Honey Brown recipe analysis

[cheschire]

How does this recipe look for a honey brown ale with a distinct malt character and somewhat balanced hops

9lbs Maris Otter, or 2-row, Ive just heard maris otter has a nicer flavor
1lb Honey malt
1lb Victory
.5lb chocolate malt
.5oz Nugget 11% 60 min
.25oz Perle 8% 30 min
.25oz Saaz 3.4% 30 min
1oz Goldings 4% 5 min

Windsor Dry ale yeast

30 IBU
22 SRM
1.060 OG
5.9%ABV

I added the .25 of Perle and Saaz at 30 minutes because they are extra from my last batch

Im sure those of you who are more experienced with the flavor profiles of grains will have somewhat of an idea how this might turn out tasting... Good? Bad? Should I use 2-row or Maris Otter?

 

[HotbreakHotel]

Just my opinion:

Maris Otter would be great in this.

If it were mine I would drop the chocolate to maybe 2-2.5%. At 5% the beer will come out very dark brown, and the chocolate flavor may be overwhelming.

I think the hops are a little to the hoppy side if you're wanting to really show of the malt character -- if it were mine I'd take a little off the 30 and 60 minute additions. I think the goldings at the end will be nice.

 

[944play]

I dislike Windsor yeast. It takes forever to clear, yet is not very attenuative. S-04 is a really nice dry yeast for brown ales (and milds and porters and...).

I think I'm on a "S-04 is awesome" tear this morning.

 

[cheschire]

alright, thanks for the input. I think I might go with 4oz of chocolate and 4 oz of roasted barley and cut both the 30 minute additions in half.

As for the windsor yeast, its the only decent dry yeast available other than smackpacks but those are about $12 when they do just about the same job

 

[Malticulous]

I like Windsor.

 

[drengel1]

i wouldnt use the roasted barley at all, and would drop the chocolate down to a maximum of four ounces. definitely would add caramel malt otherwise its gonna wind up a flat, dull, ugly brown color. you want ruby highlights in there and the sweetness from the caramel malt. would maybe add some special roast or a light munich malt in as well. if you want to spend the money on maris otter then you should certainly use it.

if you really want to use that extra half ounce of hops i would use them as bittering rather than flavor. the spicy noble hop charcteristics of those arent going to play in well with a brown. i would just save those for a blonde or kolsch or something that they would work better with and drop the extra three bucks on some more fuggles or something else that has a more earthy profile.