2nd batch of Pliny the Elder clone beer.

Brewed a another batch of Pliny the Elder clone this weekend.  But, I completely changed the hop profile based on an article I read recently that mentioned how to attain high aroma and flavor with smother, or less harsh, bitterness in the beer by late hopping the wort starting with 20 min remaining in the boil.  Since I really don’t care to much for high bitterness in my bears, we shall see how this new hop profile works out.

Here are the particulars:  (pretty much like the first batch with a few changes)

Single Infusion – Double Sparge method
(5 gallons - All grains)
Target OG 1.070
IBU - ~81
FG 1.012

Ingredients
10 lbs 11oz Pale 2-Row malt
2 lbs Crystal (20L) malt   -  *(changed from Crystal 40L for a lighter color)
1 lbs 8oz Munich 10L malt

1 oz – Amerillo 10.5% (bittering hop) 20 min
1 oz – Columbus 13% (bittering hop) 15 min
1.5 oz - Simcoe 13% (flavor hop) 10 min
1.5oz - Semcoe 13% (aroma hop) 5 min
1 oz - Centennial 9.5% (aroma hop) 5 min

Irish moss (Winfloc tablets – 1 tablet)
California Ale dry (#005) yeast

Step by step

Brewing Process:
Bring 1gal water to 160F and pour into mash tun and swash around to set the temperature environment before mashing (10 min).  Bring 4.0 gal of water to 165 degrees; add to your mash tun.  Add grains slowly while stirring lightly to ensure good saturation and even temperature ranges among the grain bed.  Keep mash temperature at 152F for 60 min.  Gently stir the grains at 20 min and 40 min.  While you are waiting start boiling enough sparge water to 170 deg.

After the 60 min mash, run out a few quarts of wart back onto the grain bed..  Do not disturb the grain bed.  Once a clean run out is attained, drain all the wort from the tun into boil pot.  Add sparge water to grain (pore water to grain bed slowly), stir grain lightly to loosen sugars.  Add enough spare water to just cover the grains.  Run out back to the tun after 5min, using same run out process mentioned above.  Continue the second batch sparge in the same manner as the first until you collect 7.25gal wort or wort SG reaches 1.010 (my run out never got below 1.015 before reaching 7.25 gal kettle volume).  Boil the wort for 70min before adding hops as stated above.

Once the wort has been boiled for 90 min, rapid cool to 90F and rack to a clean and sanitized carboy.  Seal and allow the wart to settle for 2-3 hours, agitate wort and pitch yeast when temp is between 70F- 75F.  After fermentation takes on a vigorous nature, raise temperature to 70deg, if necessary, until Specific Gravity (SG) gets between 1.013 - 1.015 then rack off sediment into clean and sanitized carboy for cold conditioning.

The actual SG after rapid cooling the wart was 1.066 (90F), adjusted for temp, SG - 1.070. BrewHouse Efficiency was approx. 75% and ABV @ FG of 1.013 should be around 7.39%.