1st AG Batch - American Style Nut Brown Ale (Lager actually!)

[Crayz]

Okay, so this is my first real post; which goes to say how great this forum is. I have been lurking, reading, learning, etc... for a while and have always found my answer. This is less a question/answer situation and more of a recipe critique session. So if this is mis-posted, mods please move.

This is only my 2nd recipe I have half way figured out on my own, and the first AG recipe on my own. I do plan to make a couple other proven/clone AG brews before this one to get the hang of things before going too nuts, but I thought it would be good to get feedback of this now. Please punish me, and question everything I listed, that helps me learn the best! No holds barred.

This recipe is for a US style brown ale; thus being more hop forward, but I want to use a lager yeast. Obviously highlighting pecans I don't want to be too hop bitter as the pecans should add a bitterness of their own, but I do want to balance thing out a little more than an English brown ale.

Here is my rough recipe out of BeerSmith (I am still learning BeerSmith, so any tips you can give on the mash area would be greatly appreciated!):

Batch size: 5.5 Gallons
SRM: 22.7 IBU: 25.4 est.OG: 1.063 Est.FG 1.015

Malts:
8lb US 2-Row
3lb Vienna
1.5lb Crystal 60L
0.5lb Chocolate
13lb total

60 minute boil

Mash: 75% eff., Single Infusion, 1.5 qt/lb, 152 for 60 minutes, Batch Sparge to total boil volume of 6.57 Gallons

Strike: 19.5qt at 165

Hops:
1oz Northern Brewer (8.5%) at 60 minutes
1oz Tettnang (4.5%) at 15 minutes

Yeast:
WYeast 2035 American Lager with Starter

Secondary:
0.5lb Candied/Coated Pecans @ 12 days

Did I miss something? I am terrified/excited to be torn apart. Ask everything and lets see if I give a good response. Thanks everyone!

Chad

 

[bwomp313]

Hello, I did the same thing with the lurking, so I understand your quandary. As to the recipe, personally I might lower the amount of crystal down to at most a pound. 1 1/2 lbs will add a lot of sweetness. I'm not sure what kinds of qualities using the pecans will add although I'm very interested to find out. It says they're candied/coated, I'm assuming that's with sugar? Also, have you thought of maybe using victory/biscuit/special roast? And are you using lager yeast because you want it to be cleaner/crisper?

 

[Crayz]

I am also not sure what the pecans will add. I searched all around, and noticed some people said fresh or raw pecans add a strong astringent character. Then I saw a response from BoZzyFresh on another Pecan related beer that suggest candied pecans. He also had a link here http://www.examiner.com/x-27891-Seattle-Home-Brewing-Examiner~y2009m12d1-Croute-de-Pecan-Biere-A-Pecan-Pie-Ale for a pecan porter so I took the advice to heart.

I did consider a biscuit malt; and I also originally had wheat malt in the mix to aid is creaminess, but decided to simplify things and just stick with the Vienna in place of the two. Figured the maltiness of Vienna would be a good fit with what I am trying to achieve. Good idea or bad? Didn't want to get too complicated in my beginning stages of AG with too many grains.

Also I looked up commercial beers to see what they had, and Lazy Magnolia in MS had a pecan beer. I based some of my malt and hop choices from them as well.

Lager yeast was a choice because:

I like the clean taste of a lager and I want to see more lagers with flavor that compares to ales. (Coney Island has a some great lagers that have ale based flavors, to me anyways)
I like the thought of substituting lager for ale yeast to see how the style changes (and also to see if I can pick up on the change)
Its winter, and my garage here is Washington maintains a nice 55 degree temp so I want to take advantage of it (that is until my fermentation chamber is complete in a month or two)

 

[Crayz]

FYI, pretty much all of my malt profile experience is coming from this site and from books. Anything you guys can add relating to flavor, body, fermentables, color, and how it relates to this style would be awesme!

 

[LexusChris]

Looks like a good recipe, although I would agree that the Crystal should be down around 1#.

Having never used nuts/pecans in a brew, that is the big variable in my mind. I wonder if crushing them beforehand would give you more of the nutty flavor you are looking for.

Good Luck!
--lexuschris

 

[bwomp313]

You could also use a really clean ale yeast; if you can get your hands on rogue's pacman or harvest it; and there's also cry havoc which I've heard can be used as both an ale and a lager yeast to great effect. I've also used Kolsch yeast in quasi lager applications; worked well in a fake oktoberfest type dealy so you might want to look into one of those.

 

[Crayz]

Okay, so I dropped the crystal to 1lb, and increased the 2-row to 8.5. Any other suggestions?