Hop bursted 7th Hoppin' IPA - better than Heady

I've done the Heady Topper clone 4 times, and previous to that I was working on my own IPA recipe for my 7th Hoppin' IPA, so with the things I learned from doing the Heady clone I was ready to come back to my own thing. So why is this going to be better than Heady...because my last Heady clone was better than Heady, this beer is a little lower in OG, is hop bursted, and uses the same amount of 5 minute, flame out, and aroma steep hops as Heady. And I'm not using any fancy equipment either, a 50 qt Coleman cooler for a mash tun, an 8 gallon Tallboy kettle, a cheap tub from Walmart to cool my wort, and a 6.5 gallon Big Mouth Bubbler.

I decided to push my mash tun to the limit today with 22 pounds of malt, but only half of that will go to this beer.

11 gallons of 155* water, 9 tsp of gypsum, and 22+ pounds of malt (1% acidulated malt) with a 60 minute mash that started at 148* resulted in a pH of 5.30 at room temperature. I drained 4 gallons into my kettle and added 4 gallons of 190* water for a step mash (probably ~158*). 22 pounds of malt was really too much as I had to keep stirring it with the mash paddle to get it to flow out. I filled 7.5 gallons in my kettle, ended up with 5.5 gallons after the boil, and 5 gallons in my Big Mouth Bubbler.

Being hop bursted, I used 5 ml Hop Jizz for the 90 minute addition and then used 4 additions at 20, 15, 10, and 5 to get the other half of the IBUs. Here is the recipe:

45% Golden Promise
45% 2-row
9% Caramalt
1% Acidulated malt
5 ml Hop Jizz @ 90
Hop Mix (3 oz Simcoe, 2 oz CTZ, 1 oz each Apollo, Centennial, Citra, El Dorado, and Galaxy)
1/2 oz Hop Mix @ 20 minutes
1/2 oz Hop Mix @ 15 minutes, Whirlflock
1/2 oz Hop Mix @ 10 minutes
1.5 oz Hop Mix @ 5 minutes
3 oz Hop Mix @ Flame out
4 oz Hop Mix @ 150* Aroma steep
1.055 OG, 120 IBU
Pitched 250 billion cells of Conan yeast

EDIT:
I plan to do a triple dry hop. 5 oz of my hop mix at Day 7, 3 oz of my hop mix at Day 12, and 3 oz of a 60/40 Dank/fruity ratio leaf hop mix at Day 17.

Expensive equipment isn't necessary to make great beer. The most expensive piece of equipment here is my 8 gallon Tallboy Kettle.

Looks like a great recipe. I don't doubt at all that it is better than the Heady you've tried. I don't think its hard for homebrewers, with all the info we have available these days, to make something that rivals our favorite commercial beers. The fresher the better for these IPAs of course, which usually means you get better end results with your own beers. But I have to say also that the fresh Heady I tried was far and above the best beer I've ever had, whereas the older Heady I had was not as good side by side with my heady clone.

Thanks for sharing your recipe!


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I actually disagree with you. Fresh Heady is great, but according to John Kimmich Heady gets better after 10 weeks. I had some fresh Heady, but the last can I drank that had been sitting in the fridge for 5 months was far and above the best beer I've ever had...if only I could make my beers last as long. I think my last Heady clone was at the level it was because of the water, gysum, and pH. I'm hoping the addition of the hop bursting technique along with using hop oil for the 90 minute addition will add to the flavor.

Your tons of steeping hops will make this. I've been getting great success with similar techniques in all of my hoppy beers. That hop mix sounds good!

Reasons you might think this beer is better than Heady:

1. More malt complexity and flavor... (some might want the exact opposite in an IPA/IIPA to allow for more hop focus and more perceived dryness).
2. Lower OG, resulting in a beer of higher drinkability... (meaning you can pound them back quicker as they deceivingly quench your thirst).
3. Fruity fruit bomb hop focus... (Heady is mainly dank, marijuana-esque in focus).

None of these reasons will be the same for everyone since preferences will differ.

Hop Jizz....

Is it hard to use? Do you have to shake it up a lot to get it to flow out?

Repressing my 15 year old self - it looks like an A+ recipe. Relatively simple and great hop selection (and hop jizz).

Nice recipe. Would you recommend dry hopping?

bobbrews said:

Reasons you might think this beer is better than Heady:

1. More malt complexity and flavor... (some might want the exact opposite in an IPA/IIPA to allow for more hop focus and more perceived dryness).
2. Lower OG, resulting in a beer of higher drinkability... (meaning you can pound them back quicker as they deceivingly quench your thirst).
3. Fruity fruit bomb hop focus... (Heady is mainly dank, marijuana-esque in focus).

None of these reasons will be the same for everyone since preferences will differ.

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The 50/50 mix of GP and 2-row is pretty much the same as Pearl malt. I'm using a little more Caramalt, but I'm not using wheat so I don't think the malt is much more complex than the Heady clone.

The lower OG with the same volume of hops will result in a seemingly more hopped beer. I'm hoping the hop bursting technique will add to that.

This is 60% dank. Heady is 100% dank on the 5 minute and flame out additions, but only 62.5% dank on the aroma steep and dry hop additions. IMO the dry hops contribute far more to the hop taste than anything else. My last Heady clone was better than Heady IMO, but my personal preference would be for a little less pine and a little more fruit. I would hardly call a 60/40 dank to fruity hop ratio a fruity fruit bomb hop focus.

Malt complexity, OG, and hop selection are about personal preference, but since my last Heady clone was a little better than Heady IMO, I believe the lower OG and hop bursting technique of my recipe will result in more hop flavor.

Osedax - The Hop Jizz came right out no problem. Hop Shotz is the same thing and I actually used that for my last Heady clone. My only issue with the hop extracts is that they end up as black specs in the carboy, even with a hot break and vigorous 90 minute boil. The black specs will most likely crash out though as this will be in carboy for 3 weeks.

tante - The won't be anywhere close to Heady without multiple dry hop additions. I plan to add 2 dry hop additions (5 oz and 3 oz) of my pellet hop mix and a final 3 oz 60/40 dank/fruity leaf hop mix for 4-5 days each starting next week. The Heady clone has 3 dry hop additions totaling 11 oz as well.

Alright. I stand corrected. Hop Jizz is a real thing. http://www.brewbrothers.biz/Hop-Jizz-Extract-Calculator

I thought... well it doesn't matter what I thought... I am apparently 10.

I do want to try hop extracts. Maybe for my next IPA.

ianmatth said:

The 50/50 mix of GP and 2-row is pretty much the same as Pearl malt. I'm using a little more Caramalt, but I'm not using wheat so I don't think the malt is much more complex than the Heady clone.

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45% Golden Promise
45% 2-row
9% Caramalt
1% Acidulated malt

vs.

84.9% Pearl Malt
5.7% Caramalt
5.7% White Wheat
3.8% Turbinado Sugar

Let's assume the above two grists are for otherwise same exact beer. They should be perceived as as different from a judge in a double blind experiment. You cannot say they are pretty much the same if they can be clearly distinguished. The small amount of White Wheat is not added for flavor. It is used for body and head retention without adding the additional caramel sweetness, toastiness, and color that you would get from simply using more Caramalt. Also, American 2-row + Golden Promise does not = Pearl Malt. That's like saying Short Rib + Porterhouse = Filet Mignon.

ianmatth said:

The lower OG with the same volume of hops will result in a seemingly more hopped beer. I'm hoping the hop bursting technique will add to that.

Malt complexity, OG, and hop selection are about personal preference, but since my last Heady clone was a little better than Heady IMO, I believe the lower OG and hop bursting technique of my recipe will result in more hop flavor.

Click to expand...

What you did was create a completely different beer. You made an IPA with different hops, different OG/FG, a different grist, no dryhop, different process, etc. and yet you're defining it as "better" than a well known, top rated IIPA. You cannot compare apples to oranges... especially because the only common denominator was Conan yeast.

And "better" is highly subjective. While you might have more "hop flavor" from an extremely hopbursted and very fresh homebrew, I doubt you will have the same complexity and different levels as Heady Topper. You will also have a completely different flavor.

ianmatth said:

This is 60% dank. Heady is 100% dank on the 5 minute and flame out additions, but only 62.5% dank on the aroma steep and dry hop additions. IMO the dry hops contribute far more to the hop taste than anything else. My last Heady clone was better than Heady IMO, but my personal preference would be for a little less pine and a little more fruit. I would hardly call a 60/40 dank to fruity hop ratio a fruity fruit bomb hop focus.

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1) Your beer is essentially a heavily hop-bursted IPA with no dryhop. Bitterness should be noticable, but all-in-all it should be smooth and taste very juice-like.

ianmatth said:

3 oz Simcoe, 2 oz CTZ, 1 oz each Apollo, Centennial, Citra, El Dorado, and Galaxy

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2) When hops like these are combined and added in a continuous method, you start to get a mish-mash muddled flavor with reduced complexity. The dominant flavor of the selected hops take over, and for these hops, that would be a blanket of tropical fruitiness. It doesn't matter that Apollo and CTZ are quite dank; in the proportions used, you did not compensate enough of the dank hops to overtake the numerous other fruity choices. Citra is tropical. El Dorado tastes like Watermelon candies. Galaxy is fruity and earthy. Centennial is fruity and citrusy with a hint of pine. Simcoe is very complex; sometimes fruity, sometimes catty. But when hopbursting in combination with 3 or more other less complex (but still very intense) Pacific NW hops, its own complexity begins to get lost.

Therefore, the percentages that you're going by (62.5% dank, etc) don't really hold water.

bobbrews said:

45% Golden Promise

45% 2-row

9% Caramalt

1% Acidulated malt







What you did was create a completely different beer. You made an IPA with different hops, different OG/FG



, a different grist, no dryhop, different process, etc. and yet you're defining it as "better" than a well known, top rated IIPA. You cannot compare apples to oranges... especially because the only common denominator was Conan yeast. And "better" is highly subjective

Therefore, the percentages that you're going by don't really hold water.

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I think you're being uneccesarily harsh and over pedantic with the OP. He's just posting his own recipe and saying in his opinion it is better than HT. I don't see that he's claiming any more than what is his opinion here.

I think you make some fine points though regarding the differences between the two recipes.




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If it came across that way, then I apologize. I'm just trying to be objective here. When I see a title with lofty claims then I respond with skepticism. That's not to say topping Heady Topper cannot be done. But it is another thing completely to post a topic like this, in a bragging manner, and then compare it to a completely different beer.

Also I believe he said he's doing 3 dryhops. Maybe you missed that part.


Almost Famous Brewing Company

Roadie said:

Also I believe he said he's doing 3 dryhops. Maybe you missed that part.

Click to expand...

It was not in his original post, but I see now in post #9.

ianmatth said:

The 50/50 mix of GP and 2-row is pretty much the same as Pearl malt. I'm using a little more Caramalt, but I'm not using wheat so I don't think the malt is much more complex than the Heady clone.

The lower OG with the same volume of hops will result in a seemingly more hopped beer. I'm hoping the hop bursting technique will add to that.

This is 60% dank. Heady is 100% dank on the 5 minute and flame out additions, but only 62.5% dank on the aroma steep and dry hop additions. IMO the dry hops contribute far more to the hop taste than anything else. My last Heady clone was better than Heady IMO, but my personal preference would be for a little less pine and a little more fruit. I would hardly call a 60/40 dank to fruity hop ratio a fruity fruit bomb hop focus.

Malt complexity, OG, and hop selection are about personal preference, but since my last Heady clone was a little better than Heady IMO, I believe the lower OG and hop bursting technique of my recipe will result in more hop flavor.

Osedax - The Hop Jizz came right out no problem. Hop Shotz is the same thing and I actually used that for my last Heady clone. My only issue with the hop extracts is that they end up as black specs in the carboy, even with a hot break and vigorous 90 minute boil. The black specs will most likely crash out though as this will be in carboy for 3 weeks.

tante - The won't be anywhere close to Heady without multiple dry hop additions. I plan to add 2 dry hop additions (5 oz and 3 oz) of my pellet hop mix and a final 3 oz 60/40 dank/fruity leaf hop mix for 4-5 days each starting next week. The Heady clone has 3 dry hop additions totaling 11 oz as well.

Click to expand...

I find 11 oz of dry hops in a 5 gallon batch a little unfathomable. I'm brewing a Heady clone tomorrow with 6 oz in two stages and I feel like that is a lot!

bobbrews said:

What you did was create a completely different beer.

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Exactly, that's why it's my recipe and not someone else's recipe, but I'm using a lot of the techniques that I learned from the Heady clone that IMO made it great. My last Heady clone (the one that IMO was a little better than Heady) still tasted like Heady and I changed some things from the veganbrewer's recipe: replacing Pearl malt (as well as the wheat and sugar) with GP/2-row and replacing Amarillo with Citra, El Dorado, and Galaxy.

You cannot say they are pretty much the same if they can be clearly distinguished

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Along with my 2nd attempt at the Heady clone, I did a head-to-head of Pearl malt vs GP/2-row (still used wheat and sugar), and the difference was extremely minor, so IMO they cannot be CLEARLY distinguished. On the other hand I did a Conan vs WLP090 for my 3rd attempt and those were quite different.

When hops like these are combined and added in a continuous method, you start to get a mish-mash muddled flavor with reduced complexity. The dominant flavor of the selected hops take over...Therefore, the percentages that you're going by (62.5% dank, etc) don't really hold water.

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I'm going to disagree with you. You gave me issues the first time I did the Heady clone about using Citra and El Dorado in place of Amarillo, but I continued doing that and my 2nd-4th attempts totally had the Heady flavor. It also might have been you who pretty much said the same thing in one of my other threads. I don't get muddled flavor or reduced complexity with my hop mix. I've spent a lot of time working on which 7 hops go together well. And I do think my percentages hold water. I guess I should have been clearer about the dry hops though, although I did say in my last response that IMO the dry hops contribute more to flavor than anything else.

And "better" is highly subjective. While you might have more "hop flavor" from an extremely hopbursted and very fresh homebrew, I doubt you will have the same complexity and different levels as Heady Topper. You will also have a completely different flavor.

Click to expand...

When I see a title with lofty claims then I respond with skepticism. That's not to say topping Heady Topper cannot be done. But it is another thing completely to post a topic like this, in a bragging manner, and then compare it to a completely different beer.

Click to expand...

Better is subjective, and I think if I did a head to head of the Heady clone vs the exact same clone with my hop mix, I would like my hop mix better, but I did change my hop mix from previous tries of my recipe based on the Heady clone, and I may go to 50/50 dank/fruity if I try this and think I would prefer that. I also think my recipe is actually more complex than the Heady clone, you already said my malt bill is.

As far as the title, the purpose of that is to get more people to check out the thread. I will also make one final disagreement that my beer is COMPLETELY different from the Heady clone, but I kind of wish it was because then I could take more credit for it when in reality this beer would not be possible without John Kimmich and all the people who helped theveganbrewer perfect the Heady Topper clone.

Adaman05 said:

I find 11 oz of dry hops in a 5 gallon batch a little unfathomable. I'm brewing a Heady clone tomorrow with 6 oz in two stages and I feel like that is a lot!

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From my reading of the recipe, it is 5.5 oz for the 1st dry hop, and 2.75 oz each for the 2nd and 3rd dry hops, for a total of 11 oz. The first time I did the recipe I thought 5.5 oz was the total for the 3 dry hops, and the hop flavor was not matching up to Heady. Even my second attempt at the clone with the full 11 oz of dry hops was a little short of Heady IMO. My 3rd attempt was there, and my 4th attempt (where I made sure I had the hardness and proper pH) was even better IMO. John is laughing at us using the ridiculous amount of dry hops we are, but from my experience that is what it takes to get the Heady level of hopiness at the homebrew level. Maybe some day we'll figure out how he is able to get that flavor using significantly less hops as he says.

ianmatth said:

From my reading of the recipe, it is 5.5 oz for the 1st dry hop, and 2.75 oz each for the 2nd and 3rd dry hops, for a total of 11 oz. The first time I did the recipe I thought 5.5 oz was the total for the 3 dry hops, and the hop flavor was not matching up to Heady. Even my second attempt at the clone with the full 11 oz of dry hops was a little short of Heady IMO. My 3rd attempt was there, and my 4th attempt (where I made sure I had the hardness and proper pH) was even better IMO. John is laughing at us using the ridiculous amount of dry hops we are, but from my experience that is what it takes to get the Heady level of hopiness at the homebrew level. Maybe some day we'll figure out how he is able to get that flavor using significantly less hops as he says.

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I just finished up my brew day for my Heady clone and hit 1.074, so all is well. I was going to up my dry hops to two additions of 4 oz each, but maybe I should up it even more?! As for the hardness of the water, I am using Madison water which is pretty damn hard so that should be okay, and I'm treating it with lactic acid to get my pH.

ianmatth said:

From my reading of the recipe, it is 5.5 oz for the 1st dry hop, and 2.75 oz each for the 2nd and 3rd dry hops, for a total of 11 oz. The first time I did the recipe I thought 5.5 oz was the total for the 3 dry hops, and the hop flavor was not matching up to Heady. Even my second attempt at the clone with the full 11 oz of dry hops was a little short of Heady IMO. My 3rd attempt was there, and my 4th attempt (where I made sure I had the hardness and proper pH) was even better IMO. John is laughing at us using the ridiculous amount of dry hops we are, but from my experience that is what it takes to get the Heady level of hopiness at the homebrew level. Maybe some day we'll figure out how he is able to get that flavor using significantly less hops as he says.

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11oz of dry hops is retarded and not in a good way.

i cant even take any of this seriously. i love hops as much or more than than the next guy and use them to the limit.

send me a bottle of the finished product - ill pay for shipping and chip in for w/e you have in it. id like to review to see if im completely off base - id love be proven wrong and learn something new

jammin said:

11oz of dry hops is retarded and not in a good way.

i cant even take any of this seriously. i love hops as much or more than than the next guy and use them to the limit.

send me a bottle of the finished product - ill pay for shipping and chip in for w/e you have in it. id like to review to see if im completely off base - id love be proven wrong and learn something new

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The recipe is right here: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/heady-topper-can-you-clone-390082/

I'm sure it's been done thousands of times by people on this board, and you'll clearly see 5.5 oz of total hops listed for the Dry Hop 8.0 Days additions. After that it says: Split dry hop in half and add half on day 14 and day 21. That sounds like another 2.75 oz each on day 14 and day 21 to me for a total of 11 oz. I didn't make this up on my own, like I said my recipe utilizes many of the things I learned from theveganbrewer's Heady Topper clone.

ianmatth said:

The recipe is right here: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/heady-topper-can-you-clone-390082/

I'm sure it's been done thousands of times by people on this board, and you'll clearly see 5.5 oz of total hops listed for the Dry Hop 8.0 Days additions. After that it says: Split dry hop in half and add half on day 14 and day 21. That sounds like another 2.75 oz each on day 14 and day 21 to me for a total of 11 oz. I didn't make this up on my own, like I said my recipe utilizes many of the things I learned from theveganbrewer's Heady Topper clone.

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No, that lists a total of 5.5 oz, adding half on day 14 (2.75) and the other half on day 21.

This is copy/pasted from the recipe:

I know I decided on dry hop day to cut down the Columbus from 1.50 ounce to 1 ounce. I think I also replaced that half ounce with something else, but I can't remember. I remember going up to 0.75 ounces of something in dryhop 1, it was either Amarillo or Centennial. The 2nd stage was 1 oz Simcoe, 0.5 Columbus, 0.5 Amarillo, 0.5 Centennial, and 0.25 Apollo though.

Copy/paste from the recipe:

1.00 oz** *Columbus (Tomahawk) [14.00 %] Dry Hop 8.0 Days-0.0 IBUs
2.00 oz** *Simcoe [13.00 %] Dry Hop 8.0 Days -0.0 IBUs
1.00 oz** *Amarillo Gold [8.50 %] Dry Hop 8.0 Days-0.0 IBUs
1.00 oz** *Centennial [10.50 %] Dry Hop 8.0 Days-0.0 IBUs
0.50 oz** *Apollo [17.00 %] Dry Hop 8.0 Days-0.0 IBUs

Split dry hop in half and add half on day 14 and day 21. Carb on day 25.


To me it looks like he added 5.5 oz at 8.0 Days (day 8) then took the same 5.5 oz of hops, split it in half (2.75 oz) and added that for the second stage (day 14), and the other 2.75 oz on day 21 before carbing on day 25.

The Heady Topper clone was actually a work in progress for quite a while and the listed recipe is the 4th version (theveganbrewer edited the original post to reflect that) so it is very possible the comment you posted is from the 1st version. Also, that comment never said he didn't add 5.5 oz for the 1st stage or that there wasn't a 3rd stage of another 2.75 oz, it simply says the 2nd stage was 2.75 oz.

The first time I did the clone I used 5.5 oz total and it did not match up to a real Heady Topper, even the 2nd time I did it with the full 11 oz, it wasn't quite there. If you make a clone that matches up to the real Heady Topper with only 5.5 oz split between 2 dry hop additions I'd like to know how you do it because I'd love to use less hops.

Added first dry hop. 5 oz of 7-hop mix.

Added 2nd dry hop of 3 oz on 8-2. Had to sub Simcoe and CTZ for Apollo because the USPS sorting facility in Kearny, NJ is one of the worst in the country.

The 8.0 days in the recipe you cut & pasted refers to the duration and not the day it's dry hopped. I read that as the dry hop amount is a total of 5.5 oz which is split - the first half added on day 14 and the second half added on day 21. 11 oz of dry hop would give off some crazy aroma!

You may be right about that because if the first dry hop was added on day 14 and removed on day 21 that would be 8 days. And maybe he is carbonating the keg on day 25 and removing the second dry hop on day 28. He really should have done a better job clarifying what he was actually doing. As I said the first time I did the clone I only used 5.5 oz. So maybe the reason my 4th Heady clone was better than the real Heady Topper was because I finally got the pH and hardness right but I was using twice the hops.

Anyway, I added my 3rd dry hop of 2 oz tonight for a grand total of 10 oz of dry hops. Next time I'll use a little less and see how it compares.

I crashed the yeast and bottled 12 L so far in two Tap-A-Draft bottles. I'll probably bottle the rest on Sunday.

In the end this didn't end up better than Heady. It is possible the gravity is to blame, but I think it was my choice of hops for the hop bursting additions. The next time I do my 7th Hoppin' IPA I plan to use all dank hops for those additions as the Heady Topper clone uses all dank hops for the 5 minute and flame out additions. I'll probably end up going with a 60% Simcoe, 30% CTZ, 10% Apollo mix for the 20, 15, 10, 5, and flame out additions. For my other 4 hops, which will be used for the hop steep and dry hopping at 10% each of the hop mix I plan to use Centennial, Citra, El Dorado, and Azacca. I'm also going to cut the dry hops down to 6 oz total. Might make some adjustments to the gypsum and acidulated malt as well since my pH was a little low.