Pliny The Elder

[Wasp_Box]

Hi,

I've been reading about Pliny The Elder and have an interest in trying to make a clone. Looking on the Internet, I've found this recipe:

https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/ ... bleIPA.pdf

This was apparently put up by Vinnie Cilurzo, who made the beer.

However, if you look at the bittering hops it's about 100g of Columbus at 90 mins and 20g at 45 mins. Vinnie reckons this will give a 90-95 IBU in a 23 (ish) litre brew.

I reckon it will be more like an IBU of 200. This sounds stupidly bitter.

Any thoughts?

Pete

[Hanglow]

Although the software/bitterness calculators says it'll be that, I think actual bitterness tops out at about 100 or similar. see it says actual, rather than calculated in the recipe

It's a big beer so needs a huge amount of hops to get the bitterness needed

[Wasp_Box]

Hey thanks,

Quick reply. Have you, or anyone else, made this. It sounds like an absolute hop bomb. Might be a bit much for me but "Gotta give it a go".

[Sadfield]

Have this in the pipeline to brew, also. Just going to brew it, and not worry about the IBU figures, as the human threshold for detecting such levels of bitterness is far lower than these figures. Have had the Mikkeller 1000IBU beer, and found it not at all undrinkable.

[Goulders]

A clone here with an embedded link to a recipe

[Hanglow]

I've made a couple of DIPAs that had loads of hops but not that one

Give it a go

[Wasp_Box]

Thank you all for your help. This is next on my list after Dennis King's Galaxy Delight.

[DerbyshireNick]

I did a simcoe / amerillo pale once that had 100g of each all in the last 20 minutes of the boil and steeped at fo. (total 200g of hops)

That did mature to really sickly because dare I say it, too much hop flavor.

From general experience I have found for a 5-6% beer 150-160g total hops is the sweet spot for a big US style hoppy beer but without getting silly.

Indeed I did one recently that is in theory 70 ibu but I didnt feel it any more bitter than many 40 ibu brews I have done.

[Wasp_Box]

Yes, this is about 300g hops in total with expected ABV of 7.64%. Boiling hops are about 150g. I know what you mean about sickly (lowers voice - it is quite possible to have too many hops!).

Anyway, I'll give it a try and report back.

[DerbyshireNick]

The thing is the weight of hops add isnt always an indicator of how "hoppy" it will be. Ive done brews with 100g of the same hop and down to nothing but recipe / process had one that was a pretty standard, no hoppy bitter type flavor profile to another that was a floral bomb.

[Wasp_Box]

That's interesting. What was the difference - was it a different process or just different older/newer hops?

I've made NobbieIPA's Punk IPA clone on a number of occasions and it's always been excellent and very hoppy. I also tried his Bramling Cross IPA that freaked me out as it was so bitter.

Also, how's the Son of Punkie IPA? I'm going to give that a go soon.

[deanrpwaacs01]

[IMG]//images.tapatalk-cdn.com/15/06/22 ... 7e59a7.jpg[/IMG]

[Wasp_Box]

deanrpwaacs01
Your image isn't working (yet).

[DerbyshireNick]

That's interesting. What was the difference - was it a different process or just different older/newer hops?

I've made NobbieIPA's Punk IPA clone on a number of occasions and it's always been excellent and very hoppy. I also tried his Bramling Cross IPA that freaked me out as it was so bitter.

Also, how's the Son of Punkie IPA? I'm going to give that a go soon.

Its always possible that the hops were a different age but it seems to be just hitting the sweet spot in balancing big late additions with the fo steep. I am still not firm on what that balance needs to be as results have been inconsistent and anecdotal. The one where it was really big I did do the FO steep for about 10 hours as I had to go out. So it had a lot of "Hot" time in contact before it was chilled. Its not something I would preach though, needs testing more.

Son of punk is in the FV still. Cold fermented it with nottingham as an experiment. I am trying to get a "clean/US" type profile but with the flocculation not a British yeast. From what I can smell / taste when I took the gravity Its certainly looking promising. The truth will be out when we see how much flavour/aroma the high flocculation pulls out with it when I crash it.

[deanrpwaacs]