So I brewed a pliny clone found on the internet (a pdf at beerdujour) which I believe is vinny's recipe.
It was a blast to make, I really felt like I was crafting a beer on this one. I have had Pliny in the past - I spent a few months in the Bay Area for work and actually made it out to Russian River at one point - so I know what I was shooting for.
So when I finally had it kegged and carbed, it was bitter beyond bitter. So I'm asking for a little help in diagnosing where I might have gone wrong.
Looking back at my process,
The Mash:
- I fell a full 10 points shy of the 1070 recommended OG! I know the hop charts you see specify the recommended IBU's as a function of OG, so this alone could count for all of it. In a feeble attempt to make up some of this OG, I added an additional 12 oz (boiled, cooled) dextrose to my 5G batch to attempt to make up some of the ABV.
Hop AA's:
- I didn't adjust hop quantities according to exact alpha acids - at least for my bittering additions - but after I went back and looked at my hop AA's, they were withing 0.1% of the recipe assumptions. So I think I'm good there
Also, I don't think it makes much of a difference to adjust for the later dry hopping additions - they aren't contributing bitterness to the beer anyways.
I think I'm OK here.
Dry Hopping:
- I dry hopped the minimum specified time, 12 days for first dry hop, then 5 days second dry hop. I put the hops in hop bags since they were mostly pellets, but I didn't start my first dry hop addition for a full couple weeks, and my first dry hop addition basically floated on top of the beer like a raft - i have a hard time believing i extracted much aroma from these hops. The second addition I used a shot glass to force it to sink.
- I didn't start the DH process until well after fermentation had finished. I think when I do this again, I'll start the dry hop mid-fermentation to ensure the yeast is moving the wort through the hops. I'll also add a shot glass to both hop bags to get them to sink.
This area is suspect.
sorry for the length of this post, but I appriciate any feedback anyone can give me on this.
Thanks
It was a blast to make, I really felt like I was crafting a beer on this one. I have had Pliny in the past - I spent a few months in the Bay Area for work and actually made it out to Russian River at one point - so I know what I was shooting for.
So when I finally had it kegged and carbed, it was bitter beyond bitter. So I'm asking for a little help in diagnosing where I might have gone wrong.
Looking back at my process,
The Mash:
- I fell a full 10 points shy of the 1070 recommended OG! I know the hop charts you see specify the recommended IBU's as a function of OG, so this alone could count for all of it. In a feeble attempt to make up some of this OG, I added an additional 12 oz (boiled, cooled) dextrose to my 5G batch to attempt to make up some of the ABV.
Hop AA's:
- I didn't adjust hop quantities according to exact alpha acids - at least for my bittering additions - but after I went back and looked at my hop AA's, they were withing 0.1% of the recipe assumptions. So I think I'm good there
Also, I don't think it makes much of a difference to adjust for the later dry hopping additions - they aren't contributing bitterness to the beer anyways.
I think I'm OK here.
Dry Hopping:
- I dry hopped the minimum specified time, 12 days for first dry hop, then 5 days second dry hop. I put the hops in hop bags since they were mostly pellets, but I didn't start my first dry hop addition for a full couple weeks, and my first dry hop addition basically floated on top of the beer like a raft - i have a hard time believing i extracted much aroma from these hops. The second addition I used a shot glass to force it to sink.
- I didn't start the DH process until well after fermentation had finished. I think when I do this again, I'll start the dry hop mid-fermentation to ensure the yeast is moving the wort through the hops. I'll also add a shot glass to both hop bags to get them to sink.
This area is suspect.
sorry for the length of this post, but I appriciate any feedback anyone can give me on this.
Thanks