need advise on grains

hi everyone, thanks for all the great advise everyone has given me in the past. I have an extract recipe for a Honey Nut Brown that uses 6lbs of Amber malt extract. just wondering how much in grains I should use and what kinds. thanks

Do you want to convert the extract to all grain or are you asking for suggestions on specialty grains for your recipe? Or something else?

Honey Malt for the honey part and Pale Chocolate for the nutty part. Don’t overdo them or you get sweet peanut

Honey malt needs to be mini mashed I believe. If you use a pound, just steep it in a quart and a half at about 155 for about 30-40 minutes. Should do the trick.

If you’re looking to convert to grains i’d go with 9lbs of grain if it’s LME and 8 if it’s DME.

My guess is amber extract has some crystal malt in it.

I’d start with 2-row and add specialty grains for the color and flavor you’re looking for.

Do you know who makes the extract?  Different manufacturers use different ingredients in colored extracts.

I’m gong from extract to all grain. here is the recipe
6lbs Amber Malt extract
2lbs Honey
1/2lb Crystal Malt(20L)
1/4lb Chocolate Malt
1 tsps. Gypsum
1 1/2oz Northern Brewers hops(60min)
1/2oz Willamette Hops(15min)
British Ale Yeast
  wanted to do all grain and just wasn’t sure how much grains or what grains I should use in place of the Amber Malt Extract. Denny, it doesn’t say who made the extract.

Is it a British Mild or more of a brown?

For a mild, I would sub in some Maris Otter (7-8 lbs), 2 ozs. of Special B, 3 ounces of flaked barley, 1.15 lbs of Crystal 40, bump the chocolate to 5 ozs., and drop the Crystal 20 to 2 ozs.

That changes your recipe drastically, I know, but I just made a mild that was my favorite yet with that recipe (but I had no honey malt in it).  The foregoing will get your SRM right, just not sure the flavor profile with the honey malt, but I bet it will be superb.

It’s more of a brown then a British mild.

Maybe I’m crazy, but I would think one would substitute amber malt for amber malt extract. Maybe not 100% but some ratio of pale ale malt and amber depending on what your going for?

Yeah you’d think they should be similar, but amber extract is usually pale malt/pils with carapils and medium crystal.  Amber malt (to me) is sort of a more biscuity/toasty Maris Otter crossed with a pale chocolate - nutty/toasty/biscuity.  I don’t know that I’d use more than 8 or 10% amber malt though, but it’s a great malt for a red ale or porter.

Northern Brewer and Midwest say this about their Amber LME:

“Maillard Malts Amber malt syrup is a composed of pale malt with caramel 60 for a grainy caramel sweetness and Munich malt for increased complexity and fullness.”

*Bad grammar (“is a composed”) straight from the site.

According to Beersmith 6# of Amber LME in a 5 gallon batch makes wort with 1043 SG and 7.5 SRM.

Substituting 2-row, Munich 10, & caramel 60 in the following amounts I can get the same SG and SRM. (Assumption 70% efficiency)

6.37# 2-row (76.1%)
1.41# Munich (16.9%)
0.59# C-60 (7%)

Sorry for going to 2 decimal places. I just told Beersmith to match the SG and SRM and that is what I got.

I don’t know if you used DME or LME. I also don’t know you were using Northern Brewer/Midwest Supplies extract. Even if you are this is just a guess based on information they provide on their website.

Others can chime in if I am going the right direction.

Trying again I got

6.96# 2-row (83.5%)
0.69# Munich 10 (8.2%)
0.69# C-60 (8.2%)

This seems more realistic. You can make lots of combinations to match the color and SG. I am guessing the LME is mostly 2-row with less than 10% each of the other 2 malts.

Is the OP’s recipe for 5 gallons?  If so, the original gravity will be way too high for a brown or mild.  This is more of an old ale at 1.071 – wowser!  Cut the amber malt back by 2 pounds if you want it to style.  As for specialty malts… first of all, you’ll want to double your chocolate malt to 1/2 pound, and secondly, add 1/4 pound of either Special Roast or Victory malt.  Also… egad, that’s too many IBUs.  Knock down the Northern Brewer hops to 1 oz unless you like it super bitter.