Pliny the Younger Clone

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jglazer said:
The hop shots I used did cause some dark/black stuff to float around in my boil, almost oily like. I haven't tasted any off flavors though and I am in the dry hop stage now.
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Ya, whenever I brew with a bunch of hop extract I get those little dark brown floating balls that float. They look to big to be un-ruptured lupulin glands, so I'm not sure what to make of them. They don't affect the beer in any way.
 
My Conan pooped out at 1.016, while the WLP001 got down to 1.012. I think the starter for the Conan may have been a bit small, and at one point I accidentally let fermentation get down to 58F. The Conan one still tastes great, albeit a little sweeter and less hop bitter tasting. How are the other Conan attempts coming along?
 
I have a Pliny the Younger clone almost done with Conan. Last time I checked it was down to 1.014, but the Heady Topper clone I have going along side it with Conan went down to 1.012. Both of these batches stalled between 1.020 and 1.016 for about a week until I raised the temp up to 72 for a week. Then they both started to slowly creep down to the low teens.

FYI-the Conan was harvested from cans from early June.
 
I'm going to be brewing this in the next few days and my typical APA, AIPA, and AIIPA water adjustments are as follows:

Ca=110, Mg=18, Na=16, Cl=50, S04=279

(1:5.6 Cl:SO4 ratio)

This is basically Randy Mosher's ideal Pale Ale numbers will less sulphate (he calls for 350). It's done me well for many years now of brewing these beers, including Pliny the Elder.

Looking at what others have done for this recipe however, I'm toying with doing more of a 1:2 or 1:2.5 Cl:SO4 ratio like this:

Ca=94, Mg=10, Na=16, Cl=70, S04=177

Or maybe even:

Ca=95, Mg=10, Na=16, Cl=83, S04=162

The big change is getting the Cl:SO4 ratio closer together.

Thoughts?

Kal
 
Today is brew day! There's no going back now! I'm basing mine on Scott's second attempt recipe and made the (subtle) changes he recommended.

That's a lot of hop oil vials!:

IMG_2952_1280.jpg


IMG_2954_1280.jpg


(I'm making 10 gallons)

Kal
 
~11 gallons of 1.082 wort is now fermenting away. I'll be adding another 1.5 lbs of corn sugar after 4-5 days to bump it up to 1.087 - 1.088 or so.

I have to re-itterate what some others have mentioned about these HopShots. They are an absolute pain in the arse to clean out of the boil kettle. There was gummy 'tar' (for lack of a better word) all over the walls, on my hop stopper and especially on the heating element. Normally it takes me 10-15 mins to clean the boil kettle at most and I rarely ever use any oxiclean. This time took a good hour or more and most of a bottle of oxiclean to break down this gumminess both off the kettle items and the bristle brush I was using.

I suggest using paper towels or something to try and wipe off as much as you can first so that you don't need to use as much PBW or Oxi to break down the residual oily tar-like substance.

Fermenters smell wonderful but I'm not sure I want to use hop oils again!

Kal
 
I seen some people using it but didn't see the results. Anybody use WLP090 on this clone? I have never used that strain so I was just curious. Sorry if it's been covered I went through a few pages and didn't see results.
 
I've used WLP090 for an enjoy by clone. 1.081 beer. Finished at 1.010 with 1lb of dextrose and zero crystal malt.

I don't think it'll get a 1.089-1.090 beer down to 1.010 with similar malt %'s. Close but not quite.

If you go with 090, up the sugar % a little bit, and use a boat-load of O2
 
I used WLP090 with a PM PTY clone but I only got FG down to 1.013. I had much better luck using it with a PM PTE clone that had an OG of 1.075 and a FG of 1.009. I think I could get scottland's all grain PTY clone recipe down to 1.010 with WLP090 if I pitched 1 million cells/ml/degree plato (400 billion cells in a 5 gallon batch) at 68* for a week and then upped it to 75* for a week and shook it around a lot.
 
Well I brewed it with the wlp090 But Completely messed this one up. Somehow I came up with about 4.5 gallons Instead of 5.5 and gravity was 1.071... pretty dissappointed
 
Well after 24 hours I added 1 gallon of water with 1/4 pound of corn sugar and 1/2 pound of light DME. That got me to 5.5 gallons and I'm assuming this got me up to about 1.077 SG but I didn't measure it. Honestly I didn't think on it to much. Think it was a good idea? It put the total corn sugar at 1.5 pounds.
 
thisisbeer said:
Well after 24 hours I added 1 gallon of water with 1/4 pound of corn sugar and 1/2 pound of light DME. That got me to 5.5 gallons and I'm assuming this got me up to about 1.077 SG but I didn't measure it. Honestly I didn't think on it to much. Think it was a good idea? It put the total corn sugar at 1.5 pounds.
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I don't have BS or a calculator on me, but it is probably now closer to 1.063-1.065.

((.071x4.5g) + (~.030x1g)) / 5.5 = 1.064
 
Unfortunately adding anything past the boil makes it a partial boil. That will seriously cut IBUs and throw off the whole hop profile of what PTY should be. In fact bobbrews was pretty adamant that I shouldn't add DME later in the boil (which would have actually increased IBUs if I used the same amount of hops) because it would throw off the hop profile.
 
One thing I have been thinking about is if a lot of the hop extract is ending up coating the kettle. You must be saturating the wort with it. Couldn't I just add less so that wouldn't happen?
 
brewed this recipe up a few weeks ago, kegged and added gelatin and this is the result.

missed the OG but ended up with a 9.7% monster that is wonderful.

PtY_2.0.jpg
 
JonW said:
Some friends and I brewed 20 gallons of PTE last year in two 10 gallon back-to-back batches. We blended the wort 50/50 between the batches to account for any differences that may have occured. We then pitched WLP001 in 10 gallons and US05 in 10 gallons. Fermented both in a temperature controlled refrigerator. Starting and finished gravities came out the same. In blind tasting, nobody could tell which was which. There was an ever so slight difference between the two beers, but the US05 was picked each time as the preferred one. I will have no issue using US05 on a PTE or PTY beer again.
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I wholeheartedly agree, I always make starters regardless, and the profile of US05 vs WLPOO1 or Wyeast 1056 is so negligible I just don't bother with the short shelf life of the liquid strains anymore. That said I would never direct sprinkle, only because of lag time, the dry packets actually contain more cells than a White labs vial.
 
55chevydude said:
Nice brewcephus! Any idea on what you spent on this 5 gallon batch?
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Sorry I'm just now getting back to you on this, just now seeing it honestly. I would have to do some math real quick to get you to the cost because I buy grains and hops in bulk, as well as making starters larger than needed to be able to reuse yeast, but if I had to throw a figure off the top of my head I'd say it was around $60-65 for a 10g batch.

It was also worth every penny and I might have shed a tear when I pulled the final pint :(
 
crazyirishman34 said:
I am not sure that making a starter is the way to go with dry yeast. I would rehydrate it according to the directions on the packet.
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yeah, it really is..rehydrate, then starter as usual with any other...these are the same cells, not sure why there is such a sentiment of can a can not with dry yeast...never heard of a scientific reason.
 
Re-hydrating Dry Yeast
1. Put 1 cup of warm (95-105F, 35-40C) boiled water into a sanitized jar and stir in the yeast. Cover with Saran Wrap and wait 15 minutes.
2. "Proof" the yeast by adding one teaspoon of extract or sugar that has been boiled in a small amount of water. Allow the sugar solution to cool before adding it to the jar.
3. Cover and place in a warm area out of direct sunlight.
4. After 30 minutes or so the yeast should be visibly churning and/or foaming, and is ready to pitch.

Note: Lallemand/Danstar does not recommend proofing after rehydration of their yeast because they have optimized their yeast's nutrional reserves for quick starting in the main wort. Proofing expends some of those reserves.
 
crazyirishman34 said:
Re-hydrating Dry Yeast
1. Put 1 cup of warm (95-105F, 35-40C) boiled water into a sanitized jar and stir in the yeast. Cover with Saran Wrap and wait 15 minutes.
2. "Proof" the yeast by adding one teaspoon of extract or sugar that has been boiled in a small amount of water. Allow the sugar solution to cool before adding it to the jar.
3. Cover and place in a warm area out of direct sunlight.
4. After 30 minutes or so the yeast should be visibly churning and/or foaming, and is ready to pitch.

Note: Lallemand/Danstar does not recommend proofing after rehydration of their yeast because they have optimized their yeast's nutrional reserves for quick starting in the main wort. Proofing expends some of those reserves.
Click to expand...


we all have our ways of doing things, rehydration creates a "pitchable slurry" for sure- basiclly making a white labs vial- that they call pitchable from their instructions as well...though most agree the best way to ensure a healthy ferment is to make a starter....I also use yeast nutrient & oxygenate the wort and have good ferments & very little lag time...the starters build yeast cell counts regardless & have no idea that the starter wort is not the "main" wort....I know what it says but spending a day on a stir plate in a liter of .040 wort seem to make my yeast very happy as they multiply...in my way of thinking they are now active, happy & very eager to continue eating & multiplying consuming sugar in the fermentor...and this is the point...but hey to each there own- I have alot of folks swear you can sprinkle directly on the surface of the wort too though I wont do it. My main point is not to argure, but is we sometimes hear that dry yeast is inferior somehow when the reality is its A: cheaper B: has a good shelf life & C: actually has more cells than a comparable vial of White Labs Pitchable Yeast. The ONLY downside from my point of view is the lack of choice in blends, though between Lallemand & Fermentis I haven't found a style of beer that I want to drink that cant be made with one of their yeasts...also I would think most commercial brewers feel the same way.
 
crazyirishman34 said:
I am not sure that making a starter is the way to go with dry yeast. I would rehydrate it according to the directions on the packet.
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I think most folks here know to rehydrate dry yeast. Just as with liquid vials, the packaging says nothing about making a starter.

You'd make a starter with a dry yeast if you want to pitch a more active yeast or a greater number of yeast cells. The decision criteria to make a starter with dry yeast is the same as for liquid yeast, except that the effort of making a starter with dry yeast is not worth cost savings for some folks.

I personally make starters with US-05 for big beers because I like to pitch actively fermenting yeast into big beers like PTE. The attenuation is always as expected with this method.

As far as I can tell, the "never make starters with dry yeast" mentality is based on antiquated stigma about dry yeast rather than sound scientific reasoning.
 
ten80 said:
I think most folks here know to rehydrate dry yeast. Just as with liquid vials, the packaging says nothing about making a starter.

You'd make a starter with a dry yeast if you want to pitch a more active yeast or a greater number of yeast cells. The decision criteria to make a starter with dry yeast is the same as for liquid yeast, except that the effort of making a starter with dry yeast is not worth cost savings for some folks.

I personally make starters with US-05 for big beers because I like to pitch actively fermenting yeast into big beers like PTE. The attenuation is always as expected with this method.

As far as I can tell, the "never make starters with dry yeast" mentality is based on antiquated stigma about dry yeast rather than sound scientific reasoning.
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So I guess that the folks who make the dry yeast really don't understand yeast as well as you do? Both Fermentis and Lamaland both say that "proofing" yeast depletes the energy stores of said yeast.
 
crazyirishman34 said:
So I guess that the folks who make the dry yeast really don't understand yeast as well as you do? Both Fermentis and Lamaland both say that "proofing" yeast depletes the energy stores of said yeast.
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I understand yeast just fine, but I think that you are misunderstanding exactly what proofing is and how it affects yeast.

I agree with the yeast manufacturers; adding sugar to "proof" the yeast depletes nutrients and energy stores. The sugar would be rapidly consumed and the yeasts' glycogen stores would be left in a depleted state; the yeast would be less than ready to start replicating in a full-sized wort. Proofing would also kick off enzymes responsible for catalysis of glucose, rather than those responsible for the catalysis of maltose. It is well known that once yeast start metabolizing glucose, they may be slower or less efficient at maltose which requires separate enzymes.

Making a starter is not proofing. A starter is equivalent to a small beer; maltose and all essential nutrients are present. If making a starter was the same as proofing, then you might as well not put dry yeast in wort for a full size batch. It doesn't matter if yeast came from dry packets or a liquid slurry once the yeast is healthy and fermenting away with all essential nutrients and maltose present.

I will tie this in to this thread by saying that one could move the boil sugar additions to late in the primary fermentation to increase yeast attenuation of maltose sugars from the wort. Also, pitching an active starter from packets or vials would help ensure a dry (well attenuated) beer. That is what I plan to do when I brew this clone.

cheers,
Christophe
 
Making a starter is essentially the same thing as proofing your yeast. When dry yeast is made they take yeast at it's prime with stores of nutrients and sugars and freeze dry it. After you rehydrate it is ready to ferment also when you are pitching dry the cell count is much higher. Most DME and LME does not have the same amount of FAN as the growth medium that yeast manufacturers use. So it depletes the stores of FAN that they build into the yeast.

But I am not going to convince you that I am right because your guy tells you that what you are doing is right.
 
I still disagree. DME and LME contain substantial FAN, therefore a starter is equivalent to brewing a small beer, not proofing (with sugar). A starter provides the proper medium for cell replication whereas proofing leaves yeast with depleted nutrient reserves and no sugars to ferment, leading to the shift of cells from an active to dormant (i.e., difficult to rouse, sub-optimal) state.

This is certainly the case for liquid yeast and dry yeast, although prepared in a different manner, is capable of cell replication in the proper medium.

I did not state it, but assume you understood that I'm saying that hydrated dry yeast should be pitched into a starter. I also add nutrients (DAP) to my starters to encourage cell growth under aerobic conditions (stir plate). Pitching hydrated yeast into wort doesn't contravene any manufacturer's instructions .


I won't delve into this further as I respectfully understand you have the right to disagree.

cheers,
Christophe

Edit: in response to your comment below, I simply say that this has digressed far enough and I'd be happy to discuss via private message or a thread in the yeast forum.
 
So you are telling me you would rather pitch spent yeast that has flocced then yeast at its prime? Dry yeast is harvested at full krausen when it is most active.
 
So I brewed this about 2 weeks ago and my fg is at 1.030 (started at 1.095 using wlp001) since I wanted this to end at 1 010 or around there I added more yeast thinking to was us05. Turns out it was montrachet wine yeast...

What should I expect with adding this yeast
 
She's going to be VERY dry. I've use that wine yeast and finished around 1.000 after 4-6 months of conditioning. By the time the yeast fully attenuates, the hop aroma may be subdued or gone all together. You may have a very nice 12% or higher barley wine on your hands. It might not be bad, but it won't be like PTY.

I'd chalk it up for experience and let it sit in a carboy until the gravity stabilizes. You don't want to bottle too early or you'll face some over-carbonation or bottle bombs ruining your day.
 
FWIW, adding more yeast near the end of fermentation rarely works as expected given that the oxygen has been depleted (and you don't want to add any at this point) and most of the short chain sugars will be gone. The new yeast just isn't going to be very happy about what you're asking them to do, and will likely not do what you want them to do.

Working yeast has "momentum". You need to get it started working under ideal conditions and then not have it stall near the end or you can get stuck for good. Think of it like a car driving through thick mud in the road and the mud's getting deeper as you go along: If you hit that mud with forward momentum you'll be able to drive farther than if you just plunk a car down in the middle of where the mud's it's already thick and deep (you'll just spin your tires if you hit the gas from a standstill). Yeast is the same way (yeast = car, wort = mud).

You can try adding new yeast (you already did), but it's rarely ever a working solution. You need to look at what you did wrong the first time and fix for next time. Usually it's (a) underpitching, (b) not oxygenating enough (~120 seconds of pure O2 at 1 Lpm for this beer works well, followed by another 60-120 second dose 12-18 hours after pitching).

Temperature stability is also important. You want it stable in the mid 60's for about a week and then raise it to ~70F for another week or so to finish out. Don't be afraid to go to 72F or even 74F towards the end as you're getting those last few points. Again, temp stability is important. You don't want night/day swings as the yeast may just fall out / go to sleep if the temp drops.

Kal
 
smagic14 said:
So I brewed this about 2 weeks ago and my fg is at 1.030 (started at 1.095 using wlp001) since I wanted this to end at 1 010 or around there I added more yeast thinking to was us05. Turns out it was montrachet wine yeast...

What should I expect with adding this yeast
Click to expand...

I've tried doing this a few times, including reoxygenating the chit out of the now beer. Never worked. With that said, not with wine yeast.
 
TNagz said:
Is the PTY 2.0 recipe a 10 gal or 5 gal batch? Thanks
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Most definitely a ~5 gallon batch. It would be impossible to get a 1.089 beer out of the ~19 pounds of grain in the recipe.

(You'll still need to adjust the amounts based on the efficiency of your specific setup to hit 1.089)

Good luck!

Kal
 

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