chocolate wheat, vs chocolate malt

[iophon]

I'm making a brown ale. Most American brown ales I have tried have too much chocolate flavor for my taste - a typical (recent) example of the too much chocolate taste for me is the DFH Indian Brown ale. I have for whatever reason a pound of chocolate wheat malt in my grain locker. I am not sure how this is going to taste! So here is my question:

I am brewing a West Coast Blaster derived amber ale, which has been a house ale around here since I brewed it the first time. I thought I might replace a small proportion of the pale wheat malt in this beer with chocolate wheat and get a brown ale. I don't have the exact recipe on hand at the moment but it is something like: Maris Otter as the base malt with munich, pale wheat, victory, crystal 40 and crystal 120 and a touch of pale chocolate malt. Hops are centennial and cascade. I have just recently been using sorachi ace as the 60 minute bittering addition.

So if I add a little chocolate wheat it will obviously change the color - but how chocolately do you think say 3 or 4 oz might make this beer? I am not sure I want to mess up one of my favorite beers but I am intensely curious! This wold be in a 5 gallon batch, OG around 1.065, FG tends to be 1.010-1.013.

I o p h o n

[aquariumdrinker]

I find chocolate malt to be very roasty which can be similar to certain dark chocolates, but I dont think you ever get a cloying milk chocolate or chocolate syrup type flavor from it. The chocolate wheat sounds like a nice idea for that beer, chocolate wheat lacks a husk which makes it smoother than chocolate malt. I think 3 or 4 oz in a 5G batch is a great place to start and will certainly contribute to the color and add subtle flavor without completely throwing your recipe off.

[iophon]

I think 3 or 4 oz in a 5G batch is a great place to start and will certainly contribute to the color and add subtle flavor without completely throwing your recipe off.

OK will do I suspected this but not having used it before I was/am slightly trepidatious -- once or twice I have poured out 5 gallons of beer, always a sad thing!

Cheers,
Iophon