Recipe formulation attempt

[anomalous_result]

I have bought some ingredients for my maiden AG brew (fingers crossed for the weekend) and my limited store cupboard of grain now has Maris Otter, Crystal, Black and Chocolate malts with some Torrefied Wheat for good head. Using these I thought I'd brew something along the lines of the following, excuse rounding errors in the percentages.

Brew Length - 20L

Pale Malt: 3800g (78%)
Crystal: 400g (8%)
Black: 300g (6%)
Chocolate: 150g (3%)
Torrefied Wheat: 200g (4%)

I worked it out that 75% efficiency would give me an OG of 1052, using the numbers in 'Homebrewing'.

I'll worry about hops later, to 30IBU or something, is Fuggles right for this or can I use Goldings?

Keeping in mind all I really want to adjust is quantities (rather than order more) any suggestions are appreciated.

[Dennis King]

Personally I would say there is to much in the way of dark malts. What sort of beer are you trying to make?

[anomalous_result]

Personally I would say there is to much in the way of dark malts. What sort of beer are you trying to make?

Something like a porter or stout (still not entirely sure about the difference).

[fivetide]

Olloson has a couple you could try:

--Black Diamond
Pale 3575g
Crystal 660g
Choc 385g
T Wheat 440g

But perhaps more easily, and using Fuggles and Goldings...

Blackness
Pale 5645g
Crystal 410g
Black 205g
Copper: 45g Fuggles, 88g Golfdings
Aroma: 15m 22g Goldings

He has a few pthers but they make use of a little roasted barley

[Jymbo]

If you're going to formulate your own recipe take a look at the bjcp style guidelines first.

Once you've decided what ingredients you want to use you can do the calculations for gravity or bitterness on paper to make sure you hit the right balance, or you can use software like Promash, or an online calculator to do these for you.

[anomalous_result]

I tried it myself first and then put it into Beersmith and it came out a little dark (a couple of SRM over) for a robust porter 12A. To me it doesn't seem like an overdose of dark malt, Black Diamond has nearly 8% Chocolate, I had 9% Black/Choc. I might try that recipe though, are they for 5g/23l batches?

[clogwog]

I tried it myself first and then put it into Beersmith and it came out a little dark (a couple of SRM over) for a robust porter 12A. To me it doesn't seem like an overdose of dark malt, Black Diamond has nearly 8% Chocolate, I had 9% Black/Choc. I might try that recipe though, are they for 5g/23l batches?

But Black is a different animal to Chocolate.
That much Black will give you quite a burnt roasted bitter quality, and a very dark beer. I'm not sure BeerSmith is all that accurate on its colour calculations, at least, mine never turn out quite as predicted.
I'd limit the Black to no more than 50 to 100 grams, and up the Chocolate to about 200 to compensate.
What grade of Crystal do you plan to use? You could always split your Crystal into light and dark, and enjoy the benefits of some additional complexity.

I just brewed a Dunkelweizenbock, and used 200 gr Chocolate Wheat and 300 gr Caraaroma (in a total grain bill of 7 kg), and BeerSmith gave me an EBC of 42, which is plenty dark enough unless you are brewing a Stout.

[anomalous_result]

But Black is a different animal to Chocolate.
That much Black will give you quite a burnt roasted bitter quality, and a very dark beer.

Ok. That's useful info. Evidently I need more experience in what each grain does before making a recipe from scratch. The crystal I'm using is 120 EBC.

[clogwog]

Crystal or Caramel 120 is at the darker end of the scale for that type of malt, and it adds quite a lot of colour. It also has a toasted, bittersweet caramel flavour, with hints of burnt sugar and raisin. It is useful to give you some added complexity in your malt profile.
Given you are using that, I'd personally drop the Black malt back to about 50 gr.

[anomalous_result]

Think I'll not use the black at all for this one and just do that Black Diamond recipe. At least then it's a abit more 'tried and tested' rather than something i've pulled out of my arse

[prodigal2]

Hello there AR. I think it is best for the first few beers to follow tried and true recipes so you get you technique under your belt and have a fair few beers that will work and make you smile.