The 1554 clone and below is what I found to be best. Although there are multiple paths to reach a beer that tastes like 1554 I felt that this was best since it only used ingredients listed on New Belgium's website that they say they use in the beer.
Recipe from:
http://aaronzink.net/homebrew/2011/04/1600-clone-of-new-belgium-1554/
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“1600″
Specs
Batch Size: 5.00 gal
Boil Size: 6.41 gal
Estimated OG: 1.063 SG
Estimated Color: 27.1 SRM
Estimated IBU: 30.1 IBU
Estimated ABV: 6.36%
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes
Grains
9.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) Bel (3.0 SRM) 65.45 %
2.00 lb Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM) 14.55 %
2.00 lb Munich Malt (9.0 SRM) 14.55 %
0.50 lb Carafa II (412.0 SRM) 3.64 %
0.25 lb Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) 1.82 %
Hops
1.00 oz Target [9.50 %, pellet] (60 min)
0.25 tsp Grains of Paradise [crushed] (Boil 10.0 min)
Mash
Single infusion @ 155.4F, batch sparge @160F. The water in LA is pretty hard, but I had to add 0.6 tbsp of bicarbonate (baking soda) to bring get the mash pH to the level I wanted.
Pre-boil gravity was 1.059, spot on with what I was expecting.
Yeast
I chose 3 packets of Wyeast #1221 since it is designed for fermenting at higher temperatures and gives a clean finish. I had to use so many due to the high O.G. and I didn’t have time to make a starter for this one but I’d recommend it. 1.5-2L should do nicely.
Fermented at 68F for 10 days. Due to the large quantity of yeast, I installed a blowoff tube expecting a highly-vigerous fermentation, and it did not disappoint! Strong fermentation. Final gravity of 1.015 after 10 days, so 6.2%, almost spot on with 1554 (6%).
Kegged after 10 days, hit with 2.4 volumes of CO2 and conditioned @50F for 3 weeks.
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I am bottling tomorrow and can post on how it turns out even though my OG was somewhat far away at 1.048. This was my first all grain so efficiency was quite low as I am still figuring things out.