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.