What to do with this group brew base?

[unviewtiful]

My homebrew club is doing a big group brew as part of an AHA rally with a local brewery. The plan is to take at least half of what we brew to NHC. I'm doing a 10 gallon batch, here is my base:

88% Pale Malt (2-row)
7% Vienna
5% Cara-pils

Preboil gravity will be 1.050

It has to be something that can sit for ~3 months, so I was leaning away from an APA/IPA. I was thinking maybe a brown or a porter? Any suggestions on what to turn this into?

 

[FirstAidBrewing]

Can you post your grain amounts in pounds?

At those ratios you're not going to get anywhere close to a BJCP porter or brown. I plugged your grain ratios into BeerSmith with an estimate of 22 pounds for a 10g batch and got an SRM of 4 with a gravity of 1.048. If you put more grains in you'll get more color but to get to the SRM of a brown or porter, your ABV will be pushing barley wine territory.

At least that would solve your problem of needing it to age for 3 months

 

[unviewtiful]

The local brewery is making the wort, so I don't know the weights. But after I get the wort I can add whatever I need, whether it's DME, steeping grains, reducing a portion of the wort to a syrup, etc.

 

[FirstAidBrewing]

Got it, that makes sense then. You'll want to steer away from any extracts as they will raise your gravity past what you want, so I think that means steeping grains.

I've never tried to steep into a wort so (this is based on a guess so maybe someone else can clarify) I would separately steep some dark grains to get the color and then combine with your wort. Then boil away and shoot for the desired gravity. Again, I could be quite wrong about that but it makes sense in my head.

Adding a pound of chocolate malt should get you a nice brown color. Since we are dealing with darker grains I personally wouldn't go crazy as the flavor profile might veer off from what you want.

What types of hops and yeast are you planning on using?

 

[unviewtiful]

For hops, maybe a Cascade/Willamette combo to 25-30 IBU. And for yeast, probably something clean like US-05/WLP001.

I might steep some Biscuit in addition to the chocolate to get a nice bready flavor.

 

[FirstAidBrewing]

In an 10 gal batch, Each pound of biscuit will add about .003 to your gravity as an FYI. Looks like it could be a really nice brew.

 

[JKaranka]

You could just add 2-5% of a medium invert sugar syrup and turn it into an strong bitter with no hassle!