Its a MONSTER MASH!

So for anyone else that may be interested in doing this with us this year, it's a blast. We brewed it and aged it. We both also sent each other some samples and are rebrewing again this year with different malts and hops. I'm doing a big ass English barleywine this time around. The more the merrier though. It's Spooktacular. Ha.

Update as to the latest plans...

20lb 2-row instead of Pilsner
5oz Galaxy hops
WLP-001 California Ale yeast in 1.5L then stepped up to 3L

Its going to be monstrous!

The Little Mash from the second runnings will be combined with a bit of munich leftovers and hops to be determined.

Nice. This is my plan.

25 lbs. Maris Otter
2 lbs. Home-Toasted Maris Otter
2 lbs. Turbinado Sugar
3 oz Fuggles at 120
3 oz Fuggles at 60

Using Super High Gravity Yeast built up to a 3.5 L starter.

Second runnings will include some English Medium Crystal and enough English hops to make a decent English IPA.

I am actually going to do a third runnings, since I am using so much grain, and turning it into an English Mild with the addition of some more English Dark and Medium Crystal and some EKGs or Fuggles.

Excited to get 15 gallons out of one mash. Going to be a long day but ultra pumped.

What is your toasting process looking like?
This sounds like something I may want to try out.
I'll check out the gravity of the second beer and see if I can swing a third when the time comes and if time permits. I'll have to start this brew at the crack of 2:00pm or so to have time. (Die hard late night brewer) I'm really going to have to pace myself beverage wise to finish this one properly.
I'm also trying to figure out how to get everything to work with a 10 gal, a 7.5 gal and only one burner.
What's your setup and plan for three brews?

HAPPY HALLOWEEN HBTers!

So as I posted before, I am unable to do my Monster Mash for a couple more days. Actually now longer, it seems. Unfortunately it is going to take a week now to order the Super High Gravity yeast sunce they went and sold the one that they were holding for me. I ordered 2 vials though, so I only need a day or so to spin it for a 4.5 L Starter with a little less than 600 million cells. I will pitch 3.5 L of that to the main Gyle of this beast. The rest of the yeast will be saved for later propagation and use. The other Gyles will just be getting Safale 04 packets.

In terms of the toasting, A few days before the brew (probably when I do the yeast starter), I am just going to take 2 lbs of Maris Otter and "roast" it on a walled baking sheet on 350, stirring a lot, until it smells good. Then in a paper bag, let cool for a day before I crush it. I have never done this, so it will be a fun new adventure.

I luckily have been upgrading my setup since last years disaster to better prepare for this brew. I'll just kinda go through my "plan".

I MADE A KEGGLE!!! So the big problem was heating up all of the strike water. I only had a 7.5 gallon kettle as my boil kettle and a couple big cooking pots. I had to heat up the water in 3 pots just to dough in. So this year, I will heat all of my water for doughing in, in my keggle. I'm going to dough in with the 27 lbs of grain with 13.5 Gallons of water, as grain absorption is about .2 gallons per lb of grain. Lookin to get about 8 gallons of first runnings. Boil in kettle for 2 hours with hop additions at 120 and 60. Dry it out with 2 lbs of Turnbinado Sugar at 120. Might get some decent color from boiling the sugar for so long too.

While I am boiling, heat up 6.5 gallons of water in 7.5 gal kettle to get second runnings. After collected, I should be able to boil in the 7.5 gal kettle also, where I will steep some English Crystal and make me an English IPA.

The third runnings water will have to be heated in cooking pots on the stove, but no biggie as I should be done with the first runnings batch and be able to boil in my keggle. I will also steep some grains and make an English Mild with this bad boy.

Sounds easy as I type, but I doubt things are going to go this well. Here's to high hopes though. As I am sure my efficiency is going to blow, I am not going to make estimates on gravities, though I will keep track of them for each batch.

Ok so it all went well. But I was stretched a bit thin and I did not take any pictures.

On the barleywine I hit my numbers and moved one ounce from FWH to 0 minutes to reduce the IBU's from 113 to 83. Also, I did not toast any grains for this brew, it kinda slipped my mind.
OG was 1.107
Hope to hit 1.021 FG
Fermenting strong still and I'm raising the temp everyday to keep those yeasts rolling

For the mini mash I did a partial BIAB with one gallon
2lb Munich I
.5lb special B
.5lb special roast
.5lb carahell
.25lb cherry smoked malt
Added this to 4 gallons of second runnings and got 5 gallons pre boil gravity of 1.024
OG 1.030
Hope for 1.010-1.008
This one is already wrapping up and should have a quick turn around.
I'll keep the updates coming

Good luck with yours medicmang hope it all goes well!
BTW I tried your monstermash from last year and it was delicious, blew mine out of the water. Can't wait to try the next one!

So I finally did my MM. Took forever. 12 hour brew day. I'm just going to give you the short story of it all.

The night before, I toasted 2 lbs of maris otter on a baking sheet at 350 F for about 30 min, stirring often. I then let it cool and put the grain in a paper bag for the night. I also made a 5L starter with two vials of WLP099. 3.3L are for pitching and the rest was just propagated for future brews.

Brew day started out with me needing to go buy 3 lbs turbinado sugar and getting 27 gallons of water from a local water spring. When I got home, I started heating 13.5 gallons of strike water to 170 F in my keggle. Because it was cold outside and I was using my keggle out there, I had to drain the water into buckets just to move it into my mash tun. Buckets became a huge necessity yesterday. You'll see what I mean. While heating the water, I crushed the 27 lbs of grain. After the water was put in the mash tun, I started adding the grains. This was such a pain in the ass to do alone. Doughballs out the ass. With the water and the grain in the tun, I literally didn't think it would all fit. When I closed the lid, I thought it was going to seep out of the sides. Luckily, it was PERFECT. When I closed the lid, nothing seeped out but the mash was touching part of the lid. I'll post pics on the actual thread. I guessed on the strike temp and it went well. After transferring the water to the tun, the water was 165 F. After adding the grain, it dropped to a mash temp of 154, which was fine with me so I didn't mess with it. I then mashed for 90 min.

I drained the mash tun getting 10.25 gallons of wort. I started the boil on that. Now the craziness starts. While mashing, I heated 6.5 gallons to 185 F in my other pot on the stove. Heating the water was a huge portion of my day. Nothing was ready in time. I added the water to the tun and started heating the next 6.5 gallons to 185 in the same pot. I then crushed 1 lb of crystal 60 and .25 lbs of crystal 120. I drained the tun into two buckets; 5 gallons into one and I actually got 2 gallons in the other. I steeped the grain in the 5 gallons which measured at 154 F. After the other water was heated, I added it to the tun. I then started boiling the second runnings in that pot. I added the hops and such and boiled the second runnings for an hour. This beer will be an English IPA. After that was cooled and put into the ferm vessel. I then pitched hydrated Safale-04 to that. Gravity reading was lower than expected. Boo. #2 is done.

I continued to boil the main MM and started messing with that one. Before any additions, I boiled it for about 2 hours. I added 2 lbs of turbinado sugar to this and added some hops for the 60 min addition. There was one more addition of hops at 20 along with whirlfloc and nutrient. After cooling, I pitched the 3.3L of yeast while saving the rest. #1 Main MM done.

Finally #3. After draining the last of the runnings, I steeped 1 lb of Rolled oats, 1 lb crystal 60, and 4 oz each of chocolate malt, roasted barley, and black patent. I also added 1 lb of the turbinado sugar to this because my pre-boil gravity was super low. Boiled an hour. So tired at this point. Cooled and Nottingham yeast pitched around midnight. Beer #3 done.

All batches received about 15 sec of pure O2. I am also fermenting all three at about 66 F.

#1 MM - SG 1.150!!!
#2 - SG 1.032...
#3 - SG 1.030...

So potentially, the MM will be 17ish%, if it ferments properly. The English IPA (#2) and the Micro Stout (#3) will be around 3%. Kinda boring but fine. I expected to get more out of the gyles but I'm not disappointed by any means. Moral of the story is that I need another burner, some more pots, another chiller, and another person to help. I think it went well though. I checked before I went to work and the MM is already fermenting strong. I may throw some more O2 in there for yeast health.

Anyways, I hope all is well on your end. Talk to you soon. I'll throw some pictures of the adventure on later when I get home from work.

I dry Hopped on Thursday 1-9-14 with two ounces of Aus. Galaxy. I think I'll add another two ounces in a few days, this is supposed to be monster after all right?
I have not checked the gravity and it has been cooler than I like in the closet so I hope the FG is decent. I'll likely bottle next weekend, last year I aged three gallons for 6 months and I don't feel it added any benefit. So if its in the 20's ill bottle.
As for the mini mash, yeah I thought I would get more yield from the second runnings too. It was pretty weak but oh well, I would have thrown it away.
The mini was the second runnings plus .5 pounds of the following. Special B, special roast, carahell, 1 pound of Munich and .25 lb smoked.
The smoked malt is not my thing but at the same time it would be better if the beer was not so dry, like 1.004-1.006.

I'm glad you got it underway and hope it turns out well. Don't forget the pictures.

Part 1

2

Well it's bottled and tasting great.
Came out a bit high on the final gravity at 1.029 while I was hoping for 1.025. That is likely due to an early cold snap and I could not get it up above 65 to finish. Overall it's okay though because it balances nicely with the 85IBU's. I ended up dry hopping with 4 oz instead of 2 oz and they stayed in for a month (oops). But three weeks of that was in the fridge for cold conditioning to help with clarity. The beer does not seem grassy, it cleared up well and looks really incredible. Now I have to wait 3 months and hope it carbs up cause I did not add fresh yeast at bottling. I took a page out of Medicmang's book and bottled in bombers cause with a beer this big, 12 oz just ain't enough.

Nice. Glad to hear everything came out well. I'm going to bottle the 2 small beers in the next couple days. The 17%er may be bulk conditioned for a bit. I haven't checked it yet to check the final gravity. I'll check that tomorrow probably.

Welp. SUCCESS!!! I bottled up my MM because it finished at 1.024. This makes it 17.1% abv! That's what I call gangsta ****. That Super High Gravity yeast chewed that sugar water all up. Tastes pretty decent from the sample I had so I decided not to bulk condition. No fusels or off flavors so far. Can't wait to try it carbonated and aged.

The other two beers from the second and third runnings will be bottled tomorrow. I'll report back with how those went too.

Hot dang. So I'm drinking a MM v. 2 and Wowsa it's potent. It won't carbonate for the life of me. I tried turning each one upside down to rouse the yeast and that didn't help obviously. Still good though. Quite sweet even though it's 17%.


Sent from Cheese Doodle Land.

Yeah!
I sampled a test bottle a few weeks ago and it produced a tiny hiss. Very light carbonation but I'm just glad to get something. They will probably come around eventually and get bubbly. All the incredible hop aroma seems to be faded away. I just need to dump a ton of hops in at the last 5 mins instead of wasting them on dry hopping. This beer is great though, much improved and very dangerous.
We need to trade these mothers soon! I'm waiting for the Edmund Fitzgerald Porter clone to carb up right now (courtesy of SD-Slim in the recipe section here) it's a great beer but I may have gone light on the hops compared to the original. I also have the mini mash from the second runnings, this is pretty good stuff, very session-able.
Anyway, glad to hear it finally came together for you and I can't wait to do the next one!

Cool man. I have some decent stuff ready at the moment. If you want to send next month, I will have more. Let me know when you are ready. Peace.


Sent from Cheese Doodle Land.

Well this one snuck up on me to be honest. It's come and gone and I don't have a recipe yet. I will begin working on something and I will brew a Monster Mash III before the end of the month.
Separately, I'll be sending your care package next week, around the 18-19.

Okay one more down in the old recipe binder.
This year I decided to bend the rules, like every year, but it's all within reason. I am tired of my beer barely carbonating or not at all. I also had a great deal of fun with last years partigyle approach. So I simply decided to tone down the original gravity on the Monster Mash 3.0 (MM3.0) and put a little more sugar into the MM3.1. MM3.0 will still be a big beer, just not out at the far reaches of the yeast capabilities.
I planned the ingredients the day before while perusing the beer store 30 minutes till closing time. I noticed some Vienna was on sale so the decision was made for me. What hops to use? Simcoe sounds good. I've used them a lot but never on their own. There it is, MM3.0 done, that's the beauty of simple recipes. I decided to go with Rye for the MM3.1.
So here's the ingredients list
MM3.0
20 lb American Vienna
8oz acid malt (this is a water additive!)
5 ounces total of Simcoe, 1 at 60, 10, 5 and two for dry hopping.
And a few more adjustments to the water I won't get into.
Yeast will be Pacman I harvested from a Rogue Shakespeare Stout.

MM3.1
Third runnings from the grain bed
1lb rye malt
1lb chocolate rye
.5 lb flaked rye
.5 lb midnight wheat
.5 lb crystal 150
.5 lb carahell (caramel 20? I think)
.25 crystal 60 (English medium)
All these specialty malts look crazy I know, but this beer is 1.030-1.040. Last year the little mash beer was very thin and dry. This year I decided to up the sweetness and or body and get rid of some old crystal malts at the same time.
Hops are simple to let the rye come through.
1 oz Willamette. Half at boil (60) half at 30.

Here we go
The drill didn't work for the grain mill, monster mash curse I guess.
It was full speed or nothing so I chose hand power. I crushed a bit then did something else then crushed a bit till it was all done. I just realized as I type this that I used double the amount of acid malt in the grain bill. Crap crap
I bought the appropriate amount but also measured out another .5lb while running around gathering grains. Oh well, 4% acid malt it is!
So I mashed in and all went well for a while. The wind picked up and the temperature dropped a good bit, it was appropriate weather for the occasion, cold and rainy. The wind knocked every leaf out of the trees and into my kettle as the first boil began so I moved to some cover with the resident cats. The work continued as night set in and I didn't have many other problems. I'm still waiting to pitch yeast today once I get the starters finished and over there, maybe tomorrow.
We will see how they turn out and if they don't, there's always next year.

Sweet. Hope it works out well. I have been a total slacker and haven't done mine yet. I'm building a counterflow chiller with my old immersion chiller and it's being a pain in the a$$. Once that is done though, I'll brew mine up. It gives me a lot of time to figure out what I want to do for mine. I'll post later tonight or tomorrow about my plan, now that I'm thinking about it. Also wasn't able to send the beer on Friday. I got sick as a dog and didn't leave the house for a couple days. I'll get it out sometime this week though. Prost!

Today I will get the yeast pitched, then all things should be good. These starters have been taking forever! I hope I don't show up and they are already fermenting. . .
Hope you feel better, it may help to know that the package is on the way. I'm anxious to see what you decide to go with, cheers
Here's a picture of my brew buddy trying to stay warm

I'll post a few pictures when I pitch the yeast tonight

Sounds like a lot of fun. I like the idea of trading the monster mash lol. I am going to be brewing up a RIS here in a couple days, approximately 20 lbs of grain. Excited to get that one into my carboy. I want to trade! but nobody wants to pay shipping prices to alaska... Sigh. Nice job, i want to do a monster mash now

Sounds great!
Yeah it cost $60.00 to ship to Anchorage instead of $23.00 I just paid to ship Medicmang's stuff.
I'm willing to give it a try, that is if you have any beer left over next fall. It may be too good to survive!
Give it a go and let us know how it went.

Okay the yeast is in and time will tell on these two beauties.
The one on the left is MM3.0 Graveyard SMaSH with Vienna and Simcoe OG was 1.080.
The beer on the right is MM3.1 Black Rye pegging out around 1.040. They both smelled amazing when I pulled the airlocks. View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1416474856.840778.jpg

Thanks, i appreciate the offer, but that is really expensive for shipping. I dont want anyone to have to pay that lol.

I made my RIS early today. After 6 hours, i had 2 brews done and in my carboys. I have photos, but i will have to put them on tomorrow. The RIS OG was 1.090, i was hoping it would be a little bit higher. I pitched in my yeast and it started fermenting approximately 5 hours later. In a month i will be transferring it onto cocoa nibs and vanilla beans.
The second runnings came out to be approximately 1.033, so i decided to try to sour this one with a smack pack of oud bruin that i had in the fridge. Hopefully they both turn out pretty good.