Northern Brewer Plinian legacy - your experiences ?

[jspain3]

Brewed my extract kit yesterday. It really foamed up after the first hop shot addition. Glad I used a 15 gallon kettle because a 10 gallon would've been to little. I started off with 7 gallons of water but finished with just under 5 in the fermenter. I topped off to 6 gallons which brought my OG to 1.069 on the money.

I'm using a swamp cooler in my garage but the temps were a little low last night so not much happening yet. I have a blowoff tube attached as there was not much headroom in the ferm bucket.

 

[RandallFlag]

Ok, here's my NB Plinian Legacy experience after today's brew session:

Method = Extract

Boiled in a 5 gal kettle with no boilover. I started with 3 gals of water in the kettle since this time of year it is dry as a bone up north. Glad I did this.

Insane amount of hops, but fun. As others have mentioned, the boil gets rowdy after the hopshots. That is some viscous stuff.

I used a whirfloc tablet after adding the LME (15 mins left).

This was my first attempt at the whirlpool technique from the wiki and it was a total fail. My cold break stayed more toward the top and didn't settle much. It definitely didn't form the "cone" as the whirlpool technique apparently does. I will re-read the wiki and see if I just missed something as it could have been operator error.

Most importantly, I hit 1.072 OG and was pleased as punch. Did not use a starter, instead I just pitched 2 sachets of US-05 at 72 deg F.

For those novice brewers (like me), this was more challenging than most kits out there.

Smelled wonderful and I hope it turns out nice. I've never had the original. All in all a very fun day.

Whirlpool technique, for reference:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/Whirlpooling

 

[Duster]

Ok, here's my NB Plinian Legacy

Smelled wonderful and I hope it turns out nice. I've never had the original. All in all a very fun day.

Whirlpool technique, for reference:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/Whirlpooling

Yum !

 

[jspain3]

So I'm 3 weeks post-brew day now and I had very similar brew day experiences (extremely active boil after hop shot additions and difficulty with the whirlpooling. I ended up saying screw it and dumped the whole thing in the fermenter, trub and all. I then topped off the fermenter with about a gallon of water because I boiled off more than expected during the 90 minute brew and I knew I'd lose some to the dry hopping.

So fast forward 2 weeks and I open the fermenter to take a reading and add the first round of hops. The beer smells amazing and the FG was around 1.014, or so (OG was 1.069). My sample had the orangish hue I had heard about and the taste was super bitter from all the hops. Having never tasted Pliny before, I had no idea if this is what it's supposed to taste like. It is an addictive bitterness, though. I realize I was tasting an uncarbed, rather warm sample, so hopefully the cold carbonated version will be delicious. Either way, I found it drinkable so I'm happy with the results thus far. I took my second sample yesterday as I added the 2nd round of hops. I plan to pull those out after 4-5 days and cold crash before bottling.

 

[Patrick87]

For a little experiment, I used Nottingham this time rather than US-05. Even though I kept both batches fermenting around 60 degrees, the Nottingham batch is certainly a bit more "estery" or "yeasty" than the US-05 made batch.

The Nottingham batch is very good, but I think I prefer the one made with US-05 a bit better.

 

[RandallFlag]

. I ended up saying screw it and dumped the whole thing in the fermenter, trub and all.

Yeah, I got tired of trying to filter it through the funnel and screen and ended up with a ton of post boil hop sludge. My carboy had about a solid 3+ inches of settled junk in it before fermentation took off. I'm expecting my total yield (finished product) to be quite low after starting as such and then two rounds of dry hopping.

But, if it tastes good then I can rationalize the cost.

 

[jspain3]

View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1422843960.414551.jpg
The finished product. I have never tried Pliny so no clue how close this is. It is delicious though.

 

[Zwerski]

In addition to what's already been posted above, you should plan on some kind of scheme to filter dry hop sludge during transfer for bottling. That caused some excitement for me but did not affect taste as far as I can tell.
Also, my wife conducted a blind taste-off with the real PTE and my brew was preferred by the other three contestants while I picked Pliny.
And, all of the equipment I used after boil had a (not unpleasant smelling) sticky hop resin remaining, even after liberal Oxy-clean soaking and hot water washing.
The kit is a good value in my opinion. I ended up with ~45 12-oz. bottles worth for the same cost as 8 16/oz. bottles of Pliny, and that's if you can even find it.

 

[xzgfhgh]

Making MB Plinian legacy in a couple days..... any suggestions ? THanks !

 

[BigDog007]

I made a batch of the Plinian Legacy Extract brew on Saturday. Was the most complex beer I've brewed so far. This is only my 3rd 5 gallon batch (after giving up on Mr. Beer) so I wasn't sure how it would go. I started with almost exactly 7 gallons of water in an 8 gallon SS kettle. As others have noted the boil gets real active after you add the hop shots, I used some Fermcap-S to help keep it down but still required some serious temp control due to the small kettle size.

I ended up with just slightly over 5.5 gallons after pulling the wort chiller. I used WLP001 yeast made as a 1.6l starter, pitched at 68F into my new 6.5g glass carboy with a blow-off tube into a 2l flask of starsan. I couldn't be happier with what I'm seeing so far. Krausen started forming almost immediately and seeing some blow-off into the tube starting this afternoon. Almost a steady stream of bubbles at more than 1 per second since Sunday morning.

I'm really looking forward to this one, the trub at the bottom of the carboy was about 3 inches almost immediately after transferring from my kettle, is down to about 1.5" now during fermentation. The Fermometer is showing 66-68F now, pretty happy with that temp. Can't wait to get this thing done so I can taste it. By the way OG was 1.075 which I was quite happy with.

 

[zcfbhxzhg]

This will actually be my second time. First time was great but a little sweeter than I expected....

 

[RandallFlag]

Bottled today and boy howdy was it effort-intensive. I managed to get a case of bombers (12) and 23 regular bottles out of it. So we'll call it 45+. Not outstanding but expected based on feedback from these forums. I will make this kit again but I will devise some better techniques to deal with all the hops.

Even after cold crashing to let everything settle, my bottling wand got clogged several times and then I decided to change gears. I removed the bottling wand and ran the open hose end through a funnel with a screen into another bottling bucket. This helped tremendously.

It tastes amazing even without carbonation and my basement smells amazing. I'll be happy to see what the next couple of weeks of bottle agin will do for it.

 

[dfgzrt]

Making MB Plinian legacy in a couple days..... any suggestions ? THanks !

 

[RandallFlag]

Making MB Plinian legacy in a couple days..... any suggestions ? THanks!

Be prepared. It's a lot of work. Lots and lots of hops to deal with.

I read the instructions a couple of times and then just highlighted the steps that needed to be done because there's a lot of text and most of it doesn't matter. Pay close attention to the hop addition times and you will be golden.

The hopshots took me a minute to figure out. I think the bottom twists off. Be careful, they are a sticky mess.

Good luck. Let us know how it goes.

 

[Duster]

Quick update -= I bottled the Plinian batch one month ago and now its just right = it took 4 weeks for it to come into its own.... This is the second batch for me but not the last - Cheers !

 

[BigDog007]

I just had my first glass from my keg and all I can say is WOW! I am in awe how unbelievably hoppy this is and it left me wanting more. It's still early from being kegged but the carbonation was excellent and I didn't know exactly how to describe it. Wonderful, hoppy goodness......

I will be brewing this one again for sure, I don't see myself not having this on tap.

 

[BigDog007]

Keg went poof last week and my friends nearly cried... I am now extremely sad...

 

[zcfhzh]

Making MB Plinian legacy in a couple days..... any suggestions ? THanks !

 

[mikerunsmountains]

Making MB Plinian legacy in a couple days..... any suggestions ? THanks !

Make sure you have a blow off set up and know that it's a 6gal batch, not 5gal.

 

[OHIOSTEVE]

something I do that everyone else probably does also is I weigh out my hop additions and put them in little disposable plastic cups with the addition time written on them.. line em up on the counter and watch the countdown timer. makes messing up an addition a little harder ( not impossible) to do.

 

[mikerunsmountains]

something I do that everyone else probably does also is I weigh out my hop additions and put them in little disposable plastic cups with the addition time written on them.. line em up on the counter and watch the countdown timer. makes messing up an addition a little harder ( not impossible) to do.

That's genius. I'm doing that from now on. I pretty much always screw one of them up. One too many homebrews on brew day.

Side note: I brewed this on 3/15 and just took my first reading from primary. Sitting at 1.014 now. Tomorrow I'll rack to secondary and get ready for the dry hopping. The hydrometer sample tasted great.

 

[kopfjager]

Brewed this as my first foray into Home brewing yesterday!

I did the 1 gallon extract kit and have it fermenting at 65 degrees, and can't believe how active it is already. PtE is one of my favorites so I am very excited to try this! It should be done right around my birthday as well. Krausen has already made it's way up to about the mouth of the fermenter, so I'm thinking I will be replacing the airlock with a blowoff setup.

As complicated as it was, I had a ton of fun with this kit, and am definitely looking forward to my next brew day!