Today I brewed Jamil’s Pliny the Elder clone from BCS (Hop Hammer IIPA). The recipe calls for a pretty massive dry hop:
3.25 oz Columbus
1.75 oz Centennial
1.75 oz Simcoe
That’s 7.25 oz total! I plan to keg this beer, and maybe bottle from the keg. I might also just keep it in the keg until it’s gone, although at 8.9% abv it might take me a while. So I’m wondering if I should do this as a dry hop, or make a huge hop sausage and ram it in the keghole?
I’m leaning toward option B. What do you guys think?
The sausage goes in pretty well, being dry and moldable. But it can be a tight fit coming out, so I leave it in until the keg is gone.
And, depending on volume, you may not get all your beer into keg with said sausage in it. So have another vessel ready when racking.
A few glasses of flat pliny on racking day is pretty good too.
[quote=“pinnah”]
A few glasses of flat pliny on racking day is pretty good too.
:cheers: Enjoy![/quote]
I bet you’re right on that one. The hydro sample was the best I’ve ever tasted, and that’s pre-fermentation. My main concern was about keeping the sausage in there for what could be quite a while.
OTOH, this one could disappear dangerously fast. Thanks for the replies.
Muller - your comment kind of confused me. When you suggest both, are you saying I should split the dry hop between dry and keg?
I somehow forgot the cane sugar and so my preboil gravity was kind of low. I did some calculations and cranked up the boil in an attempt to increase the gravity. This partially worked, but I ended up realizing my mistake at the end and adding about .75 lb sugar, instead of the 1.5 lb called for. I ended up with about 5.5 gallons, which is perfect. So I could bottle a few without dry hops, or just drink them as pinnah suggests. I’m leaning toward force carbing the extra with a carb cap on a 2L bottle and having a wild night.
[quote=“El Capitan”]Muller - your comment kind of confused me. When you suggest both, are you saying I should split the dry hop between dry and keg?[/quote]Yes, take half of the dry hops and use them in the secondary for 2w. Then keg the beer and use the other half in the hop sausage. The aroma will hit you long before the beer touches your lips.
Well, I decided to use the entire amount as a keg hop. I keg-hopped for one week at room temp, and just put it in the fridge on Sunday. I cranked it to 30 psi for two days, then dropped down to 20 for one day. Tonight I purged the head pressure and set it for serving pressure, and FINALLY pulled a sample.
It’s very hazy, but amazing. Dangerously good! I really can’t believe I waited so long to brew a IIPA. :cheers:
