Brown ale for my wedding

[tomguest]

Hi

I'm planning on brewing 2 beers for my wedding. The first is from a tried and tested recipe, the second (called "ball & chain") is a new one.

Any comments before I start to brew would be very grateful - I've never tried to formulate a brown ale from scratch. I'm going for a brown ale as it is the father-in-law's beer of choice and I want to start married life on his good side!!

Grain bill
4kg Pale
0.6kg Crystal
0.5kg Aromatic
0.1kg Black

Single infusion mash at 67*C.

1 hour boil
50g Fuggles for 60mins
17g Fuggles for aroma.

Wyeast 1098 (British Ale yeast) ~ 19*C.

my calculations come up with the following

estimated ABV ~4.5%
23 IBUs
colour ~ 40EBC

Thanks

Tom

[Normski]

If you added about 100g of Chocolate Malt in your recipe, it would be quite close to Dave Lines Newcastle Brown ale recipe from the 70's.
That should keep the new father in law happy.
Another option is, I made a nice brown ale to use up a load of brown malt that I'd had sitting around for 6 mnths. Cant remember exactly how much brown I used but think it was quite high, maybe 2Kg. Turned out really well. I can dig out the recipe from my brew book, if it helps.
Norm

Edit
The recipe I used which made a really nice nutty brown ale was.
3.5Kg Pale Malt
100g Crystal Malt
100g Flaked Barley
100g Torrified Wheat
1 Kg Brown malt
Hops of your choice etc.

[tomguest]

Thanks Norm

I've substituted the black malt for more chocolate malt and adjusted some of the other amounts.

Hopefully it will be a good brew.

Tom

[Normski]

Hi Tom
I had a bottle of my Brown ale last night. It has a wonderful nutty roastyness. Im fairly sure that comes from the Brown Malt.
Not sure it would be half as nice without it. You choice of course, but I'd get some brown, you wont be disapointed. Go on its for the old man.

[tomguest]

Thanks Norm

Just added some brown malt to the recipe.

For the grain bill I'm now looking at

100g Chocolate
300g Brown
500g Aromatic
600g Crystal
4kg Pale

Would you make any changes?

Thanks

[Normski]

Hi Tom
Thats lookin' better to me, altho I think the crystal is a bit high. over 10% and I think it gets a bit cloying.
So for me a max of 400g Crystal and your on the money.
But as it stands it'll be a good un.

Just a thought. If you really want to please your future father in law, Have you done a serch for an award winning Brown ale recipe. I bet there are some beauties. Im going to go an search, Back soon. Norm

[tomguest]

Thanks for all your help Norm.

greatly appreciated.

Tom