Pliny Extract Recipe Help

I am about to start a Pliny the Elder Extract recipe but I need some help. Running the grain bill through "the Beer Recipator" it says my OG will be 1.092 and my ABV will be 10.5%. I boil around 3.5 gallons then add to room temp water to get to 5.5 gallons. I am a bit confused as to why my calculated ABV and OG are so much higher than what the recipe says (1.075 and 8.4%). I am trying to get an ABV of ~7%, as that is what I prefer my IPAs to be around. Should I leave out the Dextrose and reduce the Light DME? If anyone could help me out with the numbers I would greatly appreciate it.

Light DME (2.2 °L) 10.0 lbs. (4.5 kg) 80.9
Dextrose (0 °L) 1.1 lbs. (500 g) 8.9

Steeping Grains
Carapils Malt (2 °L) 0.94 lbs. (425 g) 7.6
Crystal (40 °L) 0.32 lb. (145 g) 2.6

Recipe here:
http://brushvalleybrewer.blogspot.com/2009/01/great-homebrew-recipes-pliny-elder.html

I think your recipe OG is wrong. 10 pounds of DME in 5.5 gallons will give you 1.079. A pound of dextrose in 5.5 gallons will add 9 points, (1.1 is a weird amount, but that will give you 10 points total), for an OG of 1.089.

Maybe the recipe means 10 pounds of LME? That would give you an OG of 1.075.

If you want an OG of 1.075, you could just use less DME. If you use 8 pounds of DME, you'd be right about there.

Actually, I looked at the recipe specifics again, and they clearing state it's a 6 gallon batch, with .5 gallons left to the boil kettle (due to massive amounts of hop debris, I'd bet!) and .5 lost to the fermenter. For a 6 gallon batch, the 10 pounds of DME makes more sense.

Would it be bad just to put the said hop debris in the primary?

tozebeach said:

Would it be bad just to put the said hop debris in the primary?

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"Bad"? No. But it's a ton of hop debris. Maybe you would want to line your primary bucket with a great big mesh bag (they have them at the hombrew store or use a paint straining bag) and then lift out that bag after the wort is dumped it. All of those hops will seriously take up a TON of room, and can clog your airlock during fermentation. I normally don't strain my wort, but in the case of this recipe, I would. Just to make more room in the fermenter for the beer, if nothing else!

tozebeach said:

Would it be bad just to put the said hop debris in the primary?

Click to expand...

You could transfer the hop material to the fermenter BUT you really don't want it in the bottles so your gonna loose that volume at some step in the process. That volume could be as much as 1 gallon in a beer like pliny. That's why you aim for 6 gallons to offset the volume lost to hops. Understand?

This means a bigger boil (if you do full volume boils)
AND
a bigger fermenter (if you can't strain out the hops as they come out of the brew pot)

Remember there is like 7 OZ of dry hops as well. Pliny is just nuts :rockin:

i think pilsen light DME is the 2nd most important part of this brew if going extract. hops are most important of course. as a long time PM brewer i've gotten the lightest beers when using pilsen and late additions. there are some pliny hints hiding in the links below the photo...


here are the pliny recipes (2 of em):
http://beerdujour.com/Recipes/1Pliny%20the%20Elder%20clone%20PDF.pdf
http://www.ratebeer.com/Recipe.asp?RecipeID=84