Pliny the Elder Clone Kit from MoreBeer

Hello all! I've decided to brew my second homebrew and I just got the ingredients in the mail. So my first question:

Has anyone ever used this kit?

The reason I ask is because it didn't come with a specific yeast and only reccomended a few. Here are the yeasts I got:

Safale US-05 dry yeast
White Labes California Ale yeast (came in a vial)
Wyeast Liquid American Yeast

Being that this is only my second beer, I don't know what benefits one yeast would have over the other. Questions two:

Which one is best?

Also, is one of them enough for a double IPA?

Thanks in advance to all responses!

Cheers,
Tim

i brewed that kit a few months ago and went with a double pitch of nottingham ale yeast, did not do a started just re-hydrated it. I dont think you can go wrong using WLP001 either i would just make a starter if you only have one vial. good luck mine turned out great.

My choice would be to pitch an appropriate sized starter slurry of WLP001. It's the highest attenuating of the three and I believe what Russian River uses for this beer. You want to make sure you have adequate cell count for a high OG beer such as this one. Therefore, pitching one pack/vial on it's own would not be enough.

Wlp001 or us05 would be fine, but watch your pitch rates. Use mrmalty.com to determine the proper pitch. Ill say this though, generally one pack of rehydrated us05 will contain more cells than one vial or wlp001. I would definitely rehydrate if using dry yeast.

Thanks for the replies. I live in Italy and I think I am going to go with the US05 as I don't have the time to wait for another vial. Thanks again!

us-05 will get the job done fine

Gigan said:

us-05 will get the job done fine

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Not one small packet... and that's what the OP asked. One packet of US05 will produce alcohol, but no where near the same league as a Pliny clone.

theonlysurfnbeer said:

Also, is one of them enough for a double IPA?

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I'd go with bobbrews and WLP001 with a starter. It'll still be good beer with the single pack of us-05, but it'll be better with 2 packs.

How about using all 3 yeasts?

I brewed the same kit about 2 months ago and used the wlp001 yeast that they recommended on their website. I did a full boil for full hop utilization and made a 1L starter. Make sure you have a blow off instead of just an airlock because the fermentation will be very strong. It didn't ferment down to the expected FG so I ended up at 1.020 making the beer ~ 6.8% (2 weeks primary+ 2 weeks secondary). If I had to do it over, which I definitely will, I'd go with a 4L starter since it's such a big beer. Also, use a hop bag or you'll get tons of hop dregs. The final product was super hoppy and tasty but nothing like a Pliney. I just tell friends it's a dipa, not a clone.

Are you saying that if you dont pitch enough yeast that you wont get as high of an alcohol content? I thought you wanted to pitch enough just to get it started fast and avoid infection. Shouldn't you get the same end product no matter how much you pitch because the yeast will just go until they run out of food?

You need enough yeast to multiply and eat up all the sugars. If there's not enough, you'll get unfermented sugar (like I did) and have a 'maltier' beer. I checked with my beer app, and it recommended a 4L starter for this size beer. I didn't have a 4L container so I pitched 1L. If you look around this website and check out bigger beer recipes, they usually pitch huge amounts of starters. I'm not sure if that's the main reason my beer stopped at 1.020 but that's just my experience. Maybe yours will be different depending on conditions and fermentation time. Either way, it's a darn great beer to drink so you can't go wrong. Good luck!

I brewed this kit and used 1 pack of us05. It came out to 7.7%

Side note. I didn't think this clone was dead on. Color was a little darker and it had a more malty taste than a Pliny. I wonder if it really needs that maltodextrin in it.
Still a good beer.

I ended up using Wlp001 and US05. Pretty vigorous with those two. This Friday will make two weeks in Primary. Do I need to do a secondary? Or would two weeks bottle conditioning suffice?

Im a big fan of wlp001 and would have used that alone in an appropriate sized starter. That being said, i'm sure your beer will turn out amazing with those two yeasts mixed together. Home brews seem to always work themselves out.

Let us know the end result... and, to be so bold... what was the recipe? I've been trying to track down some Pliny but cant get my hands on any.

theonlysurfnbeer said:

This Friday will make two weeks in Primary. Do I need to do a secondary? Or would two weeks bottle conditioning suffice?

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I would primary 2-3 weeks, secondary + cold crash 2-3 weeks, bottle prime 2-3 weeks.

You could skip the secondary and do a 4 week primary with dryhop, but this may yield slightly lesser results for a true Pliny clone. I skip the secondary all the time for my IPAs, but you really have to be careful not to agitate the trub when racking.

Bob,

Thanks for the reply, I'm new to homebrewing and I appreciate all the help I can get. If you don't mind my asking, what is cold crashing the secondary? I haven't heard of this yet. I did a cold crash after the boil before pitching yeast, but not sure what you mean by cold crashing the secondary. Thanks in advance!

Tim

bobbrews said:

I would primary 2-3 weeks, secondary + cold crash 2-3 weeks, bottle prime 2-3 weeks.

You could skip the secondary and do a 4 week primary with dryhop, but this may yield slightly lesser results for a true Pliny clone. I skip the secondary all the time for my IPAs, but you really have to be careful not to agitate the trub when racking.

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Being new to the forum and homebrewing, would I be breaking any taboos if I post a recipe that they sell on morebeer?

JohnnySardonic said:

Im a big fan of wlp001 and would have used that alone in an appropriate sized starter. That being said, i'm sure your beer will turn out amazing with those two yeasts mixed together. Home brews seem to always work themselves out.

Let us know the end result... and, to be so bold... what was the recipe? I've been trying to track down some Pliny but cant get my hands on any.

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Looking for that recipe to compare to my tweaked version.

Sheldon

theonlysurfnbeer said:

What is cold crashing the secondary? I haven't heard of this yet. I did a cold crash after the boil before pitching yeast, but not sure what you mean by cold crashing the secondary.

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After the beer is racked to secondary, but before it is bottled, there is a period of time when you can reduce the temp. of the beer to about the 40's in order to drop some of the yeast cells out of suspension, which aids clarity. It's the same treatment you would use to drop the yeast cells out of a liquid starter, but it takes a little more time. Afterward, you bring it back to room temp., add priming sugar, and bottle... or skip that last step and force carb/keg if that's your route. Be sure to avoid agitating the carboy and stirring up the yeast or all of that time spent cold-crashing will be good for nothing. I like to cold crash at counter height (when I choose to do it)... it's not a necessary step at all IMO, but it may help in some cases.