Using Chocolate Malt

I have some chocolate malt sitting around from when I tried to make a red ale, and I wanted to use it up.  I'm not a fan of stouts and porters, but I have had a brown ale or two that was pretty good.  This being the fall season, going into the winter, I thought it would be a good time to use the malt up, and so I went looking for a recipe.  I ended up finding a Hobgoblin dark ale clone (scroll down) recipe, and went about collecting the ingredients.

Brew Day: 2 Nov 2019

Partial Mash:
4 oz Caramel malt
4 oz Crystal rye malt
1.5 oz chocolate malt
2 oz flaked wheat

Boil (20 min):
1 lb golden light DME
4 oz table sugar

Hops:
7 g Fuggle hops (FWH)
7 g Fuggle hops (@ 10 min)

Yeast: WLP-005 (recipe calls for Wyeast 1187, but this chart let me see an equivalent from White Labs)

Addendum, 3 Nov: It's always interesting to try a new yeast, because you never quite know how it's going to go.  I've used US-05 where it's started active fermentation within 2 hrs of pitching the yeast.  I've also used White Labs yeasts before (WLP-300, -380, etc.), but British ale yeast is new to me.  I had followed the instructions on the packet, and when I went to pitch the yeast, it came out as a sludge.  I hadn't seen that before and was a little concerned, and when I checked on the fermenter last night about 10 hrs after pitching, there was no visible activity.  This morning, however, there is clearly active fermentation.

Addendum, 16 Nov: Transferred to secondary.

Addendum, 24 Nov: Bottled tonight; got 8 good bottles and 1 re-purposed soda bottle.  Used just shy of 2 T sugar, rather than a full ounce (~ 2 1/2 T), as the beers have been a little over-carbonated of late.

Addendum, 16 Dec: I'd opened a bottle last week, and found it to be flat.  I opened a second bottle tonight, and it was similarly flat.  I then opened the re-purposed soda bottle, and it was only very mildly carbonated.  So, it seems that the issue wasn't the bottle caps, or the bottling process, as much as it was a result of this is the first time I've worked with this yeast, and I'd likely left it sitting too long. 

Overall, the flavor is pretty good, a bit of chocolate and toasted toffee.  The body is good, and with the exception of the dearth of carbonation, the beer is actually pretty drinkable and enjoyable, and I'm not a huge fan of brown ales.