Adding Chocolate Malt to American Stout Recipe and Staying in BJCP Guidelines

[plankbr]

I have an American Stout recipe I've been brewing for years. It includes chocolate malt. However, in putting this recipe into brewersfriend, the addition of the chocolate malt takes it out of 'style'. I'm a bit perplexed. I'm going to enter this into a competition under American Stout, but was wondering if the chocolate malt should be used or omitted. Will a judge ding me for using chocolate malt in the recipe? Here is the recipe for a 5.5 gallon batch:

Original Gravity: 1.063
Final Gravity: 1.015
ABV (standard): 6.34%
IBU (tinseth): 43.67
SRM (morey): 46.44

FERMENTABLES:
10 lb - American - Pale 2-Row (74.1%)
1 lb - American - Caramel / Crystal 120L (7.4%)
1 lb - American - Roasted Barley (7.4%)
0.75 lb - American - Chocolate (5.6%)
0.5 lb - American - Wheat (3.7%)
0.25 lb - American - Black Malt (1.9%)

HOPS:
0.75 oz - Columbus, Type: Pellet, AA: 15, Use: Boil for 60 min, IBU: 38.96
0.25 oz - Columbus, Type: Pellet, AA: 15, Use: Boil for 10 min, IBU: 4.71


Thoughts from any beer judges on here?

 

[TallDan]

I don't use brewersfriend, but I don't think that putting chocolate malt in is causing it to be flagged as out of style per se, it's more likely that adding the chocolate malt is causing the color to go out of range for the style (BJCP 2008 says SRM: 30 – 40 for American Stout). In fact, reading the BJCP description, it uses the word "chocolate" three times and mentions using a variety of dark malts, so I would definitely consider chocolate malt in-style for it. I used pale chocolate malt in my American Stout.

I also wouldn't worry about being a little dark for the BJCP guidelines. 40 is pretty dark already, nobody is going to say that 45 is too dark IMO. That said, personally, I'd cut back on some of the dark malts. That's more of a personal preference thing though.

 

[m00ps]

Yeah agreed. If anything, the omission of something like roasted barley is what may put you out of style

 

[Qhrumphf]

It's the color.

I've judged the stout category many times, and with stouts, color is easy to get right. The difference between 40 SRM and 80 SRM isn't really perceptible. Once you get into the 30s and go from very dark brown to black, it's all black.

That's a pretty high percentage of roasted malts though. Not necessarily out of style, but more than I would use.