Brew Batch 13: Pliny the Elder Clone

I also brewed the Pliny the Elder Clone recently as Batch 14

Unfinished notes from Batch 13:

Batch 13: Brewed July 7, 2023. OG: 1.041 FG TBD. ABV TBD%.

The OG target was 1.07 to 1.076. Very disappointing actual OG. After reading many home brewer posts, my best guess is that too little mash water was used (~2.5 gallons) and too much sparge water (~5.25 gallons) to get to the 7 gallon start boil volume.

Adjustments planned for next batch:

  1. Start mash with at least 5 gallons.
  2. Measure gravity during mash. Continue at 15 minute intervals until gravity increase stops.
  3. Mash 1st 30 minutes at 152F.
  4. Mash 2nd 30 minutes at 154F.
  5. Mash remaining time at 156F.

Batch 14: Brewed May 9, 2025. OG: 1.056 FG 1.008. ABV 6.3%.

Better OG than last batch, but still missed target. One adjustment made was to recirculate the wort during mash and boil.

The MASH: The total mash volume was 4.5 gallons or so and the post sparge volume was only about 6 gallons. The sparge took about 1.5 hours, much longer than in the past. Next batch, I am going to add rice hulls to the mash so the sparge water flows through it a bit better. Also going to mash with about 5.5 gallons and target the pre-boil volume close to eight gallons (kettle capacity) as the recipe calls for 9 gallons. The Mash temperature was also a bit high (160-157) while the target is 152. The mash-in was about 170F, next time we will start at 161F or so.

Pitch Temperature: The pre-pitch temperature was about 78F using a plate chiller. This could probably be reduced by chilling the wort a bit in the kettle before transferring hot-pitch in one pass. The fermentation proceeded reasonably fast, completing in about 3.5 days.

Filtering: As usual, I did not filter the beer before racking to the keg. The dry hops only added to the trub, despite transferring the wort to a secondary container after the fermentation was complete. The beer out of the keg is quite cloudy so I have a 5 micron filter on order to clarify the beer with a CO2 push to another keg. This will occur on Wednesday (Today is Monday).

CO2 Regulator: There seems to be a regulator issue as the primary tank pressure reads 0 regardless of the valve opening and the regulated pressure always reads 0 PSI. A replacement regulator is on order.

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