American IPA Trilium Melcher Street Clone

[Joe Homebrewer]

I brewed this beer two weeks ago, just pulled a sample off of the keg. Still has some carbing to do but smells and taste amazing so far.
I used the following recipe:
72% Pale Malt (2 SRM)
15% Flaked Wheat (1.6 SRM)
4% Carapils (2 SRM)
2% C-10 (10 SRM)
2% C-20 (20 SRM)
5% Dextrose added with 5 mins left to boil
1/2 lb of rice hulls
9 g CaCl
4 g Gypsum

WYeast 1318 w/ starter

.5 oz Columbus- 60 mins
1 oz Columbus- 10 min
1 oz El Dorado, 1 oz Galaxy and .5 oz Columbus whirlpooled @ 170 for 30 mins
Ferment @ 66 first 5 days then let rise to 72 over next few days
2 oz Galaxy and 1 oz Simcoe Cryo hops after 48 hrs
2 oz Galaxy and 1 oz El Dorado dry hopped in keg on day 7

I set pressure to 12 PSI for 2.5 vols and am now trying to be patient until beer is fully carbed. Loving the hops flavor and aroma so far!

 

[degivens]

Bringing this thread back from the grave. I’ve still been brewing variants of this base recipe quite frequently and love it. At some point i’ll have to do a through write up of my findings.

As an aside, has anyone attempted to clone Cutting Tiles? That’s my new goal but I have so many questions about the timing of the wildflower honey..boil...peak ferm...late ferm...in keg...?

 

[makubex]

Bringing this thread back from the grave. I’ve still been brewing variants of this base recipe quite frequently and love it. At some point i’ll have to do a through write up of my findings.

As an aside, has anyone attempted to clone Cutting Tiles? That’s my new goal but I have so many questions about the timing of the wildflower honey..boil...peak ferm...late ferm...in keg...?

Haven't tried cloning Cutting Tiles, however I've brewed with honey quite a bit. When you add the honey depends on what you want to get from it. If you add it during the boil, most of the flavor will volitalize and be driven off with the steam. After flameout is better, but you're still going to lose some aromatics and flavor with escaping CO2 during fermentation.

Whenever I brew with honey, I typically add it at high krausen, that provides the best balance between maintaining the honey character, but still ensuring that the honey addition still ferments/the yeast doesn't stall out.

 

[degivens]

Haven't tried cloning Cutting Tiles, however I've brewed with honey quite a bit. When you add the honey depends on what you want to get from it. If you add it during the boil, most of the flavor will volitalize and be driven off with the steam. After flameout is better, but you're still going to lose some aromatics and flavor with escaping CO2 during fermentation.

Whenever I brew with honey, I typically add it at high krausen, that provides the best balance between maintaining the honey character, but still ensuring that the honey addition still ferments/the yeast doesn't stall out.

Thanks that answered a lot of my questions! Looks like maybe adding the honey when you would add a dry hop at peak fermentation (may be day 2-3) would be the best bet.

 

[stonebrewer]

That is what I do as well. I did a CT clone and it was really good. Just don't hurry it like I did and you will be fine! Cheers!!

 

[ultravista]

Post those recipes please ...

 

[stonebrewer]

Post those recipes please ...

Which recipes are you looking for?

 

[ultravista]

Cutting Tiles and Melcher Street - any of the crazy hazy brews.

 

[Sbe2]

Wow CT looks amazing from what they have on their website.

 

[stonebrewer]

OK...look back a few posts and see where I sub honey for sugar to get Cutting Tiles. OdeCloner has a nice Melcher clone here: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/trilium-melcher-street-clone.582962/

 

[stonebrewer]

Wow CT looks amazing from what they have on their website.

It is amazing!

 

[jpLV]

About to transfer my beer tomorrow and was wondering how that hop filter from arbor fab that was mentioned worked for you guys. I went ahead and got one because of the crazy amount of hops these styles require. Normally I cold crash to help with it but Im going to forgo it this time. Don’t want to deal with clogged keg posts but I’m a little nervous about dropping the filter in there and disturbing all the gunk at the bottom. It seems like it’s also a little short to be propped by the carboy neck and there is no way to secure it to the siphon. Just wondering if there were any lessons learned using it.

 

[degivens]

About to transfer my beer tomorrow and was wondering how that hop filter from arbor fab that was mentioned worked for you guys. I went ahead and got one because of the crazy amount of hops these styles require. Normally I cold crash to help with it but Im going to forgo it this time. Don’t want to deal with clogged keg posts but I’m a little nervous about dropping the filter in there and disturbing all the gunk at the bottom. It seems like it’s also a little short to be propped by the carboy neck and there is no way to secure it to the siphon. Just wondering if there were any lessons learned using it.

Yeh it’s a bit tricky but just make sure it’s sanitized obviously and that the siphon is in the filter. The just sort of guide / drop it in. Because it’s a bit shorter than the neck like you mentioned it’s a bit of a pain to get back out — but no biggy. One other thing i’ve found is that moving the siphon around a bit while transferring prevents the filter from getting a bit clogged and causing a slow or stalled transfer.

 

[jpLV]

Thanks for tips! Transfer went great with the filter. Still didn't get quite as much beer out of the fermentor as I hoped but I think I figured out what my problem was. I tested it out on a different NE IPA recipe I came up with that had less dry hopping then this one and never had it clog. It definitely earned a place in my standard process from now on. I have a couple other beers on deck to brew but Im anxious to give this one a try.

 

[Mothman]

Considering trying a small batch of this, for fun (I bottle so it likely will not really work, but I kind of want to try) ... But I'm a bit confused.

Op says batch size is 5 gal, and post boil is 7.5 gal... Does that actually mean you have 2.5 gal loss from kettle to primary? I usually think of "batch size" as volume into primary (which for me = post boil as I dump it all in from the kettle)

Or is 5 gal the packaged amount, and the 2.5 gal loss is the total loss from kettle to keg?

More to the point... In scaling down to a small batch size, the grains are easy as I'll just use the % given... But if I want to scale down the hops proportionally, what proportions should I use?

Op has 9 gal Pre-boil, 7.5 gal post boil, 5 gal batch.

If I was to do, say, 4.5 gal Pre-boil, 3.5 gal post boil, 3.5 gal batch, ~ 2.75-3 gal packaged... What numbers am I using to get my proportions for the hop scaling?

4.5/9? 3.5/7.5? 3.5/5? 3/5?

 

[stonebrewer]

@Mothman - he is accounting for a large loss due to the hops. I have less loss due to my process so I do not use as much water in the recipe as Ode does. The best way to scale this down is to put it into a program as is like Beersmith and have it do the work for you. I would use 1/2 the hops or a bit over that to start, and go from there, if I was just trying to get in the ballpark, or use Beersmith to get to a gnats hiney parts.

 

[Mothman]

Yeah I'm used to scaling with beersmith, for IBU especially I'm just not sure what to consider the batch size for the original recipe as posted... Is it truly a 5gal batch (5gal into primary)? And I'm not sure if Beersmith is equipped to properly scale dryhops?

The 7.5 gal post boil is throwing me off. 2.5 gal of loss sounds like a lot, even with the kettle hops.

If the op really is for a 5 gal recipe then that's all I need to know, I can work it from there.

 

[degivens]

For me I get a similar post boil volume, then roughly 6-6.25 in the fermenter, and 5 to final kegging. Tons of loss due to trub / additional dry hops.

 

[Mothman]

For me I get a similar post boil volume, then roughly 6-6.25 in the fermenter, and 5 to final kegging. Tons of loss due to trub / additional dry hops.

That's what I was wondering... In which case I should treat it as a 6 gal batch.

 

[stonebrewer]

Interesting losses! I squeeze every ounce out when I brew on my bigger system and usually lose no more than 0.5G. I do dump a lot of crap at the end into a screened funnel and work another gallon or so out of that. Do most folks just pitch that last bit? I also only use pellet hops so there is less wort retained by them than leaf...

 

[Mothman]

So I've entered the recipe into Beersmith as a 3.5 gal recipe (3.5 gal into primary... figuring I'll get maybe 2.75 gal packaged).

The boil and whirlpool hops are fine, I scaled to hit the target IBU.

But as I still don't really know what the batch size was for the original recipe, I'm kind of guessing how to scale the dry hops.

For 3.5 gal in the fermenter, does it sound reasonable to do be in the neighbourhood of:
0.75 oz Columbus
3.75 oz Mosaic

??

 

[stonebrewer]

On my Zymatic (2.75-3G packaged) I use 2.75 oz of each hop. I use .75 of Columbus for bittering, then the rest goes into the WP and DH.

 

[Mothman]

Alright, thanks... sounds like I'm in the ballpark then... my numbers had me with a total of 5.4 oz of hops.

Any chance you recall the amounts/times of your hop additions?

I was trying to stay close to the OP 25 IBU... although I switched mine up in Beersmith to sit at an even 30 IBU...

And as it stands, for the 3.5 gal batch, with my profile, I've got :

0.1 oz Columbus at 60 min
0.2 oz Columbus at 10 min
0.5 oz Columbus at FO, steep for 30 min

and that gives me about 30 IBU.

I got those numbers by entering the original amounts from the OP, then using the IBU slider to target 30 IBU, then rounded off.

Then I've got the 0.75 oz of columbus and 3.75 oz Mosaic in the dryhop.

I'm assuming you are targeting a higher IBU than the original recipe?

Or am I completely out to lunch?

 

[medixlux]

Here's what I ended up doing:

10 lbs 1.8 oz Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM)
2 lbs 9.6 oz Wheat, Flaked (1.6 SRM)
6.9 oz Carapils (Briess) (1.5 SRM)
5.9 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 10L (10.0 SRM)
5.8 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 20L (20.0 SRM)
9.2 oz Corn Sugar (Dextrose) (0.0 SRM)
4.3 oz Milk Sugar (Lactose) (0.0 SRM)
0.50 oz Columbus (Tomahawk) [14.00 %] - Boil 60.
1.00 oz Columbus (Tomahawk) [14.00 %] - Boil 10.
3.00 oz Columbus (Tomahawk) [14.00 %] - Steep/Wh
1.0 pkg London Ale III (Wyeast Labs #1318) [
4.00 oz Citra [12.00 %] - Dry Hop 4.0 Days
3.00 oz Galaxy [14.00 %] - Dry Hop 4.0 Days
3.00 oz Mosaic (HBC 369) [12.25 %] - Dry Hop 4.0
0.50 oz Columbus (Tomahawk) [14.00 %] - Dry Hop


Only thing I would probably change for the next batch is scaling back the galaxy just a bit, I may next time use el dorado instead.

sorry but what batch size are you doing?

 

[BlueEyesBrewing]

Bringing this thread back from the grave. I’ve still been brewing variants of this base recipe quite frequently and love it. At some point i’ll have to do a through write up of my findings.

As an aside, has anyone attempted to clone Cutting Tiles? That’s my new goal but I have so many questions about the timing of the wildflower honey..boil...peak ferm...late ferm...in keg...?

I emailed Trillium last year about adding honey and JC wrote back to me and said they add it during whirlpool so that it kills off any bugs that may be in the honey.

 

[degivens]

I emailed Trillium last year about adding honey and JC wrote back to me and said they add it during whirlpool so that it kills off any bugs that may be in the honey.

Awesome info, thanks!

 

[stonebrewer]

Alright, thanks... sounds like I'm in the ballpark then... my numbers had me with a total of 5.4 oz of hops.

Any chance you recall the amounts/times of your hop additions?

I was trying to stay close to the OP 25 IBU... although I switched mine up in Beersmith to sit at an even 30 IBU...

And as it stands, for the 3.5 gal batch, with my profile, I've got :

0.1 oz Columbus at 60 min
0.2 oz Columbus at 10 min
0.5 oz Columbus at FO, steep for 30 min

and that gives me about 30 IBU.

I got those numbers by entering the original amounts from the OP, then using the IBU slider to target 30 IBU, then rounded off.

Then I've got the 0.75 oz of columbus and 3.75 oz Mosaic in the dryhop.

I'm assuming you are targeting a higher IBU than the original recipe?

Or am I completely out to lunch?

No way this beer has 0.1 at 60 minutes. That is next to no bittering charge. I would use no less than 0.5 OZ for bittering. YMMV.

Cheers!

 

[Mothman]

Hrmm... if I up the 60 min from 0.1 to 0.5 oz it boosts the IBU from ~30 to ~65. Granted, that's fine, but no where near the posted IBU in the OP.

 

[stonebrewer]

Hmmm...I guess try it at 0.1 oz and see? I would be afraid that that would end up with an overly sweet beer, personally...and I don't mind some sweetness in my IPAs. I do lots of 3 gallon batches and 0.5 oz is the least I have ever used...might try less myself just to see what happens! Cheers...

 

[Mothman]

Haha now I'm second guessing myself. Lol. I just looked at the can of a craft commercial neipa I have in the fridge that I love and it lists as 50 IBU... And its plenty sweet as it is...

I think I'll look up IBU levels of some popular neipas and use that as a guideline.

Would 4.5-ish ounces if dryhops be too much for a 3.5 gal batch? I wouldn't mind if it was a little over the top for the first week or so as I anticipate rapid decline due to me bottling.