Pliny Clone Kit from Northern Brewer?!

CornyKegs 728
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I had Pliny at the brewpub last Tuesday. Man oh man is that good beer. Doesn't get much better. Wonder how this kit stacks up...
 
beersk said:
I had Pliny at the brewpub last Tuesday. Man oh man is that good beer. Doesn't get much better. Wonder how this kit stacks up...
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That's definitely the best way to have it! Fresh from the brewpub :) The kit looks pretty much right on target based on the recipes that Vinnie has given out. The one thing I would say is that if you're bottling instead of kegging you'll definitely lose a little hop character simply because of time waiting for the bottles to carb up.
 
Brewed the all grain kit today. Hit all my numbers. Smell was great as it went into the fermenter, taste was what I would expect. Still two rounds of dry hopping to go after fermentation finishes. 6 weeks or so and I will know how it came out overall.


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I'm definitely curious how this kit would turn out. Never had Pliny and don't handed any plans to try and get any, but I might be interested in trying this kit. Or maybe modeling a recipe on it.

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got this for my brother for xmas, he loves his kits sooo yea....he just bottled it bout a week ago. once he comes up to ski next i'll get to try it and i'll report back. he did say it smelled absurdly awesome at bottling, but then again he did up the dry hops quite a bit.
 
If you guys pick up a copy of Brewing Classic Styles, Jamil has a brew in there called Hop Hammer. Its the Pliny Recipe. I think he increased the gravity a little, I can't remember why, though. I brewed it and did a side by side with Pliny w/ some friends, they all said mine was better, but I think it was because the Pliny we were trying had some age on it and mine was 4 wks old.

I looked at the NB recipe, it doesn't seem to have enough hops in it. I remember buying something like $30 worth of hops for the recipe in Brew Classic Styles.
 
RmikeVT said:
If you guys pick up a copy of Brewing Classic Styles, Jamil has a brew in there called Hop Hammer. Its the Pliny Recipe. I think he increased the gravity a little, I can't remember why, though. I brewed it and did a side by side with Pliny w/ some friends, they all said mine was better, but I think it was because the Pliny we were trying had some age on it and mine was 4 wks old.

I looked at the NB recipe, it doesn't seem to have enough hops in it. I remember buying something like $30 worth of hops for the recipe in Brew Classic Styles.
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It probably looks that way because the NB kit uses hopshots in place of bittering hops. I definitely wouldn't worry about the quantity of hops in the NB kit. In fact, there are even some amarillo hops in the NB kit which aren't listed in the widely available Pliny recipe supplied by Vinnie. There are rumors though that the real Pliny uses some amarillo hops now.
 
I agree with that. I've always thought that Vinnie never truly gave out the EXACT recipe, but definitely something really close that us homebrewers seem to enjoy :)


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The hop shots are syringes of liquid hop extract. In this kit they are added at the start of the 90 min boil.


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Andrew862 said:
The hop shots are syringes of liquid hop extract. In this kit they are added at the start of the 90 min boil.


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ImageUploadedByHome Brew1392864637.842849.jpg


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Have done several days of dumping yeast from my conical. Gravity is down to 1.020 and still dropping. The smell is amazing! I can't wait to dry hop and get this in the keg.


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What can you sub in for the hopshot? I assume using a CTZ type hop, but how much per shot for the bittering addition?
 
I would say use ctz and adjust it based on ibus. There are exactly 1 bazillion calculators out there for that! Has anyone tried their finished kit yet?


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What are the AA/IBU stats for the hopshot?

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I picked up the kit and had a good brew session--hit the mash temp, good ph, etc. The only thing I did different was use Pacman yeast instead of 1056. The fermentation seemed to go well but stopped at 1.028. I had captured some krausen yeast, so I restarted that and pitched it to no avail. It remains stuck. I haven't dropped any of the yeast from the conical. I added a half teaspoon of amylase. I'll check it later to see if that did anything. I'm not sure what to do. It's possible it's done, but that would kind of suck as I'm sure a gravity that high is going to make it a bit sweeter than it's supposed to be. It does smell pretty darn good. I haven't dry hopped, naturally, as I've been trying to get the gravity down for the last week. I know I have to make a decision here as I'm losing hop character by the day.
 
I don't think that it's not that he hasn't given out the exact recipe but that recipes don't always scale linearly from commercial to homebrew batch size. And that commercial recipes change slightly due to hop and grain quality/availability.
 
Karkinos did you make a starter? And how fresh was your yeast? And Medley I agree with you there. The scaling of recipes is never linear. Good call there.


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Just racked to the keg yesterday. Added second set of dry hops (recipe has two rounds of dry hopping) to the keg. I'll let it sit for the week to carb up, chill, and dry hop. Next Friday will be first taste. It smells awesome and sample tasted great.


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I transferred mine to the keg lay night and carved it. A sample tasted amazing. I'm looking forward to trying it in a day or two.
 
It's awesome. The hop aroma is through the roof. The citrus notes are off the charts. This is a great beer. I've never had Pliny the Elder so I can't tell you if it's close or not, but I don't care. I'm very pleased with the outcome.
 
Karkinos said:
It's awesome. The hop aroma is through the roof. The citrus notes are off the charts. This is a great beer. I've never had Pliny the Elder so I can't tell you if it's close or not, but I don't care. I'm very pleased with the outcome.
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Did you remove the first set of dry hops or just leave them in the whole time? How long did you dry hop for? I'm going to make this kit in a few weeks.


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I removed the first set at 5 days and left the second round in for 5 days. Mitch Steele's book on IPAs suggests no more than 5 days for a dry hop or you risk pulling a vegetative taste.

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Karkinos said:
I removed the first set at 5 days and left the second round in for 5 days. Mitch Steele's book on IPAs suggests no more than 5 days for a dry hop or you risk pulling a vegetative taste.

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This. I love that book.


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I have tried mine a couple of times over the last few days and overall it is very good. I did half of the dry hopping in the fermenter and the second set is dry hopping in the keg. My latest sample had a very bitter taste to it. Aroma was awesome, flavor was good, but the finish was very hop bitter. I actually tasted the hop shot (don't do this if you value your taste buds) and that bitterness is what I am tasting in the finished product. I am hoping it balances out a bit with age. I brewed the all grain kit. The bitterness I taste now didn't seem to come through in the hydrometer samples, so I am curious exactly what I am tasting and hoping it mellows a bit over the next few days. I'll try again tomorrow to see where it is at, having been dry hopping for a week in the keg, cold.


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DLR1987 said:
Karkinos did you make a starter? And how fresh was your yeast? And Medley I agree with you there. The scaling of recipes is never linear. Good call there.
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Oops. Forgot to answer this question. Yes, I made a starter. This was the biggest risk I took with this beer--which was small lol. Instead of 1056 I used Pacman (1764). One of the reasons I used a starter, though, was to capture some from it for later use. So far as I know, the yeast was less than 6 months old. I bought it from MoreBeer. I was very pleased with the outcome.
 
I'm brewing this right now. These hop shots smell f'ing amazing.

Gonna use some of my bell's yeast. Mashed at 150 so she should have no problem getting to 1.010 or less like I think the real Pliny does.


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Andrew862 said:
I have tried mine a couple of times over the last few days and overall it is very good. I did half of the dry hopping in the fermenter and the second set is dry hopping in the keg. My latest sample had a very bitter taste to it. Aroma was awesome, flavor was good, but the finish was very hop bitter. I actually tasted the hop shot (don't do this if you value your taste buds) and that bitterness is what I am tasting in the finished product. I am hoping it balances out a bit with age. I brewed the all grain kit. The bitterness I taste now didn't seem to come through in the hydrometer samples, so I am curious exactly what I am tasting and hoping it mellows a bit over the next few days. I'll try again tomorrow to see where it is at, having been dry hopping for a week in the keg, cold.


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Are your keg hops in a bag? If so, is it possible that the bag of hops is stuck near the inlet to the beer outflow line? I imagine that if this happened and the beer was being sucked through the hops on the way to your glass it would taste very bitter.
 
So update, now that it has had a week to sit the flavor has balanced out and the beer is less cloudy. I think it was a combination of not giving the dry hops enough time to diffuse into the beer and possibly the first few pints having some settled particles in them. The flavor now is amazing and matches the aroma well. Verdict: I would brew this again For sure.


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I was reading the instructions on the extract version. It's not a full volume boil so how much hop character do you guys think will be lost? Also, they have you boil the 4 lbs of DME for the full 90 minutes. Do I sense some maillard reaction?


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DLR1987 said:
I was reading the instructions on the extract version. It's not a full volume boil so how much hop character do you guys think will be lost? Also, they have you boil the 4 lbs of DME for the full 90 minutes. Do I sense some maillard reaction?


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This kit will have no more issues with hop utilization and darkening than with any other extract recipe out there. If you have the equipment to do a full boil, do it, even if the directions don't specifically call for it. Similarly, add most of your extract late, even if the recipe doesn't mention that technique specifically.


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BrodieBruce said:
This kit will have no more issues with hop utilization and darkening than with any other extract recipe out there. If you have the equipment to do a full boil, do it, even if the directions don't specifically call for it. Similarly, add most of your extract late, even if the recipe doesn't mention that technique specifically.


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Oh don't get me wrong, I'm aware of late extract additions and hop utilization. I was just more curious than anything. The other question is how far this will actually ferment down to? With all extract, it may be quite difficult/potentially impossible to get it down to 1.010 right?


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DLR1987 said:
Oh don't get me wrong, I'm aware of late extract additions and hop utilization. I was just more curious than anything. The other question is how far this will actually ferment down to? With all extract, it may be quite difficult/potentially impossible to get it down to 1.010 right?


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Isn't there some sugar added to the recipe or is it really all extract? If it's all extract I agree that 1.010 seems unlikely.


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BrodieBruce said:
Isn't there some sugar added to the recipe or is it really all extract? If it's all extract I agree that 1.010 seems unlikely.


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Oops...yeah .75lbs corn sugar. Maybe it's possible! Haha.


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Just brewed this two days ago, and pitched Conan yeast for it... It smells awesome fermenting. I also tried the hopshot out of curiosity (and against the advice on this thread). It's very bitter. I can't decide if I'm going to bottle this or keg it.
 
palys2 said:
Just brewed this two days ago, and pitched Conan yeast for it... It smells awesome fermenting. I also tried the hopshot out of curiosity (and against the advice on this thread). It's very bitter. I can't decide if I'm going to bottle this or keg it.
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I would keg it if you have the means, mostly because you can drink it fresh fresh fresh!


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