Brewing Pliny this weekend. Any advice?

[CrazyP]

I'm going to brew the extract recipe of AHS's Pliny the Elder clone this weekend, and would appreciate advice from anyone who has brewed this recipe before. I only have 3 batches under my belt, so this recipe might stretch my abilities a little.

Here's my plan:

Wednesday p.m.: Shipment from AHS arrives. Create a yeast starter for a 1.072 OG recipe. Based on Mr. Malty's calculations, I'll need a 3.13L starter for 87% yeast viability and O2 start. (I'm just guessing at the viability right now). To make a 1.04 OG starter, I'll need 11.5 oz. of DME.

Friday a.m.: Put starter in the refrigerator after ~36 hours to better attenuate the yeast.

Saturday a.m: Decant about 3/4 of the liquid off the yeast and set it out at room temperature.

Saturday p.m.: Brew up the Pliny recipe. Cool wort down to room temperature and pitch the yeast. Dry hop with first hop addition.

After that, I'm a little uncertain about the dry hopping.
I understand that this recipe calls for 3 dry hop additions spaced at two weeks apart. What is the best way to do this? Should I just keep adding hops, or should I rack the beer off of each previous addition? Also, should I use a hop bag, or just throw the hops in?

 

[shecky]

I'm going to brew the extract recipe of AHS's Pliny the Elder clone this weekend, and would appreciate advice from anyone who has brewed this recipe before. I only have 3 batches under my belt, so this recipe might stretch my abilities a little.

Here's my plan:

Wednesday p.m.: Shipment from AHS arrives. Create a yeast starter for a 1.072 OG recipe. Based on Mr. Malty's calculations, I'll need a 3.13L starter for 87% yeast viability and O2 start. (I'm just guessing at the viability right now). To make a 1.04 OG starter, I'll need 11.5 oz. of DME.

Friday a.m.: Put starter in the refrigerator after ~36 hours to better attenuate the yeast.

Saturday a.m: Decant about 3/4 of the liquid off the yeast and set it out at room temperature.

Saturday p.m.: Brew up the Pliny recipe. Cool wort down to room temperature and pitch the yeast. Dry hop with first hop addition.

After that, I'm a little uncertain about the dry hopping.
I understand that this recipe calls for 3 dry hop additions spaced at two weeks apart. What is the best way to do this? Should I just keep adding hops, or should I rack the beer off of each previous addition? Also, should I use a hop bag, or just throw the hops in?

Looks fine except it appears you intend to dry hop immediately after pitching the yeast. Don't do that. Wait until fermentation is done otherwise the CO2 will rob all that you want to get from the dry hopping.

I did this AG version last fall. When it came time to dry hop, I did it all at once in a bag. That was a lot of hops. You can do 3 different dry hops but there's no need to rack before each addition. Use a bag, pull the old hops out and toss in a new bag of hops. Of course, you'll want to have 3 bags on hand.

 

[weirdboy]

I haven't brewed the AHS recipe, so I don't know the batch size, etc. But be aware that you will lose a LOT of volume to the hops additions both during the boil and for dry hopping.

 

[Teromous]

I have yet to try this beer. I asked a local specialty beer store and they said they don't have enough volume of sales from RR's distributors to get bottles in stock. With all the hype around this beer it sucks to not even try it...

 

[carnevoodoo]

One small terminology glitch. You put the yeast in the refrigerator to help it flocculate, not attenuate.

 

[CrazyP]

One small terminology glitch. You put the yeast in the refrigerator to help it flocculate, not attenuate.

Ah, thanks... I'm still learning. As someone with a chemical engineering background I have to unlearn one set of terminology and learn a new one when talking about beer. When I think of yeast collecting at the bottom of the container, my go-to terms are "precipitating" and "crashing out of solution".

Edit: Well apparently flocculation is actually a chemistry term! Must have been asleep that day... From Wikipedia:

Flocculation is, in the field of chemistry, a process where colloids come out of suspension in the form of floc or flakes. The action differs from precipitation in that, prior to flocculation, colloids are merely suspended in a liquid and not actually dissolved in a solution. In the flocculated system there is no formation of a cake since all the flocs are in the suspension.

 

[CrazyP]

I haven't brewed the AHS recipe, so I don't know the batch size, etc. But be aware that you will lose a LOT of volume to the hops additions both during the boil and for dry hopping.

Thanks for the info. Ballpark how much volume loss are we talking about here? Do I have to do anything to take the volume loss in account (or simply lower my expected # of bottles)?

 

[illinifan]

I made this beer a couple of months ago (only 2 bottles left!). One piece of advice I'd give is to sort all your hops out ahead of time. There's all kinds of hops in this beer.

To dry hop, I just racked to secondary and added them as scheduled. No multiple secondaries.

I've never had the real Pliny, but the AHS clone is awesome!