Black Hole Sun

Clone of "Bomb!" by Prairie Artisan Ales, published in BYO and authored by Dave Clark.

Ingredients, adjusted for what is available at Micro Homebrew:

• 16 lbs -- Rahr, Premium Pilsner
  
• 14 oz -- Bairds, Black Malt
  
• 14 oz -- Crisp, Roasted Barley
  
• 14 oz -- Simpsons, Naked Oats
  
• 14 oz -- Briess, Chocolate
  
• 14 oz -- Bestmalz, Melanoidin
  
  
• The original recipe directs to use a 2 qt/lbs mash thickness, but that won't fit in my mash tun, so I'm going to shoot for 1.5 and just monitor the conversion using a refractometer.
  
  
• I typically mash in my brewing kettle without a false bottom and then transfer to my plastic cooler mash tun in order to conduct the sparge. The transfer only takes a couple minutes and this strategy allows me to use direct heat as needed to adjust the mash temperature as things cool.
  
  
• I also typically mash out at 168°F or so for 10 minutes. This recipe instead directs you to sparge with 170°F water. I intend to skip the mash out step and go directly to the sparge.
  
  
• 7.7 AAU -- Magnum (60m)
  
  
• Yeast Nutrient (use as directed on bottle)
  
  
• Sparge with enough water at 170 °F (76.7 °C) to collect 7.5 gallons (28.4 L) of runoff
  
  
• Top up to 5.5 gallons in the fermenter as needed.
  
  ----
  
  Yeast Starter Plan:
  
  (479g of DME needed total)
  
  1 Package of Wyeast 1056
  
  First Step:
  1.5 L @ 1.04 - Stir Plate (2 days)
  
  Second Step:
  3 L @ 1.04 - Stir Plate (2 days)