Need Stout advice

[azazel1024]

Okay, I am trying to decide between two different styles of stouts to brew this Sunday.

The yeast is WLP005 English Ale yeast (non-negotiable, that is the English yeast I have on hand, and I am not about to culture a slant from the Nottingham I have in my milds).

I am thinking about either an English dry stout or an English style honey stout. Here would be the two recipes, please let me know your thoughts on them, which one you might pick (maybe why?) and any tweaks.

3 Gallon recipe

English Dry Stout
4lbs 2-row
2/3lb Roasted Barley
2/3lb Brown malt
2oz Chocolate malt
Mash 148F
1/4oz Target 10.5% AA 45min
1/4oz Target 10.5% AA 5min
1/2oz Target 10.5% AA Flame out
WLP005 Yeast
22IBU 35SRM 1.049OG 1.012FG (hopefully a couple of points lower with the low mash temp)

English Honey Stout
4lbs 2-row
1/2lb Roasted Barley
2/3lb Coffee Malt
4oz Honey malt
4oz Crystal 40L
Mash 150F
1/4oz Target 10.5% AA 30min
1/4oz Target 10.5% AA 5min
1/2oz Target 10.5% AA flame out
WLP005 Yeast
19IBU 35SRM 1.050OG 1.014FG

Thoughts? Opinions? I'd like to try out the Target hops, but maybe saving them for something else and using maybe just half an ounce of Willamette (7.7% AA) at 45 minutes and no other hop addition might be a bit more on style for either. I would like the Honey stout to still be on the dry side, with just a bit of honey in there.

 

[m00ps]

I think they both looks pretty good. Low mash temp for any type of stout though, I might up that a bit. I mash my stouts at 154-155, even my Dry Rye Irish stout. If you want the honey flavor to come through, you could use some real honey in the fermentor in addition to the honey malt. I've done this with a number of Belgians and Pale ales and it works great