Pliny Attempt

Bottled up the Simtra clone, BLIPA ticking over in the FV it's time for the next adventure. This is an internet borrowed recipe. The only alteration is hops - had to change out Centennial for Amarillo due to supplier being out of Centennial pellets (the cones are a real bitch when they get stuck in the autosiphon):

HOME BREW RECIPE:
Title: Pliny Clone (based on Pliny the Bastid)

Brew Method: All Grain
Style Name: Imperial IPA
Boil Time: 60 min
Batch Size: 10 liters (fermentor volume)
Boil Size: 17.6 liters
Boil Gravity: 1.044
Efficiency: 70% (brew house)

STATS:
Original Gravity: 1.078
Final Gravity: 1.015
ABV (standard): 8.31%
IBU (tinseth): 295.06
SRM (morey): 7.99

FERMENTABLES:
3 kg - United Kingdom - Maris Otter Pale (87.7%)
0.05 kg - United Kingdom - Crystal 45L (1.5%)
0.2 kg - German - Carapils (5.8%)
0.17 kg - Corn Sugar - Dextrose (5%)

HOPS:
20.43 g - Chinook, Type: Pellet, AA: 13, Use: Mash, IBU: 14.12
37.5 g - Warrior, Type: Pellet, AA: 16, Use: Boil for 90 min, IBU: 171.22
6.73 g - Chinook, Type: Pellet, AA: 13, Use: Boil for 90 min, IBU: 24.97
13.7 g - Simcoe, Type: Pellet, AA: 12.7, Use: Boil for 45 min, IBU: 42.61
13.7 g - Columbus, Type: Pellet, AA: 15, Use: Boil for 30 min, IBU: 42.13
30.77 g - Amarillo, Type: Pellet, AA: 8.6, Use: Boil for 0 min
13.7 g - Simcoe, Type: Pellet, AA: 12.7, Use: Boil for 0 min

YEAST:
Fermentis / Safale - American Ale Yeast US-05

______________________

Brew day is either Thursday or Friday so welcoming any comments or revisions on this.

Tinkered with the malt bill:

3 kg - United Kingdom - Maris Otter Pale (75.9%)
250 g - United Kingdom - Crystal 45L (6.3%)
500 g - German - Carapils (12.7%)
200 g - Corn Sugar - Dextrose (5.1%)

The theory goes that the Carapils and Crystal will give this a hella-sickly sweet taste. Given the IBU intensity at 280 this should balance out and mellow over the next month or so.

Interested to see how this goes. I've bookmarked a Pliny the Elder clone that I'm keen to try at some point, but I've never tasted the original so I have no basis whatsoever for comparison!

295 ibu?! :-0

The IBU count really makes no discernible difference (from what i read) past about 100 - i'm guessing the amount of hop was to impart some taste, some aroma. Interestingly there's no dry hop schedule.

Brewday went without incident. We hit OG pretty much bang on thanks to the new and improved oh-****-i-forgot-to-split-the-water technique. 3/4 went into the kettle and the other 1/4 into a soup pot. Mashed high-ish for about 15 mins before cooling off and mashing at 66 for the next 45 mins. Lifted bag out, drained into kettle. Lifted bag over FV with sieve and sparged with soup pot water then squished it until there was nary a drop of moisture left in the grain.

Boil on we were about 2L over expected pre-boil volume. Brought it down from 14L to 12L over the course of an hour then started the boil with hop schedule.

We realised fairly early on when we were laying out the hops that we were short of Amarillo so we topped up that part of the schedule with Columbus. Schedule went swimmingly then we cooled, pitched and ditched in the garage. Krausen came and went within about 2 days and there is still some activity in the FV as of last night.

We are now 6 days post brewday and i'm thinking of checking the gravity tonight - potentially we could bottle in a few days.

Sounds good mate, I didn't realise that past 100 ibu the bitterness plateaus.
I've not seen an IPA named Pliny, where are they available?

That sounds great. I looked for mentions of similar clone recipes online, and sounds like you may want to dry-hop quite a lot:

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=21229

I had a 1000 IBUs beer by Mikeller. Wasn't overly bitter.

TheRedDarren said:

Sounds good mate, I didn't realise that past 100 ibu the bitterness plateaus.
I've not seen an IPA named Pliny, where are they available?

Click to expand...

It's brewed by Russian River Brewing Co in the States so we're outta luck here really.

rodabod said:

That sounds great. I looked for mentions of similar clone recipes online, and sounds like you may want to dry-hop quite a lot:

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=21229

I had a 1000 IBUs beer by Mikeller. Wasn't overly bitter.

Click to expand...

Flippin' heck, how'd i miss that part of it! Need to dry hop about 18g of Coumbus, Centennial and Simcoe over the next few weeks. I don't know if i have any left!

As for 1000IBUs it completely ruined my palate - i had a Buxton Two Ton afterwards to try and reclaim the taste of sweetness but, really, it had done it in. An experience, but never drinking that again.

I was getting the 1000 IBUs for about £3.50 a half pint in my local. It was always reserved for the last couple of drinks. Absolutely destroyed you!

If you need to dry-hop it, then dry-hop it. You've invested a lot of hops already, and the beer will still be good value.

The three-week dry-hop schedule sounded a bit complicated to me (assuming it was for the same beer) and also gives more risk of oxidisation of the liquor which spoils hop flavour/aroma if you repeatedly open the fermenting vessel. When I dry hop, I quickly lift the side of the lid and chuck the hops in so that I avoid losing the CO2 layer above the liquor.

I'll probably dry hop this evening then, get it back underway. Cheers guys!

Busy week has meant not getting around to this till tonight. Gravity is FG (pretty much) and taste test made me giddy with excitement. Dry hopped with some Chinook tonight and bottling next week.

Made up some labels for this one - all bottled up now!

The finished (nearly) conditioning product! Ready end of November :)

Brilliant!

Nice......

Did you see this?

https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/attachments/0000/6351/doubleIPA.pdf

I read this actually, it's a good insight into the Russian River brewing process and i like Vinnie's assertion that you don't need to overload the Carapils to get a sweet taste.

Our brew is still in the cupboard until the end of the month - we shall wait and see the results.

It's got to be a difficult balance between getting the hop flavour/aroma at its peak, but with the maturation of the malt/booziness. Looking forward to hearing how it goes.

I've just come back from a 2 week holiday in the States, which included a trip to Russian River :) We turned up at 10:45 (they open at 11) and there were was already a line!

I have to say, it was pretty delicious! The rest of their beers (and there are a lot) are ok.

I've brought back 2 bottles of Pliny The Elder with me (amongst others), but I can't save them as all over the label they insist it be drunk sooner rather than later!