Possible brown ale recipes

[Jloewe]

Looking to maybe make a brown ale. Thought up a couple recipes

extract
6lbs marris otter lme
.25 special B
.25 English dark crystal
.25 Carmel 60
.25 chocolate malt

or a slightly heavier partial mash BIAB
6lbs lbs marris otter LME with 2lbs marris otter grain
.5 special B
.5 English dark crystal
.25 caramel 60
.25 chocolate malt

probably 1oz fuggles at 60 and 1oz at 10

most likely saf-04, but not married to it.

am I on the right track?

 

[tracer bullet]

Definitely on the right track.

I've done a recipe a few times with slight variations, I can tell you my thoughts but these may not suit your own taste buds. I like Caramel 40 more than 60, pulls it back a little more towards caramel or toffee and away from fruity (there's an example, you may think a little fruity sounds great and caramel boring). I like some brown or pale chocolate along with chocolate, I perceive the brown as being like light roasted coffee along with some very toasted white bread, and pale chocolate as being fairly nutty (again you may perceive these differently). I do like a little victory in this one, I equate it to nutty / toasted / fancy crackers. I put some golden naked oats in my last one, half a pound in a 5 gallon beer, didn't notice them but made other changes at the same time. Munching on them tastes like a granola bar, I'll try putting more in next time. Not sure I can recommend it but it's a consideration.

I've been using fuggles, it suits dark beers well. But I may move over to EKG goldings for the next one. I love it in an ESB and turns out I like it a lot in my porter as well which is obviously dark (but I'll for sure keep fuggles in my stout).

I think the yeast will make the beer if the rest is decent. I'm still working out that one. I've been using 1098 British but want to try 1318 London III or 1469 Yorkshire next. I am sure S-04 would also be a good choice.

All that said you may as well run your recipe, and hopefully you have time to try it again and again with small changes until you perfect it.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

Assuming a 5 gal batch, target OG appears to be 43-ish (all extract), 53-ish (partial mash)

So definitely not an 'American' Brown Ale.

There are a number of clone recipes for popular commercial brown ales. Which commercial brown ales do you enjoy?

I'll suggest shortening the boil time to 30 minutes for the all extract batch.

 

[Steveruch]

I'll suggest shortening the boil time to 30 minutes for the all extract batch.

You can go even shorter and get good results.

 

[Jloewe]

Assuming a 5 gal batch, target OG appears to be 43-ish (all extract), 53-ish (partial mash)

So definitely not an 'American' Brown Ale.

There are a number of clone recipes for popular commercial brown ales. Which commercial brown ales do you enjoy?

I'll suggest shortening the boil time to 30 minutes for the all extract batch.

Honestly I’m sure I’ve had one but can’t really remember it. I know I like a lot of dark malty ales. Love stouts and porters. I’ll let making a scotch ale the same week so I was thinking of making something a little lower gravity so it’s done sooner and I can stagger bottling but keeping with the roasty malty flavor.

 

[Coastalbrew]

Brown ale is one of my favorite styles to brew. I have a favorite recipe that I brew every year. My recipe is a little different from yours, but man I love it! I just brewed a partial mash version early this week that is just about done fermenting. This is the all grain recipe, but for the partial mash I just substituted golden light DME for the 2 row, using the conversion on the AHA website, and mashed the rye and other specialty grains as normal.

5.5 G batch, mash @ 152* for 60 min

OG 1.057
FG 1.010

Grains
6.5# 2 row
3# rye malt
2# biscuit
.75# chocolate malt 350L
.5# C60
Hops
.75 oz Columbus @60
.25 oz Columbus @ 20
1 oz Willamette @ 5

Add 0.5 oz of crushed caraway seeds in a hop bag, @ 5 minutes left in boil. Pull the bag @ flameout. Gives a great spiciness almost like pumpernickel bread.

Yeast
Wlp007 dry English ale or Nottingham also works very well
Ferment @ 67*

Cheers!

 

[Erik the Anglophile]

I made one recently, my third edition of a recipe I am working on and I was really pleased with this.
Maris Otter as base
Crystal 7% ( I usually do a 50/50 mix of Crisp's C-150 and 240)
Crisp Brown malt 5%
Biscuit or something equivalent 5%
Pale chocolate 3%
Light muscovado sugar 4%

Boil 90 min and add about 0.7g/L of First Gold at 15 min left, aim for just over 20 IBU if I remember correctly from my head.
OG of 1.044 and use a "true"(hence the dash of sugar) English yeast, mash to aim for mid-high 70's AA.
This is my attempt at a more Northern English style brown, a little paler brown color, a little drier and a toasty, nutty character. The subtle hint of orange from the late FG went really well with the nutty roasty/toasty flavour IMO.

 

[duncan_disorderly]

Special B is a Belgian malt of course, wouldn't be found in an English beer, but nothing wrong with using it as part of the crystal element of the recipe if you want!

Pale chocolate malt makes a nice variation from regular choc malt.

I tend to put around 5% dark brown sugar in my brown ales. It came from a recipe I used years ago and I just stuck with it.

I have found the Lalbrew Verdant yeast to be great in brown ales and porters.

 

[BrewnWKopperKat]

I'll suggest shortening the boil time to 30 minutes for the all extract batch.

You can go even shorter and get good results.

Agreed. 15 minute boil recipes and "no boil (pasteurized)" recipes can be found here at HomebrewTalk.

Zymurgy magazine (2019, 2020) also published some of your "no boil" recipes - which, at the time, used DME/LME in ways that were unique and are still rarely seen.

Converting a recipe from a 60 min boil to a 30 min boil is easy (and fail-safe) with recipe software. I haven't brewed enough with 15 min boil or "no boil" to be able to offer the same "easy and fail-safe" approach to adjusting a recipe.

 

[bwible]

Have you ever used Special B before? I ask because it’s a love/hate grain. Some people love it, others absolutely hate it. I’d try it sparingly if you haven’t used it before.

 

[bwible]

And yes, this looks much more like an English Brown ale recipe than American. For an American, your gravity should be closer to 60 and you don’t use Fuggles. You use “C” hops. Chinook, Centennial, Cascade, etc

 

[tracer bullet]

Crystal 7% ( I usually do a 50/50 mix of Crisp's C-150 and 240)

Interesting! I had backed down my lovibond on this and was hoping for an interesting yeast flavor to get more closer to a Sam Smith's type beer (not a clone exactly but as a point of inspiration). These crystals might get things there as well. I can't get these locally (even though Northern Brewer and Midwest Supplies are both ~ 15-20 minutes form me) but will have to order some to check out.

Kind of an example as mentioned earlier that there are many brown ale styles to choose from. This would be a terrible option for some of them but might be perfect for others.

 

[Jloewe]

Have you ever used Special B before? I ask because it’s a love/hate grain. Some people love it, others absolutely hate it. I’d try it sparingly if you haven’t used it before.

No I haven’t. It kind of has a description of what I’m looking for. The burnt sugar dark fruit idea. Sounds great for a holiday ale.