new efficiency and your gravity will automatically drop. THen begin upping the grain bill to get back to the target gravity.

BierMuncher said:

Yeah. Just type in your new efficiency and your gravity will automatically drop. THen begin upping the grain bill to get back to the target gravity.

Click to expand...

I adjusted down and it took both gravities down around 1.050... Think I'm just going to leave the ingredients as is... Should be fun to taste the differences. Also hoping to make this a learning experience for my friends getting to try 2 brown ales next 2 each other