Second opinion? Nutbrown ale recipe

[scottatdrake]

Hi, all. I'm putting together my own recipe for the first time and would love to hear your thoughts on this one. My intention is to brew a nice easy-drinking nut brown ale with (hopefully) some complexity in the flavor-- hence the longer grain bill. Something non-craft beer drinking friends might dig.

Whaddya think? Any feedback is appreciated!


BeerSmith 2 Recipe Printout - BeerSmith Home Brewing Software, Recipes, Podcast and Blog
Recipe: The Brown Note
Brewer: Scott Phillips
Asst Brewer:
Style: American Brown Ale
TYPE: All Grain
Taste: (30.0)

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 7.32 gal
Post Boil Volume: 5.82 gal
Batch Size (fermenter): 5.50 gal
Bottling Volume: 5.40 gal
Estimated OG: 1.052 SG
Estimated Color: 20.7 SRM
Estimated IBU: 24.9 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 72.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 73.3 %
Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
8 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 1 70.6 %
1 lbs Caramel/Crystal Malt - 80L (80.0 SRM) Grain 2 8.8 %
1 lbs Special Roast (50.0 SRM) Grain 3 8.8 %
8.0 oz Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM) Grain 4 4.4 %
8.0 oz Victory Malt (25.0 SRM) Grain 5 4.4 %
5.3 oz Roasted Barley (300.0 SRM) Grain 6 2.9 %
0.50 oz Centennial [10.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 7 18.5 IBUs
0.25 oz Willamette [5.50 %] - Boil 30.0 min Hop 8 3.9 IBUs
0.25 oz Willamette [5.50 %] - Boil 15.0 min Hop 9 2.5 IBUs
1.0 pkg American Ale (Wyeast Labs #1056) [124.21 Yeast 10 -


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Medium Body, Batch Sparge
Total Grain Weight: 11 lbs 5.3 oz
----------------------------
Name Description Step Temperature Step Time
Mash In Add 3.54 gal of water at 171.1 F 152.0 F 60 min

Sparge: Batch sparge with 2 steps (1.48gal, 3.66gal) of 168.0 F water
Notes:
------


Created with BeerSmith 2 - BeerSmith Home Brewing Software, Recipes, Podcast and Blog
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

[HopToItHomebrew]

Personally, I'd drop the roasted barley. It may be a little over the top roasty instead of nutty. I like the addition of more victory or belgian aromatic instead of so much special roast. Also, since you're using almost 3# of modified malt, I'd either suggest mashing really low (say 149-150F) for ~80 mins or cut down on some of them. If not I'd worry about having too much unfermentable sugar in the final product leaving you with a sweeter, non-fully attenuated beer. I made this mistake recently on a stout..

I'd do something like this:

8#Pale malt, 4oz Special Roast, 8oz Carapils, 10oz Victory, 8oz Belgian Aromatic, 8oz Cara80 - mash @ 153F for ~80mins

 

[scottatdrake]

Thanks for the great suggestions, HopToIt.

One reason for the roasted barley was color. Any suggestions for darkening this thing without it? I already moved from Crystal 40 to 60 to 80 trying to do that and the rest of the grains are all pretty light.

Thanks for the mash temp/attenuation suggestion. I hadn't considered the effect of the percentage of modified malts.

 

[dmckean44]

Sweeter might not be too bad in a nut brown but mashing low is probably best the first time you make it. I'd add some british chocolate malt instead of roasted barely.

I'd maybe divide up the crystal addition so instead of an entire pound of crystal 80 do like:

4 oz crystal 40L
4 oz crystal 60L
4 oz crystal 80L
2 oz crystal 100L
2 oz crystal 120L

That would give you tons of different caramel flavors and complexity.

 

[HopToItHomebrew]

no prob! For color w/not much taste imparted I'd go with an ounce - 2oz of debittered black. I've run the suggested recipe through an SRM calculator here: Beer Color Calculator SRM | Brewer's Friend and I think this would be pretty close unless you went another route and decided to use brown malt as a base.

Also, I added another pound of 2-row because the OG was coming out too low (1.04ish). I didn't add the debittered black below, but you can expect the SRM to be upwards of 19 when added.

IBU_19.2_ Estimated OG_1.052_ Estimated FG_1.010 Estimated Alc_5.5% SRM 10.86

Grain: 9#Pale malt, 4oz Special Roast, 8oz Carapils, 10oz Victory, 8oz Belgian Aromatic, 8oz Cara80 - mash @ 152/3F for ~80mins

Hops:
Bittering: GR Northern Brewer – .75oz - 60 mins
Flavor: NA
Aroma: UK Fuggle - .25oz – 5 mins

Yeast: White Labs Dry English Ale yeast

 

[Alchemist42]

As for color, you could easily change out Crystal 80 to a Crystal 120, and in lieu of the Roast Barely, go for a couple ounces of Chocolate Malt.

Special B (180 L) instead of Special roast will also brown you up nicely.

 

[JimTheHick]

I love the name! The Brown Note.

For the recipe, +1 to spec B and carafa II/III