[stpug]

To get back to Denny's post:

What is your goal with this beer? Are you aiming for a particular style of brown ale? Are you thinking more of a British brown or American brown or something else even? What is your recipe so far? What kind of flavors do you think you're missing from your current grist formulation - or what kind of flavors do you want in the final beer?

Side question: Why the aversion to crystal and roast malt? Carafa I is a roast with little reward.

[Iliff Ave]

To get back to Denny's post:

What is your goal with this beer? Are you aiming for a particular style of brown ale? Are you thinking more of a British brown or American brown or something else even? What is your recipe so far? What kind of flavors do you think you're missing from your current grist formulation - or what kind of flavors do you want in the final beer?

Side question: Why the aversion to crystal and roast malt? Carafa I is a roast with little reward.

To be honest, this post was more about curiosity than anything. I had a string about the recipe a couple of weeks ago which I could have just added onto. I am basically wondering what other specialty malts people use in their brown ales which is why I thought it was sort of a different topic not necessarily related to what I will be brewing...

Basically the goal of next week's beer is something between a munich dunkel and a brown ale. I will not be using lager yeast. So basically, it's a german brown ale I suppose in that I will be using mostly german ingredients. With having a munich base, I don't feel that crystal malt is necessary and I happen to really like carafa malt although I normally use it for color adjustment.

[stpug]

Ah-ha! Makes sense to me now. Basically a play on an english brown of some sort with a german twist.

Aside from various crystal malts, I've used amber, brown, pale chocolate, midnight wheat, mild malt. Granted, all of those were not german brand malts. Keeping with the german ingredient and "twist" nature of this beer, maybe some chocolate wheat or chocolate rye. You could also toast some of your base munich to get that toasty/nutty quality from it for an amber/brown-like character.

[Iliff Ave]

Ah-ha! Makes sense to me now. Basically a play on an english brown of some sort with a german twist.

Aside from various crystal malts, I've used amber, brown, pale chocolate, midnight wheat, mild malt. Granted, all of those were not german brand malts. Keeping with the german ingredient and "twist" nature of this beer, maybe some chocolate wheat or chocolate rye. You could also toast some of your base munich to get that toasty/nutty quality from it for an amber/brown-like character.

Sorry for the confusion. I tend to obsess over upcoming batches and post all over the place...

I do like the idea of chocolate rye especially since I have not used it. I could may split the total amount of roasted grains between that and carafa.

Toasting a small portion of the munich malt myself also sounds great since I have never done that either. Any advice on what temp and how long? I am planning on using some flaked oats for mouthfeel. Maybe I will toast those.

[stpug]

Ah-ha! Makes sense to me now. Basically a play on an english brown of some sort with a german twist.

Aside from various crystal malts, I've used amber, brown, pale chocolate, midnight wheat, mild malt. Granted, all of those were not german brand malts. Keeping with the german ingredient and "twist" nature of this beer, maybe some chocolate wheat or chocolate rye. You could also toast some of your base munich to get that toasty/nutty quality from it for an amber/brown-like character.

Sorry for the confusion. I tend to obsess over upcoming batches and post all over the place...

I do like the idea of chocolate rye especially since I have not used it. I could may split the total amount of roasted grains between that and carafa.

Toasting a small portion of the munich malt myself also sounds great since I have never done that either. Any advice on what temp and how long? I am planning on using some flaked oats for mouthfeel. Maybe I will toast those.

I also obsess over upcoming batches with changes nearly every time I look at the recipe. With the possibilities seemingly endless it's easy to make little changes here or there

I've never used the chocolate rye/wheat from weyermann but saw it was available. I've used both the carawheat and cararye from weyermann, neither of which imparts any kind of sweetness from what I could tell and have a kind of toast/roast quality to them. I never used them in too large of percentage to clearly identify them in the beer.

I would normally toast standard US 2row at 350F for about 30 minutes to get a general biscuit/victory/amber-like toast quality to them (stirring every 7 or so minutes). Temperature and time can vary for differing end qualities, but 350F for 30 minutes is pretty safe. With munich having already been kilned longer, I would probably knock 5-10 minutes off of that to play it safe. You could also pull a few grains from the oven to sample at 10/20/30 minutes and compare to your memory of biscuit/victory/amber grains. You probably won't see much (if any) outward appearance change in the grain husk - the inside is where most of the visual change occurs at this low level toasting. IIRC, oats go for about the same temp/time but they are easier to tell since you'll see some light color change and smell cookies in the air. I like to toast a day or seven ahead of time depending on when I think of it so they can air out a bit. The lower the toast the less the air out is needed. Oats can have a kind of acrid, chemically aroma to them as they air out.

[Iliff Ave]

That is very helpful. Thank you.

After all of this, I may just leave the recipe alone but toast the flaked oats. I have seen on another thread that it's impact is debatable but it can't hurt to try.