Critique • Brown Ale, no crystal

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pm5k00

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So I decided to make a Brown Ale today but I only have 2 row base malt and didn't feel like going out to the homebrew store. So I toasted 1 lbs of malt (dry for 30min @350°F) and made 1 lbs belgian candy syrup dark (around 200 srm). With 8 lbs 2 row that makes :

80% base
10% home toasted
10% belgian candy syrup dark.
.75oz Chinook FWH for 30 IBUS and 1oz Chinook at flameout.
Mash 152°F

OG 1.062 SRM 20

It's cooling right now...
Will ferment with WLP007 @68°F

I was also considering toasting some oak chips and soaking in Bourbon for some more complexity.

So hopefully I will end up with a decent Brown Ale, but I wanted to see what the community had to say. Any and all feedback appreciated.
 
This is going to be insanely dry not typical for a brown ale but perfectly fine. I don't think bourbon flavor is going to work in such a dry beer. I could be wrong but I believe that the dark syrup is highly fermentable. Otherwise it looks tasty.
 
Yes I did think about the FG most likely being lower than what the style calls for. Lately I have been mashing all my beers at 146-148 to dry them out as much as possible and lower the residual sugars. I mashed at 152 to help compensate, but I don't want the beer being overly sweet anyways so it will probably be fine.
 
I recently toasted some 2 row for a brown ale and while reading up on it I learned you're supposed to let it rest at least a few weeks before mashing with it. I let mine rest two weeks and it turned out OK but not great. I didn't use any crystal malt and I mashed at 148 as well. If I were to do it again I'd mash higher.
 
I didn't let the toasted malt rest, but from what I have read it's not as important for the 30min or less dry, or 1 hour or less wet. This was my first time toasting malt, so it will be interesting to see how this beer turns out.
 
Just buy some Amber malt so you know you can always reproduce the malt. It's cheap as well.

Btw, that's not miles away from what British brown ales used to be like, as most of the colour came (sometimes, still comes) from sugar or caramel anyway. Here is a 1955 recipe for a double brown, where almost 20% of the fermentables are dark invert sugars:

http://barclayperkins.blogspot.co.uk/2009/03/lets-brew-brown-ale.html
 
For anyone who is interested, I just tapped the keg of this brown ale.... FG came down to 1.015 and an ABV of 6.1% . I was thinking the FG would get lower (maybe 1.010-1.012) but the the ambient temp in the room with the fermenter was only 65-68*F and I didn't want to get out my brew belt heater and let it warm up too much, so it is what it is.

Just for reference, I fermented at 68*F using the swamp cooler method, I think I kept it pretty stable, but I'm out of practice using this method, I recently moved and only have room for one freezer, so that one gets the kegs.

First pint impressions, faint toast smell, followed by English yeast aroma and caramel, body feels thin despite decent amount of residual sugars, head dissipates quickly, taste of caramel, and faint raisins and marshmallows, almost like an English Belgian mix, but predominately English. Only been on gas for 4 days, taste good but I am hoping this ages well in keg. Also no sign of Chinook hops.

Dads Brown ale2.jpg
 
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