Pliny The Elder, again

Pliny the Elder has to be my favorite commercially produced beer.  The hop aroma, the flavor, everything about this beer is fantastic.  So the question is, why don't I always have this on hand?  I can brew this for about 1/6 the cost of buying it at Belmont Station, which only has it for about 6 hours a month until they're sold out usually, and you can only buy one bottle per adult at a time, so basically I get about a bottle of this a month.  So how I have 11 gallons of it to last me a while.  Here's the details that you're really after...

Recipe:
11 Gallon

Grain:
28# GW 2-Row
1.4# Crystal 40L
1.4# Carapils

2# Dextrose (Corn Sugar) added to the boil

Hops:
6oz CTZ for 90m
1.5oz CTZ for 45m
2oz Simcoe for 30m
5oz Simcoe for 1m
2oz Centennial for 1m

Dry hops:
2oz CTZ for 10 days
2oz Centennial for 10 days
2oz Simcoe for 10 days
.5oz Simcoe for 3 days
.5oz CTZ for 3 days
.5oz Centennial for 3 days

Yeast:
Wyeast 1056 starter from Scott

Notes:
Smooth brewing.  No stuck mash this time since I cut a hole in a colander and put the mash screen through it (details to come later).  Gravity came in a little low (1.075-target was 1.085), but so long as it drops a little lower than the targeted 1.021.  Right now I have about 22 gallons of really tasty IPA's fermenting, so I feel like I'm living pretty large.  Plus I won't have to brew for a while!
Update 3/8/12: I've been really lagging on the Pliny.  I finally got one kegged this week and it is really tasty.  I have a bottle of Pliny that I'll compare it to probably next week.  I also got 6 bottles filled as well to save for later.  That plus the other 6 gallons that are on secondary right now and will get bottled next week!  I'll update again with the side by side results.

Ninkasi Total Domination Clone

I'm out of IPA. So it's IPA week here at Logos Brewing. First up, a clone of Ninkasi's Total Domination. This has a nice citrus flavor and is quite popular here in the great northwest. I based my recipe off the website's ingredient list since there seems to be a serious lack of help online for this recipe. Must be because of SOPA. I also doubled it to an 11 gallon batch so that I'd have some to share plus some extra. Here's the recipe. I'll update to let you know how it turns out.





Recipe:
11 gallon

Grain:
22# GW 2-Row
3.2# GW Munich
1.6# Carahell

Hops:
2oz Summit @60m
1oz Summit @30m
2oz Cascade @5m
2oz Crystal @1m

Dry Hops:
2oz Crystal for 7 days
2oz Cascade for 7 days

Yeast:
Wyeast 1056 Slurry

Notes:
The mash stuck, which caused a long delay. I was on pace to finish in about 4 hours, but that screwed me up and I ended up taking about 5 1/2 hours. Oh well, hopefully this turns out ok. Gravity came in at 1.065 (target was 1.067).
Update 1/27/12: Racked one of the five gallon buckets to secondary and added 1oz of Crystal and 1oz of Cascade hops.  Taste was super good.  This is going to be close, I can't wait to compare it to Ninkasi's version.  FG was 1.015.
Update 2/3/12: Got the first bucket kegged and the second one got racked to secondary today.  Oh man, this is really good.  Good citrus hop flavor, great flavor, oh man...this is good.  I'll try to do a side by side in a week or so.

Side by Side Comparison:  So I picked up a bottle of Total Domination to compare the two side by side.  Here are my thoughts on it...
Aroma:  I preferred my version, but similar.  I think I had more aroma due to more dry-hops.
Clarity: Close, but Ninkasi's was clearer (probably due to a filtering system), but the body color was pretty close.
Taste: Very, very similar.  My version had a little more hop flavor, but they were really close.
Overall:  I can honestly say that this is a very close clone.  The flavor and aroma was very close.  I preferred my version, probably due to the larger amount of dry-hops I probably used compared to a commercial brewery.  Basically, I'm betting this is probably one of the closest clone recipes for this beer on the internet (I didn't find much when I searched it before making it).  So brew up and let me know what you think!

Newcastle Clone

Newcastle is one of those classic ales.  A nice brown ale with a bit of nutty flavor that is enjoyed all around the world.  This also includes my friend David (who picks Newcastle over everything).  So to help out David and give me something to do, I decided to brew a double batch of Newcastle (11 gallon) and split it with him.  I'm even experimenting a little and using two different yeasts, so I can compare them.  They're both new to me, so I'm looking forward to seeing how they each turn out.

Recipe:
11 gallon

Grain:
12.5# GW 2-Row
2# Flaked Corn
1# Carapils
1# Crystal 60L
1# Crystal 80L
1# Crystal 120L
.5# Chocolate Malt
.1# Roasted Barley

Hops:
1.5oz Magnum 13% @ 60m (substituted for Target)
.5oz East Kent Goldings 5% @15m

Yeast(s):
Wyeast 1099 Whitbread Ale in one bucket
White Labs 005(?) London Ale Yeast in the other bucket

Notes:
I actually brewed this last week and forgot to blog it.  Brewing was smooth and easy, although it took a little longer than I like for the fermentation to begin.  I think it's because I was at 60 degrees instead of the target 70 degrees.  Once I got them up to temp, they started right up.  I think they're done fermenting, so I'll keg one of them and then bottle the other batch with David sometime next week.
Update 1/27/12:  Bottled and kegged last week sometime (Tuesday the 17th maybe?).  David took home 54 bottles of the Whitbread version and a few of the London Ale version.  I kegged the London Ale version and kept a few of the Whitbread.

Here's the tasty details...it's been a while since I've had a Newcastle, so I'll need to do an actual side by side soon.  The Whitbread version tastes much closer to an actual Newcastle.  The London version has a sweet, almost tangy finish.  The Whitbread is much crisper and cleaner finish.  Both are good in their own ways, however I don't see myself brewing the London Ale Yeast version again.  Not sure if I really like that yeast.  I'll have to brew it in something else to see how the taste goes in that.  A good experiment though.