Its a MONSTER MASH!

I'm wanting to do a huge beer on Halloween. A MONSTER MASH, if you will. Looking to do a giant barleywine or something in the 15% area. I have a 50 lb sack of Vienna. Looking to use it as a base malt in this. Any suggestions would be helpful. HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Yess, keep it simple! Maybe some special B, caramel and/or victory. No more than 15 percent since Vinna is plenty flavorful. Also consider some simple sugar during the end of fermentation, say 3-5 percent of your target for 15 percent beer.

Sounds good and good luck,

edecambra said:

Yess, keep it simple! Maybe some special B, caramel and/or victory. No more than 15 percent since Vinna is plenty flavorful. Also consider some simple sugar during the end of fermentation, say 3-5 percent of your target for 15 percent beer.

Sounds good and good luck,

Click to expand...

I'd have to go to 10% sugar to hit 15% ABV with my 10 gallon cooler. OP how big is your mash tun? I do like the idea of sticking almost entirely to Vienna, and a hint of specialty malt. Maybe ESM. I'm thinking of doing something similar, not quite as big, but with Munich.

If you're doing a monster mash, shouldn't you then do a graveyard SMaSH?

It will catch on in a flash.

dougdecinces said:

If you're doing a monster mash, shouldn't you then do a graveyard SMaSH?

Click to expand...

I LOVE IT! Its only fitting. I've never done a smash. Can anyone give some recommendations to a hop to use on such a big beer? I have Apollo, Cascade, US Goldings, Willamette, Nugget, Hallertauer, Northern Brewer, Fuggles, and Columbus. I will probably toast some of the vienna, just to get some more flavor out of it, if anyone can give some hints on how to do that. Thanks everybody. I think this deserves a dancing banana.

Ooooooo waaaa oooooooo waaaa waaaaaa waaaaaaa oooooooooo.

Why not make the MONSTER MASH and the graveyard SMaSH one and the same? That way you could, bear with me here, do the MONSTER MASH and it could in fact be a graveyard SMaSH!
I'm not sure a 15% ABV SMaSH has been done but it sounds intriguing.

Edit: I think I realized this thought has already occurred to you.

Maybe Hallertauer if you want the malt to dominate, a big beer can take a lot of hop abuse and not even show it, so perhaps one of the higher AA% varietals.
Too bad there is not one that fits the Halloween theme.

I vote for Fuggle or Willamette. The English-style hops scream barleywine to me. Though it will take a crapload of hops to get the necessary IBU.

You also might want to cheat and add about 8-10% unrefined sugar or honey. Though since it is technically not a malt, you can justify the addition and still call it a SMaSH.

MedicMang what have you decided? I am very interested in this brew, what hops? How monster will this mash be?
I'm planning on doing the same thing with Munich and hop TBD.

Perhaps the graveyard SMASH could be done w/ the second runnnings / partigyle fashion...at least a small batch, I would think there will be something left in the grains after the Monster Mash???

dannyhawkins said:

MedicMang what have you decided? I am very interested in this brew, what hops? How monster will this mash be?
I'm planning on doing the same thing with Munich and hop TBD.

Click to expand...

I really haven't decided yet. I know i am going to use Vienna as my grain, mostly because i have a 50 lb bag. So I might make it huge just for fun and use like 25 lbs. I have a 72 Qt. cooler to mash in. I've been doing 5 gallon batches in it, so it will be fun to use more of the dead space that I usually have. In terms of the hops, I have 1 lb bags of like 10 different kinds of hops. So I'm kinda up in the air about it. Others in this post suggested Fuggles and Willamette. I haven't done enough experiments with all my hops to make a decision on what hops give off what flavors and smells. I was kinda hoping some more people would chime in on hop suggestions. Good luck with yours! Keep me posted on how well it goes. Are you planning on doing it on Halloween?

All I have to say is good luck on getting a 15% beer ready to drink by the time Halloween rolls around.

keesh said:

All I have to say is good luck on getting a 15% beer ready to drink by the time Halloween rolls around.

Click to expand...

Nah mang. I'm going to BREW it on Halloween. I want to drink it next Halloween.

Ahhh sorry my reading comprehension sucks!

I've decided to do Vienna and willamette. If I were to use 25 lbs. what kind of hop schedule would anyone suggest. I have a full lb of willamettes so don't worry about how much to use. Bring it!

MedicMang said:

Are you planning on doing it on Halloween?

Click to expand...

Yes I am! Ill post my final rundown on here before then. I have a 40 Qt. so the mash will be a bit less monster! I want to do somewhere around 20# light munich single rest and definitely first wort hop the rest is up to inspirations of the night.

Willamette is sounding good im deciding between it and cascade and summit for my hop.

my schedule just by ramdom thoughts in my head on the fly
2-3 oz. FWH or Bittering
1oz. at 30min
1oz. at 10min
1 at 5min
1 at 0min

if you are gonna age this beer, which we know you are, it may not be worth it to "waste" hops on aroma additions. possibly

2oz. at each time 60, 30, 10.

That makes sense about the aroma hop additions. What kind of yeast should I use? What can stand up to that kind of alcohol content? Am I able to just pitch two packs of Safale 05?

MedicMang said:

That makes sense about the aroma hop additions. What kind of yeast should I use? What can stand up to that kind of alcohol content? Am I able to just pitch two packs of Safale 05?

Click to expand...

http://www.whitelabs.com/gravity.html

This if you can find it. For aroma, you can always bulk age your brew and then dry hop the whole thing a week before bottling.

MedicMang said:

That makes sense about the aroma hop additions. What kind of yeast should I use? What can stand up to that kind of alcohol content? Am I able to just pitch two packs of Safale 05?

Click to expand...

I'm gonna try WLP-007 for this baby to take advantage of the higher attenuation. I have a barleywine going and I'd like this one to finish a little more dry (relatively speaking). I did some checking on here and lots say to shoot for mid sixties for temp. Now I have to pull the trigger on the hops . . . . . . . Crap.
I'm also planning on 10 to 11% which is well in for this yeast.

Ok I've got this all laid out.
I started WLP007 with 150 gr DME in 1.5 liters then stepped it up tonight to 3 liters.
21.5 pounds of light Munich in my 10 gallon Coleman cooler
Mash 1 hour at 150 and batch sparge
2oz. Cascade first wort hop
1oz. Cascade at 10
1oz. Cascade at 5
1oz. Cascade at 0
Target gravity is 1.101 cause it will be well after midnight when I'm done with this beer. Hope to hit something around 1.020

Awesome man! I'm not needing to start until tomorrow morning. I'm going to toast 2 lbs of Vienna and let it cool. Then I'm going to mash the toasted Vienna and 25 lbs of regular Vienna at 154 for 90 min in my 70 qt Coleman xtrrme. I am going to draw a lot of wort off, probably about 10 gallons, and boil it until its down to 7 gal before I add my hops. Then I'm going to use 3 oz of northern brewer at 90, 1.5 of NB at 20, 1.5 of NB at 5, and another 1.5 at flameout. I'll let it steep for 20 min and then cool it. As for yeast, I'm going to try to use 2 packets of Safale 05 until fermentation slows then pitch the white labs super high gravity yeast. It's too bad I'm sick as a dog at the moment. I'd like to enjoy this experience tomorrow, but its going to be cold and rainy and I'm going to be coughing and sneezing. Hope your brew day goes well!

Welp. Im going to have to change it up a tiny bit due to lack of large equipment. My mash tun is fine but my kettle is only 7.5 gallons. I do have 2 larger pots that i was going to boil wort on the stove also, but i didnt even think about it, I cant heat up enough strike water to do 27 lbs. So i scaled it down to 24 lbs of vienna and just skipping the toasted malt. What a pain in the rump. Still sick, but excited to get started. Im even having to bring another container to go get the water, because ive never had to use more than 10 gallons. Blah. I need a new boil kettle. Good luck!

Hey medic sorry to hear about the last minute stuff. I've been brewing this beer over and over I'm my head cause I know I'll have problems too just can't think of them. I had a test today so I pushed the brew, it will be done tomorrow for sure and don't worry I will still dress spooky and play the theme song!

No apologies needed man. I know how that is. Hope the test went well. Are you planning on aging this for the year? I was going to age it till next Halloween. And where do you live? You want to trade a 6er or something? I live in Ohio.

Ok so I hit a few bumps along the way as well. Mainly I did not hit my numbers. Ive been suspicious of getting a weak crush from the local and now I can confirm it. I estimated 65% efficiency to build this batch and I still came up short. my target gravity was 8 gallons @ 1.063 then boil to
5 gallons @ 1.101. I ended up with 8.5 gallons @ 1.040 this would only get me 5 gallons @ 1.068. So I added 4 lbs. of cornsugar and ended up with
S.G. of 1.117. During all of this I realized as my samples cooled the gravity would increase... I have heard about temp correction but I got a difference of 10 points! Anyway I need to take that into consideration thats prob why I ended up with a bigger beer in the end, that reading was taken right before pitching yeast. Other than that it went well.
I ended up doing an ounce of hops at 20 10 5 instead of 10 5 0.

Medic I think ill try to bulk age this a good 6 months then dry hop and bottle. Then I could age and sample from there. I would love to exchange products!
I live in Texas but I have no problem shipping you some. Would you want to do it in September/October so we will have them ready for the anniversary?
I guess we could just see how it goes. Like I said mine may be drinkable in 6 months but who can say for sure.
Im also thinking of doing a few in champagne bottles and supercarb them. If I age 6 months ill be adding yeast at bottling anyway. Maybe ill add priming sugar like usual and bottle regularly but add some carb drops to the champ bottles along with the primed beer...? I hope this beer turns out it has been consuming me since you started this thread.
keep me posted

P.S. what kind of efficiency did you get? What was your S.G.? I'm going for 12% if I get the full attenuation from my yeasts.

10 gallon pot was maxed out.

Ug. So I checked today to see if you had said anything and you hadn't. I was like, what the heck? Welp. Come to find out, my post hadn't sent from my phone. It was a pretty long post with pics as well. So blah. I'll type it up again and post it when I get home to my computer. Such a pain in the ass brew day, but its whatever. Hit you up soonish.

So ya. It all started with me forgetting to charge my batteries for my drill. So, I got to crush 24 lbs of vienna all by hand. My arm hurt. Then i was getting all of my equipment together and realized that my probe thermometer was only reading error messages. Threw it away. Had to break out my old thermometers and calibrate them. Done.

Finally got to heat my strike water. Had to use my boil kettle AND a pot on the stove to heat up 7.5 gallons of water. Mashed for 90 min. at 156. I wanted 152 but i couldn't get great readings from my thermometer anyways, so i said screw it.

First runnings looked nice. Pretty reddish color. I ended up sparging with about 5 more gallons to collect a little over 11 gallons. Big mistake. Couldn't boil enough off to use all of the wort. Ended up dumping the rest cuz i just didn't want to deal with it. ANYWAYS... I had to use my regular boil kettle and another large pot on the stove to boil my wort. I boiled for almost 2 hours. Hop additions at first wort hop, 90, 60, 20, 10, 5, and flameout all at 1.5 oz. except flameout which i did 2.5 oz., which i split between both kettles i was boiling with. Should be a hoppy beast. I even added 3 lbs of corn sugar at like 20. About that... my efficiency was ****. Even after boiling for so long, adding sugar, and mashing longer, I only hit 1.100. So pissed about this. I don't know what happened. Mashed too high maybe. I put about 6 gallons in my carboy with two packs of Safale-05. I don't know if I even want to add the super high gravity ale yeast that i bought. Don't know if I need it. Might just save it for something different. I'll make that decision when i take a gravity reading in a week or so.

So ya, a very frustrating day. I was even sick as a dog, sitting outside in the cold most of the day. Too funny. It was a good experience though. I need a bigger kettle for sure and need to be more prepared when i do this next year. I'm getting a thermopen on thursday which will be great. I'm still looking for a keg to cut up and make a keggle with. So both things will help next year. But ya, i would love to exchange. I'll hit you up at bottling and I'll send you some shipping info. I also want to try it before i send it, in case it tastes like absolute crap or something. Hope things are well on your end. Prost!

Yeah that sounds brutal. I just had problems with the efficiency, I knew big beers were less efficient but I got less than 50%. Oh we'll I'm not gonna complain.
Yeah let me know in a few months after bottling and sampling. I will do the same and let you know if mine is worth the shipping.

Will be bottling mine tomorrow. Super pumped.

Yeah!

How does it taste?
I'm bulk aging 3+ gallons and I had another gallon for sampling and what not. We ended up freezing the extra gallon but have not yet siphoned off the super concentrated beer.

As for the flavor and strength, it is very malty on account of the all Munich grain bill but not too much so. I think the corn sugar helped dry it out and the WLP-007 helped get the gravity down to 1.026. The first taste seemed very bitter, then as I drank a few more sips the alcohol and malt really came through. I am very happy with this beer but I'll let it go a few months and bottle in spring. I have a lot of bottling backed up already. I'm still thinking of putting most in 12oz and a few in champagne bottles with some extra carb.

Awesome man. Let me know how the freezing goes. Would live to try that at some point. Mine tastes quite bitter with a decent alcohol flavor. It actually went all the way down to 1.015. Quite surprised by that being that I only used Safale 05. Super pumped to try it in a couple weeks just as a preliminary tasting. I'm gonna just let it sit there until octoberish.

I've been brewing some weird stuff here and there. Ill save you a bottle from each batch and send them off with the monster mash. I have one fermenting right now that is a lime and basil hefeweizen. Tasted awesome from the hydro sample I drank. Hope things are well on your end.

What up Danny. Popped one open last night. Quite strong. Sweet. Hoppy. Prominent alcohol flavor, but not enough to be unpleasant. Still wanna trade in a month or so?

Good to hear it came out okay even though it was a less than ideal brew day. Mine is great too, I was worried it had too much alcohol burn but it came around and mellowed out as well. It's very syrupy and smooth for the strength of it. I did have a problem carbing and they are flat just cause I bulk aged it so long there was no healthy yeast left when I bottled. It still works well but I wish it would develop a little carb. I'm ready to trade soon just wanted to warn you about the carb thing. I've also just brewed a black IPA with Brett B trios so let's say trade in about 5-6 weeks if you're interested I'll send a few of those along too. It's not supposed to be real funky or sour when brewed w Brett only. Yeah this was a great idea and I'll be doing another one for sure this fall. Talk to you to get your info in a few weeks and if you don't care to try the Brett beer just let me know no big deal.

Hell ya I'm going to do this again! I have built myself a keggle, so I am ready to boil the sheit out of it. A new recipe is in order though. I will still do a SMASH but I have a toss up of what I want to use. Maris Otter, EKGs, and probably use the White Labs Super High Gravity yeast is choice number one. Choice number two would be Belgian Pils, Hallertaur hops, and Wyeast Trappist high gravity yeast. Just to do it because I was unable to do it last year, I will be using 27 lbs of grain total; Toasting 2 lbs and 25 lbs of base.

I am totally down to trade. I wasn't able to brew too much a couple months ago, so my beer stash is low. The good news is that I have been brewing like a mad man as of lately. I might just wait to send it the first week of October so I can send you more. I have a Saison that I am about to bottle soon and I just brewed a Heather Ale for my girlfriends birthday yesterday, that has no hops. It has the tips of Heather flowers. Brewed it last year and loved it. I am also going to brew a bunch in the next month also.

Excited to do this again this year. Hopefully I won't be sick and have all the other crazy issues I had last time.

What up homie? I almost forgot about trading some monster mash from last year. Can't believe its coming up on a year. Anyways...

Would you still want to trade? 6 pack? Only a couple? I also have some of my Haus Pale, a Saison, some cider, and that ale I did with heather flower tips instead of hops that I made. Let me know. Send me a PM if you are still down.

I'm also planning on doing this again but it's going to be Belgian this time. Talk to you soon.

Prost!

And by the way, I'm drinking one right now and WOW has it changed. Not in a bad way, just less hoppy, obviously, and "older" tasting malt character. Next time, we should send some somewhat fresh and then again for the anniversary, to see how drastically it has changed.

Yeah I'm ready to trade! Lets do a 6-pack your choice, just include 2 of those barleywines. I'm gonna hit you with 2 each- Bwine - Vienna lager - Brett B trois black IPA. Those are your only choices unfortunately I have let the pipeline slow to a crawl lately. I'll pm you my address and I'll be shipping the package in the first week of October or so. Yeah we will have to send some at 6 months and 1 year next time. I've actually got a gallon still aging with some Brett B that I'll bottle soon also. Well see how that goes. I'll send that at the next transaction.

So I've been thinking about the second annual Monster Mash a lot lately. I have been considering a blonde barleywine this time around. I haven't decided on Pilsner or 2 row yet but I'm thinking if I go light, I should go all the way. (and don't worry about the sugar it's still a SMaSH if we all look past that)

Also I'm thinking of doing a single decoction to reach mash out, boil hard and hopefully add a bit of depth to the beer.

Medicmang I may take a page out of your book and try some home toasting as well.

Here is what I've got so far:

HOME BREW RECIPE:
Title: Graveyard SMaSH 2.0

Brew Method: All Grain
Style Name: American Barleywine
Boil Time: 120 min
Batch Size: 5 gallons (fermentor volume)
Boil Size: 9 gallons
Boil Gravity: 1.060
Efficiency: 60% (brew house)

STATS:
Original Gravity: 1.107
Final Gravity: 1.025
ABV (standard): 10.76%
IBU (tinseth): 114.38
SRM (daniels): 9.88

FERMENTABLES:
20 lb - American - Pilsner (90.9%)
2 lb - Corn Sugar - Dextrose (9.1%)

HOPS:
2 oz - Galaxy, Type: Pellet, AA: 14, Use: First Wort, IBU: 59.15
1 oz - Galaxy, Type: Pellet, AA: 14, Use: Boil for 30 min, IBU: 37.53
1 oz - Galaxy, Type: Pellet, AA: 14, Use: Boil for 10 min, IBU: 17.71
1 oz - Galaxy, Type: Pellet, AA: 14, Use: Dry Hop for 7 days

MASH GUIDELINES:
1) Infusion, Temp: 149 F, Time: 90 min, Amount: 27.5 qt, Infuse to hit strike temp
2) Decoction, Temp: 170 F, Time: 30 min, Amount: 12 qt, Decoction to hit mash out
Starting Mash Thickness: 1.25 qt/lb

OTHER INGREDIENTS:
0.25 oz - Irish moss, Time: 10 min, Type: Fining, Use: Boil

YEAST:
White Labs - California Ale Yeast WLP001
Starter: Yes
Form: Liquid
Attenuation (avg): 76.5%
Flocculation: Medium
Optimum Temp: 68 - 73 F
Fermentation Temp: 70 F
Pitch Rate: 1.25 (M cells / ml / deg P)

PRIMING:
Method: Dextrose
CO2 Level: 2.0 Volumes

TARGET WATER PROFILE:
Profile Name: San Antonio, TX
Ca2: 75
Mg2: 15
Na: 10
Cl: 15
SO4: 18
HCO3: 258
Water Notes:
Use distilled or R.O. Water as 3:1 or 4:1 dilution RO:SA

Generated by Brewer's Friend - http://www.brewersfriend.com/
Date: 2013-09-21 10:02 UTC
Recipe Last Updated: 2013-09-21 10:01 UTC