Brown Apricot Recipe?

[Badseed]

There is a local brewery in my area that has a so-so brown ale. One night while out drinking with some friends we somehow ended up mixing this brown ale with 50% apricot ale and voila a great tasting brown with a hint of apricot aroma. Now my goal is to recreate this mutant. I am looking for help as to how I can approach this beast. Obviously a basic brown ale recipe is in order along with some apricot extract. The problem I am running into is that I need to "thin" out the brown ale to resemble the 50/50 mixture that was created at the bar. Any help would be great. Thanks in advance.

I am thinking something along these lines may work. Most of these ingredients are items that I have on hand which is why I chose them. I am sure that there may be some better suited alternatives which I am open to.


Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
6 lbs Briess LME Gold (4.0 SRM) Extract 7 75.0 %
8.0 oz Pale Malt (2 Row) Bel (3.0 SRM) Grain 1 6.3 %
8.0 oz Wheat Malt, Bel (2.0 SRM) Grain 2 6.3 %
4.0 oz Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain 4 3.1 %
4.0 oz Special B Malt (180.0 SRM) Grain 5 3.1 %
4.0 oz Biscuit Malt (23.0 SRM) Grain 3 3.1 %
4.0 oz Special Roast (50.0 SRM) Grain 6 3.1 %
1.00 oz Fuggles [4.50 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 8 17.1 IBUs
1.00 oz Nugget [13.00 %] - Boil 15.0 min Hop 9 24.5 IBUs
0.50 oz Summit [17.00 %] - Aroma Steep 5.0 min Hop 10 0.0 IBUs
4.00 oz Apricot Extract (Bottling 0.0 mins) Flavor 11 -

 

[Badseed]

Any help?

 

[No_Party]

That looks more like a porter than a brown ale. Love the idea though.

 

[KozHops]

I really like this idea. I did a few apricot beers in the summer and they were all fan favorites. I was wondering myself if a nut brown ale with some pecans or something in the mash would be good with the apricots (that would be all grain though). Looking at your recipe, I would personally ditch the special roast, and up the biscuit to 8 oz. I am not an extract brewer so I don't know where crystal fits into the mix but I like about 10-15% crystal malts in a brown ale.

Also, I would ditch the extract. I went to the grocery store and bought apricots in a can (in pear juice, no corn syrup or other chemicals) and they worked great. I used 1 lb/gallon so it only cost me about $5.50 total for a 5 gallon batch. Probably the same cost as the extract. The only thing I did was strain out the pear juice and pureed the apricots and added them to the secondary.

Good luck with this and keep us updated.

 

[Badseed]

Basically I have a nut brown kit from Northerbrewer which I think would be a good starting point for the brown. With the rest of the ingredients I am trying to help thin the mix out a bit similar to our concoction of using 50% brown ale and 50% apricot ale. The reason I am choosing to use the extract is because from everything I have read, most people seem to agree that the notable apricot flavor in Pyramid Apricot Ale is from an extract. I am hoping insight from a few good brewers will help make this a reality because damn it was good.

Any ideas on yeast?

 

[No_Party]

I have heard the same about the extract. There is so much room for error with the real fruit. I have a Gluten-Free Apricot Ale going that I used extract on and it's great.

 

[Badseed]

If you dont mind, what ingedients did you use for your apricot ale? AS you can see, I tried to create a single recipe out of two very differnt recipies; a brown and hopefully a apricot ale. What are your opinions of the apricot ale ingredients?

Malt extract for both
6# Gold malt syrup

Apricot Ale - (to be adjusted as needed)
4oz apricot extract
.5# Belgian Pale Malt 3.2L
.5# White Wheat Malt 3.1L
1oz Nugget (15 min)
.5oz Summit (1 min)

Brown- from NorthernBrewer (to be adjusted as needed)
.25# chocolate malt
.25# Belgian special B
.25# Belgian Biscuit
.25# Briess Special Roast
1oz fuggle hops (60 min)

 

[KozHops]

If you dont mind, what ingedients did you use for your apricot ale? AS you can see, I tried to create a single recipe out of two very differnt recipies; a brown and hopefully a apricot ale. What are your opinions of the apricot ale ingredients?

Malt extract for both
6# Gold malt syrup

Apricot Ale - (to be adjusted as needed)
4oz apricot extract
.5# Belgian Pale Malt 3.2L
.5# White Wheat Malt 3.1L
1oz Nugget (15 min)
.5oz Summit (1 min)

Brown- from NorthernBrewer (to be adjusted as needed)
.25# chocolate malt
.25# Belgian special B
.25# Belgian Biscuit
.25# Briess Special Roast
1oz fuggle hops (60 min)

I have the apricot ale in my recipe drop down. It's basically 2-row, munich, honey malt and c-60.

 

[Badseed]

Awesome thanks. How do you think it compares to the Pyramid Apricot Ale? Apparently no one has been able to accurately reproduce the taste of the Pyramid so I tried to use the same ingredients that they claim are used in the mixture to more closely reproduce the fruity beast that we created.

 

[KozHops]

I've never had Pyramid so I couldn't really compare. I know Pyramid is made with wheat but I'm not much of a wheat beer guy at all.

I gave this out to a bunch of co-workers and some of my in-laws and this beer got the highest reviews of any brews I've done. Some people thought it was a pale ale and some thought it was a wheat. The ahtanum hops were very subdued and the apricot flavor and aroma really shine in this beer.

 

[Badseed]

Here is the link to the Pyramid site with basic ingredients listed

Link

Original Gravity: 11.75
Alcohol by Volume: 5.1%
IBU: 11
Malts:
50% 2 Row Pale Barley, 50% Malted Wheat
Hops:
Nugget or Summit

 

[Badseed]

So I have been trying to formulate a recipe that will emulate the design of the pyramid and basically add it to a brown ale style recipe. Here is what I have but I would really like to get the ABV up to around 5.6% or so. I plan on doing a late extract addition to help keep the OG up. Also, since this is basically a mutant brew of two very different beer styles, will this work out if brewed together or would it be better to make up two separate batches? Ideas/suggestions?

Thoughts
1. Yeast selection, any other opinions?
3. 4 or 8 oz of extract? Some people say that 4 oz is not enough for a solid apricot flavor.

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 6.27 gal
Post Boil Volume: 5.52 gal
Batch Size (fermenter): 5.00 gal
Bottling Volume: 4.78 gal
Estimated OG: 1.044 SG
Estimated Color: 21.2 SRM
Estimated IBU: 36.5 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 85.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 0.0 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
4.0 oz Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain 5 3.0 %
4.0 oz Special B Malt (180.0 SRM) Grain 7 3.0 %
4.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 4 3.0 %
4.0 oz Roasted Barley (300.0 SRM) Grain 6 3.0 %
1.00 oz Willamette [5.50 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 9 22.5 IBUs
0.50 oz Northern Brewer [8.50 %] - Boil 20.0 min Hop 11 10.5 IBUs
0.50 oz Cascade [5.50 %] - Aroma Steep 1.0 min Hop 12 0.0 IBUs
1.0 pkg American Ale II (Wyeast Labs #1272) [124 Yeast 13 -
8.0 oz White Wheat Malt (2.4 SRM) Grain 2 6.1 %
8.0 oz Pale Malt (2 Row) Bel (3.0 SRM) Grain 1 6.1 %
4.0 oz Biscuit Malt (23.0 SRM) Grain 3 3.0 %
4.00 oz Apricot Extract (Bottling 5.0 mins) Flavor 14 -
3 lbs Briess LME Gold (4.0 SRM) Extract 8 36.4 %
3 lbs Briess LME Gold [Boil for20 min](4.0 SRM Extract 10 36.4 %