Russian River R2H65 clone

[David R]

I'll start by saying I haven't even tasted this beer let alone tried to brew it, but I'll be up at Russian River in a few days time (currently in LA, flying to SF tomorrow) and the recipe looks great and Crusader Rob [I think] has had some good results from it. Anyway, it's on my 'must brew' list when I get back!

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f66/russian-river-row-2-hill-56-clone-3...

copied direct from HBT;

Recipe Type: All Grain
Yeast: California Ale Yeast
Yeast Starter: Yes
Additional Yeast or Yeast Starter: 1.25L
Batch Size (Gallons): 6
Original Gravity: 1.055
Final Gravity: 1.010
IBU: 40
Boiling Time (Minutes): 90
Color: 5.1 SRM
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 10 @ 68F
Tasting Notes: Firm Hop Bitterness, Crisp Malt Backbone with biscuity notes, citrus & pine.

After quaffing large quantities of Russian River R2H56 at the brewery I set out to make a homebrew clone. Vinnie Cilurzo was a huge help and is incredibly generous with information!

This is an awesome APA, bright yellow/gold in color with firm hop bitterness, white head and lacing and massive signature Simcoe aroma - Citrus, grapefruit, pine, resin and cat piss.

After 5 revisions, I've finally settled on what I believe is the closest clone I'm going to get. In side by side tastings

Batch Information:
Batch Size (fermenter): 6.00 gal
Bottling Volume: 5.50 gal
Estimated OG: 1.055 SG
Estimated Color: 5.1 SRM
Estimated IBU: 40.4 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
7 lbs 4.3 oz Pilsner (2 Row) Bel (1.5 SRM) Grain 1 60.5 %
3 lbs 14.4 oz Pale Malt, Maris Otter (2.5 SRM) Grain 2 32.4 %
13.6 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 20L (20.0 SRM) Grain 3 7.1 %
0.55 oz Simcoe [12.20 %] - Boil 90.0 min Hop 4 23.5 IBUs
0.55 oz Simcoe [12.20 %] - Boil 30.0 min Hop 5 16.9 IBUs
1.00 Items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 15.0 mins) Fining 6 -
1.0 oz Simcoe [12.20 %] - Boil 0.0 min Hop 7 0.0 IBUs
1.0 pkg California Ale (White Labs #WLP001) [35. Yeast 8 -
2.00 oz Simcoe [12.20 %] - Dry Hop 10.0 Days Hop 9 0.0 IBUs

Mash:
60 min at 154F

Fermentation:
10 days at 68F. I've hit FG in as little as 4 days, but seem to average 6. I like to do a gravity check at 7 days and again at 10 and assuming I'm at 1.010 on both I keg.

Dry Hop:
I dry hop in the keg and have tried dry hop additions between 1.25oz - 3oz. For my personal tastes 1.75 - 2oz is the sweet spot and seemed closest to the draft R2H56 when it was hitting it's stride. For scaling the batch size up or down, note that the dry hop ratio is 0.3 - 0.5oz per gallon.

If dry hopping in primary/secondary, I'd dry hop for no longer than 7-10 days. I personally would bump the amount of dry hops by 15% and cut it down to 5 days dry hopping to try and avoid the vegetal flavor you can get when doing longer dry hop at warmer temps.

Notes:
The above recipe is designed to exactly hit the numbers Russian River delivers and what I use in my batches.

This should finish at 2.5 Plato (1.010) so I tend to use a 1.25L (if using a fresh vial) starter to overpitch just slightly as I find if I pitch the appropriate # of cells or underpitch I tend to under attenuate and only get to about 1.012. I try and pitch approximately 240-250B cells, with required being 230B (figures taken from Yeastcalc). You can also mash slight lower if you are having problems reaching FG.

[Crusader-Rob]

This was a fantastic beer. I added some mosaic at 10 mins, cos I had some lying around, so not a true representation of it. but damn fine non the less.

Used Carahell instead of C20 and Gladfield pale in place of Pilsner, then shortened the boil to 60. Oh an US-05 for yeast.

[Chris P]

Mark Goodin on here has brewed this and sounded like it was a mint brew. I have Simcoe and also Amarillo and Citra so if I get to do a sneaky brew it will either be this or Yakima Monster clone. MMMM Monster!

[Crusader-Rob]

Ooooh the moinster. someone have a recipe for that. i heard there was one on here somewhere??

[Chris P]

Go check it out mate

[David R]

So I managed to get thru the 20-odd tasting rack at Russian River (with my wifes help!) along with a pint of this. I thought it was crazy busy for a Sunday afternoon, but the girl said it was quieter than usual! The food was fantastic, the beers were mostly really good (though I quickly learned I'm not a fan of sours!), and the R2H65 was bloody brilliant! Massive pine/catpiss Simcoe aroma, but fairly easy drinking if you like hops. I'd actually be interested in trying to brew a slightly downscaled version more around 4.5% for a hopheads-session-ale. I'm certainly going to have a crack at brewing it as-per the recipe when I get back, so long as there is some fresh Simcoe left in NZ.

[Cain Harland]

I brewed this was great fresh but seemed to age badly.

[Crusader-Rob]

Really?? Mine held up really well (Once carbed, I kept chilled in my fridge)

David, What were your thoughts on a downscaled version? Keep the hops the same and reduce the amount of malt?

I'm currently re-looking at this with 100% Nelson Sauvin in place of the Simcoe (although simcoe was pretty awesome)

[David R]

No Simcoe available last time I was in Auckland so I brewed this with an 80/20 mix of Citra and Amarillo and it's bloody great! Got Simcoe now, so I'll put down another batch as-per the recipe soon...