Looking for feedback on a recipe...

[jeramieb]

So I bought a kit from MoreBeer (English Pale Ale) and after putting it into Beersmith it seems like it might end up a little light on flavor and ABV. I want to try and give this beer a nice full malt flavor with a decent ABV. Right now Beersmith has it hitting ~3.9% (I was hoping for closer to 5% if possible).

Here's the ingredient list and my brew details:

********************************
- Grain -
8lbs - Pale Malt (2 Row) UK (3.0 SRM)
.5lbs - Caramel/Crystal Malt - 20L (20.0 SRM)
.25lbs - Special B Malt (180.0 SRM)

- Hops -
1oz - East Kent Goldings @ 60min
1oz - East Kent Goldings @ 5min

- Yeast -
WLP002 - White Labs English Ale


- Brew Process -
Mash
60min @ 156.0 F

Sparge
Batch sarge @ 168.0 F water

Boil
60min Boil
********************************


Any idea on what I should do to give this recipe a little malty kick in pants? I contemplated adding 1-1.5lbs of Maris Otter to the recipe as well as bumping up the 2 Row to 10lbs as oppsoed to the initial 8. BTW, this is my first venture into tinkering with a recipe so I may be out in left field on this. That is why I wan to to know your thoughts? Am I way off base on this?

Thanks in advance

 

[Ilikecats12]

I am no expert in recipe making myself but if you want a higher alcohol % increase the amount of base grains (the 2-row or Maris Otter). As far as the malty flavor, flaked barley, wheat, or cara-pils are occasionally used in this style in small percentages. You could also slightly increase the amount of crystal malt and/or add some additional caramel malt. I have never personally brewed this style so take this as a grain of salt but the best advice I could give is to research the style or any clones of beers in this style that you like and see what works best for you. Hope this helps.

 

[JKaranka]

Not putting it through a calculator I'd guess that would make a beer just over 4% which seems fine by me. You could add a pound of pale malt to bring it around 4.5%. If you went higher you would need to compensate the bitterness by moving some of the late hops into the bittering addition.

To be fair, the recipe in every sense looks like a standard bitter (apart from the special b).

 

[electric_beer]

To me, the easiest solution is to shrink the recipe size by half a gallon (or just boil for 30mins or a lil longer basically) while using the same ingredients. It will boost your abv, while keeping all your ingredient percentages the same. Plus no need to buy anything else. But that's the lazy, easy answer.