House IPA

Your kettle hops look good but you might want to boost up the dry hops. 4-6 oz of dry hops for 5 gallons is more like it. 5% crystal is still a decent amount of crystal for my taste but thats just me. 2-3% could still get you where you want to be. The FG looks a tad high for an IPA. 1.010 - 1.014 will get you a dry tasting IPA. To get the FG down a bit replace some 2-Row with some dextrose or mash lower (149-151F). Do you use any software to get an estimate of mash pH?

 

I would lower the crystal down to 2%. Get rid of the 15 and 5 minute addition and add those hops to your kettle or/and dry hop additions.

 

You are rendering the el dorado completely useless and, and wasting money by throwing them at your 60 minute addition. Get a cheap high alpha acid bittering hop for your 60 minute addition. All you want is a clean ability to bitter and something cheap to do it with.
Columbus, Warrior, Nugget all would do the trick, and save that El Dorado for later or for post boil hop addition. You can probably also do more with less for your steeping addition and cut out at least one or two varietals of hops you are anticipating using. I can sort of see the el dorado and mosaic getting into a fight for superiority. But. It's your house, so you might like that.
I'm not a big fan of c malts, personally and I have too many memories of IPA's where hop fade allowed them to really take over. C-60 is a strong task for an IPA, and it's probably going to have some bite still, even at 5%. Try it, see how it works. It might do the trick, and be what you want. 1318 is malt friendly, so if you used it previously with the 10% C-60 thing happening and with its being the primary flavor from your malt bill. Yup.
But also try dialing your choice down to a c40 and keep it under 10%, if you really must use a C-malt.
152 seems a bit high for a mash temp. Dial it down to a 148 - 150.

 

El Dorado for bittering is fine but a cheaper hop designed specifically for clean bitterness might be more ideal.

I’m a fan of using some hops during the boil but you might have a little too much. I’d pick one or two of those hops and throw them in at 10 then save the rest for flameout/wp.

1-2 oz @ 10
3-4 oz @ WP
6-8 oz DH

Don’t dry hop at High Krausen, it’s like burning money. If you think biotransformation is actually happening wait until the last 1 Plato of fermentation and add a smaller percentage of hops there. What are you fermenting in? If you can dump yeast and cool temps while maintaining head pressure after fermentation is done cool to 60 for a day, pull yeast. Then add most of the dry hops and maintain 60-63 for 4-5 days. This will give you much more stronger hop aroma for a longer period of time. If you can’t keep o2 out and dump yeast just add all your hops at the very very end of fermentation.

You’ll need different mash temps for 1318 and 001 if your desire is to hit 1.016 FG.

I think 1.016 is fine. There’s a lot of great IPAs out there that finish that high. Celebration is a great example.

I’d keep that crystal to 2% or less. Pliny uses C60 but it’s at like 1.6% of the recipe.

I’d recommend English crystal malts if you want to use something around c40/c60.

 

The homebrew recipe that Vinnie Cilurzo provides for Pliny the Elder utilizes 4% crystal (Crystal 45).

https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/attachments/0000/6351/doubleIPA.pdf

Cheers!

 

You can find the actual brew log for Pliny online. Simpson’s C60 at 1.6% of the grain bill... From listening to Vinnie speak it sounds like Pliney has changed quite a few time.

 

Does that "actual brew log" have a date on it?

Cheers!

 

Interesting, as SN uses Simpson's C60, but usually high percentage s.

 

Yup, I ‘discovered’ the photo of the Pliny the Elder brewing log and it has a date of 10/30/14:



It lists:

· 2-row: 3850 lbs.

· Simpson C60: 65 lbs.

· Dextrose: 200 lbs.

On the AHA website they have Pliny the Elder clone of June 18, 2015:

https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/homebrew-recipe/russian-river-pliny-the-elder-clone/

That clone recipe has 4% Crystal 45.

Who knows what Pliny the Elder brewed on Jan. 28, 2019 has?

Cheers!

P.S. One other thing I noticed was that for the 10/30/14 batch they chose to use Cascade vs. Centennial for dry hopping.

 

I wasn’t gonna post it but yeah that’s it

 

I think you’re on the right track with simplifying the boil additions but personally I would do a 5 minute addition skip the steep and use those steep hops in the dryhop

 

Way too much acid malt. You could cut that down to 1% and likely still be on the low end of the recommended pH range depending on your water chemistry. Especially since you are using some crystal malt in their as well. Try 1.5-2oz acid malt here imo.

 

Not posting it is the right call. The fact that some twatwaffle snapped a picture of proprietary data and posted it on imgur doesn't make it public domain.

 

Might be a bit late to the party on this, but why not just add some Gypsum and Calcium Chloride? Obviously, this would depend on your water profile, but both of these will help reduce pH, so you can get rid of the acid malt, and they'll assist in accentuating hoppiness (gypsum) and rounding out mouthfeel (chloride).