My First All Grain Brew

[eli_adler]

Hi all, this is my first all grain brew (also my first post), and I decided to get a little ahead of myself and make a recipe. it is supposed to be a brown ale/american ale. I just wanted to ask for a little help and make sure the recipe is okay, here it is

Ingredients:
Grains:
10lb 2-Row Malted Barley (Rahr)
4oz Chocolate Malt (Breiss)
5oz Roasted Oats (Home maid)
10oz 40L caramel (Breiss)
Hops:
1/2oz millennium pellet hops
1/4oz mt rainier pellet hops
1oz cascade hops

 

[TANSTAAFB]

When are you adding the hops and what is the alpha acid content of each? The malt bill looks good, you kept it pretty simple. But you might not have enough bitterness to balance it out.

 

[eli_adler]

My hop additions are Millennium (15.5% AA)at 60 minutes, Mt. Rainier (6.5% AA) at 15 minutes and Cascade (about 6% AA)at 8 mins. I have a whole ounce of Millennium and also an ounce of Mt. Rainier. Should I add the whole ounce of Millennium and half an ounce of Rainier instead of a a half ounce of Millennium and a quarter ounce of Rainier? Do I still need more bitterness?

 

[Davidsons]

Your recipe looks good and I would keep your 60minute additions but change your flavor additions and maybe take the cascade from 15min and drop it in are 5-1mins instead.

As far as the grain bill goes; I think it looks good. It really depends on what types of flavors you want the brown to have. From what I can tell it will probably have a light chocolate and caramel flavor. You can add Special B to help enhance the chocolate flavor and Roasted Barley if you want a more coffee/ Espresso flavor.

 

[eli_adler]

Okay, I think ill change my Cascade addition to four minutes, then maybe go pick up a little special B (not looking for a beer that is too strong). So i should keep 1/2 ounce Millennium at 60 mins? What do you mean by changing my flavor additions?

 

[Davidsons]

Your late hop additions are your flavor additions. The 1/2oz at 60 min is your bitter addition and it sounds perfect for a brown ale. Good luck!

 

[TANSTAAFB]

I plugged your recipe into Beersmith and for a 5.5 gal batch I got 1053 OG and about 30 IBUs. It hits everything in the middle of the range for an American Brown Ale except color. If you add 4oz of special B it bumps it slightly and it will add more residual sweetness. A little Special B goes a long way. But you are still really low on color. Jamil's recipe in Brewing Classic Styles has the bitterness a little higher and you could bump your Mt. Ranier to .75 oz or toss another .25 in at 30 minutes. As for the color, he has .5# of chocolate, .25# crystal 60, and .25# of Victory in addition to the crystal 40 and it is still on the low end of the color range. I would not add both special B and crystal 60...too much crystal.

 

[TANSTAAFB]

And if you don't have Beersmith already I highly recommend it. There is no way I would want to try and figure all the variables in an AG brew by hand! Brewing Classic Styles by Jamil Z. and John Palmer as well as Designing Great Beers by Ray Daniels are also excellent resources for getting a feel for styles and how you might want to tweak them. Good luck with your brew!

 

[eli_adler]

Do you think I could add a little more chocolate to help the color? I don't think I will add any special B. I was planning on buying Palmer's book, I know that it would help, and I heard its a great book as well. I will also definitely get beer smith, I know that will help me out too.

 

[TANSTAAFB]

Yep. I'd bump the chocolate to .5#

 

[eli_adler]

Okay, here is my perfected recipe, and thank you everyone for your great help

Grains:
10lb 2-Row Malted Barley (Rahr)
8oz Chocolate Malt (Breiss)
5oz Roasted Oats (Home maid)
10oz 40L caramel (Breiss)
Hops:
1/2oz millennium pellet hops at 1 hour (AA 15.9%)
3/4oz mt rainier pellet hops at 15 minutes (AA 6.1%)
1oz cascade hops at 4 minutes (AA 6.8%)

If you have any suggestions, please let me know, and again, thanks.

 

[TANSTAAFB]

Let us know how it turns out. Cheers!

 

[eli_adler]

o

 

[eli_adler]

o