New to the fold

[Carpking]

Hi everyone.
I've been reading through the forum and this is a great place. Very friendly and informative with lots of enthusiasm.
I recently did my second all grain brew and must say i could never go back now. It is easier than you think until you do it, improvising with the volumes you can realisticly mash, sparge and boil. I mash in my two biggest pans which yields around 3 gallons and then sparge a further 2 gallons. 4 pans on my cooker allow me to boil around 3 3/4 gallons of the liqour while the primary stores the rest and sits in a hot bath to keep it warm. The lot then cools in a cold bath with bottles of frozen water in pet bottles to cool it as quickly as possible. Takes a few hours but my first all grain nut brown ale was reward enough to try it again. Now i am about to keg a chocolate stout. I have been recording ingredients, times, gravitys, so if i find that killer recipe i can make it again. But i have to say for anyone thinking of moving to all grain who thinks it is too tricky or time consuming, it isnt and the rewards will speak for themselves!
Okay, some advice please forum. I want to make a nut brown ale again but i want to enhance the toffee/caramel flavours and have come up with this recipe:
4.00 kg maris otter
500g crystal malt
125g choc malt
125g caramalt
Not sure about hops. This should give me around 4.0%. Does that sound okay and any hop thoughts?
Thanks.

[booldawg]

Boiling down a quantity of your first runnings from the mash tun will help to impart the flavours you want. In a 23L brew I'd suggest boiling down 4L in pan until the wort starts to thicken up. It'll reduce down to under 2L so you'll need to compensate for losing 2L in your final volume. Once its boiled down chuck the lot in you boiler with the main batch.

[prolix]

you could try browning off some pale malt rather than using the chocolate, I find chocolate very strong in a 4% beer

3.5 kg pale
0.4 kg crystal
0.4 kg pale o(ven roasted for 30 mins at 180c)
caramalt as you said give some head and fuller flavours

saf 04 would give it a fruity feel aswell 23l at 1042 about 4%

hop wise Challenger as bittering hop 30g full boil and East kent goldings as flavour 25g 20 mins and aroma hop 25 g at 80c when cooling and you can't go wrong around 30 ibu, if you like it hoppy then up it.

[Carpking]

Thanks for the input guys. Interesting thoughts which i have made a note of.
I have chocolate stout in my only keg but when thats gone and i make a nut brown ale i will be sure to remember the advice.

Again, thanks for replying.