Frankenbeer - What did I make?? Cleaning out the brewshed

So I had purchased a bunch of grain in anticipation of having a big brew weekend and Ive accumulated small amount of specialty grain when the LHBS gives me more than I ask for or if I just buy a pound and dont decide to use it all. All of it is crushed because I dont have a mill. Well life got in the way of that big brew weekend and a few weeks went by and I still hadn't gotten a chance to brew. So I was getting concerned that I was gong to have to throw all the grain away if I waited any longer and it went stale. So instead of making the couple batches I had planned I just said to hell with it and threw it all in my mash tun and brewed away. In total 29 lbs of grain and 11oz of hops in a 5 gallon batch! My mash tun was literally filled to the brim and I could only get about 7.5 gallons of water in there with the grain. The OG came out to be 1.114. Beer smith says ive got 102 IBUs, SRM is supposedly 42 but looks slightly lighter than that . I didnt have time to make a proper starter so I threw 2 packets of US-05 in the carboy. I mashed at 152ish, there wasnt any head space in the mash tun so the water level and grain level were the same (right at the top of the tun) the temperature at the top of the tun was 156 and the bottom was 147 no matter how hard I tried to homogenize it and vorlouf the cold bottom on to the hot top. In order to mash out I had to do a decoction because I couldn't add any more liquid to the tun. Anyways here is what went into it..


Mash Ingredients
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
20 lbs 10.1 oz Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 1 71.4 %
3 lbs 10.1 oz Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM) Grain 2 12.6 %
1 lbs 12.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 3 6.1 %
1 lbs Munich Malt (9.0 SRM) Grain 4 3.5 %
12.0 oz Chocolate Malt (450.0 SRM) Grain 5 2.6 %
8.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 80L (80.0 SRM) Grain 6 1.7 %
4.0 oz Carafa III (525.0 SRM) Grain 7 0.9 %
4.0 oz Pale Chocolate Malt (200.0 SRM) Grain 8 0.9 %
2.0 oz Black Malt (Thomas Fawcett) (660.0 SRM)Grain 9 0.4 %

Boil Ingredients
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
1.25 oz Magnum [14.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 10 31.2 IBUs
1.00 oz Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 11 8.9 IBUs
1.00 oz Northern Brewer [8.50 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 12 15.2 IBUs
0.75 oz Columbus (Tomahawk) [14.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 13 18.7 IBUs
1.25 oz Perle [8.00 %] - Boil 20.0 min Hop 14 10.8 IBUs
1.00 oz Northern Brewer [8.50 %] - Boil 20.0 min Hop 15 9.2 IBUs
1.00 oz Goldings, East Kent [5.00 %] - Boil 15.0 min Hop 16 4.4 IBUs
1.25 oz Tettnang [4.50 %] - Boil 10.0 min Hop 17 3.6 IBUs
1.50 oz Willamette [5.50 %] - Boil 0.0 min Hop 18 0.0 IBUs

So a couple questions:
1) What type of beer do I even call this? There isnt much dark roasted grain so its hard to call it a RIS. Maybe an imperial Brown haha?
2) Is all that Noble style hop going to taste weird?
3) With US-05 Ill be lucky if I can get a 1.114 OG down to 1.030.. will that be obnoxiously sweet? Should I think about champagne yeast or some WLP099 Super High Gravity Yeast to finish??

I'd call it a barleywine...

1) American strong ale would cover just about anything this might become. Dark enough to be an Imperial stout of some variety
2) The northern brewers might add an odd earthy note in the context of all of those resinous / piney hops... but this will probably be so malty that the hops might be indistinguishable
3) Yes, especially without a starter. I'd repitch a larger amount of a high gravity strain.

When should I re-pitch? I'm assuming I'd wait until the US-05 dies down but does the high gravity yeast need some time to build up? Ive never pitched two different yeasts into any of my beers so this is definitely uncharted territory for me.

SloTimes said:

When should I re-pitch? I'm assuming I'd wait until the US-05 dies down but does the high gravity yeast need some time to build up? Ive never pitched two different yeasts into any of my beers so this is definitely uncharted territory for me.

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Well - if your first fermentation takes off, let her go and see where you end up, then re-pitch. For such a high-gravity beer, it may not take off, in which case, pitch a starter of high-gravity yeast.

Interesting recipe! I bet it will taste great. As others have said, it would probably fall into the category of a barleywine or American Strong Ale.

Let us know how it turns out!

The 05 is going nuts right now so I'll just let it do its thing for a while and see where it gets. Im assuming with this big of a beer its going to take a while to age into maturity but Ill be sure to keep you updated if youre interested.

SloTimes said:

The 05 is going nuts right now so I'll just let it do its thing for a while and see where it gets. Im assuming with this big of a beer its going to take a while to age into maturity but Ill be sure to keep you updated if youre interested.

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Yep, a long while. Very interested to hear about it

So the US-05 took it down to 1.035. I then made a 2L starter of WLP099 Super High Gravity yeast and pitched that. The stuff went absolutely nuts, I let that go for another 2.5 weeks, took a gravity reading and my hydrometer read 1.010.. Im not really sure how it fermented that dry but it did. I tasted the hydrometer reading and it was really hot but I expected that. I cold crashed, racked it to a keg, and left it in my kegerator to age.

I got curious about how it was doing so tried a sample and I have to say its WAAAAY better already after only a couple weeks. The hotness has really mellowed out, its still boozy but really enjoyable. Its pretty much everything youd expect from a big darker barleywine but with a nice rich chocolate flavor. Its getting better and better every time I taste it but Im going to try and resist the urge to keep tasting it and just let it do its thing for a few more months.

I have an Imperial stout I brewed almost 2.5 years ago. You just reminded me of that one and I will have to dip into that stash here in a moment. Cheers!
Definitely hang on to some bottles of that beer for a while. That looks like it would be a pretty awesome beer.