Feedback on Brown Ale recipe

Hi all,

I’m trying to create my first brown ale recipe and wanted to get some feedback from some more experienced brewers. I am not incredibly familiar with some of the ingredients so any suggestions/comments are welcome.

Ideally looking to have it be more in the American Brown Ale style rather than a Northern or Southern English Brown Ale. However, if the recipe is looking to favor either of the other options I am willing to change course. The ingredients listed are some that I have overstocked or otherwise need to use.

8lb - 2 Row (72.2%)
1lb - Brown Malt (9.1%)
1lb - Crystal 60L (9.1%)
.5lb - Chocolate Malt (4.5%)
.5lb - Special Roast (4.5%)
.5oz Chinook - 60min
1oz Cascade - 15min
1oz Cascade - 0min
.5oz Chinook - 0min

Mashing around 154, estimated OG 1.054, IBU 32

Like I said, not a lot of experience with some of these flavors so any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

At first glance, yours looks pretty good, although I think I’d skip the Special Roast.  Here’s mine for comparison.  Site Not Found

Thanks for the feedback, I have way too much Special Roast laying around so I was hoping to find ways to use it

I think I am going to up the hops a little too, including some dry hopping.

When I have a malt that I want to use I usually start with Brewing Classic Styles database and go from there. It doesn’t give you the recipe without having the book but you can look up where Jamil uses X malt in various styles. Recipe Database of Homebrew Beer Recipes From Brewing Classic Styles - Winning Homebrew

Awesome, thanks for the link. I was looking for that book today to use as reference but apparently I had one too many drinks before putting it away last time. ;D

This sounds very familiar for some reason. Some home brewing guru around here once said that I should contemplate the reason for each ingredient in my beer. “Using it up” is probably not a great one… just sayin

I think your recipe looks pretty solid for an American Brown as well.

As far as skipping the special roast, I would either use the special roast OR use the brown malt. Both are typically in the same lovibond range (give or take). If you go with the brown malt, one pound is fine. But if you choose the special roast, stick with the 8 oz addition only.

Thanks for the advice. I think i’m going to be ditching the special roast based on everything. Quick question though, why pick between the brown malt and special roast? I would have thought choosing between amounts of brown malt and chocolate since they both impart more roasted flavors?

Brown malt is much more like special roast than chocolate.  Or it should be if it’s proper brown malt.