Trillium DDH Melcher Street Clone

I’ve always been a big Trillium fan. DDH Melcher may have been the first hazy IPA I really fell in love with. While it’s hard to say if this is a dead-on Melcher Street clone, it’s very close and has some really distinct Trillium/Melcher qualities thanks to the very heavy Mosiac dry hopping. Yes, the picture above is my beer. The color and body feel dead on. I’d still love to experiment more with matching Trillium’s water.

I used this recipe as a starting point and made some adjustments from there based on Trillium’s website. This recipe focuses on a 60-minute Columbus bittering charge followed by a modest 2-ounce Mosaic whirlpool. The remaining 10 ounces of hops (Mosiac/Columbus) are all added on the cold side post-fermentation.

From my own personal observations, Trillium’s beers have a pronounced upfront bitterness followed by a lot of aroma and saturated hop character. Their beers are on the drier side and tend to have a very crisp and almost minerally finish. This recipe features my largest dry hop experiment to date and it absolutely delivers. Trillium adds 90%+ of their hops to the cold side so I really tried to replicate that process as much as I could. Overall, really happy with the way this came out.

As a final note, some of you may notice the recipe is DDH but features a single charge. From all of my research, Trillium is believed to always dry hop at terminal gravity with a single charge. DDH just means a larger single charge.

Here’s a link to the recipe in Brewfather.

Ingredients

Fermentables

11 lb 8 oz (74.2%) – Briess Pale Ale Malt 2-Row 3.5 °L
3 lb (19.4%) – Briess Wheat White Malt 2.3 °L
12 oz (4.8%) – Dextrin Malt 1.7 °L
4 oz (1.6%) – Crystal 15L 11.6 °L

Boil
1 oz Columbus (Tomahawk) 14% – 60 min

Whirlpool
30 min hopstand @ 175°F
30 min 175 °F – 2 oz – Mosaic – 12.25% (15 IBU)

Dry Hops
7 days – 2 oz – Columbus (Tomahawk) – 14%
7 days – 8 oz – Mosaic – 12.25%

Yeast
2 packs Imperial Yeast Juice A38

Other
Whirlfloc – 15 minutes

Water Profile

Ca2+ 119
Mg2+ 3
Na+ 33
Cl 195
SO42- 75
HCO3 58

Specifications

Method: All-grain
Batch size: 5.5 gallons
Efficiency: 70%
OG: 1.074
FG: 1.017
ABV: 7.5%
IBU: 43
SRM: 6.9
Target Mash pH: 5.3 (adjust with lactic acid)
Mash Temp: 149°F – 60 minutes
Boil: 60 minutes
Fermentation Temp: 68°F


Notes

Day 1: Pitch yeast at 68°F and let rise to 72°F on day 2-3 for the remainder of fermentation. Should finish in 4-5 days. Per Imperial Yeast: Target 20-25 ppm dissolved oxygen or set the oxygen regulator flow to 50% higher than normal.

Day 6-7: Drop the temperature to 60°F and hold for 24 hours.

Day 7-8: Add dry hop charge, hold at 60°F at 7-10 PSI.

Day 14: Crash to 35°F for 48 hours. Proceed with packaging/cold conditioning for another week in the keg at serving temps. Should be prime drinking by day 20.

This recipe puts 5.5 gallons into the fermenter but honestly, the final yield may vary due to the heavy dry hopping. Expect a decent loss from this. Read this article here first for an in-depth overview of brewing NEIPAs.

Use code HAZY20 to get 20% off your entire purchase of $100 or more at yakimavalleyhops.com.

13 thoughts on “Trillium DDH Melcher Street Clone

  1. Thanks Shawn,

    I’m gonna give this a go this weekend. I have a question about your hot side process.

    What is your mash set-up? Do you recirculate to keep at 149. RIMS then fly sparge etc?

    Also, 2 packs of Imperial yeast? They are already 200 Billion cells? Thanks for the blog! I love it.

    1. I BIAB with full volume no sparge mash. My system is electric and I recirculate for the duration of the mash. The larger your system the more critical this likely is with BIAB. Yes, 2 packs may seem like a lot but a high OG in the 1.070 range calls for about 350-400 billion cells. I may be slightly overpitching but it’s likely perfect.

  2. I’ve seen some of their (Melcher and Fort Point) clone recipes recommend transfer and dry hop in a keg on day 4-5 when krausen dropping a keg and spund. I have a fermzilla so I can just spund in the same vessel but was wondering if I should keep it on the yeast (not drop collection tank) or drop what has gone to collection tank and hop.

    I like your idea of letting the beer finish and clear diacetly force test prior to fermenting to minimize dry hop creep but it seems like JC always recommends hopping with some points left to go. Did you drop yeast when you soft crashed to 60 deg and dry hop or just leave it on the hops for the 7 days.

    1. This is something I need to explore more myself. I agree with you that Trillium is likely dry hopping at or just before terminal. I’m also operating under the 60 F dry hop which I’ve also heard to be true of their beers. The problem is it’s one or the other. You can’t really have both ways because you risk diacetyl production if you soft crash too soon (I’ve run into this a few times and it’s horrible). I’m beginning to wonder if they dry hop some of their beers warm on day 5-6 and let it ride so all diacetyl is cleaned up. I’ve been dropping yeast before all dry hopping as of late. The soft crash minimizes yeast/hop interaction.

      1. Shawn, thanks for the reply. Yeah this has been my dilemma as well. I have had a couple batches turn into a nice candy from grandma after a week in the keg…butterscotch if you catch my drift. I wonder if their recommendations is largely due to assuming most homebrewers don’t have pressure fermentation so when they recommend to transfer and spund in a keg on day 4-5 when krausen is falling will allow for the creep and clean up to happen in keg O2 free.

        I like the idea of getting to terminal gravity and getting as much yeast out of interaction, heard this from a monkish podcast I think also. I’m usually hopping at 55 just to be on the safe side but would like to maybe play around with 58-60. Not sure the 5 degrees matters but will give it a go in a couple days.

        Love the trillium recipes although I’ve never had one yet. I’m surprised at how much haze I’ve had from even their fort point recipe with only 1.5lbs or about 15% white wheat malt as the only real adjunct and some carapils. Some of mine have finished pretty dry and others not so much and I feel that the creep is more of a function of it finishing dry vs their 150 mash recommendation.

        We will see but thanks for the response.

    1. I think the most I’ve done is 5-6 days. I’ve been going with shorter dry hop durations as of late and I’m getting great results.

  3. Do you dump the dry hops and trub at all? Doing my second go at this now and the first time came out great, but I only crashed for a day and upon transferring to the keg, I kept clogging my line with hops and ended up using the sample port to keg everything up. LOL. Any tips? Gonna try to do the full 2 day crash this time.

    1. I do a bit of dumping to ensure I do not suck up any trub. Heavily hopped beers need extensive crashing to avoid trub. Unfortunately, even the smallest amount will clog you up. I still run into it from time to time.

      1. Thanks for the reply on this Shawn, I completely forgot I posted then came back on your site to look at a few recipes. How much trub do you dump and when? And how do you minimize risk of oxidization when dumping?

        My 2-day crash didnt work as an update to my year old post haha. I was crashing with a cooler and cant get much lower than 40F. Still had tons of hop matter clogging up my lines so I kegged via the sample port again and got tons of particulates up in the keg haha. Tasty beer though.

        I actually Just ordered an SS Chiller tonight and am thinking of taking a shot at that Treehouse IPA recipe you recently posted.

        This go around, crash at around 33F, dump some trub and cross my fingers.

  4. Do you free hop, or use a steeping bag when dry hopping? I’ve done both methods, and can’t decide which I prefer.

    1. I always free dry hop. Be careful with a bag or you will limit extraction. If you use a lot of hops they will sponge up rather fast and prevent hops trapped in the middle from getting full contact with the beer.

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