Pliny Clone Whole Hops Mistake

[mkade]

So I learned an important, yet seemingly obvious lesson. I had decided to brew a Pliny clone since it's probably my favorite beer. Of the many options (Tasty's clone, Vinnie's recipe, Jamil's clone), I settled on going with Jamil's but with Tasty's water profile. The grain bill was all 2 row with 1/2 pound of wheat. Anyways, I was able to get Centennial, Simcoe and Chinook whole hops from freshhops.com for pretty darn cheap, so I thought I would use mostly whole leaf since my experience in the past has been very good, especially for aroma hops. But man do they suck up lots of wort. I didn't really put much thought into what an incredible amount of wort 12 oz of whole hops would consume (plus another 6 oz of pellets). I just racked to the keg, and it's a great beer but man I wish there were more. I'm not sure if I got much more than 3 gallons out after ending the boil with just under 6. Oops.

[ziggy]

Well now we all know to look out for the same thing. Thanks for spreading the knowledge.

[Brandon]

Check out this thread. although scary way to strain the wort ou of the hops, Tom has never had a batch go bad.
http://www.musiccitybrewers.com/forums/ ... p?f=8&t=72

[Bugeater]

I don't have his recipe in front of me right now, but I do remember something in Vinnie's recipe warning about this problem. When I brewed it I started with a preboil volume of 8 gallons so I could end up with about 5 gallons in the fermenter. I didn't have my big pot then so I boiled most of it on my turkey fryer and the rest on top of the stove. Once enough volume had boiled off I combined the two in the turkey fryer pot.

Wayne

[herbaljoe]

This (among other reasons) is why I grind my whole hops into a powder with a coffee grinder just before using them. This way they act just like pellets in the boil.

[UnaHopper]

This (among other reasons) is why I grind my whole hops into a powder with a coffee grinder just before using them. This way they act just like pellets in the boil.

What kind of grinder? Pliny has over a pound of hops. Seems pretty tedious if your using the grinder I'm think of.

On a side note, I use a huge hop bag when making my Pliny clone. Worked great!

[mkade]

This (among other reasons) is why I grind my whole hops into a powder with a coffee grinder just before using them. This way they act just like pellets in the boil.

What kind of grinder? Pliny has over a pound of hops. Seems pretty tedious if your using the grinder I'm think of.

On a side note, I use a huge hop bag when making my Pliny clone. Worked great!

Do you worry about lower utilization and extraction of aroma compounds being the bag?

[herbaljoe]

This (among other reasons) is why I grind my whole hops into a powder with a coffee grinder just before using them. This way they act just like pellets in the boil.

What kind of grinder? Pliny has over a pound of hops. Seems pretty tedious if your using the grinder I'm think of.

On a side note, I use a huge hop bag when making my Pliny clone. Worked great!

Sure, a hop back works great too. I just don't like knowing I'm getting less utilization with that method.

And yeah, the grinding process is a little tedious. I can fit about .5 oz in the grinder at a time. It's not bad though. And I usually only use a few ounces of whole hops, the rest are pellets.