Life & Limb Clone Recipe

f you are willing to accept this challenge read on....

I want to try and clone the Sierra Nevada/Dogfish collaboration Life & Limb, I had a glass of this stuff and all I can say is that I have a new love (shhh don't tell the SWMBO....)

Here are the specs what I found on their website:

Alcohol Level: 10.2%
OG: 24 Plato
FG: 6.0 Plato
Bitterness Units: 50 IBU
Color: Black
Bittering Hops: Bravo
Finishing Hopserle & Sterling
Malts: Two-row Pale, Chocolate, Carafa
Other Ingredients: Maple & Birch Syrups (uses the birch for bottle carbing)

Also below is a short video where Sam talks about a few of their techniques:
http://www.dogfish.com/community/news/press-releases/life-limb/limb-life-brews-at-sierra-nevada.htm

Seems like a pretty good start, just need the amounts.....no big deal, easy right. Also to thrown a wrench in the mix, I need an extract w/steeping grains recipe.

I'm a noob and just don't know where to start when trying to clone a beer, so any and all help is greatly appreciated!!!

f you are willing to accept this challenge read on....

I want to try and clone the Sierra Nevada/Dogfish collaboration Life & Limb, I had a glass of this stuff and all I can say is that I have a new love (shhh don't tell the SWMBO....)

Here are the specs what I found on their website:

Alcohol Level: 10.2%
OG: 24 Plato
FG: 6.0 Plato
Bitterness Units: 50 IBU
Color: Black
Bittering Hops: Bravo
Finishing Hopserle & Sterling
Malts: Two-row Pale, Chocolate, Carafa
Other Ingredients: Maple & Birch Syrups (uses the birch for bottle carbing)

Seems like a pretty good start, just need the amounts and yeast type.....no big deal, easy right. Also to thrown a wrench in the mix, I need an extract w/steeping grains recipe.

I'm a noob and just don't know where to start when trying to clone a beer, so any and all help is greatly appreciated!!!

I wish I could help you out further but I'm just a noob myself, all I can tell you is that not every all grain recipe can be replicated with extract. Thus the advantage of all grain.

I'm pretty willing to bet that they use the chico strain (us-05, WLP001, etc.) SN uses this yeast (that is where the WLP culture came from), and I've heard that Sam over at Dogfish Head uses lots of that strain as well.

I figured this out with tastybrew based on those specs. Use bravo instead of Chinook. I have read some of Andy Tveekrem's recipes, and I think he likes to use late substitution for hops. You should also check out the brew monkey interview with him, specifically the part about high abv beers. not to ruin the ending, but he feeds the fermentation.

http://www.brew-monkey.com/articles/interview.php?id=2

Stats
OG 1.103
FG 1.026
IBU 49
ABV 9.9 %
SRM 23

Specifics
Boil Volume 6.5 gallons
Batch Size 5 gallons
Yeast 75% AA

Style Comparison
Low High
OG 1.060 1.103 1.090+
FG 1.015 1.026 1.022+
IBU 30 49 60
SRM 12 23 16
ABV 6 9.9 9+



Fermentables
% Weight Weight (lbs) Grain Gravity Points Color
95.2 % 15.00 Light Malt Extract Syrup 102.0 6.0
3.2 % 0.50 German Carafa 1.0 30.0
1.6 % 0.25 American Chocolate 0.5 17.5
15.75 103.5

Hops
% Wt Weight (oz) Hop Form AA% AAU Boil Time Utilization IBU
9.1 % 0.50 Chinook Pellet 13.0 6.5 60 0.195 19.0
18.2 % 1.00 Chinook Pellet 13.0 13.0 15 0.097 18.9
54.5 % 3.00 Sterling Pellet 6.3 18.9 1 0.008 2.4
18.2 % 1.00 Perle Pellet 8.0 8.0 10 0.071 8.5
5.50 48.7

resurrection...

Has anyone tried an All Grain version of this?

Not yet but I am going to try this soon, will probably use the same percentages of grain as posted by goingtomexico. I am guessing their OG (24 plato) includes the maple syrup but not the birch. I dont know if I am going to try and find some birtch or not.

My question is how much maple syrup to add? I have brewed with honey and add it to the last 5min of the boil so I am guessing I will do the same here.

Think I might do two 3 gal batches of this, mabe start with 1lb of syrup and adjust my gain bill to finish at 24 plato. Any thoughts?

I actually might try to do something like this at the end of the month. Had this at a SN party a lil while back and loved the beer. Definitely want to try and come up with something very close to it.

I would be interested to know if you hit the fg number I have up there, and what your mash temp was.

I'm going to head to the LHBS today and get all the stuff. According to MrMalt's calc I am going to need 2 vials of yeast and 2.81L of yeast starter. I am kinda bummed as I wanted to brew tomorrow but I guess it will have to wait.

this recipe only uses 3/4 lb of grains? Am I too steep those for 30 mins at 155'f like other larger grain batches?

Anyone do this? Tomorrow will be a week in primary for following the posted recipe in this thread.

I didn't get to start this yet as I had a few things come up. I hopefully will have time to brew it in Feb and have it ready before I ship out at the end of April.

Am now just trying my first glass of this receipe. I made a few tweaks to it but it is freaking amazing. I am going to bottle some up and take to a beer tasting tomorrow and I will report the results.

jvcjbl said:

Am now just trying my first glass of this receipe. I made a few tweaks to it but it is freaking amazing. I am going to bottle some up and take to a beer tasting tomorrow and I will report the results.

Click to expand...

Would love to know the tweaks and what you ended up doing and how close it is. Did you end up doing the maple syrup and birch syrup additions?

USMCYoder said:

Would love to know the tweaks and what you ended up doing and how close it is. Did you end up doing the maple syrup and birch syrup additions?

Click to expand...

Nope... skipped that. Considering I've never had L&L I can't tell you how close it is. I am starting to think that I took the basis and changed it up. I did the extract version of this BTW.