Thoughts on my brown ale recipe?

[Coontail]

8# Maris Otter
1# Flaked Barley (I like the mouthfeel)
.5# Pale Chocolate Malt
.5# Crystal 60L

1 oz EKG 60 min
.5 oz EKG 10 min

WLP005

Irish moss


Thoughts?? I plan on brewing this tomorrow and I don't want it to be too sweet. I've also never used pale chocolate malt

 

[jturman35]

I seem to stick around 6oz of Choc malt and have double the crystal 60L, but yours looks like a good recipe.

 

[Coontail]

Any ideas on how I could add a bit of complexity?

 

[jturman35]

What do you want in your beer? It looks like an easy drinking brown. I’m relatively new (1yr) but I took Lil Sparky’s Nut Brown recipe and added my twist below. Scored a 38 in my first comp!

8lbs Maris Otter
2lbs Vienna
1lb Crystal 60L
8oz Victory
6oz Choc malt
1oz Fuggle 60min
1oz EKG 15min
Nottingham yeast


I would suggest find a good base beer then add little tweaks from there. Depending on what you want you could add victory or honey malt 4-6oz at most. Your recipe looks pretty straight forward for a base. Brew it and see if you like and add to it later.

 

[charliethebum]

Toast the flaked barley @ 325 until it turns golden/ golden brown (probably 30 min.) For a nice nutty/ toasty character

 

[Coontail]

Thank you for all the pointers! I'll definitely give toasting the barley a shot. I did have a .75# of victory malt but decided to not do it, I may change that last minute though

 

[Coontail]

What do you want in your beer? It looks like an easy drinking brown. I’m relatively new (1yr) but I took Lil Sparky’s Nut Brown recipe and added my twist below. Scored a 38 in my first comp!

8lbs Maris Otter
2lbs Vienna
1lb Crystal 60L
8oz Victory
6oz Choc malt
1oz Fuggle 60min
1oz EKG 15min
Nottingham yeast


I would suggest find a good base beer then add little tweaks from there. Depending on what you want you could add victory or honey malt 4-6oz at most. Your recipe looks pretty straight forward for a base. Brew it and see if you like and add to it later.

I mainly want a malty flavorful brown with reduced hop character and almost no bitterness, a slight chocolate taste along with nuttiness is also what I'm looking for I was thinking of mashing at around 155 to maybe give it a bit more body but I think that would too heavy

 

[BigEd]

Any ideas on how I could add a bit of complexity?

It will probably have to wait for your next batch but I'd add some brown malt. Use a pound or two in place of an equal amount of pale malt and cut the chocolate in half.

 

[Coontail]

It will probably have to wait for your next batch but I'd add some brown malt. Use a pound or two in place of an equal amount of pale malt and cut the chocolate in half.

Nonsense I'll use a pound in place of some pale malt

 

[Coontail]

Got everything for the brew but my LHBS didn't have wlp005 so I'm using S-04 instead. I'll report back with how came out after it's done, thanks again!

 

[OG-wan Kenobi]

S-04 is a solid choice. I hope you get what your going for

 

[probablynotnick]

I like a bit of smoked malt in my brown ale every now and then. Smoked malts can oxidize fairly quickly, however, so just make sure to throw a party!

 

[Coontail]

Its gonna be a squeeze but I'm hoping to be able to get it out for Thanksgiving lol

 

[jturman35]

Anyone try special B in a brown ale?

 

[Coontail]

Brew day went well, I got my highest mash efficiency yet at 90.0% and a brewhouse efficiency at 74.1%. The wort smelled roasty and unfortunately I didn't have time to toast the barley. I also ended up using .3 ounces of I think fuggles or tettnang, can't really remember lol


This was the grain bill
8# Maris Otter
1# Flaked Barley
.7# ounces Victory Malt
.5# Crystal 60l
.35# Chocolate Malt
.25 tsp Irish Moss

1 oz EKG 5.3AA 60 minutes
.3 oz Fuggles? 10 minutes

S-04

I'm jumping to conclusions but I'm already thinking it needs more crystal

 

[Coontail]

So I was able to force carb it overnight just barely in time for thanksgivng and to be expected it didn't taste too great. The roastiness was overwhelming as well as the coffee flavor

5 days later(ish) the flavor improved dramatically, the flavor is more tamed now and is much more drinkable.

The aroma is mainly roast but not overwhelming, you can almost smell a bit of unmilled barley

The flavor starts off with caramel then roast, coffee, and a bit of chocolate at the end. Slight off white head and hops are nearly undetectable with just enough bitterness to not make it too sweet

Color is lighter than expected but it tastes good. Definitely kind of an English porter/brown ale hybrid

Next time I'll probably dial back on the brown malt a bit and find a way to make it darker without effecting the flavor

 

[Coontail]

.

 

[jturman35]

Give it more time! Probably needs at least 30days in the keg before it hits its prime. I just drank my last bomber of a Brown Ale that scored 38. Brewed back in May and still delicious.

 

[Coontail]

Give it more time! Probably needs at least 30days in the keg before it hits its prime. I just drank my last bomber of a Brown Ale that scored 38. Brewed back in May and still delicious.

I should start giving my beers a 30 day aging lol I'm impatient though. Like I said though, definitely tastes a whole lot better now than it did on Thanksgiving

 

[GoeHaarden]

Anyone try special B in a brown ale?

I just did a brown with 8oz of Special B a couple of weeks ago. Kegged it yesterday so I can't tell you final impressions. However, the sample on this beer was incredible, and I usually think samples don't taste all that great...

 

[Coontail]

I just did a brown with 8oz of Special B a couple of weeks ago. Kegged it yesterday so I can't tell you final impressions. However, the sample on this beer was incredible, and I usually think samples don't taste all that great...

Nice! I'll probably give that a try next time I brew this, I think someone else in this thread mentioned special b as well

 

[tennesseean_87]

Amber malt is nice in a brown ale, for future reference.

 

[jturman35]

I just did a brown with 8oz of Special B a couple of weeks ago. Kegged it yesterday so I can't tell you final impressions. However, the sample on this beer was incredible, and I usually think samples don't taste all that great...

I have one fermenting right now that I did 4oz of Special B for the first time. Can’t wait to see how it turns out!

 

[Miraculix]

Toast the flaked barley @ 325 until it turns golden/ golden brown (probably 30 min.) For a nice nutty/ toasty character

Beautiful idea. Finally I got some use for my leftover flaked barley, Thanks!

I think I will roast it in a pan, just for fun.