Double IPA Pliny the Elder Clone

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Planning to start brewing this recipe this week! Started making a shopping list .... that's a lot of hops!
 
Stopped by my LHBS to pick up my supplies and they did not have Columbus hops. The suggested Chinook as an alternative. Any thoughts on how that will affect the final product? Chinook and Columbus have similar alphas and tastes.
 
I brewed this on the weekend and couldn't get columbus so I substituted with warrior hops. The wort sample tasted good.
 
Stopped by my LHBS to pick up my supplies and they did not have Columbus hops. The suggested Chinook as an alternative. Any thoughts on how that will affect the final product? Chinook and Columbus have similar alphas and tastes.


Columbus hops are more dank and chinook have a pine and tropical fruit tone when used in high quantities. I like Apollo and nugget as replacements for CTZ myself. I know there are more options, but those have been pretty close for me.

I brew a chinook hopped pale ale for my house beer and love the hop.


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It would be a good beer, but not a clone so that depends on what you want to make. I personally would make the beer with the Chinook substitution.
 
Man. Its hard to do a pliny with out ctz. Chinook will certainly mark a good beer though. I personally would do it with citra or centennial
 
Chinook is going to give you a bit of a harsh taste. It simply is not Columbus which is dank and earthy. I love both hops, but would not substitute one for the other. Chinook is what I use in my Arrogant Bastard clone and it works well there. I use Columbus in this recipe or hop resin or Magnum (bittering only). Hop resin works well for this recipe, but has a side effect of making cleanup a bit more difficult. I still use Columbus for dry hop as it is essential to the dankness that Pliney has, IMHO. Happy brewing, cheers!
 
Interesting feedback. I ended up brewing this recipe last week and used the Chinook in place of the Columbus hops. I have another week before transferring to secondary, so hopefully between now and then, my LHBS will get some Columbus hops back in stock so I can dry hop with the appropriate hops.
 
brewed this yesterday it was a disaster i thought i messed up my mash and got crap efficiency but the problem was i didn add the sugar before taking the pre-boil gravity i got 5.3G at 1.055 with out sugar giving 67% effeciency, but with sugar it would of been 6.3G at 1.059 giving 73% effeciency. it took hours of messing with water additions to hit target. then near the end of the boil i took a gravity reading which measured 16.5 brix (1.071) then after cooling i took a reading with hydromoter and got 1.057, this makes no sense, i dont know whats goin on. iv got 5.3G AT 1.057 from 7.9G at 1.051. using the boil off calculator and taking into account say .5G for hop absorption, boiling off 2G should give me a gravity of around 1.069 i cant figure it out its like the sugars are jumping out of the pot. all readings where temperature corrected and checked with hydrometer and refractomoter. Its sitting in the fermentor now with the most beautiful krausen and aroma iv ever got but its gonna be so unbalanced,

do u think i could boil up some DME and throw it in to bring up the ABV?
 
If you feel the hop schedule is good, i would boil a small amount of water with 8 or 12oz corn sugar. Cool it, pitch it with the yeast. Personally, id worry more about the hop flavors then the ABV.
 
How calibrated is all of your equipment? I've heard of hydrometers getting out of calibration too. Did you taste a refractometer reading of the cooled wort? And does your refractometer have ATC?
 
If you feel the hop schedule is good, i would boil a small amount of water with 8 or 12oz corn sugar. Cool it, pitch it with the yeast. Personally, id worry more about the hop flavors then the ABV.

I'm worried about the balance of the bitterness with the alcohol

How calibrated is all of your equipment? I've heard of hydrometers getting out of calibration too. Did you taste a refractometer reading of the cooled wort? And does your refractometer have ATC?

My hydrometer is good it's sits around 1.000 in water, it tasted extremely bitter a lil vegetal but with so many hops it's not surprising, and no my refractomoer doesn't have ATC, I think I'm just gonna leave it and ride it out give it a lot of mellowing time.
 
Dont worry about it. I'd brew this in a second as a 6% ipa. You'll still end up with a great beer, except the in your face hops may stand out a little more. Is that ever a bad thing?
 
Dont worry about it. I'd brew this in a second as a 6% ipa. You'll still end up with a great beer, except the in your face hops may stand out a little more. Is that ever a bad thing?

true! a lad i know also brewed it and he hit his OG at 1.076 so were gonna swap bottles so it should be good to see how they compare
 
Dont worry about it. I'd brew this in a second as a 6% ipa. You'll still end up with a great beer, except the in your face hops may stand out a little more. Is that ever a bad thing?

Amen. Irish..chalk it up to lesson learned. Wont be a "true" clone, assuming all is clean, you pitch yeast/ferment at good temps, all will be good. Trying my first batch in 4 days or so. Another in primary now.
 
Just read the July/ August Zumurgy, which has the homebrew version of Pliny. (Also appeared in a 2010 issue).

The OP recipe is really really close! The only difference is that the Zumurgy one has a few small changes to the amount of grains because it's scaled for 6 gallons... After trub and hop loss should yield 5 gallons.

Thanks for this recipe. Gotta brew it up now!
 
Has anyone's come out more bitter than hoppy? I used zymurgy recipe and it's nothing like Pliny. No hop flavor at all. One thing I did do differently which may affect hop flavor is that I used washed yeast from my two hearted batch(1272). I think it picked up some character from that.

As a side note, if your in denver reconsider where you get your grains from. Quirky homebrew had the worst crush I've ever seen. The mill was so far apart 80% of grains weren't even crushed.


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Has anyone's come out more bitter than hoppy? I used zymurgy recipe and it's nothing like Pliny. No hop flavor at all. One thing I did do differently which may affect hop flavor is that I used washed yeast from my two hearted batch(1272). I think it picked up some character from that.

As a side note, if your in denver reconsider where you get your grains from. Quirky homebrew had the worst crush I've ever seen. The mill was so far apart 80% of grains weren't even crushed.


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How were your temps?
 
I have a ferm fridge set at 67.


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I dont know sorry. My first pliny, after just 10 day conditioning, is awesome. Ive had issues tasting hops in DIPAs after eating certain things. Never juice then drink. Only bitter was detected, for example.
 
My batch of Pliny is sitting in my secondary right now. I added the first round of dry hops and am excited to add the 2nd round within a few days. The test sample I tasted was very distinct - definitely resembled Pliny. My OG was also very close to the intended recipe, which was a first for me.

Overall, I'm pretty excited to see how this beer turns out. There is a local homebrew contest in about 2 months and depending on how this turns out, I might submit a bottle from this batch.
 
I don't quite remember exactly how Pliny tasted as it's been nearly a year since I've had one. When I transferred my Pliny clone to secondary to dry hop, my wife and I sampled at it was CRAZY bitter. So much so that my wife thought it was ruined, but after dry hopping and carbing, it settled very nicely. Now it's been about 3 or 4 weeks since kegging and it's great. Don't worry if your initial samples seem too bitter, just give it time.
 
Love this beer, or clone anyway.

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i don't quite remember exactly how pliny tasted as it's been nearly a year since i've had one. When i transferred my pliny clone to secondary to dry hop, my wife and i sampled at it was crazy bitter. So much so that my wife thought it was ruined, but after dry hopping and carbing, it settled very nicely. Now it's been about 3 or 4 weeks since kegging and it's great. Don't worry if your initial samples seem too bitter, just give it time.

+1
 
Real Pliny is pretty aggressively bitter.


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I disagree, I think it's really well balanced. To me, something like Sierra Nevada's Torpedo (70 IBUs) has a noticeably more harsh bitterness than Pliny (90-100 IBUs).
 
I disagree, I think it's really well balanced. To me, something like Sierra Nevada's Torpedo (70 IBUs) has a noticeably more harsh bitterness than Pliny (90-100 IBUs).

Totally agree. With 1lbs of hops in the 5gallon batch still smoother then some retail beers.
 
I find Pliny to be harsher than torpedo, but torpedo is pretty harsh too. It's a difference of 8 to 8.5 kinda thing.


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I don't quite remember exactly how Pliny tasted as it's been nearly a year since I've had one. When I transferred my Pliny clone to secondary to dry hop, my wife and I sampled at it was CRAZY bitter. So much so that my wife thought it was ruined, but after dry hopping and carbing, it settled very nicely. Now it's been about 3 or 4 weeks since kegging and it's great. Don't worry if your initial samples seem too bitter, just give it time.


It's been about a month and it's still crazy bitter. Maybe I screwed up something. I did a second batch I just bottled and threw in left over hops from my wookie jack. Added more at 45 and 5 min. Sample tasted way better so we will see how this turns out. I remember Pliny having a very smooth hop flavor but never bitter


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I don't quite remember exactly how Pliny tasted as it's been nearly a year since I've had one. When I transferred my Pliny clone to secondary to dry hop, my wife and I sampled at it was CRAZY bitter. So much so that my wife thought it was ruined, but after dry hopping and carbing, it settled very nicely. Now it's been about 3 or 4 weeks since kegging and it's great. Don't worry if your initial samples seem too bitter, just give it time.


It's been about a month and it's crazy bitter. Maybe I screwed up something. I did a second batch I just bottled and threw in left over hops from my wookie jack. Added more at 45 and 5 min. Sample tasted way better so we will see how this turns out. I remember Pliny having a very smooth hop flavor but never bitter


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It's been about a month and it's crazy bitter. Maybe I screwed up something. I did a second batch I just bottled and threw in left over hops from my wookie jack. Added more at 45 and 5 min. Sample tasted way better so we will see how this turns out. I remember Pliny having a very smooth hop flavor but never bitter


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Bottled my Pliny yesterday. I'm eagerly awaiting for it to bottle condition. The sample I tasted was very impressive. My OG was a little low and my FG ended up being a little higher, so my ABV is only 6.8%. Ultimately, I'm more interested in the taste than the ABV.
 
Pretty much followed the recipe, Amarillo added FWH. After 1 week bottle conditioning, positively incredible. Smooth, very floral with fruity flavor and aroma. My 2nd recipe, this one is better.

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