Belgian Gruit - thoughts?

Hey all,

I've been wanting to make a new gruit recipe for myself, using some inspirations from Belgian beers and European herbs. Would love to hear some thoughts and comments on the following..

First the grain bill... how does this look for a basic Belgian Pale/Amber base?

Batch Size (fermenter): 11.00 gal
Estimated OG: 1.069 SG
Estimated FG: 1.008 SG
Estimated ABV: 8.1%
Estimated Color: 14.8 SRM
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
20.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) Bel (3.0 SRM) Grain 1 70.2 %
2.00 lb Biscuit Malt (23.0 SRM) Grain 2 7.0 %
2.00 lb Caramunich Malt (47.0 SRM) Grain 3 7.0 %
0.50 lb Special B Malt (180.0 SRM) Grain 4 1.8 %
2.00 lb Sugar, Muscavado (25.0 SRM) Sugar 5 7.0 %
2.00 lb Honey (1.0 SRM) Sugar 14 7.0 %
1.0 pkg Belgian Golden Ale (White Labs #WLP570) Yeast 13 -

Mash @ 150-F for 60-min

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And the herb schedule might go like this...

2.00 oz Yarrow Flowers (Boil 60.0 mins) Herb 6 -
2.00 g Gale, Sweet (Boil 60.0 mins) Spice 7 -
2.00 oz Marsh Rosemary (Boil 60.0 mins) Spice 8 -
4.40 oz Meadowsweet (Boil 15.0 mins) Spice 9 -
1.00 tsp Coriander Seed (Boil 15.0 mins) Spice 11 -
1.00 oz Orange Peel, Sweet (Boil 15.0 mins) Spice 12 -
2.20 oz Lemon Balm Leaf (Whirlpool 15.0 mins) Spice 10 -

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Lemon Balm & Meadowsweet are new ones for me, and I'm not sure I should even put them in here.

I am also thinking of maybe dry-herb'ing some Yarrow Flowers, Sweet Gale & Marsh Rosemary after primary fermentation is finished ... for 5-7 days.

Comments appreciated!

--LexusChris

Even though it's an 11 gallon recipe I might cut down the caramunich and biscuit, maybe just go with regular Munich or perhaps Vienna? As far as the herbs I only have experience with the three "traditional" gruit herbs as well as coriander, but for those I think your amounts look good. I did a gruit saison about 5 months ago that is just now coming into its own. Unintentionally sour but really balancing out now in my opinion.

If you have fresh yarrow flowers particularly definitely dry-herb! Even if not I would still go for it personally, but I enjoy gruits and experimental beers. Also, with the honey I try to find local raw honey and and mix it with water that's just warm enough to soften it up a bit before adding it to the fermenter, but I'm sure you already know all that stuff. I'm no expert on any of this but I've tried similar ideas and would love to hear how your's turns out!