All-Grain - Bell's Two Hearted Ale Clone (close as they come) - Page 2

Jared311 · 12-10-2008, 07:02 PM

Alright, so here are some short term results. Its been in the fermenter since saturday afternoon and the fermentation is just about done. I had an OG of 1055 and an FG of 1010 giving me around 6% ABV. It tastes and smells delicious. I am going to wait a few more days and then crash cool my primary before racking it to a secondary and dry hopping. The only major difference in my batch was that I decided to use white labs california ale yeast and I might use more centennial for dry hopping. I will keep you posted.

eschatz · 12-15-2008, 02:58 AM

Tell me how it turns out. I think the dry hopping will be spot on. I'd love to know how the yeast effects the beer.

Shonuff · 12-15-2008, 03:12 AM

Bell's Two Hearted Ale is the best beer ever! I think I'm going to have to buy some bulk Centennial and brew this.

**Yooper** · 12-16-2008, 12:28 AM

I'll be brewing this tomorrow! I'll keep almost everything the same, but I just got a new grain mill. My first batch was 89% efficiency with the new mill- after 68% for years with the AHS crush. So, I'll keep the recipe, planning for 80% efficiency which would give me 1.075ish. I may have to adjust the hopping, depending on my efficiency.

Thanks for posting this!

ohiodad · 12-22-2008, 07:18 PM

I just transferred my 3rd attempt at a clone of bells 2 hearted over yesterday and I think i finally got it spot on!! Very excited about this one!! Grain bill is pretty similar to this one.. I think the important thing here is to clone their yeast from the bottle.. I've tried with both Irish and WLP001 and couldn't get it quite right.. This time I cultured the yeast from a 6 pack of two hearted and it is spot on... What a great beer this is and I'm very happy to have finally figured it out.....

farmbrewernw · 12-27-2008, 06:21 AM

I just had the commercial version for the first time tonight. To me it almost tastes like a hoppier Centennial version of Ed's Pale ale, it is a fine thing. What about using Nottingham for the yeast I think it could get the attenuation and the cleanness that you would need.

eschatz · 12-30-2008, 09:52 PM

Nottingham would work fine. This is a great beer either way.

farmbrewernw · 12-30-2008, 10:07 PM

The only thing I'm concerned about is the ABV for this beer, there's quite a bit of difference between a 5% beer and a 7% beer. I could honestly care less about getting more alcohol out of a beer but it does make a difference in taste almost certainly. I'm wondering if bumping up the grain volumes to get a higher OG brew would make this even closer to the original. I don't doubt that this is a great beer, I guess I'm just kind of nit picky like that, one obvious benefit of having it be a lower ABV beer is that it should be quicker to turn around and drink, I would think a 7% beer is going to take a couple months of aging minimum.

shertz · 12-30-2008, 11:27 PM

Got something close using extract in primary now:

Golden Light DME-7.2 lbs
Cara-pils .5 lbs
C-20 .5 lbs
Centennial .5oz 60 mins
Centennial .5oz 45 mins
Centennial .5oz 30 mins
Centennial .5oz 15 mins
Centennial .5oz flameout
Centennial 1 oz DH
Wyeast 1272 American Ale II

OG-1.073
FG-1.018
7.2% ABV
52 IBU's

Jared311 · 01-03-2009, 12:10 AM

Alright, here is an update as I promised:

Fermentation in primary for 7 days
Crash cooled in primary for 5 days
Racked to secondary and dry hopped for 12 days (used 1oz centennial)
Racked to keg and carbed at 12psi at 40deg

I just grabbed a sneak peak of this batch only after three days of carbing and this beer is damn tasty! I definitely suggest using at least 1oz for dry hopping. I think I am going to brew this batch again and harvest some of the yeast from a bottle of two hearted. I think it could also use a little more bitterness so I might have to play with additional hops earlier in the boil. Awesome beer for first keg in my new keezer though!