Brown Ale Recipe Critique

[amartinez]

I'm calling this one ***** Brown, it's a cross between the grain bill of Grand Teton's ***** Creek ESB with the hop schedule of Janet's Brown from Brewing Classic Styles. I was hoping for something with a strong malt base with a nice hop presence. What do you guys think?


Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
9 lbs Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM) Grain 1 64.3 %
1 lbs 8.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 3 10.7 %
1 lbs Caraaroma (130.0 SRM) Grain 4 7.1 %
2 lbs Melanoiden Malt (20.0 SRM) Grain 2 14.3 %
8.0 oz Caraamber (30.0 SRM) Grain 5 3.6 %
1.00 oz Northern Brewer [8.50 %] - Mash 60.0 min Hop 6 5.5 IBUs
1.25 oz Northern Brewer [8.50 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 7 34.5 IBUs
1.00 oz Northern Brewer [8.50 %] - Boil 15.0 min Hop 8 13.7 IBUs
1.50 oz Cascade [5.50 %] - Boil 10.0 min Hop 9 9.7 IBUs
1.50 oz Cascade [5.50 %] - Boil 0.0 min Hop 10 0.0 IBUs
2.00 oz Centennial [10.00 %] - Dry Hop 7.0 Days Hop 12 0.0 IBUs
1.0 pkg London Ale (White Labs #WLP013) [35.49 m Yeast 11 -

Mash 156 for 60 minutes

 

[jescholler]

That's quite a bit of "cara" malts. You might want to be closer to 10% total, especially with that high mash temperature. I would still bring the mash temp down about 2 degrees.

Also, brown ales usually showcase some chocolate malt. It's much less common, but some have roasted barley or black patent. You might have more of an amber style grain bill (which makes sense since you modeled it after an ESB). If you want a brown ale, I would suggest using about 3-6% chocolate malt.

 

[Bacon488]

I'm with jescholler. I would dial the cara malts back a good bit and add some chocolate. 21% Caraaroma/Crystal 60L/Caraamber is a lot. I did a dark mild--basically a low-hop low-gravity brown--with about 7% Crystal 60L (also 7% Chocolate) that ended up with a fantastic malt profile.

It really depends on what you're going for. I looked at Grand Teton's page and see that you're using similar malts. If I read you correctly, I think that you're trying not to stray too far from the ***** Creek grain bill, but I bet that they use a higher proportion of the base malt and less of the others. FWIW, Janet's Brown uses some chocolate, and I think that with higher IBUs the chocolate malt complexity will be a nice counterpoint.

 

[amartinez]

Amt Name Type # %/IBU
8 lbs 8.0 oz Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM) Grain 1 65.4 %
1 lbs Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 2 7.7 %
1 lbs Melanoiden Malt (20.0 SRM) Grain 3 7.7 %
8.0 oz Caraamber (30.0 SRM) Grain 4 3.8 %
8.0 oz Caraaroma (130.0 SRM) Grain 5 3.8 %
8.0 oz Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain 6 3.8 %



I actually pulled the ***** Creek recipe from a 2005 issue of BYO that they had the recipe in, the only change I had made was changing the base grain from domestic two row to marris otter.

So I dialed back the caras and the crystal, dropped the MO a little, and added some brown sugar and chocolate malt to round out the flavors. I wanted to bring the abv down a bit to make is a little more sessionable.

 

[jescholler]

Looks pretty good, although I don't see the brown sugar.

 

[Bacon488]

I actually pulled the ***** Creek recipe from a 2005 issue of BYO that they had the recipe in

Wow. No kidding! Just goes to show that there's no wrong way to brew. Good luck!

 

[amartinez]

Oops, since the sugar is a boil addition it must have put it below the first wort hops. I only added half a pound of light brown sugar, which is 4% of the sugars. I also brought the hops down a bit too, I wasn't paying too much attention and was a bit shocked when I noticed it was at almost 100 IBUs.

I'm pretty happy with where it's at right now, it's at least something I want to try out and see where to go from there.

Thanks for the input guys!

Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
8 lbs 8.0 oz Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM) Grain 1 68.0 %
1 lbs Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 2 8.0 %
1 lbs Melanoiden Malt (20.0 SRM) Grain 3 8.0 %
8.0 oz Caraamber (30.0 SRM) Grain 4 4.0 %
8.0 oz Caraaroma (130.0 SRM) Grain 5 4.0 %
8.0 oz Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain 6 4.0 %
1.00 oz Northern Brewer [8.50 %] - First Wort 60 Hop 7 31.3 IBUs
8.0 oz Brown Sugar, Light (8.0 SRM) Sugar 8 4.0 %
0.50 oz Northern Brewer [8.50 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 9 14.2 IBUs
1.00 oz Northern Brewer [8.50 %] - Boil 15.0 min Hop 10 14.1 IBUs
1.50 oz Cascade [5.50 %] - Boil 10.0 min Hop 11 10.0 IBUs
1.50 oz Cascade [5.50 %] - Boil 0.0 min Hop 12 0.0 IBUs
1.0 pkg London Ale (White Labs #WLP013) [35.49 m Yeast 13 -
2.00 oz Centennial [10.00 %] - Dry Hop 7.0 Days Hop 14 0.0 IBUs

Mash at 154