Double IPA Pliny the Elder Clone

[DarthMalts]

Just out of precaution, I moved the beer to a secondary Carboy to clear it up and get it off of all the yeast and trub it sat on for a little over two weeks. Dropped from 1.068 to 1.009 and it tastes pretty ridiculous. Big citrus pine notes with bitter hints of grapefruit. Could use more umph in the nose department but it's cool- it's 6AM and I'm drunk

 

[BigPicture]

I woke up and the lid was bulging out, ready to blow! The air lock had blocked up and we almost had an explosion. When I removed the plug, it was a volcano!

[ame]http://youtu.be/UgfubawsrcM[/ame]

I just did a clone of Pliny the Elder and it had so many hops in it................................. it was like sand. I like to drink my beer and not chew it so I tried to strain out all the hops. It didn't work. The strain bag became so heavy with hops that it broke off, now my tap is all gummed up.

Oh, the problems of a homebrewer!

I just was in Whole Foods & requested a few bottles of Pliny since they just got in 1 case the day before.............................. they had already sold out. I got a bottle of Stone's IPA. http://www.ratebeer....le-ale-ipa/422/ Mine's better.

Holy Smokes!

That Pliny is some HOPPY SH!T! Take what you can buy in the bottle and increase the homebrew 10X.

Wow!

It's good. Very good................................. but WoW! I wasn't ready for that!

P.S. And No! You can't have any! I'm drinking this all to my head. IT'S MINE! My precious............................... OK, 21 can have some, but you gotta drive up here.

 

[DarthMalts]

Got 29 12oz bottles and 5 22oz bombers at the end. Lost so much to hops, I really need a bigger kettle to start with more wort. Tastes amazing though and finished at 1.009 from 1.068

 

[m3n00b]

Hop sacks FTW. Both for boiling and dry.

 

[Tcl1999]

Yup, hop sacks are where it's at!

 

[DarthMalts]

I have 2-3 of those meslun bags that I used to hold pumpkins when making a pumpkin ale. I know that boiling them is fine for hop additions but would I soak them in iodine for a minute, rinse and then add hops to dry hop? Just to keep things clean?

 

[Silentnoiz]

I've always: boiled my muslin hop bags for 15 minutes, drained, cooled, sprayed hands with StarSan (diluted of course), filled, tied, and put in the primary fermenter. I've never had a problem.

 

[m3n00b]

Boiling for 15 is overkill. I bring water to a boil and shut it off...then put the sack in there for a few minutes.

 

[Tcl1999]

You guys are way too cautious. Throw 'em in the way they are! I have not had any issues with contamination. When dry hopping the alcohol in the beer helps ward off the nasties. With a double IPA you should be fine.

 

[m3n00b]

You guys are way too cautious. Throw 'em in the way they are! I have not had any issues with contamination. When dry hopping the alcohol in the beer helps ward off the nasties. With a double IPA you should be fine.

Do you use a sack?

 

[Tcl1999]

Well, two for the separate dry hop additions, but yeah.

 

[m3n00b]

Well, two for the separate dry hop additions, but yeah.

So nothing can live in 9% abv beer then or what? I don't want to take any chances.

 

[Tcl1999]

I am just saying you are probably ok using hop bags without sanitizing them. I don't have a fool proof guarantee, just my results.

 

[MollyHatchet]

I am just saying you are probably ok using hop bags without sanitizing them.

This is what I do, I keg, so I purge the air out and fill it with co2 so nothing is going to live in that environment.

 

[brick_haus]

How are you guys getting PTE to compare this to. I only 250 miles from Russion River Brewing and still have to drive up there to buy a case ($120 per case of 17.25oz bottles). I dont mind though as its very close to Lagunitas...

For those that think their version came out dry, be sure to get the original for comparison, it's prettty friggin dry too! Overrated if you ask me.

Ballast Point Big Eye is my favorite. Closely followed by Sculpin, Stone IPA and Lagunitas... Sorry off topic...

 

[m3n00b]

How are you guys getting PTE to compare this to. I only 250 miles from Russion River Brewing and still have to drive up there to buy a case ($120 per case of 17.25oz bottles). I dont mind though as its very close to Lagunitas...

For those that think their version came out dry, be sure to get the original for comparison, it's prettty friggin dry too! Overrated if you ask me.

Ballast Point Big Eye is my favorite. Closely followed by Sculpin, Stone IPA and Lagunitas... Sorry off topic...

Whole foods and total wine have it almost every Tuesday.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Home Brew mobile app

 

[Petekiteworld]

Don't worry about sanitation with dry hopping. In fact I am not too worried about sanitation period. I have brewed probably 50 batches of homebrew with moderate sanitation measures (bleaching things within reason, cleaning bottles in a dishwasher, etc) and I've never had a infection. Ive dumped hops, fruits, chocolate into the secondary without any infections. Don't worry and have a homebrew.

 

[brew2enjoy]

Brewing this now. It seems like I always forget to plug something into beersmith, this time I forgot to adjust my grain temp (it was in the garage all night and got cold), so I missed my mash temp by a little bit, ended up around 147. Not too worried about it, I have had attenuation issues lately anyway so maybe this will help.

 

[brew2enjoy]

Transferred this to a keg and dry hopped yesterday. Gravity finished around 1.010. I am a little surprised that the aroma and flavor is not as hoppy as I thought it would be. I have read others say the same thing. I wonder if the crazy bitterness this beer has somehow masks some of the late addition hop flavor. Hopefully the dry hops will bring this beer to life! I did everything right as far as I know. 2L starter, used pure O2 before pitching, hit all my water numbers, fermented at 64.....we shall see.

 

[brew2enjoy]

Transferred this to a keg and dry hopped yesterday. Gravity finished around 1.010. I am a little surprised that the aroma and flavor is not as hoppy as I thought it would be. I have read others say the same thing. I wonder if the crazy bitterness this beer has somehow masks some of the late addition hop flavor. Hopefully the dry hops will bring this beer to life! I did everything right as far as I know. 2L starter, used pure O2 before pitching, hit all my water numbers, fermented at 64.....we shall see.

So just to post a little update. This beer has been kegged for close to a month now. It has this strange harshness that can be felt on the back of the tongue and throat when you drink it. I've never had an off flavor like this before, but from what I've read it sounds like astringency. I treat my water using the EZ water calc so I don't think water is the issue. I've been getting my grain crushed pretty fine lately with my new false bottom. I am starting to wonder if the crush is too fine causing too much husk material to get into the boil.

kinda stumped at this point but I am going to ride it out for a while and see if it fades. I'd like to try to brew this again though. Does anyone know if substituting Chinook for the Columbus would make a drastic difference? I know won't be exactly the same but I have a pound of Chinook I need to use

 

[stonebrewer]

I would not use Chinook in this recipe. Chinook has a rather harsh bite to it that some people really do not like (personally I love it...it is in my Arrogant Bastard clone, one of my favs). Use Columbus, or hop extracts, or maybe Magnum for bittering, but definitely use Columbus in the dry hop.

Do you strain your wort going from mash to boil pot? I do that and sometimes get a spoon or two of grain. If more is escaping into the boil, it might be astringent.

 

[notixx]

Perfect. I have a good amount of Columbus and Simcoe hops laying around and was searching for a recipe to use more of them! this seems like the one. Will be brewing this soon!

 

[notixx]

brewed a small 1 gal BIAB batch last night. HOLY HOPS! hit the OG right on the money at 1.070

i forgot to put in the corn sugar before the boil and ended up adding it while chilling the wort. hopefully that wont matter too much.

 

[stonebrewer]

I've even added cornsugar to the fermenter...never had an issue. Some people worry about infections, but I think sugar is a lot like honey and doesn't have enough moisture to sustain bacteria...I might be wrong and admit I have never looked into it...OK dang it I will go look...pause while I Google...okay I am back and here is what the Goog told me:

Both sugar and salt bind up the water and thus makes the water unavailable to the bacteria to use. In essence, while the environment may seem like it has a lot of water in it, most of the water is tied up by the salt or sugar. Bacteria require a certain amount of "available" water to survive and grow. Spoilage of jams and jellies is usually due to molds and not bacteria because of the high sugar content. Molds do not require as much water for growth and survival as most bacteria.

 

[VTCCbrewer]

Just did a side by side taste test after an extraordinary test of patience, letting my attempt at the Brewers Friend Clone recipe bottle condition for 3 weeks...It was worth the wait. Our brew is a little darker, and a bit harsher....Although it's a hard to be impartial, I think we nailed it. Looking back at my notes the only thing I could do better in the next batch is to control the boil.....I started with 8 gallons from the MT and between the boil off and the hops I bottled only 4 1/2 gallons.....

 

[BJOHNSEN1]

About how long did the fermentation last in the primary, secondary, and bottles?

 

[VTCCbrewer]

Primary was 7 days.....at around 67F, specific gravity settled at 1.018.....secondary another 6 days, but I moved it into the basement to get down to 55F....SG ended at 1.016. Although I'm not sure my hydrometer reading was all that precise! Bottled it and immediately packed it into our camper, heading for Key West. Handled the 1500 mile ride like any good IPA used to on the ships to India! As I mentioned, waited the three weeks for bottle conditioning.....just wished I could have lost less to the boil/hops/racking process...
[UPDATE]
Sorry....I forgot, the secondary fermentation was actually 13 days with two dry hoppings, the first when I initially transferred to the secondary, and another 7 days later. Kept it at 67F for the first 7 days and then moved to the cooler basement for the last 6 days. Sorry for the confusion,,,,must be that 8.5% ABV!

 

[brew2enjoy]

Well, I ended up dumping my keg yesterday . I gave it plenty of time to see if it was going to get any better but it never did. Really a shame because the color was spot on and crystal clear. Aroma was incredible, initial taste was great for a second and then....astringent. I tried to drink a few pints and just could not get over the harshness of it. I bottled a 12 pack to age for a while and dumped the rest to make room for the next beer in the rotation.

I want to brew this again very soon. I am thinking this was a water/ph issue even though I build my water based on a spreadsheet and adjusted the mash PH based on that as well. I'll probably use all RO water to rule that out on the next brew.

 

[stonebrewer]

Well, I ended up dumping my keg yesterday . I gave it plenty of time to see if it was going to get any better but it never did. Really a shame because the color was spot on and crystal clear. Aroma was incredible, initial taste was great for a second and then....astringent. I tried to drink a few pints and just could not get over the harshness of it. I bottled a 12 pack to age for a while and dumped the rest to make room for the next beer in the rotation.

I want to brew this again very soon. I am thinking this was a water/ph issue even though I build my water based on a spreadsheet and adjusted the mash PH based on that as well. I'll probably use all RO water to rule that out on the next brew.

Ugh! Sorry to hear that. Do you think you over sparged? I have noticed that I had some off flavors when brewing this in the past, which I have been blaming on dry hopping for too long...kind of an astringent, vegetable flavor that is an after taste. I do leave the hops in the keg the entire time, so am going to do the next batch with one keg like that and one I remove after a few days. I don't think those bottles will get better with time as this is rare with an IIPA...

 

[brew2enjoy]

Ugh! Sorry to hear that. Do you think you over sparged? I have noticed that I had some off flavors when brewing this in the past, which I have been blaming on dry hopping for too long...kind of an astringent, vegetable flavor that is an after taste. I do leave the hops in the keg the entire time, so am going to do the next batch with one keg like that and one I remove after a few days. I don't think those bottles will get better with time as this is rare with an IIPA...

I don't think I over sparged. However it was only my second or third batch using my new false bottom. I think I need to recirculate my first runnings more the clear the wort. I was so use to batch sparging with a manifold where I could just pull a 1/2 gallon and the wort was clear. I am sure it was a water or process issue. The flavor didn't seem to be related to the hops at all. I doubt those bottles will get any better either, but I couldn't stomach just dumping it all!