Like many of my brews this started with a kit – Northern Brewer Plinian Legacy. This is a “clone” of the impossible to find in Wisconsin, Russian River Pliny The Elder .
I wanted a very strong Imperial IPA so I also added to the kit an additional pound of golden DME at the start of the 90 minute boil.
Prior to brewing, I made a starter with 1.5 liters of water, 1 cup DME this was brought to a boil in the erlenmeyer flask with an aluminum foil cap and then chilled in an ice water bath. Once it was cool enough – 68F I added the BE134 yeast. This went on the stir plate for 24 hours. This is a highly attenuating Belgian style yeast that also withstands high alcohol content.
Prior to chilling I added 2 tsp of Fermax yeast nutrient.
The cooled wort was oxygenated for 3 minute.
As I have learned in subsequent brews, you need a cool start (63-65F) to prevent this yeast from getting going too vigorously and the temperature rocketing up. In this case, I started at 68-69F which was the same as the basement temp and it rose after a few days to 74F. This batch also required a large blow off tube.
Initially, I had a 1/2″ ID blow off tube and the lid blew off the Big Mouth Bubbler making a bit of a mess. I have latches to prevent the lids from simply walking out the top. So I switched to the big blow off tube (1″ ID). Another option I discovered later, is to add the yeast nutrient at day 3 to level the fermentation rate out a bit. In the photo above, besides the Pliny Plus with the top blown off, you can see also 2 batches of the “Pink Beer” in secondary fermentation and the “Brett Ringer” in primary (another post yet to come).
| date | SG | temp |
| 09/01/19 | 1.084 | 69 |
| 09/02/19 | 1.067 | 71 |
| 09/03/19 | 1.0344 | 74 |
| 09/04/19 | 1.0267 | 72 |
| 09/05/19 | 1.0233 | 73 |
| 09/06/19 | 1.02 | 73 |
| 09/20/19 | 1.01 | 75 |
| 10/02/19 | 1.078 | 68 |
As you can see, imperfect temperature control , both in starting a bit warm and then when it hit peak, not holding that temp. I do not have anything to cool the fermenting beer other than the cement floor and ambient air temp (no chiller – yet). I did ramp the temp back up after the first week a bit to help keep the fermentation going. The fermenter was vigorously shaken 1-2 times per day to help keep the yeast from settling out too early
This beer has a high amount of hops and hop extract in it. The fermenter was sticky with hop extractives when I transferred to the secondary .
Calculated ABV was 9.7%.
When transferring from primary to secondary (9/19/19) when the first of the dry hop additions was done it had a harsh flavor and a “burn” in the throat. This greatly smoothed out later.
Taste was great when kegged and served.