My first attempt at brewing a Double IPA, a Heady Topper clone, turned out to be as good as any commercial beer on the market. It was a sad day when I drank the last one. I held off brewing another one due to the extra cost and effort associated with brewing one of these. It's a long brew day dealing with all the hops and, with a well hopped example like the Heady Topper, you're looking at 20-30 dollars in hop costs alone.
As good as the Heady Topper clone ended up being it's also difficult to get up the courage to try to brew some other beer as it's likely not going to match it. I found a nice looking Pliny the Elder recipe on the Bertus Brewery blog that might have a fighting chance. When fresh, Pliny the Elder is a fantastic beer with great intense hop flavor (falls off slightly with age). The hype seems to have subsided a bit as people have moved onto newer beers but it's still a very difficult beer to track down - even in Sacramento CA somehow. It's funny that it's actually a bit easier to get Russian River beer here in Philadelphia that it is in the Sacramento area. I haven't had any Pliny now in at least a year - I need my Pliny fix.
Pliny has a very simple malt bill with just a bit of specialty malt (1 lb) along with some sugar to help dry the beer out. I'll be mashing at 152 F.
It would normally call for hop extract for the bittering but I'm going to just use some high AA hop instead as I didn't really care for the hop extract last time I used it (in my Two Hearted Clone attempt). It will be a 90 min boil on this batch. The recipe calls for 45 and 30 min additions of hops which I'm going to defer to 10 and 5 min. Additionally, I'm going to increase the flameout and dry hop additions a bit to try to get more hop intensity. I'll add both flameout and whirl pool additions of hops. I have some Simcoe, Amarillo, and Columbus hops left over from the Heady Topper batch last year that I am going to be using in addition to those called for in the original recipe. I've been storing them in the fridge in zip lock bags. They smell good still (compared them with the fresh hops I have for the batch and they're about the same) so I'm confident that they aren't oxidized. With these I'll have a bit more than 1 lbs of hops in the batch.
Like with the Heady Topper clone, I've planned to end up with 6.5 gal post boil with the assumption that I'll lose about a half a gal in the kettle to all the hops.
Recipe Details:
- Grain/Adjunct:
- 15 lbs 2 Row
- 8 oz Crystal 60L
- 8 oz CaraPils
- 4 oz Acid Malt
- 12 oz Dextrose
- Hops:
- 1 oz Apollo (Pellet, 18% AA) at 90 min
- 0.5 oz Columbus (Pellet, 15% AA) at 15 min
- 0.5 oz Amarillo (Pellet, 7% AA) at 10 min
- 1 oz Simcoe (Pellet, 12.9% AA) at 5 min
- 2 oz Amarillo (Pellet, 8% AA) at 0 min
- 1 oz Columbus (Pellet, 12.5% AA) at 0 min
- 2 oz Simcoe (Pellet, 12.6% AA) at 0 min
- 1 oz Amarillo (Pellet, 7% AA) added once beer cools to 180 F (stand for 30 min)
- 1 oz Cascade (Pellet, 6.9% AA) added once beer cools to 180 F (stand for 30 min)
- 1 oz Centennial (Pellet, 7.6% AA) added once beer cools to 180 F (stand for 30 min)
- 0.5 oz Columbus (Pellet, 15% AA) added once beer cools to 180 F (stand for 30 min)
- 1 oz Simcoe (Pellet, 12.9% AA) added once beer cools to 180 F (stand for 30 min)
- 1 oz Cascade (Pellet, 6.9% AA) First Dry Hop - added after 4 days (sit for 7 days)
- 0.5 oz Columbus (Pellet, 15% AA) First Dry Hop - added after 4 days (sit for 7 days)
- 1 oz Simcoe (Pellet, 12.9% AA) First Dry Hop - added after 4 days (sit for 7 days)
- 0.5 oz Amarillo (Pellet, 7% AA) Second Dry Hop - added after 11 days (sit for 7 days)
- 1 oz Cascade (Pellet, 6.9% AA) Second Dry Hop - added after 11 days (sit for 7 days)
- 0.5 oz Columbus (Pellet, 15% AA) Second Dry Hop - added after 11 days (sit for 7 days)
- 1 oz Simcoe (Pellet, 12.9% AA) Second Dry Hop - added after 11 days (sit for 7 days)
- Yeast:
- Wyeast 1056 American Ale Yeast
- Water:
10 gal spring water- 8 gal tap water
- 1 tsp Calcium Chloride in Mash
- 1 tsp Gypsum in Mash
- 1 tsp Calcium Chloride in Boil
- 1 tsp Gypsum in Boil
- 1 tsp Irish Moss at 20 min
Process Details:
- Batch Size:
- 6 gal (Target 6 gal)
- Mash Temp:
- 153 F for 60 min (Target 153 F for 60 min)
- Boil:
- 90 min (Target 90 min)
- Fermentation Temperature:
- 63 F for 4 days
- Allowed to ramp up to 70 F to finish
- Primary Duration:
- 21 days
- Secondary Duration:
- None
Results:
- OG:
- 1.083 (Target 1.070)
- Efficiency:
- 78% (Target 66%)
- FG:
- 1.012 (Target 1.010)
- Apparent Attenuation:
- 85% (Target 85%)
- ABV:
- 9.32% (Target 7.88%)
- 7/30/16 - Created a 1.6 L starter out of Munich Malt and pitched the yeast. Set it up in a flask on a stir plate. Bubbling started a few hrs later.
- 7/31/16 - Brewday - 12:00 PM to 6:00 PM including setup and cleanup
- Brought 10 gal of spring water to 175 F
- Transferred strike water to mash tun and grant until there was 4 gal above the false bottom and 7.5 gal in the system total
- Added CaCl and Gypsum to the mash tun
- Cycled the RIMs at 153 F
- Added the grain. Stirred well to eliminate doughballs
- Mashed for 60 min
 |
| Grant |
- Brought 10.5 gal up to 185 for the sparge
- Fly sparged
- Collected 9.5 gal. Gravity at the grant was 6 brix at the end of the sparge
- Started heating the kettle after collecting 4 gal. Had it to a boil shortly after the end of the sparge
- Added the bittering hops shortly after the hot break cleared
- Had several partial boil overs
- Added the sugar with 30 min left in the boil
- Added the Irish Moss with 20 min left in the boil
- Added the 15, 10, and 5 min hops
- Boiled down to 6.5 gal in order to get 6 gal of beer
- Added the wort chiller at flameout
- Added the fame out hops
- Let the flameout hops sit until the kettle reach 180 F (which took 20 min). Then added the "whirlpool" hops. Let these sit for 30 min with the kettle uncovered
- Chilled down to 80 F (this seemed to be as far as ground water temps would take me).
- Transferred the beer to the fermenter. Collected 5 gal before the hop particles blocked the flow. Decided to just pour all the liquid into the fermenter - took most of the hops with the beer.
- Ended up with 6 gal. Measured gravity as 1.083 - significantly overshot the 1.070 target OG.
- Pitched the entire yeast starter. The starter had settled down since the morning when there was about an inch of krausen.
- The beer was at 75 F. Moved it to the fermentation chamber set to 63 F to chill. Setup the beer with a blowoff tube as this will probably be a pretty strong fermentation.
- 8/1/16 - Beer was bubbling frequently this morning. Fermentation is well underway.
- 8/5/16 - This morning I increased the chamber temperature to 70 F. Will let it ramp up naturally. The beer was still bubbling. This afternoon I added the first round of dry hop. I used a mesh bag weighed down with a couple stainless steel bolts and tied on a string to pull them out when done. I'll give these dry hops 7 days. There were a lot of hops floating on the surface of the beer. It smells very nice.
- 8/14/16 - Pulled the first round of dry hops and added the second round to the fermenter loose. The beer has a really wonderful hop aroma at this point. I squeezed out the hop sack into a glass. Was awesome but slightly astringent - probably good I didn't squeeze that into the main batch. I lowered the chamber temperature to 62 F. Will give this 4-5 days before cold crashing.
- 8/20/16 - Lowered the fermentation chamber to 35 F to help clear the beer. I'm going to skip gelatin on this batch.
- 8/22/16 - Bottled the beer today. Had 6 gal in the fermenter but it turned out the last gal was all hops - pretty amazing. Measured the gravity of the beer at 1.012. Bottled with 4 oz of priming sugar. Ended up with 51 12 oz bottles. The beer smells fantastic and has a really rich hop flavor. I think it's going to be very nice. I'll give this a week to carb before trying my first one.
- 9/3/16 - I've had 4 or 5 of these over the last week. Very little carbonation has developed so far. I guess the 9% alcohol must be slowing the small bit of remaining yeast down a bit. The beers still taste wonderful though.
- 10/26/16 - Tasting Notes - Can't believe it's been 2 months since I bottled this beer. It's held up nicely. Slight reduction in intensity of hop flavor but it's still plenty hoppy. This one never quite carbonated and just doesn't look very nice.
Lessons Learned:
- With my last IPA I used a bag to filter out the hops from the kettle. I didn't do that this time. We'll see if I have a problem when it comes time to bottle as a results.
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