Heady Topper clone w/ a little Citra and El Dorado

I finally made a Heady Topper clone Saturday night. I didn't have enough Simcoe, so I used a little extra Centennial as well as Citra and El Dorado at some points. I have one can of Heady Topper left so I will be able to compare them once it is done.

4 gallons:

10 lbs Pearl Malt
11 oz Caramalt
11 oz White Wheat
Mash at 154* for 60 min
Sparge at 168*
1/2 oz each CTZ, Apollo @ 60
1 oz Simcoe, 1/2 oz Apollo @ 5
1 oz each CTZ and Simcoe, 1/3 oz each Centennial, Citra, and El Dorado @ 0
1 oz each CTZ and Amarillo, 1/2 oz each Centennial and Apollo, 1/3 oz each Simcoe, Citra, and El Dorado @ Aroma Steep

Added 11 oz sugar to bring OG to 1.070. IBUs calculate to 109. Pitched ~250 billion cells of Conan, fermenting ~63*.

Unfortunately, since you used that hop combo, you will get something a lot fruitier and tropical vs. the dank marijuana-esque profile of Heady Topper.

I like fruit-bomb IPAs. I like Citra, El Dorado, and Centennial better than Simcoe so I'm sure I will like this more than if I had followed the exact recipe. At the same time it still has all the CTZ and Apollo and is only missing about 40% of the Simcoe so I don't think it will be that much fruitier. I also feel that the dry hops contribute much more to the taste, although I actually plan to do something similar with the dry hops. I might even bump the CTZ and Apollo for Citra on the final dry hop as I like to use leaf hops and Farmhouse Brewing didn't have CTZ and Apollo leaf hops.

Gravity was down to 1.009 after a week. I added the first dry hop: CTZ, Centennial, Simcoe, and Amarillo, 1/2 oz each, Apollo, Citra, and El Dorado 1/4 oz each

I added the 2nd dry hop: CTZ, Centennial, Simcoe, and Amarillo, 1/4 oz each, Apollo, Citra, and El Dorado 1/8 oz each

Sounds interesting! Keep this thread updated. I know your hop schedule differes slightly from Heady, but I bet this will give you my two favorite hops properties: fruitiness and DANKness! Will probably taste great.

I woke up this morning and my apartment was well over 80* (usually it is ~75* but the super obviously jacked the heat up too much) and my beer was up to 75* in my Cool-Brewing Fermentation Cooler (had been keeping it between 64*-70* in secondary) so I really hope the Conan yeast doesn't turn Belgian.

Added the 3rd and final dry hop: 1 oz Simcoe leaf, 1/2 oz each CTZ, Centennial, and Citra leaf.

Bottled the beer. Final gravity is 1.005. I was away for the weekend and somehow during that time, the airlock got knocked off so there might be a fair amount of oxidation.

ianmatth said:

Bottled the beer. Final gravity is 1.005. I was away for the weekend and somehow during that time, the airlock got knocked off so there might be a fair amount of oxidation.

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1.005? From 1.070? Sure you hit your mash temps? that is high AA even for Conan. Maybe the 75 degree spike made it chew through more.

that is well below where HT ends up, usually about 1.012.

theveganbrewer hit 1.010 FG on his 4.0 clone. I mashed at an initial temperature of 154* (which is 4* higher than the 150* recommended) however I used a 50 quart cooler as a mash tun so it was way too big for 11.5 lbs of grain and lost of a lot of temperature, which could account for some of the crazy attenuation I got, however most of the crazy attenuation comes from doing primary fermentation in my kettle (down to 1.009 in a week). For some reason (some think it is the shape of the kettle) I get significantly higher attenuation when I do primary fermentation in the kettle vs using my Better Bottle carboy. I've done head to head experiments with the same exact batch, so I know it makes a difference. As for the final 4 points of attenuation, it had another 3 weeks so I'm not so surprised as I usually get another 2 points of attenuation in the my beers that are only in secondary for a week. 70+* temps may have made a difference of a point or two, but it made it to 1.009 in a week and never saw a temperature higher than 66*, so I'm sure it would have hit 1.007 FG with another 3 weeks even if the temperature never went above 68*. My best guess is that the mash gave me 2 extra points, the kettle gave me 3, and the 70+* temps gave me 1. I like dry beers, but I can already tell this is much drier than Heady, so I'm probably going to do this clone in the future and either get a 5 gallon Igloo cooler for a mash tun, not do primarily in the kettle, or maybe both and see where my FG ends up.

Unfortunately this beer didn't turn out as good as it should have. Not sure how much is due to the temperature reaching over 68* at points and how much is due to the oxidation that most likely occurred at the end when the airlock got knocked off for a day or so. It has a little bit of a Belgian taste. It also tastes a little thin (most likely from the dryness), but actually has a sweet taste that is very similar to attenuated sugar. I blame the Conan yeast more than anything, as that is certainly where the Belgian taste comes from and most likely that sweet taste too. If I do this beer again when my stupid building is running the heat, I will keep the temperature in the low 60s at all times just in case I wake up and find my apartment is all of the sudden 85* when it was 78* when I went to bed. Otherwise I might wait until they quit running the heat so I know I can keep the temperature in my apartment consistent. I probably will also change the way I mash and ferment so FG is closer to 1.010.

Well that stinks. I'm sure it's still a tasty brew though, right?

It's still a great beer, just more Belgian, sweet, and dry (never had a beer that had this level or both sweetness and dryness) than Heady. Also the hops aren't cutting through like Heady, but I misread the Heady clone 4.0 recipe at first and only used about 60% of the hops I should have for the first two dry hops. I also don't think I got as much as I could have out of my 3rd dry hop (2.5 oz of leaf hops in 3 gallons). In fact, I saved about 1.5 oz of the hops from that addition and am going to re-use them for another beer since I can tell they've still got a lot of flavor left.

Great to hear its still good. Yes I'm sure the low dry hop contributed. But why do you think you got the Belgian-ish flavors?

Conan yeast is apparently a Belgian yeast, and it will give Belgian flavors if the temperature goes above 70*.

just curious, but why call this a heady topper clone when just by reading it its clear that its not going to be at all like heady topper?

The only difference is that ~40% of the Simcoe is replaced by Citra and El Dorado in the boil and first two dry hops, and for the final dry hop Amarillo is replaced by Citra and Apollo is dropped...which results in a whopping 16% difference in the total hop profile...so not like Heady Topper at all.

Just wanted to update everybody as I'm down to my last two 22 oz bottles from this batch that will most likely be finished tonight. It ended up turning out really good, 2-3 weeks of bottle conditioning took away most of the Belgian flavor. Everyone who drank it thought it was as good as any IPA they ever had, although none of them have had Heady. I would say it doesn't have as much hop flavor as Heady, and of course it is much drier. I'm not sure how much the high temperature and oxidation contributed to it not being as Heady-like, but it still ended up being better than many top-250 beers. About the only commercial beer I can easily get that I would say is better is Bell's Two Hearted Ale, and that is a top-100 beer. I'm doing this clone again and I just added the 2nd dry hop yesterday. Also, the only changes I made to the hops was to substitute Citra and El Dorado for Amarillo in the dry hop mix. I think this clone will be much more Heady-like.