Recipe Design Question: Nut-Brown Ale malt bill

[strangegreenman]

Hello, homebrewtalk!

I am building a partial mash recipe for a nut-brown["-ish"] ale. I imagine this won't be perfectly on-style, but I am looking to make a beer to strongly feature chocolate malt and northern brewer hops, like a SMaSH but with more ingredients, I am just unsure of comfortable proportions.

My ideal OG is about 1.052, with 25 IBU of Northern brewer. I want to use a mash of 6-row pale malt, chocolate malt, munich or light crystal for sweetness and oatmeal for body, and enough light DME to hit gravity. My question is, how much chocolate malt can I get away with using? Is 10% of the total grist OK? More, less?

TL;DR version: will 10% chocolate malt overwhelm my beer?

 

[bobbrews]

I just looked at 7 different homebrewed and commercial brown ales and noticed anywhere from 0-6% chocolate malt used. On average, it's typically 3.5%. So 6% chocolate malt is more on the high side. You should have a very chocolatey flavor with 5%, but you could always incorporate real chocolate or cacao nibs if that's your thing.

Any reason why you're using 6-row instead of 2-row?

For a 5-gallon batch, this should get your to 1.052 OG and 25 IBUs:

52% 4 lb. Muntons Light DME
20% 1 lb. 8 oz. Maris Otter
13% 1 lb. Munich 9L
10%, Crystal 80L
5%, 6 oz. Briess Chocolate 350L

1/2 oz. EKG @ 60
1/2 oz. EKG @ 30
1/2 oz. EKG @ 15
1 oz. Willamette @ 0

 

[strangegreenman]

Thanks for the tip, bob! As of now I'll float around 6-8% chocolate malt (which is what I want to primarily flavor the beer, so no chocolate nibs [I am a chocolate malt aficionado]). As for the six-row, I understand it has greater enzyme content to convert non-diastatic malts and adjuncts, and makes for an easier sparge. Is there a specific reason you chose Maris Otter?

Also, anyone have thoughts on hops? I'd like to get to know Northern Brewer better, since I've never used it and I hear it has an unusual flavor. If Not, I'm thinking fuggles or EK goldings to make it a Rather English beer.

 

[bobbrews]

Glad to help!

You don't need 6-row for this beer to attenuate well and fully convert. Here are the differences between 2-row and 6-row: http://www.brewingwithbriess.com/Malting101/The_Row_Less_Traveled.htm

Maris Otter (as opposed to American 2-row) will give you more of a rich malty focus. British base malts tend to be a bit more characterful on average to their American cousins. Many brown ales rely on a characterful base malt for that rich, smooth bready flavor to build upon with character malts.

Your sparge will be based on a very miniscule amount of grain (as opposed to the average of 10-16 lbs. of grain that is typically sparged by all grain brewers). I would honestly get ahold of some BIAB nylon mesh bags and dunk sparge in a separate kettle at 170 F-ish to rinse the grains after the mash. It's easy as hell.

Northern Brewer isn't completely out of place in a Brown Ale. But you can't really get to know Northern brewer in a 25 IBU Brown Ale. If you want to learn more about hop character, brew some pale American IPAs.

 

[strangegreenman]

Hmmm... I'm not a huge IPA fan. I like pale ales and bitters, but not so keen on IPA. What I really want to do with NB is use it for bittering and flavoring in an amber spruce beer I'm working on. Could I dry hop with it for more of its flavor?

That maris otter sounds wonderful. I'll definitely try that this time! Also, I use deathbrewer's Partial mash style just about to a T, so I've got the grain bag already. I guess I was just worrying about it too much! Thanks for all your help, I'll post a recipe soon!

 

[strangegreenman]

Alright- malt bill for 5.5 gallons!

6.8% Chocolate malt: 1 pound
5.6% Oatmeal: 0.75 pound
7.5% Munich: 1 pound
16.8% Pale Malt, Maris Otter: 2 pounds
66.6% Dried Malt Extract, 4 pounds

25-30 IBU of Northern Brewer Hops
Dry or Flame-out addition of Northern Brewer (aroma)

Any other thoughts?