Smoke n Salt - Brown Ale AG Recipe

So I came up with the idea to brew a smokey, slightly salty brown ale!

My only experience with smoked malts has been using peated malt in a Scotch Ale. I know that the other smoked malts are much different, so let me know if you have a sense if there is too much or too little smoke in here. I don't want the smoke to be over-powering. Also, if you have any experience adding salt to your beer, let me know! I'm going to add about tbsp during the boil and adjust at bottling, if necessary.

Hoping to brew this sometime next week.

Cheers!

Batch Size: 5 gallons
Boil Length: 60 minutes
Mash Efficiency: 63%
Yeast: Safale S-04 (harvested from recent Barleywine)

Malt Bill
9 lbs Maris Otter 3L (66%)
3 lbs Smoked Malt (2# Beechwood, 1# Cherrywood) 9L (22%)
12 oz Caravienna 22L (5%)
1 lb Brown Malt 65L (6%)
3 oz Carafa Special III (1%) Note: added late in mash for color

Boil Additions
1.5 oz Fuggles 5.1% AA 60 minutes
0.5 oz Fuggles 5.1% AA 20 minutes
0.75 oz Salt (a bit over a tbsp)

OG: 1.065
FG: 1.017
ABV: 6.3%
IBU: 31
SRM: 21

-Mash for 60 minutes @ 155 degrees F with 1.4 qt/lb
-Mash-out at 165 degrees F

 

Bump. Come on, someone must have an opinion on this recipe!

 

I asked a question about smoked malts a few days ago, and there was some good discussion there. I am going for a very smoke forward beer, so you may want to ignore the amounts being discussed, but there's some really good discussion on the differences between smoked malts.

Here's that thread: http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/smoked-malt-recommendations-380294/

Briess has recommendations on how much cherry wood smoked malt to use, and they say 10-20% for a pronounced character in darker styles like pale ales and Oktoberfests, and 30-60% in darker styles like porters or stouts.

I don't know anything about using salt, but the one other thing that caught my eye was that you plan to reuse yeast from a barleywine. It's usually a bad idea to reuse yeast from batches with an OG of more than 1.065 or so, as the high gravity fermentation puts a lot of stress on the yeast. YMMV, but you may just want to spend a couple bucks for a new pack.

 

Not a terrible amount of expertise on smoked malt but I had a friend of mine who made a soft pretzel beer and added salted soft pretzels in the mash, then added more salt...it was absolutely amazing. I was impressed at the characteristic that salt brought out of the beer. Good luck and let us know how it turns out!