Stout recipe--specialty malts 10%?

I keep reading 10% max specialty grains for the grist bill (example http://byo.com/american-amber-pale-ale/item/1477-the-dark-secrets-of-stout) on a stout but just throwing together a quick recipe based on what I see around on NB and HBT, all of these seem to go way over 10%.

So will this be OK? Will it be much thicker/heavier? On the below, BeerSmith is saying 31 SRM. If I take out the chocolate it goes down to 23.5 SRM.

I'm just looking to do a pretty basic stout but I only have 1 pound each of Roasted barley, Chocolate malt, also have C20 and C120 and maltodextrin on hand if those would help.

14 oz roasted barley 300 SRM (13.3%)
7 oz chocolate malt 350 SRM (6.7%)

2.25 oz Brewer's Gold 7% - around 41 IBUs

Light DME 5.25 pounds (1.047 OG)
I'm using US-05.

Thanks.

I recently did a foreign export clone using 72.3% pilsner, 13.7% Flaked barley, 6.1% chocolate, 4.9 roasted barley and 2.9 flaked oats and it is wonderful!

Sheldon

I did a stout with:

11 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 68.8 %
1 lbs Caramel/Crystal Malt - 80L (80.0 SRM) Grain 6.3 %
1 lbs Victory Malt (25.0 SRM) Grain 6.3 %
1 lbs Roasted Barley (Simpsons) (550.0 SRM) Grain 6.3 %
1 lbs Barley, Flaked (1.7 SRM) Grain 6.3 %
12.0 oz Chocolate Malt (450.0 SRM) Grain 4.7 %
4.0 oz Black (Patent) Malt (500.0 SRM) Grain 1.6 %

It was delicious. I used US-05 and mashed at 156. Finished at 1.020. So, yeah you can go well over 10% with specialties, as you see I went over 10% just with the dark roasted grains.

pjcampbell said:

I keep reading 10% max specialty grains for the grist bill (example http://byo.com/american-amber-pale-ale/item/1477-the-dark-secrets-of-stout) on a stout but just throwing together a quick recipe based on what I see around on NB and HBT, all of these seem to go way over 10%.

Click to expand...

I'm not sure you're reading that right. The article says that the dark grains in average gravity stouts hover around 10%. It doesn't say that has to be the max, and a couple of the recipes in that article have more than that. They mention crystal and adjuncts but don't give percentages.

Designing Great Beers mentions an average of 10% roasted barley for typical stouts with other grains like black, chocolate, and crystal often in combo with the roasted barley in the range of 4-9% each. Jamil in his American stout article in BYO says 10% average for dark roasted grains (range 7-15%) plus 5-10% crystal and 0-5% other grains/adjuncts.

Looks like your recipe is on the high end percentage-wise for roasted grains, but I see you're using the less roasted 300L barley and also not one of the higher roasted English chocolate malts so you may be fine.

pjcampbell said:

I keep reading 10% max specialty grains for the grist bill (example http://byo.com/american-amber-pale-ale/item/1477-the-dark-secrets-of-stout) on a stout but just throwing together a quick recipe based on what I see around on NB and HBT, all of these seem to go way over 10%.

So will this be OK? Will it be much thicker/heavier? On the below, BeerSmith is saying 31 SRM. If I take out the chocolate it goes down to 23.5 SRM.

I'm just looking to do a pretty basic stout but I only have 1 pound each of Roasted barley, Chocolate malt, also have C20 and C120 and maltodextrin on hand if those would help.

14 oz roasted barley 300 SRM (13.3%)
7 oz chocolate malt 350 SRM (6.7%)

2.25 oz Brewer's Gold 7% - around 41 IBUs

Light DME 5.25 pounds (1.047 OG)
I'm using US-05.

Thanks.

Click to expand...

If you think about the 5.25 lbs of DME in terms of grain, you're looking at about 8.75 pounds of base malt (making some assumptions about efficiency).

So in that case, your total grain bill is 14 oz + 7 oz + 8.75 lbs = 10.06 lbs. So your 14 ounces of roasted barley is actually 8.7% and the chocolate malt is 4.3%. So not as much as you'd think.

Wow..., that is very interesting. I never realized that. That seems to make much more sense. I'm surprised BeerSmith doesn't correct the % calculation when you select DME.