This weekend I'm planning to brew an Anchor Liberty clone. I'm using 10 lbs of 2 Row, 0.5 lbs of Crystal 15 and Cascade hops. The recipe I've found (not easy to find anything other than the one published in the Zy-mag a few years back) calls for whole hops. Does anyone have recommendations to I can derive the equivalent weight in pellets when the recipe calls for whole hop Cascade?

One additional Question -
When I asked for 2 Row, I was given the option of American 2 Row or Maris Otter. I tasted both and the Maris Otter was more like bread. The Domestic 2 Row was more like cereal.

Anybody out there have a comment of Domestic 2 Row vs Maris Otter? What do you like? Why?

The general rule is that you get about 10% more hop utilization from pellet hops. So I'd use about 0.909 times the hops in the beer, if you're trying to do it precisely*.

I believe Liberty uses 2-row. Roughly speaking, there's about three major base malts you can use for the bulk of most beers: Pils malt, Maris Otter, and domestic 2-row. They're all actually 2-row barley and used primarily as the bulk of the grist in most recipes (excepting some that are mostly Munich or other weird beers), but MO is a particular strain of barley and is kilned a touch more. Pils is kilned a touch less. The result is a different flavor in the base of the beer. Best rule of thumb here is: american beers get domestic 2-row, british get MO, and continental ones get Pils. Rules are meant to be broken, so experiment away. I sometimes brew an IPA that's 2/3 2row and 1/3 MO.


* hops degrade a bit in the freezer over time, and people cannot detect a bitterness difference less than 5 IBUs apparently, so having a goal of precision might be ultimately impossible and even possibly a waste of worry. That said, it can't hurt to start in the most-likely position.

why the C15? when anchor came on the BN he said it was all 2 row and all cascade, IIRC

Ok, Brew Session Recap

Mashed at 150 for 60 minutes
10 lbs 2 Row
0.5 lbs of Crystal 15L
Sparged at a frustrating set of temps that ranged from 140 to 160. I had a tough time getting the temp up in the cooler mash tun. The kettle I used as a HLT was hooked up with a normal 3/8 hose instead of a high-temp rated hose. I kept the water at 175 so I wouldn't melt the tubing. This made it tough to get the temps in the mash as high as I wanted during sparging.

The Boil
60 minutes with 1.5 oz of Cascade
1.5 minutes with 1.5 oz of Cascade
OG = 1042 (bummer...) I have more to learn on "the mash"
Cooled to 75 degrees and pitched a 800ml starter of WPL051

I plan to ferment for a week, transfer to a secondary and dry hop 2 oz of Cascade for a week.

Once it's finished and gets some time in the bottle, I'll taste it against the real thing and report the results. I'll adjust from there.