Double IPA Pliny the Elder Clone

[ThirstyPawsHB]

I hope to try this recipe and just finished reading all 896 messages on this forum. There was very little discussion on diacetyl (mostly in the last messages), but I could not find any person actually recommending doing a diacetyl rest for this beer. Why is this not being practiced as a standard procedure? Has anyone actually done one for this recipe? If not, why not?

I think ppl are confused when they read our diacetyl conversations. It's not during fermentation that it's detected, it's a couple days after kegging. The belief is it's some kind of interaction with the massive dry hop additions (sugars from the hops), residual yeast, and possibly force carbing. Just did a 10oz total hop NEIPA and after day 6, no diacetyl, but I'm bottling. Other ipa threads are discussing this issue also. I'm doing another neipa using Cryo Hops next for dry hopping. Apparently, it's a problem with professional brewers also.

 

[Bottoms_Up]

I think ppl are confused when they read our diacetyl conversations. It's not during fermentation that it's detected, it's a couple days after kegging. The belief is it's some kind of interaction with the massive dry hop additions (sugars from the hops), residual yeast, and possibly force carbing. Just did a 10oz total hop NEIPA and after day 6, no diacetyl, but I'm bottling. Other ipa threads are discussing this issue also. I'm doing another neipa using Cryo Hops next for dry hopping. Apparently, it's a problem with professional brewers also.

Thanks for the clarification - I wasn't aware that diacetly could creep up during the kegging phase. I just finished an 11 oz total hop NEIPA (Heady Topper taste-alike) and luckily do not notice any diacetyl.

By the way, there is yet another Pliny the Elder clone recipe in Brew Your Own's "Big Book of Homebrewing" that came out this year. It primarily uses Warrior and Chinook hops for bittering. It uses a total of 15.25 ounces of hops (Warrior - 2.75, Chinook - 0.5, Columbus - 4.25, Simcoe - 3.75, and Centennial - 4.0).

 

[ThirstyPawsHB]

Thanks for the clarification - I wasn't aware that diacetly could creep up during the kegging phase. I just finished an 11 oz total hop NEIPA (Heady Topper taste-alike) and luckily do not notice any diacetyl.

By the way, there is yet another Pliny the Elder clone recipe in Brew Your Own's "Big Book of Homebrewing" that came out this year. It primarily uses Warrior and Chinook hops for bittering. It uses a total of 15.25 ounces of hops (Warrior - 2.75, Chinook - 0.5, Columbus - 4.25, Simcoe - 3.75, and Centennial - 4.0).

Interesting. Chinook has an odd flavor where PtE appears more floral..at least some I've had. Couldn't hurt to try...

 

[Bottoms_Up]

Interesting. Chinook has an odd flavor where PtE appears more floral..at least some I've had. Couldn't hurt to try...

It does have a citrusy, spicy, piney aroma. But the key is its high alpha content (12-14%).

 

[brewski09]

Interesting. Chinook has an odd flavor where PtE appears more floral..at least some I've had. Couldn't hurt to try...

The 0.5oz bittering charge won't have much but a piney bitterness and should round out the bitterness pretty well (it's also a little softer than warrior). I use chinook in heavy whirlpool/dryhop doses and it's a bit tropical.

 

[crusader1612]

Thanks for the clarification - I wasn't aware that diacetly could creep up during the kegging phase. I just finished an 11 oz total hop NEIPA (Heady Topper taste-alike) and luckily do not notice any diacetyl.

By the way, there is yet another Pliny the Elder clone recipe in Brew Your Own's "Big Book of Homebrewing" that came out this year. It primarily uses Warrior and Chinook hops for bittering. It uses a total of 15.25 ounces of hops (Warrior - 2.75, Chinook - 0.5, Columbus - 4.25, Simcoe - 3.75, and Centennial - 4.0).

Diacetyl is a yeast health/ fermentation thing generally. (Infections aside).
Although to be fair diacetyl of some level is present in most ales. It's just not detectable to human taste buds. When the levels go up the butter flavour and overly sweet caramel flavours ask go up, meaning a fall in hop presence in most cases.

As it's not always detectable prior to kegging people can sometimes confuse it for caramel flavour. Caramel popcorn if u will. But at cold temperatures it can really ramp up and do it quickly. Within a few days of kegging. This is why I always do a drest for every single beer I brew to help minimise diacetyl caused by fermentation.
For me it will also depend on the yeast used. If I use Mangrove jacks dry packs I overpitch as the packs are smaller and the lag time. An sometime be quite long. The additions packs just eliminates that lag and ensures enough yeast for healthy fermentation.
Us95 not so much. But I found myself doing that recently by habit. And it came out wonderfully. (3 packs into 1.060) might seem overkill sure. But a $5 pack of yeast is better than dumping $50 of beer.

Oh an just FYI. over pitching isn't a if issue for Homebrew IMO.

 

[Dcpcooks]

Diacetyl is a yeast health/ fermentation thing generally. (Infections aside).
Although to be fair diacetyl of some level is present in most ales. It's just not detectable to human taste buds. When the levels go up the butter flavour and overly sweet caramel flavours ask go up, meaning a fall in hop presence in most cases.

As it's not always detectable prior to kegging people can sometimes confuse it for caramel flavour. Caramel popcorn if u will. But at cold temperatures it can really ramp up and do it quickly. Within a few days of kegging. This is why I always do a drest for every single beer I brew to help minimise diacetyl caused by fermentation.
For me it will also depend on the yeast used. If I use Mangrove jacks dry packs I overpitch as the packs are smaller and the lag time. An sometime be quite long. The additions packs just eliminates that lag and ensures enough yeast for healthy fermentation.
Us95 not so much. But I found myself doing that recently by habit. And it came out wonderfully. (3 packs into 1.060) might seem overkill sure. But a $5 pack of yeast is better than dumping $50 of beer.

Oh an just FYI. over pitching isn't a if issue for Homebrew IMO.

I'd agree that homebrew is often under-pitched. I've been harvesting and repitching from my conicals and I've seen really nice clean fermentations lately.

The interesting thing I've noticed is fermentation may not be faster but it appears to be more complete. I've noticed very repeatable fermentations and gravities.

Obviously you'd need to spin up a big starter to match the quantity of yeast harvested from a batch. That's really relevant to high gravity beers where you can't reuse yeast. So I've been tinkering with much larger yeast pitch's. I don't get any off flavors but that's probably due to fermentation control and temp schedules.

 

[Bottoms_Up]

Diacetyl is a yeast health/ fermentation thing generally. (Infections aside).
Although to be fair diacetyl of some level is present in most ales. It's just not detectable to human taste buds. When the levels go up the butter flavour and overly sweet caramel flavours ask go up, meaning a fall in hop presence in most cases.

As it's not always detectable prior to kegging people can sometimes confuse it for caramel flavour. Caramel popcorn if u will. But at cold temperatures it can really ramp up and do it quickly. Within a few days of kegging. This is why I always do a drest for every single beer I brew to help minimise diacetyl caused by fermentation.
For me it will also depend on the yeast used. If I use Mangrove jacks dry packs I overpitch as the packs are smaller and the lag time. An sometime be quite long. The additions packs just eliminates that lag and ensures enough yeast for healthy fermentation.
Us95 not so much. But I found myself doing that recently by habit. And it came out wonderfully. (3 packs into 1.060) might seem overkill sure. But a $5 pack of yeast is better than dumping $50 of beer.

Oh an just FYI. over pitching isn't a if issue for Homebrew IMO.

Interesting. So it's not really a phenomenon that occurs during kegging, but the added perception of it when it cools down. I have read that diacetyl is usually a concern when the beer has not been kept on the yeast long enough, such as those who like to keg their beer immediately after it has finished fermenting, after only a week or two. For most strong ales, the diacetyl might not be noticeable since it's masked by the strong flavour. But this is quite different when making delicate-tasting beers such as pilsners, where every off-flavour becomes much more noticeable. I've also read that it's best to keep the beer in the primary until fermentation has completed, and not to rack it to a secondary, since the primary contains more yeast that can help clean up the diacetyl more quickly and thoroughly. I generally leave my beer on the yeast for at least three weeks, even for ales.

 

[crusader1612]

Interesting. So it's not really a phenomenon that occurs during kegging, but the added perception of it when it cools down. I have read that diacetyl is usually a concern when the beer has not been kept on the yeast long enough, such as those who like to keg their beer immediately after it has finished fermenting, after only a week or two. For most strong ales, the diacetyl might not be noticeable since it's masked by the strong flavour. But this is quite different when making delicate-tasting beers such as pilsners, where every off-flavour becomes much more noticeable. I've also read that it's best to keep the beer in the primary until fermentation has completed, and not to rack it to a secondary, since the primary contains more yeast that can help clean up the diacetyl more quickly and thoroughly. I generally leave my beer on the yeast for at least three weeks, even for ales.

Exactly.
The yeast essentially creates and eats the s**t it makes. Haha.

 

[PissyFingers]

this test may set your mind at ease before you keg, or bottle.

http://blog.eckraus.com/determination-of-diacetyl-in-beer

 

[Tommydee]

Ok, brewed this last weekend, went great, hit 1.072 exact. But I didn t think through dry hop plan while on vacation! Hit her with a nice big starter of WLP 090 SD super yeast), and at day 8 fermentation, it's already at FG of 1.015. Went at 67 in chamber. Drinking the sample now with dinner, and it's the best beer I've made so far.

Based on where I am and travel plans, I'm going to mod the dry hop plan, and cut fermentation short from 4 weeks in recipe by a few days. Going to drop the firs dry hop tomorrow at noon, on day 9. Then I'll be back home on day 21. Then I'll hit it with the 2nd dry hop, raise it up to 70 F and keg on day 25.

So I'll be short 3 days, and 1st dry hop will be 16 days instead of 12. 2nd dry hop as planned. I think this will make a better, fresher beer than the alternative, which is to wait till I get back to start first dry hop on day 21, and have it go for nearly 5 weeks prior to kegging. I'm not in a huge rush, so I'll do whatever makes the beer taste better. I can condition in the keg.

I've read somewhere about the back end of primary being an ideal time, and that's where I am as of today, so instinct tells me to start tomorrow.

Any advice, dry hop now, or Friday after next, would be appreciated.

Damn, this hydro sample is good!

 

[Garmoni]

Just brewed this and fermentation has completed. It tastes so amazing I almost don't want to add the dry hop additions. Very good as is right now.

 

[ThirstyPawsHB]

Just brewed this and fermentation has completed. It tastes so amazing I almost don't want to add the dry hop additions. Very good as is right now.

Yes! Had that same thing happen. But...add them anyway! 😉

 

[dschiller]

Almost every picture I've seen of Pliny the Elder homebrew is darker than the commercial brew. I've made this a few times now and although the flavor is pretty close, mine is also significantly darker. Is that a sign that I (we) are putting in too much Crystal 45L? I'm guessing I shouldn't care at all that my homebrew is darker. More importantly, I haven't been able to duplicate the crisp dryness of Pliny. The owner of my homebrew store says that is Russian River's "magic," but I'd like to think that there is something I should be able to tweak to dial this in better. Does it have something to do with the late edition corn sugar (maybe I should reduce or eliminate it)? Or perhaps how the flameout hops are whirlpooled?

 

[ultravista]

There's a post, maybe in this thread, of the real PTE recipe - a brew sheet someone took a photo of while PTE was being brewed under contract @ Firestone Walker.

I don't remember people mentioning anything about the crystal malts and +/- to the homebrew recipe. The discussion was focused on the hops.

Perhaps RR uses steam kettles vs. direct fire. Off the cuff, I would expect steam to produce a lighter color brew.

 

[Scturo]

Latest version, really good. I agree that the ones posted seem darker, so I used crystal 40 for this one. I think it looks a lot closer to the real Pliny.

 

[dschiller]

That definitely looks a bit lighter than mine. Did you whirlpool the 0 addition hops, or did you just dump them in at flameout? I whirlpooled at 2 temperatures and I wonder if I extracted too much hops oils at the expense of a loss of crispness/dryness.

 

[Bottoms_Up]

Latest version, really good. I agree that the ones posted seem darker, so I used crystal 40 for this one. I think it looks a lot closer to the real Pliny.

Which recipe version did you use, Scturo?

 

[Scturo]

That definitely looks a bit lighter than mine. Did you whirlpool the 0 addition hops, or did you just dump them in at flameout? I whirlpooled at 2 temperatures and I wonder if I extracted too much hops oils at the expense of a loss of crispness/dryness.

I followed the recipe for the most part. FO hops went in at FO, the first dry hops went in at day 3 for 5 days, and the second dry hop charge went in at day 8.

Which recipe version did you use, Scturo?

I used the first recipe in the post. I just switched out the crystal 45 for crystal 40. It took 2 weeks in the keg to clear up. Came out awesome.

 

[Bottoms_Up]

I used the first recipe in the post. I just switched out the crystal 45 for crystal 40. It took 2 weeks in the keg to clear up. Came out awesome.

Sounds encouraging. I plan to make this once the weather cools down a bit. I'll take your advice and add Crystal 40 instead of Crystal 45. Or just add a little less Crystal 45.

 

[Tommydee]

Ok, brewed this last weekend, went great, hit 1.072 exact. But I didn t think through dry hop plan while on vacation! Hit her with a nice big starter of WLP 090 SD super yeast), and at day 8 fermentation, it's already at FG of 1.015. Went at 67 in chamber. Drinking the sample now with dinner, and it's the best beer I've made so far.

Based on where I am and travel plans, I'm going to mod the dry hop plan, and cut fermentation short from 4 weeks in recipe by a few days. Going to drop the firs dry hop tomorrow at noon, on day 9. Then I'll be back home on day 21. Then I'll hit it with the 2nd dry hop, raise it up to 70 F and keg on day 25.

So I'll be short 3 days, and 1st dry hop will be 16 days instead of 12. 2nd dry hop as planned. I think this will make a better, fresher beer than the alternative, which is to wait till I get back to start first dry hop on day 21, and have it go for nearly 5 weeks prior to kegging. I'm not in a huge rush, so I'll do whatever makes the beer taste better. I can condition in the keg.

I've read somewhere about the back end of primary being an ideal time, and that's where I am as of today, so instinct tells me to start tomorrow.

Any advice, dry hop now, or Friday after next, would be appreciated.

Damn, this hydro sample is good!

To close the loop, ended up doing 1/2 the dry hop load for 16 days, the other half for 5 days. Used a pliney pack from farmhouse, so the hops are per the RR homebrewing recipe, not the brew sheet posted here. It's really really good, except I had a lousy yield transferring to the keg, since I managed to clog my transfer line with all the hops

 

[dschiller]

Would it be too crazy to use Crystal 20 instead of Crystal 45 or 40? There is a flavor difference, too, between these, right? Not just color. For me, I think the Crystal 45 introduces too much color AND too much caramel. Or maybe I'm doing something else that is making this not quite right.

 

[grassfeeder]

Would it be too crazy to use Crystal 20 instead of Crystal 45 or 40? There is a flavor difference, too, between these, right? Not just color. For me, I think the Crystal 45 introduces too much color AND too much caramel. Or maybe I'm doing something else that is making this not quite right.

Nope. I'd do exactly what you're going. Hell, I'd honestly drop the crystal all together but thats me.

 

[Dcpcooks]

Nope. I'd do exactly what you're going. Hell, I'd honestly drop the crystal all together but thats me.

We have a national BJCP judge in my club. He suggested dropping the crystal all together. I made a batch without the malt and the color was really close to the original. We didn't see a drop in flavor but it did attenuate a bit better.

 

[dschiller]

Thanks for the feedback on the crystal reduction/elimination. Someone told me that Russian River's "secret" to getting Pliny's crispness is due to how they carbonate the beer. Does anyone know if there is any truth to that? Is there something a homebrewer can do to get a drier/crisper finish? I don't think the late edition corn sugar alone gets you there.

 

[stickyfinger]

a large dose of gypsum adds a drying effect on flavor. try 150ppm gypsum. also, more dry hops tends to lend to a perception of dryness in my experience. lower pH perhaps too?

 

[MMJfan]

a large dose of gypsum adds a drying effect on flavor. try 150ppm gypsum. also, more dry hops tends to lend to a perception of dryness in my experience. lower pH perhaps too?

I will 2nd this! I just started using gypsum for my IPA's and I can attest that it really does make a difference in enhancing the hop profile of the beers. I'm not into doing water profiles but my city water is pretty neutral and I've been able to tell a difference using just 1-2 tbsp. per 5 gal. batch added to my mash.

 

[dschiller]

I was at Russian River Brewing Company earlier this year and they said that they have switched to using Magnum for their bittering hops. I've done 5 variations of the recipe and although I am making getting pretty close to the Pliny flavor, every time my beer is more sweet than dry. It turns out this way regardless of whether or not I add late addition corn sugar. I'm wondering if my 152-154F mash temperature is too high. Palmer's book (end of Section 14.5) says that a higher mash temperature results in a sweeter and more full bodied beer, whereas a lower mash temperature results in a drier but thinner bodied beer. Do you think I should significantly reduce my mash temperature, and if so, how low should I go?

 

[crusader1612]

I was at Russian River Brewing Company earlier this year and they said that they have switched to using Magnum for their bittering hops. I've done 5 variations of the recipe and although I am making getting pretty close to the Pliny flavor, every time my beer is more sweet than dry. It turns out this way regardless of whether or not I add late addition corn sugar. I'm wondering if my 152-154F mash temperature is too high. Palmer's book (end of Section 14.5) says that a higher mash temperature results in a sweeter and more full bodied beer, whereas a lower mash temperature results in a drier but thinner bodied beer. Do you think I should significantly reduce my mash temperature, and if so, how low should I go?

Try using the mash temp suggestion as your stroke temp. You'll end up under it.

 

[suprchunk]

I'm wondering if my 152-154F mash temperature is too high.

Yes. I aim for ~150 when I make this, but anything under what you are using should clear that up.