Nut Brown Ale advice

[joshesmusica]

Hey everyone, so I'm wanting to a bit of an experiment here. First, I like nut brown ales, and so does my wife, which only means that I get to keep brewing more and more and buying lots of crazy **** when I brew things she likes! Secondly, I started getting thoughts in my head about doing some flavor and aroma hops on top of a nut brown to see if I could find something that could compliment that nutty/biscuity flavor. Third, I'm really interested in these new german hops coming out, and my brew store just happened to get a pretty good supply of them, so I thought i better buy some before people buy them up!

So here's my recipe I've come up with. Still learning about percentages of special malts and stuff, but come up with a color that seems good, and researched each malt and what they bring to the table. Can you give me some suggestions on anything I should improve?

Batch Size (fermenter): 25.00 l
Bottling Volume: 24.17 l
Estimated OG: 1.057 SG
Estimated Color: 36.0 EBC
Estimated IBU: 26.2 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 65.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 0.0 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
0.45 kg Caramel/Crystal Malt - 80L (120.0 EBC) Grain 1 8.1 %
0.28 kg Brown Malt (180.0 EBC) Grain 2 5.0 %
0.22 kg Caraamber (70.0 EBC) Grain 3 3.9 %
0.13 kg Chocolate Malt (600.0 EBC) Grain 4 2.3 %
1.50 kg LME Munich (Briess) (20.0 EBC) Extract 5 26.9 %
30.00 g Fuggles [4.50 %] - Boil 45.0 min Hop 6 9.3 IBUs
20.00 g Fuggles [4.50 %] - Boil 15.0 min Hop 7 3.4 IBUs
1.50 kg DME Golden Light (Briess) [Boil for 1 mi Dry Extract 8 26.9 %
1.50 kg LME Pilsen Light (Briess) [Boil for 1 mi Extract 9 26.9 %
20.00 g Hallertau Blanc [9.00 %] - Steep/Whirlpo Hop 10 4.1 IBUs
1.5 pkg SafAle English Ale (DCL/Fermentis #S-04) Yeast 11 -
20.00 g Hallertau Blanc [9.00 %] - Dry Hop 5.0 D Hop 12 0.0 IBUs

A few comments about the recipe:
the crystal malt is one that apparently only my lhbs has, aka it's likely one the maltsters (thomas fawcett and sons) messed up and sold to a low-profile norwegian hbs. it's not one they generally offer. but it's supposed to be practically like their normal crystal malt (described as giving a fresh toast and caramel flavor without toppling over to burnt raisin).
they don't have biscuit malt, and the caraamber is one i found is supposedly a substitute.
the chocolate malt is actually a pale chocolate malt by TF&S.
the munich extract was just me thinking it should add a little more complexity to the profile, but it could be overdoing it i suppose.

 

[joshesmusica]

Either it's looking good, or it's so bad nobody can even help? [emoji6]

 

[joshesmusica]

Trying one more time here... Gonna brew this on Wednesday and don't want 25l of something that's gonna taste like ****

 

[chickypad]

Since you're not getting traffic I'll chime in, I'm more experienced with American style browns but I've got what I hope is something in this style just finishing primary now. The main thing I would say is that I don't think caraamber is a good sub for biscuit, it's a caramel malt from Weyermann. I think you'd be better off with victory. Seems like most nut browns call for either some biscuit/victory, or special roast (which is what my recipe was supposed to have but I couldn't get so I subbed victory). I also think maris otter extract would be a good base in this but I know it can be hard to find.
Good luck with it!

 

[PGEduardo]

Wish I could help, but I'm definitely no expert. My only advice is to follow someone else's recipe (plenty on this forum in the Recipes section) that is well-liked. After brewing it once, tweak it to suit your tastes...

 

[Samuelouellette]

+1 on victory malt

 

[joshesmusica]

unfortunately, here are the malts I have to work with:
http://www.bryggselv.no/categories/malt-og-korn1

so no MO extract. but at least they have victory. originally i had biscuit malt, but didn't realize victory was a better sub for it. and weyermann's site said that caraamber was a sub for it. so i'll go with victory. will this be ok with having the munich extract in there though?

i am actually tweaking this recipe from something i've seen on here, but i wanted to attempt to have it with more aroma hops. this new german hop is supposedly a lot like nelson sauvin. so i was thinking it's almost like have a berry nutty biscuit, which could be good.

also was wondering about the amounts of each malt. i'll just be steeping them, but still want to get the right amounts in there.

 

[chickypad]

I see that in some places Weyermann's caraamber is referred to as their "biscuit", but then they clearly list it under caramel malts on their site. Their names are confusing, I think they choose them that way so they can trademark them, but I really think it's just their medium/low lovibond crystal. Amber malt on the other hand that is listed at your LHBS is a toasted malt, to me is seems to come through like a strong victory, maybe a touch roastier. I think the victory is a good choice though to sub in the caraamber/original biscuit slot, and you've already got the crystal 80.