Just ordered NB's Pliny clone: please comment

The things to keep in mind to have a good brew is temperature, temperature, temperature, yeast and temperature.
You need to keep a handle on your fermentation temps, keep it mid60's or a hail lower for best results. Some might say to do a cold-crash before racking to secondary (bring down into the 30's for a couple days to force things to settle out.) I don't normally recommend secondary except for souring or wood against, but this might be an exception. If you do, make sure you're fully fermented- don't transfer after a week, give it at least 2. Make sure you disturb the beer as little as possible to prevent oxidation. If possible flush the second with co2 before racking. Also, make sure you have plenty of yeast. Some say to not do a starter with dry yeast, but I don't see a downside. Maybe instead of starter pitch 2 packs of yeast if you can get another.

 

One pack of properly rehydrated US-05 will be fine for this beer. No starter required.

 

True. Although you'd probably be underpitching a bit.

IIRC your dry yeast pack has about 220B cells. That sounds a bit light for a 1.072-ish beer, which probably needs, what, 250B? But underpitching by 10-15% would be unlikely to cause any problems.

 

He doesn't say to pitch two packages of dry yeast. He says two packages or make a starter and specifies WLP001 or WY1056 in the recipe. You'd likely need two packs of either of those in order to have plenty of yeast if you did not want to make a starter. One pack of dry is either right on or very slightly under pitching depending on which yeast calculator you use.

 

generally you do not make a starter with dry yeast, just rehydrate.

 

how'd you do that with dry yeast?

 

The recipe calls for only a 2.5 gallon boil. Since your pot will hold more than that amount I suggest that you go with as much water in the pot that you are comfortable boiling. You'll get more oils out of your hops with the greater volume of water.

Also, I wonder if the two weeks of conditioning in a secondary that is called for in the instructions is necessary after the 2-week fermentation. It certainly can't hurt, but when I brewed the Pliny clone I did not have a conditioning period and I brewed a great-tasting beer that I think was better than Pliny. I suppose it just depends on how patient you are.

 

Just moved this beer into secondary today. Looking forward to drinking!!

 

Don't do it. Starters are only appropriate for liquid yeasts.

OPINION: Irish Moss has produced a higher density trub than Whirlfloc in my brew-closet. Higher density trub means less loss of clear wort volume available for the fermentor.

A 2ndary won't affect this beer's 'purity' to any great extent b/c the recipe has an exceptionally large loading of dry-hops.

Clarity can be improved by 1) cold-crashing before bottling and / or 2) adding finings...such as gelatin...at bottling...and / or 3) extended cold conditioning before serving.

 

What re-hydrate? add a cup of water, preferably boiled and cooled, if you have a stir plate use it. Make the Yeast cream and add fermentors to fermenter :} see Herbmeowing above

 

my pte clone-esque* thing came out stupendous (made my top six list) without use of secondary or finings beyond irish moss. just because something works with a more complicated method doesn't mean it won't work just as well with a simpler one. really the reason I went with three weeks brew to bottle was to get it done asap before any theoretical loss of hop flavor, and to include a 14 day dry hopping regime.

*same grist, different hops, stupendous beer resulting

 

I did this kit in June, pitched 2 packs of US05 and transferred to bottles after 6 weeks. The bottles needed 2 weeks to acheive the right carb. (as this was a higher abv. brew).

 

Why do you say that?

True, the more common procedure with dry yeast would be to adjust the amount. Assuming this Pliny clone is about 1.072 OG, the OP needs about 270 billion cells, or so says Mr Malty, anyway. An 11.5g pack of dry yeast has about 230B. Most people who use dry yeast would, rather than make a starter, add about 2 more grams of dry yeast to achieve the proper pitch rate, but it would also be possible to raise the cell count via making a starter. That would be more work, but I don't see anything inappropriate about it. What am I missing here?

 

I just brewed the MoreBeer PTE clone and did a 7 gal 90 minute boil, used a hop spider and used whirlfloc (had a shitload of trub and I'll try Irish Moss next time) and pitched a 1800 ml Wyeast starter. Best taing beer out of the kettle I've done yet. Complete fermentation in 2 weeks and I just racked to secondary for dry hopping. Ended up with about 4.5 gallons in the secondary and still smells insane.
I think cold crashing helps especialy after dry hopping and there's 5oz going in this one and I agree with Mothergoose, boil as big as you can. Good luck & RDWHAHB