Pliny The Younger Clone

So, this year we will not get growler fills of Pliny sent across the country for our enjoyment. What the heck are we going to do? Well..........Clone the damn thing! I posted the recipe below. Comment if you think things should be changed or updated. We @craftsuds would love to hear from you. Enjoy!

Pliny the Younger (Clone) Tasting and Recipe

Appearance - Hazy (from the dry hopping) orange-amber. The beer produces a creamy white 2 finger head from a moderate pour that sinks to about 1 finger, but stays until the last sip. The carbonation looks pretty good and the head leaves a nice coat of lacing.

Smell - Saturated with American hops, pine, orange and peach with some lightly toasty malt in the background. There is a bit of estery yeast aroma that mixes with the hops to add a light fruitiness.

Taste - The same hop aromas are present in the taste along with an assertive bitterness, which never crosses over to being harsh or rough (a product of the clean Nugget hops used for bittering). The flavor is surprisingly well balanced for the style, hoppy and bitter but with enough malt to temper it. Despite the 88% apparent attenuation the beer still has some residual sweetness, US-56 often attenuates very well but seems to leave an impression of sweetness.

Mouthfeel - Firm carbonation (thank goodness, this beer took forever to carb up), medium body.

Drinkability/Notes - Pretty good for a Double IPA, but certainly not a light refreshing brew. This was brewed almost 3 months ago and its been in the bottle for almost 2 months, over that time it has lost some of its fresh hop aroma, but it is still in a tasty place. This is the primary style that is calling for me to get a home kegging system so I can force carbonate and throw some hops in the keg to keep that fresh hop aroma going.

Pliny the Younger (Redux)

Recipe Specifics
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Batch Size (Gal): 3.80
Total Grain (Lbs): 13.72
Anticipated OG: 1.081
Anticipated SRM: 5.4
Anticipated IBU: 301.1
Brewhouse Efficiency: 57 %
Wort Boil Time: 130 Minutes

Grain/Sugar
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10.00 lbs. Pale Malt(2-row)
2.00 lbs. Golden Promise
0.97 lbs. Corn Sugar
0.75 lbs. CaraPils

Hops
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1.50 oz. Chinook Whole Mash Hop
3.00 oz. Nugget Whole 120 min.
1.00 oz. Simcoe Whole 70 min.
1.00 oz. Amarillo Gold Whole 45 min.
2.25 oz. Amarillo Gold Whole 0 min.
1.13 oz. Simcoe Whole 0 min.
0.75 oz. Mix Whole Dry Hop
0.75 oz. Mix Whole Dry Hop
0.75 oz. Mix Whole Dry Hop
1.00 oz. Mix Whole Dry Hop

Extras
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0.50 Unit(s)Wirlfloc 10 Min.(boil)
1.00 Unit(s)Servomyces 10 Min.(boil)

Yeast
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Safale US-56 Chico

Water Profile
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Profile: Pliny the Water

Calcium(Ca): 76.0 ppm
Magnesium(Mg): 13.0 ppm
Sodium(Na): 9.0 ppm
Sulfate(SO4): 133.0 ppm
Chloride(Cl): 56.0 ppm
biCarbonate(HCO3): 26.0 ppm

pH: 8.29

Mash Schedule
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75 min @ 151

Notes
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Brewed 1/6/07

A second attempt at the fantastic double/triple IPA, hopefully will have that amazing aroma and drinkability that the original has.

No colored crystal used to keep the beer really pale and dry. Using all whole leaf hops from fresh hops for the best possible aroma.

For 9 gallons of mash water add, 4.5 g epsom salt, 1.5 g chalk, .75 g salt, 3 g CaCl and 5 g gypsum. Used 6 gallons of distilled water and 3 gallons of spring water.

Collected 7 gallons of wort at 1.051. (1.093 w/o corn sugar, 78% mash eff),

Added corn sugar with about 20 minutes left in the boil ended up losing more than expected to the hops. Final volume hit, but target gravity of 1.099 missed by quite a bit due to the amount of wort the hops absorbed.

Pitched on a yeast cake from an Amber/Red

Big krausen within 4 hours, room around 75, first put a wet towel around the carboy then quickly dropped overnight to around 58. Krausen fell a bit, but strong fermentation continued.

After 48 hours its already down to 1.042

1/15/07 Kransuen completely fallen.

Dry Hop Schedule:
1st - 4 days (Primary) .375 oz Chinook/.375 oz Columbus
2nd - 12 days .375 oz Amarillo/.375 oz Centennial
3rd - 7 days .375 oz Centennial/.375 oz Simcoe
4th - 3 days .75 oz Amarillo/.25 oz Simcoe

1/16/07 1st charge of dry hops added

1/18/07 1.010 (damn, 87.5% AA 9.4% abv) Still tastes pretty good, just a bit hot.

1/20/07 Transferred to secondary and added the second dry hop charge.

1/27/07 Added third dry hop charge

1/30/07 Still 1.010 (woohoo), Added 4th Dry hop charge, these would be serving tank hops in the original. Hoping to have the amarillo compete with the more pungent simcoe by upping the ratio.

2/2/07 Bottled 3.25 gallons with 2.75 oz corn sugar. Aiming for 2.5 volumes of CO2

Eventually had to add fresh US-56 because the beer was not carbonating.
For Pliny the elder clone check the link below.
http://beerdujour.com/Recipes/1Pliny%20the%20Elder%20clone%20PDF.pdf

Cheers!
Ryan