Recipe advice please.

[rockymtnbrewer]

I'm relatively new to creating my own recipes and altering water, please tell me what you think. My plan is to make a brown ale somewhere between a NE and American.

Eldorado Springs water(100%):
Calcium 11.4
Magnesium 3.4
Sodium 6.2
Chloride .97
Sulfate 20
Bicarbonate 35.5

Water additions
2 g. Gypsum
5 g. Calcium chloride

Grains
9 lbs. MO or Am. Pale
1 lb. Brown malt
.5 lb. Crystal 120
.25 lb. Roasted barley

Hops
A combination of cascade and willamette to get about 30 Ibu

Yeast
Dry yeast, have not decided.

I plan to do a single infusion mash with 3.4 gal. @165-166 (152-153) for 60 min.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[dmtaylor]

Looks like a pretty good recipe to me. The only thing I question is the amount of roasted barley. Might want to bring that down from 4 oz to 3 oz, and perhaps add an extra 4 oz brown malt to compensate for the color loss. Otherwise, heck, I think I'd drink an awful lot of this stuff.

For yeast I would not go with Notty or even S-04 as they might attenuate too highly. I haven't used Munton's ale yeast lately but perhaps consider that one since it is only supposed to attenuate to about 70%. I wouldn't want this beer to dry out too much, but this comes down to personal preference. If you don't mind a dry beer then consider the others. In any case, try to ferment in the low 60s F if possible, and with any of these yeasts, fermentation should be done very quickly in a matter of just 3-4 days but wait a week just to be safe.

 

[kh54s10]

It looks good to me also. I don't have a grasp on water yet as I have just started making adjustments. I would not count out Notty or S-04. Those are 2 yeasts I use quite often. I think they work well in a brown. I haven't heard anything good about Muntons yeasts. Maybe they are getting better.

BTW, what is a NE Brown ale?

 

[Oginme]

I agree with dmtaylor about the roasted barley. I would recommend exchanging it for a debittered malt (black prince or carafa special) to lessen the roasty notes. An alternative would be to use pale chocolate malt in place of the roasted barley. Personally, I don't care for a strong roast character in a brown ale. For me, it moves it closer to a porter in style.

On the yeast front, I would not hesitate to use either the Nottingham or S-04, but to compensate for the attenuation raise your mash temperature up to 156F - 158F.

 

[dmtaylor]

to compensate for the attenuation raise your mash temperature up to 156F - 158F.

And shorten mash time to 30 minutes, that would help even more.