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.
Solid brew week indeed. Question on your 1056 slurry you tend to use consistently - how many times are you re-using the same strain? Have you ever come up short on your yeast count after x amount of times? Gotta try the Pliny soon, love that RR posts the recipe.
ReplyDeletecheers,
jg
I typically re-use yeast 5-6 times. I was re-using them more, but found fermentation was slowing down. I'm not totally sure how yeast counts work since I haven't felt the need yet. I probably should look into that soon. I started re-using to save the $6 per batch ($12) on a double batch. Half the reason I brew is to save money on really tasty beer. I recommend the Pliny, so good and so nice to have a big supply which you can't get around here. Only one bottle at a time at Belmont Station.
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