Pliny the Younger Clone Recipe (2024)

I first sampled Russian River's Pliny the Younger at a BeerAdvocate American Beer Fest about five years ago. I've had samples of ita couple more times since that night, mostly from growlers, but that first sip left an indelible stamp on my tongue. The hop flavorwas dominant, withcomplex citrus and fresh pine, while the beer was still remarkably smooth and easy to drink. Over the last few years I've made a handful of attempts at replicating PtY using information gleaned from talks, articles, and emails from Vinnie; the beers were good, but not quite there.

After I finally bought a kegging system last year, my hoppy beers got considerably better. I credit a couple techniques that kegs allow me to dofor this improvement. The ability to flush the keg with CO2,which reduces oxidation preserving a fresher hop character. Keg hopping, which allows the beer to remain in contact with the dry hops until second before serving. Force carbonation, which enables quicker, morereliablecarbonation of strong beers. With the kegs (not to mention the moratorium on Younger growler salesthis year) I thought it was time to give a clone another shot.

I've learned to anticipate 20% lower efficiencywhenbrewing a big IPA as a result of thehuge amount of wort lost to the hops. I used half a sack of Great Western 2-row (paler than their pale malt) along with a small amount of carapils (foradded body). I mashed just under 150 to ensure thetargeted85% attenuation of the original. The high attenuation keeps this beer firmly in the DIPA category where a sweeter beer would come across as an American barleywine.

The other big change I made was switching to hop extract for part of the bittering addition. Extract adds IBUs without contributingvegetal matter to the kettle, which steals wort and can give grassy flavors at high levels. I was originally planning to derive all the bitterness form extract (20 ml), but right before brewing I realized that the two Northern Brewer HopShots I purchased were 5 ml each not 10 ml; I decided to add 2 oz of Columbus to augment the bitterness from the extract.

For hop aromatics I added a total of 9 oz of Amarillo/Centennial/Simcoe at the end of the boil (with 3 oz of the blend at flameout, at the start of chilling, and three minutes into chilling). I stirred the wort continually as it cooled to speed up the cooling process, reducing the amount of hop aromatics driven off. I've had the best luck using pellets for late additions since they contribute their flavor quicker than whole hops, and don't suck up quite as much wort.

With the wort cooled I pitched a decanted starter of White Labs 001, the same strainVinnie uses for his hoppy beers. He has suggested not pitching "too much" yeast as the cells will strip out some of the bitterness from the beer. Not knowing exactly what this meant and not wanting to stress the yeast, I made a2.5qrt starter, a bit short of the4qrt starter that yeast pitching calculators suggest for a beer this gravity. Luckily fermentation started after 12 hours, and was going strong after 24. My basem*nt is in the high 50s this time of year, perfect for keeping the strong fermentation just below 70 degrees.

To help boost the attenuation, Pliny the Younger includes some easily fermented refined sugar. I could have added this to the kettle, but I wanted to cut the yeast a break and give them time toreduce the gravity of the wort significantly before adding the cane/corn sugars. Too much osmotic pressure from concentrated sugars can put a lot of stress on yeast (enough sugar can exert so much pressure that it make a liquid shelf-stable, as in the cases of honey and maple syrup).

The original dry hops schedule (at the bottom of the post) calls for fourseparatedry hop additions. That sounds like too much time/effort/risk for me, so I simplified to one dry hop addition and one keg hop. The same amount/timing worked well on the greatDouble IPA I brewed last winter, so it seems like a good idea for this one.

Hoping to have a party when this one is ready since this is a beer best consumed quickly (and for safety reasons not all by me).

Pliny the Younger Clone

Pliny the Younger Clone Recipe (2024)

References