Anyone ever use as much as a pound of American chocolate malt in a five gallon batch of brown ale? Or is that overkill?
I wouldn’t put in more then .25LB. Thats the amount that has been in every recipe that I have made. I think if you put more then that in the beer it might be overwhelming. I definitely would not go any higher then .5lbs in it, but homebrewing is about experimentation so who knows maybe it would be the best beer you ever drank.
The host’s Chocolate Milk Stout has .75# of Pale Chocolate. I’ve had that and it and it wasn’t overwhelming. For regular chocolate malt, I’d start with .5# and go from there.
J
For a brown I wouldn’t do more that about half a pound in a five gallon batch. At one pound, my taste buds see it as more of a coffee flavor than chocolate. For a stout a pound could be a nice amount.
Yeah this is what I was thinking if he’s going for a brown then I think that that much chocolate will move it out of the style.
It might be a little high, but also, what else is in it? If you have a bunch of crystal, and other things like brown malt etc. then probably too much. If that is the only thing you have in it besides your base malt, might not be too far out of whack.
What are your other grains besides base grains?
I would probably go with half pound to start, and you can always add more to the batch the next time around if you think it can handle it.
It depends on what flavor profile you’re going for. I’ve used a pound in a beer inspired by something I had in England. They called it a “dark golden brown bitter”, but it had a huge aroma of chocolate and a decent amount of chocolate flavor. I called mine a brown ale, but I wasn’t brewing for competition.
