Pliny the Younger Clone

[ianmatth]

I'm not sure I understand you on the last part. If you don't have a kettle or cooler big enough to mash at least 6 lbs. of grain in, then I wouldn't even attempt this beer. A pure extract brew or a severly limited partial mash won't work. Partial Mash of 6 lbs. would be the bottom limit and even then you won't attenuate as much as all grain.

I have a 5 gallon kettle that is big enough to mash 6.5 lbs of grain, however I don't have a bigger kettle to do the dunk sparge. What I was asking was if I should just forget the dunk sparge or if it would work to add water to the mashed wort, heat it up to 168* and do the dunk sparge that way. If I should just forget the dunk sparge, maybe it would make more sense mash as much grain as I could with my 5 gallon kettle.

Also, at >2 quarts per pound of grain, you would need at least 3.25 gallons for the mash, so with a 5 gallon batch size, that would only leave 1.75 gallons for the dunk sparge.

 

[dahray02]

hmmm, do 3.25 gallons for the mash, and on the side heat up 1.75 gallons of water. Add the 1.75 to the 3.25 then do your dunk sparge. Would that work?

 

[skeezerpleezer]

Anyway you'd be willing to ship one to Chicago? For a fee of course.

I will let you know if I can get some extras. If i can, I will be in Chicago for DLD, so could bring one. I will IM you if I score some.

 

[sybesbrew]

I've been eyeing this beer for awhile and would love to do a clone. It seems like most attempts have been done with a kegging system. I do not have a keg setup yet (hopefully in the next year..,). Would this be worth doing if I bottle conditioned the beer? or would it not be worth it (due to loss of hop aroma waiting for the bottle to carb up).

 

[dahray02]

hop shots being delivered today...going to make a trip to the homebrew store today, start my starter tomorrow and should be brewing this beer friday night...i'll keep an update going, thanks for all those who helped me convert this to a PM recipe

 

[crazyirishman34]

I am sure that the beer would be great bottled. It just might not be as hoppy as when it just drops bright in the keg. One thing is to condition it in a war area so that it will carbonate quicker. Duval uses a warm room to help carb their beer.

 

[dahray02]

OG came out to 1.100

 

[ianmatth]

OG came out to 1.100

That's a fair amount over 1.088. Do you think you lost a lot of water from the boil or did you get way more efficiency than you were expecting from the grain? Did you measure gravity after the dunk sparge before adding any extract because if you didn't you could have very easily added more extract than you needed?

 

[dahray02]

only measured right before i added the yeast...hopefully the yeast brings it down far enough, we shall see

 

[hopcop]

I did a version of this yesterday. After doing much research on a parti gyle, my buddy and I decided to try it. Now I will say I've never had PTY before and everyone talks about it in high regard so why not.

18# 2-Row
12oz CaraPils
6.5oz Crystal 40
1# Dextrose

Mashed with 5 gal of RO water for 60mins at 148*F. Got 2 gallons from first runnings. Batch sparged with 5.25 gallon at 171*F for 10mins. Total preboil yield was 7.25 gallons. We added a pack of burton water salts and the dextrose at beginning of boil. We didn't have hop shots so we ran with a ton of hops.
4oz Columbus 15.7% AA @ 60
4oz Columbus 15.7% AA @ 45
1.5 oz Simcoe 14.5% AA @ 30
2.5oz Simcoe 14.5% AA @ 0
1.5oz Cascade 5.7% AA @ 0
1oz Amarillo 13.2% AA @ 0
1 oz Magnum 11.6%AA @ 0
Total yield: 5.25 gallons
OG: 1.094
2 packs of US-05 pitched at 60*F.
The gravity sample was great by the way.

With the leftover grain we decided to make a parti gyle. We steeped 2# chocolate malt, 12 oz Crystal 40, 4oz Roasted Barley and 4oz CaraFoam in 2 gallons water at 150*F for 30 mins. When we sparged our PTY we heated 5 gallons of water to 150*F. When the PTY finished sparging, we added the 5 gallons of water to the run along with the 2 gallons of steeped grain water. Closed the lid and waited 30 mins. We drained the run and waited for our PTY to finish and started with our stout boil. Preboil OG: 1.030 for the stout. We added 1.5# DME and finished with an OG: 1.054. The stout had Cascade hops added along with 12oz of Lactose.

All in all we had a very successful brew day and this was my first attempt at such math with volume and we nailed everything. Our brew day started at 11:30am and finished at 5:15pm. Not a bad day.

Cheers.

 

[jglazer]

Brewed this clone with the partial mash recipe listed in the middle of the forum. Everything went smoothly except my boil off rate was higher than usual and I ended up 1 gallon short and ~1.100 OG. Because I've never had the actual beer, I am not shooting to match the taste exactly so I added 1 gallon of boiled->cooled water to the wort and OG decreased to 1.0907. I'll let you guys know how it turns out.

Ok reason why I am posting is to ask about the dry hop process a bit. I will be using a keg for a secondary for the first time so I can purge O2 when needed as well as add/remove dry hop additions as required. What is the best method that you guys have found for dry hopping a keg when you have to remove the dry hops and add more in 3-4 times? It seems most people just leave their dry hop additions in and don't have to worry about removing them. Have you guys found the paint strainer method to work well with fishing line? Or is there some other method that you guys have found to maximize hop oil extraction during this step?

I would just go the paint strainer/fishing line technique but I want to make sure there is not some other more effective method. (I would love to buy the stainless steel basket like Scott uses but don't have the funds yet) Thanks!

 

[crazyirishman34]

Scotland did you condition and fine the beer in the same keg that you used to dry hop in?

 

[scottland]

Scotland did you condition and fine the beer in the same keg that you used to dry hop in?

Ya, all in the same keg. The 'kegged' date on my blog is the day I dropped the keg into the kegerator.

Jglazer: I would just leave them in. I've done a few beers with 3-4 dry hop additions, and if there is any advantage to pull them out, it's pretty small.

In the future, I won't go to the trouble of removing them.

 

[crazyirishman34]

Cool I was just worried about having too much sludge at the bottom of the keg. I did use the dry hopper like you did and dumped the hoops after each dose.

 

[jglazer]

Hmm everything I've read says that if you leave them in too long they start to omit undesirable flavors. Here is my game plan which is still up in the air:

Dry Hop #1 in primary (8 days, loose pellets)
Dry Hop #2 in primary (4 days, loose pellets, leaving dry hop #1 in as well because they went in loose)
Transfer to secondary keg
Dry Hop #3 in keg (4 days, in a bag so they can be removed)
Dry Hop #4 in keg (4 days, in a bag so they can be removed)
Carb and serve

I was thinking (and correct me if this doesnt make sense because I am still fairly new) that adding the first 2 dry hop additions in the primary would actually help the yeast clean up after itself because I've read that adding things (I can't find it now but I think I remember reading some sort of wood) to the primary for the yeast to stick onto will increase its surface area, thus adding pellet hops for the yeast to cling to and do its clean up better.

Just a thought, I obviously need to do more research

 

[bobbrews]

I would advise:

Dry Hop #1 in primary @ 68 F (3-4 days, loose pellets) [rack off of trub and hops before adding stage 2]
Dry Hop #2 in secondary @ 68 F (3-4 days, bagged pellets) [remove before adding stage 3]
Dry Hop #3 in secondary @ 68 F (3-4 days, bagged pellets) [remove before adding stage 4]

*Cold-Crash and add bloomed gelatin solution to 34 F wort for 2-3 days

Dry Hop #4 in keg @ 68 F (3-4 days, bagged pellets) [remove before carbing]

*Carb and serve

 

[crazyirishman34]

Vinney from RR recommends getting most of the yeast out of suspension before adding your dry hops. With this beer I cold crashed in the primary for 2 days then racked into a keg to secondary the beer under a CO2 blanket.

 

[bmick]

If you leave hops in too long you will start to get grassy/vegetal flavors, but 8 days isn't too long (but I may cut it to 6). In terms of dry-hopping clearing yeast, your idea makes sense but I think the results would be negligible. Crash cool and use gelatin, works great.

 

[jaw94087]

Here is my finished PTY. It’s is tasting pretty damn closeto the real thing experienced back in late February. This brew finished at1.010. I owe a great deal of gratitude to Scott for his awesome efforts. Theonly think I might do differently is to try and get the FG down to 1.008. Itcould finish a bit dryer. To that end, I’m thinking of the following changes;

1) Increase WLP090 yeast starter from 370 B cellsby 10-15%

2) Second dose of O2 at 12-18 hours

3) Increase corn sugar from 1.33 to 1.5 with halfin boil and half in fermenter after3 days

4) Decrease 2-row to maintain OG around 1.089

5) I might play around with the dry hop schedule toreduce time to finished beer

Any thoughts?

 

[scottland]

That's awesome! Your changes look good. This is one of those recipes were every brewer needs to take their own appropriate steps to get the degree of attenuation needed.

What works on one system might not work on another. But ya, 1.006-1.008 is where we need to be. Mine was 1.010 also, and it's close enough to taste amazing. It could be a hint drier though.

Enjoy it quickly. I'm only 3 weeks in the keg, and a good chunk of hop aroma has already faded.

 

[jaw94087]

Here a question for the Pliny Heads - What is the perfect water treatment for PTY? Specificly, what is the appropriate sulfate to cloride ratio. Scott, if I read your blog correctly, I understand you use an even balance (1:1). I used a 2:1 ratio, and thinking of bumping it to 3:1. I've read that Mike McDole uses as much as 7:1 for similar recipes. Scott, please correct if I'm wrong, and what do others think?

Jim

 

[bobbrews]

I prefer 4:1 sulfate to chloride for pale hoppy ales. So, within reason, this equates to about 250 ppm sulfate 62.5 ppm chloride. I've tried "almost" even levels of sulfate and chloride in IPAs (125 & 90 respectively) and they have tasted less hoppy without that clean, crisp bitter edge.

Be cautious about your alkalinity, too. You usually want it to be as low as possible in hoppy ales or things can get too malty. Gypsum and Calcium Chloride can both moderately boost alkalinity. I know Vinnie uses Phosphoric Acid to keep his alkalinity in check.

 

[scottland]

I used mostly gypsum to bring up my sulfate and calcium levels for this beer to bring out that bitter edge. (2:1), and 2% acid malt in the grist to get the mash pH in check. I start with RO water though, so it's going to differ for you if you use tap water.

I think it was like 2tsp gypsum and .5tsp calcium chloride per 5gal of water

 

[mthhurley]

scottland,

I have a 2 part question for you as I'm considering this for a brew day tomorrow.

I have only 15ml of hop extract on hand. However, these are Northern Brewer Amarillo Hopshots.
I notice a lot of hop extracts are not varietal specific but these are.

1. Do you think the amarillo vs generic will make a difference?
2. Since I only have 15ml's, that translates to about 150IBU's. So is your recommendation another 150'ish IBU's of some pellet @90 minutes? Suggestions on variety?

 

[scottland]

Don't think in IBUs, think in terms of AAU. You need 70AAU of bittering hops at 90min. AAU = (oz of hops) * (the AA%)

1ml of hop extract is 2AAU. So you already have 30AAU, you need 40 more. Find something very high in AA% like Apollo or CTZ. Divide it's AA% into 40, and you'll get how many oz are needed. e.g. Columbus @ 16%. 40/16 = 2.5oz.

The 45min addition is much smaller. 10AAU. So 1oz of a 10% hop, or .62oz of our aforementioned Columbus.

The Amarillo will be ok, but pair it up with an aggressive bittering hop.
2. It's going to seem like a crap load of IBUs. My calcs came out at 340.

 

[mthhurley]

Thanks!!!

 

[dahray02]

FG came out to 1.020

 

[jaw94087]

I’m brewing PTY again tomorrow after doing a bit of fine tuning of the recipe/process with the helpful feedback from this thread. My first attempt finished with a gravity of 1.010. I’ll bump the dextrose up to 1.5 lbs from 1.33 with half added late in fermentation. I think the last question I have pertains to the mash temperature schedule. On my last attempt I did a single infusion at 148. Scott, on your first attempt you used 148, and then multiple temperature mash on the second attempt. I don’t have a REMS system, but I could do something like a simple two-step infusion. Maybe 45 minutes at 145 and 45 minutes at 148. The intent would be to increase the fermentable sugars. Any thoughts?



Jim

 

[scottland]

Jim, It's not a bad idea, but in retrospect, I'm not sure the step-mash accomplished anything. I think a nice long 90min rest at 145-146 should work just fine. 1.5lbs Dextrose is a good move. That should turn out pretty awesome.

On a semi-related note, my keg of Younger kicked yesterday. It was a sad moment...

 

[hopcop]

My gravity has been consistent the past few days so I think I finished. 1.014. Not bad since I overshot my OG:1.094. I tried the sample and It is a little sweet. I think if I were to brew this again I would go with 1.5# dextrose instead of 1# and drop a few pounds of 2-row. The sample tasted awesome and I will start the dry hopping schedule today. Thanks for the recipe.

Cheers