Kodiak Brown: an American brown ale brought to you by BearHole Brewing
Thanks
Thirsty the OP shows 1.058 OG.
12# of Pils malt alone is almost 1.058. Shouldn't this have been around 7#?
The recipe shown is the imperial brown, isn't it?
What about adding some Munich Malt to addto the maltiness in place of some of the base malt?
DC
Giventofly wrote:
Thanks
Thirsty the OP shows 1.058 OG.
12# of Pils malt alone is almost 1.058. Shouldn't this have been around 7#?
The recipe shown is the imperial brown, isn't it?
I make 13 gallon batches, but at 85% efficiency. So I use 20# of base malt, and double the specialties. So when I posted this I put it into the calculator and adjusted from there for 75% efficiency. Sounds like I need to double check the #s. I will do that right now.
DC, you could certainly exchange some munich, or even change the base malt to pale instead of pilsner, bith will increase the malt intensity. The tricky part is getting to malt forward, brings it away from the profile and turns it into a porter. An Am brown should be similar in hop intensity and balance as a pale ale or close to a small IPA. The emphasis should be leaning toward the aroma and bitterness of these, but now instead of having the pale sweet malt background, you introduce a bit more depth and roast and caramel. The finish should still be dry and not sweet. Malty and rich is good, but can very easily get out of hand. The specialty malts here capture that perfectly and give that balance.
With that being said, this is a very good base to mess with, you could change the hop profile to all english hops, back off the aroma a tad, and lower the OG, and it wouldd make a great northern English brown. Or you could dial up the intensity of malt a tad and have a great brown porter. Or do both, crank up the OG a tad and have a perfect impy porter. Lots of possibilities.
Giventofly wrote:
Thanks
Thirsty the OP shows 1.058 OG.
12# of Pils malt alone is almost 1.058. Shouldn't this have been around 7#?
The recipe shown is the imperial brown, isn't it?
Spot on right! How I got that to calculate before I do not know. In recalculating, 8#s gets you right there at 75% efficiency. I made the adjustment in the original posted recipe to reflect that. Thanks for the catch! 
thirsty wrote:
I make 13 gallon batches, but at 85% efficiency.
Wow, nice efficiency, I need to work on getting mine higher.
Thirsty-
I'm thinking of making this, and am still working on mashing at the two saccrification rests. This recipe having an overall mash temp of 152, how long do you rest at beta and alpha? I'm trying to get a feel for how long to rest at each one to get desired fermentablity v.s. 'chewiness'.
-guy
GuyNMT wrote:
Thirsty-
I'm thinking of making this, and am still working on mashing at the two saccrification rests. This recipe having an overall mash temp of 152, how long do you rest at beta and alpha? I'm trying to get a feel for how long to rest at each one to get desired fermentablity v.s. 'chewiness'.
-guy
This is one that I do a single rest on, at about 152. I mash for about 75 minutes, then do a mashout at 168. It is also important to do the 90 minute boil when using pilsner malt to drive of any DMS(Di-Methyl Sulfide, creamed corn flavor) that may come out of the mash.
Hmm what dictates to you weather you'll do a single or double rest while mashing any particular recipe?
I do a step usually only on big Belgians that need the best of both worlds- fermentability and full range of flavor, with still a decent body. A Belgian dubbel or tripel, where you want a low FG, and a nice dry finish requires a low mash temp to get the fermentability, but you do not want to lose the mouthfeel, so I ramp up after the beta rest, to let it sit in the alpha zone for a bit as well.
There is nothing wrong with resting at both targets for each mash, it just sometimes isnt necessary. This particular brown ale, gets plenty of flavor and mouthfeel at the 152, and really does not benefit from a low FG, in fact most of the yeasts will only attenuate 70-75%, and a really low FG will make it too dry. There needs to be a balance in certain recipes, if you weigh the 2 extremes, some recipes benefit for being in the middle ground.
What I mean is say a Belgian saison, tripel, dubbel they should all have ample simple sugars, low FGs, high attenuation. That is one extreme. The other may be a RIS, Scotch wee heavy, foregn extra stout, beers that need the opposite end of the spectrum- high FGs, lots of dextrines, chunky chewy mouthfeel.
Most recipes fall in between and require a balanced happy medium to be had. Because this brown ale brings some roasted grains to the table, the malt presence needs to be kept in check. You want it to be there, rich and bold, but cannot go overboard and be off balance. So a happy medium mash schedule does this. The ingredients do as well, with the use of some flaked maize and simple sugar, you get some fermentables without going over on the maltiness.
The beta and alpha targets and times are just another way to fine tune the fermentability and types of sugars that will be present in the wort. This particular beer has an ingredient list, yeast and process that addresses most of this already, and yields a complex, but well balanced product.
After reading my own post, not to make it confusing, but there may even be some exceptions as well to the big chewy beers.
When designing a recipe from scratch, you really need to work backwards from your desired end result, and see what will it take for you to get there. Meaning where do you want to steer your FG to, and what type of body do you desire? I used the RIS as an example above of one extreme, but that is where an exception may come into play.
If you brew an RIS with a 1.080 OG, and wanted it to have a bold body, and malty finish, you may mash at 154, and target a 70% attenuation leaving a 1.025 FG, which is ideal. If you got more out of it and it was 1.015 finish, the outcome probably is not what you desired. But if you took the same desired outcome and started with a 1.110 OG, and used the same high mash temp, the same attenuation, you will wind up with a 1.035 FG, and it will probably be way too sweet and syrupy. So to get the same type of finish, you may need to target a 1.028-1.030 FG, which will require now 75% attenuation instead, so you would need to present more fermentables in the wort, and the 2 rests will better accomplish this. (additions of simple sugars will help as well)
There is more than one way to skin a cat. By applying different processes or methods through trial and error, you can figure out how to best wind up with what is MOST important- the finished product.
Ah ok thanks! I had taken you're duel step advice literally and did step mashing for my last 5 brews, and had fairly good results, although finding a medium of each step to get the desired 'mouth' feel was tricky and ended up being pointless for me hehe 
, in the end i think I hit both steps for the maximum enzyme activey time, regardless of prior planning.
Not doing stepped mashes every time hopefully will save me some time on brew-day!
thirsty wrote:
75% efficiency
OG: 1.058
FG: 1.015
SRM: 20
IBU: 57
8# Rahr American pilsner
12 oz British amber
12 oz flaked maize
12 oz coffee malt
8 oz crystal 60
8 oz corn sugar
4 oz light roasted barley
1 oz magnum 60
1 oz EKG 15
1 oz cascade 0
1 oz cascade dryhop (7-10 days @ room temp)
I just pitched the yeast on this an hour ago, with a few minor tweaks (due to inventory).
79% eff.
1.060
5.75 gallons
6# Rahr American pilsner
1# Maris Otter
12 oz British amber
12 oz flaked maize
12 oz coffee malt
8 oz crystal 60
4 oz corn sugar
4 oz dark brown sugar
4 oz light roasted barley
1 oz magnum fwh
1 oz EKG 10
1 oz amarillo 0
I used Andrew's method of decoction from 152 deg. to mash out. I did it on my last batch and it worked great. My efficiency went way up.
And I used Mac & Jacks yeast I harvested from a growler.
great! be sure to post some flavor reports.
Two other tweaks I forgot to mention were:
1/2# melanoiden
1/2# wheat malt
Dry hopped this today, and it tastes awesome. Very complex.
I used Mac and Jacks yeast, and it produced a decent amount of esters.
I reluctantly added the zest of one orange. With my last session beer I used lemon and I don't think I would do that again. It's just too weird. But I think orange will complement this beer nicely.
Thanks Thirsty
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