Curiousness about my Pliny clone kit

[dyetube]

I bought a Pliny the Elder kit from morebeer.com about 2 weeks ago (They claim it is the official recipe given to them by Vinnie @ RR) and it's sitting in the primary dry hopping right now. Once fermentation slowed, I sampled the beer (while taking a hydrometer reading and adding the dry hops) and the beer is coming along quite awesome. Lot's of great hopiness in the beer and good body. Mine is going to end up being around 10% abv though (OG of 1.085 and FG should make it to 1.010 or close to it). One thing I noticed about this kits hops that differentiate it from other clones is the addition of the Cascade hops during steeping (or mashing for the all grain version). None of the other clones have cascade in the hop bill anywhere.

I contacted RR about this and they directed me to their website which lists the hops as: Amarillo, Simcoe, CTZ, Centennial, and Cascade. But in the email they list the hops as: Warrior, Amarillo, Simcoe, CTZ, Centennial, and Cascade. Warrior hops are not listed on the website but only in the email. I was curious why most, if not all of the clones don't contain the CTZ hops (Or the Warrior hops if that's in the brew as well) and don't include the Cascade hops either. All in all it's a great kit. I wish I had a Pliny the Elder to compare with (I'm looking for one to trade now). Regardless of the hop selections, this brew is coming along fantastic!

I read that Vinnie has posted the recipe a few places but cannot confirm as to where. I'd be curious to see what he's posted.

 

[mirthfuldragon]

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=296940 That's the clone recipie I have finishing now. It calls for CTZ, Simcoe, and Centennial.

I put Warrior in the same general category as CTZ (CTZ). Warrior seems to be a little higher AA% (15.5-18%) v. 14.5-17.5% for CTZ. Centennial is "super cascade". In other words, subbing in Warrior for CTZ as a bittering hop is probably close to an apples-apples substitution, and the same for Centennial-Cascade.

Amarillo is the oddity there - its flavor is rather different from Centennial-Simcoe-CTZ, but as with anything, recipes evolve over time based on hop changes, AA% from year to year, prices, availability.

Regardless, this DIPA is a tooth-enamel-peeling hop bomb.

 

[dyetube]

My kit also uses magnum hops @ 90 and most other's use Columbus @ 90. Just more of an interesting observation. The one thing I will say is, this kit for everything except yeast and grain bag/hopsack is $51.99. I used the exact recipe to put together this recipe on txbrewing.com and morebeer.com: TX brewing: $70.61 More beer: $64.04. That's a huge difference in price! yes, the kit might've been sitting on the shelf and the hops could've been older. Not sure about that, but it seems as though this was not a kit sitting on the shelf just by the way it was packaged when sent to me. I really think this was a hell of a deal for a beer that's turning out to be 10% abv. Very happy about that!