Hi there! I've been appreciating and putting to use the great advice on these forums for quite awhile but this is my first time posting. My husband and I have been all-grain homebrewers for several years, but had always followed other people's recipes. We just recently began working on developing our own recipes, but we're still trying to get a better handle on how making small changes to a grain bill can change flavor and other variables.
We brewed what was intended to be an American-style brown ale and were pretty happy with it, but would like to tweak it a bit now and could use some advice. Our original recipe (5 gallons, all grain) was 7.5 lbs US 2-Row, 1 lb Crystal 60, and 0.5 lb Chocolate. Nugget for bittering and Willamette for flavoring/aroma. Fermented with WLP001 California Ale yeast.
The beer is really dark brown, almost black, so we'd like to dial the color down a bit so it looks more like a brown ale and less like a porter, but at the same time increase the "toasty/roasty" flavor of it. We don't want to add more chocolate malt because that would make it even darker, but we also don't want to lose the toastiness the chocolate gives it, and actually want to increase that flavor. We were thinking of replacing a portion of the chocolate malt with something else that would lighten the color but still give it a toasted/roasted flavor, and we read that Victory malt may do this? What would you recommend? Thanks for any advice you can give!