Office brew: Rob the Elder

Well, here we go again. Brew number three, or is that four? It might even be five. We’ll go with three. I prefer not to count the ones that went to pot. It’s better that way, if you can forget all the bad stuff you’ll at least have a chance of looking at something more favourably. I can’t help but notice an uncanny link between brewing and relationships. Anyway enough of that for now, let’s get to the brew day.

Having brewed a Farmhouse Saison and a Brown Porter it was about time to hit the hops and what better a beer to attempt than the much coveted Pliny The Elder, by Russian River. It’s won so many awards over the years the list is about as long as your leg. Created by Vinnie Cilurzo, this Imperial IPA is about as bold and punchy as you’re likely to ever taste. 2,600 ratebeer ratings later and it’s still hitting 100 on the scorecard all these years later. It’s fair to say the beer scene has come a long way since Pliny The Elder came out, but it’s cemented in history as the flagship DIPA that paved the way for so many others.

I could write a paragraph or two about the first brew day of Pliny, but in-keeping with ‘no bad memories’ approach let’s just say I mixed the mash temp up with the boil and created the world’s largest ever bowl of Ready Brek. I’ve slowly but gradually achieved a rather large number of cock ups like these, hopefully it won’t be in vain and one day they’ll be used for a best-selling book called ‘When Men Try To Multitask’. All jokes aside, I’m sure women are equally as bad at multitasking. I mean why wouldn’t they be - we’re all equal right? Right! Exactly. Give any human being a number of tasks to do simultaneously and they’ll eventually crumble into a thousand pieces. Excuses come in many shapes and forms - thankfully, I have many. The truth is I approached it like a bit of a smart arse, I thought I could work on forecasts, organize collections & brew a beer at the same time. Wrong. Very wrong.

Now, onto (the official) brew day (a Sunday). To my surprise everything went perfectly, the first brew without even the slightest hint of a problem. If every brew day went like this, I’d have opened a brewery by now and be knocking them out as regular as Mikkeller. Let’s fast forward the step by step process you’re more than likely all aware of by now...and talk about the hop rest I didn’t do. To be fair I wasn’t aware of such a thing until I read about it a few weeks ago. Allowing the wort to cool to 80°C which takes around 30 minutes gives the 0 minute addition hops a chance to really shine apparently so I’ll give it a shot next time and let you know how it goes

The mistakes I made…

I racked onto secondary way too early, a mere four days into dry-hopping which looking back was a ridiculous decision. I sampled it four days in and it was about 1000 IBU on the tongue, amateur mistake obviously...it’s always likely to be incredibly bitter when the carboy is sporting a hop sludge six inches thick.

A few days later it also occured to me, the scrappy piece of paper I kept a hold of after a trip to the Brewstore had the dextrin malt (Carapils) down as 2.00KG rather than 0.200KG. BIG mistake. That’s 1.8KG of additional malt that shouldn’t be in there, not to mention the fact it’s hated on for it’s cloying sweetness when used in large amounts (10%+)......(20% was used here)

What a bloody palava. There’s been many takeaways from this brew and I’m glad I did it. I pitched a second packet of yeast after 14 days in secondary, after getting a bit of advice from big Tom. It seemed to have done the trick, no stuck fermentation here. Just a super clear (also cold crashed this one) amber syrupy DIPA to look forward to once it’s finished bottle conditioning.

Directions                               

Note: This recipe is for a 6 gallon batch, with 5 gallons intended to remain after hop loss.

To make this Pliny the Elder clone, mash grains at 151-152°F (66-67°C) for an hour or until starch conversion is complete. Mash out at 170°F (77°C) and sparge. Collect 8 gallons (30 L) of runoff, stir in dextrose and bring to a boil.

Add hops as indicated in the recipe.

After a 90 minute boil, chill wort to 67°F (19°C) and transfer to a fermenter. Pitch two packages of yeast or a yeast starter and aerate well.

Ferment at 67°F (19°C) until fermentation activity subsides, then rack to secondary.

Add first set of dry hops on top of the racked beer and age 7-9 days, then add the second set. Age five more days then bottle or keg.