American IPA Bell's Two Hearted Ale Clone (close as they come)

Just added my dry hops after about 18 days primary, absolutely amazing recipe. The bitterness is very subtle to me but the flavor is just dense citrusy passionfruit hops. Really nice job on this recipe OP. I'll be adding a fresh ounce of keg hops in a week and then re-brewing ASAP with a different hop, maybe nelson sauvin?

odetobeerkenobi said:

Okay, I'm a newby to brewing (about 2 years now). How do you culture yeast from a beer you like? The two hearted for example in this thread.

Thanks

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I had some Oberon's and saw yeast at the bottom.

I have a few of their porters in the fridge right now. I didn't look for yeast when I drank the first two.

I would think you could do like a yeast starter and pour the trailings out of a couple bottles into some covered jars of tepid water with sugar and see if they proliferate.

I wouldn't tighten the jars too much - and you would only need a little sugar - two tsp or so.

Dynachrome said:

I had some Oberon's and saw yeast at the bottom.

I have a few of their porters in the fridge right now. I didn't look for yeast when I drank the first two.

I would think you could do like a yeast starter and pour the trailings out of a couple bottles into some covered jars of tepid water with sugar and see if they proliferate.

I wouldn't tighten the jars too much - and you would only need a little sugar - two tsp or so.

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You don't use sugar for culturing yeast or for yeast starters. You use extract, you don't want to train the yeast with simple sugars. If you do that they won't be able to break down the malt sugars which are more complex.

To do it properly look at these.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/pacman-yeast-starter-video-63855/

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvUnRNT3U0c]YouTube - Pacman yeast starter[/ame]

I'm having a pint of my version with awesome pizza. Great combo.

Revvy said:

I'm having a pint of my version with awesome pizza. Great combo.

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I have just over 2 cases of bottles that are about a week away from being tossed into the fridge for their final pre-consumption period of rest.

barleywade said:

When the weather in Minnesota gets above 30 degrees I will be making this one again and I will also put it in my IPA rotation.

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Winter is the best for brewing. It warms up the house and you can chill the wort on the deck. I prefer it to the summer.

Revvy said:

You don't use sugar for culturing yeast or for yeast starters. You use extract, you don't want to train the yeast with simple sugars. If you do that they won't be able to break down the malt sugars which are more complex.

To do it properly look at these.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/pacman-yeast-starter-video-63855/

YouTube - Pacman yeast starter

I'm having a pint of my version with awesome pizza. Great combo.

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Thank you for heading me in the right direction. I've done it wrong for every batch that I started yeast ahead of time. I've also just pitched dry yeast.

Is there a pinned thread somewhere? I read about yeast starters and assumed it was just giving the yeast a running start. You give yeast sugar and water to grow, ergo sugar and water... It does seem to get things rolling in less than half the time the way I've been doing it. I like my results.

There is one on yeast washing:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/yeast-washing-illustrated-41768/

If I want to do a yeast starter with my methods, I don't have extract laying around and it is an extra expense. Does extract keep in the fridge indefinitely? I might justify the expense then.

Is there another way I don't know about either?

DME = Dried Malt Extract. I could keep some of that indefinately, right?

Might be good to keep around for adjusting OG too, huh? I don't usually sweat OG too much but it doesn't hurt to have resources.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/need-make-yeast-starter-have-no-method-weighing-dme-155438/

Dynachrome said:

Is there another way I don't know about either?

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You can always put aside a bit of wort from your previous batch and use it. However, that would not keep as long as the DME. DME will probably not keep "indefinitely" but it will keep for a long, long, long time. If you wish to exclude the expense of this kind of effort, use dried yeast.

i brewed this on 9/28/11 and am just now drinking one after 2.5 weeks in the keg. Oh boy oh boy is this one delicious. Well done sir!

My OG was 1.064 and my FG came in at 1.009 with S-04. I love S-04 and S-05. It always finishes so low, even in bigger beers than this. Me and my old man brewed this one and he loves it too.

thanks

Brewed it today and pitched the cake from a 2l starter of bells ale yeast cultured from a few bottles of amber ale. Got about 5.25 gallons at 1.062- Smelled great!

Brewed this back in september it turned out great. The pics don't do it justice it is crystal clear by now.

Has that great vienna taste at first and loads of centennial flavor

Just curious if anyone else has noticed a distinct melon/cantalope flavor? I dont use Centennial too frequently and this is a pretty unusual flavor, albeit not bad. Given mine is only 4 weeks out and probably just needs some more time in the keg. I didnt notice this flavor at all in the gravity sample I pulled before kegging.

Anyone else with melony flavor?

No melon for me . What kind of yeast did you use and what ferment temps?

Just popped my 1st bottle. Needs another week or so, but I'm excited: in a blind taste test, SWMBO liked my clone better than the real THA! They're close, but mine's a touch sweeter and has a little more yeast character (didn't harvest Bell's). All in all, I'm pretty darned happy

"All your home brew are belong to us!"

I used S05 and mid-high 60's for the first 5 days. Temperature was pretty well controlled. I use S05 a lot and have never had this melon flavor, so I was thinking it was the centennials. I'll give it another week in the keg and see how it progresses.

S05 is very clean and very neutral and almost exhibits no flavor at all. that's what makes it so versatile

I'm giving this a go this wkend. A few changes for me:

using C40 to get an SRM of about 7
I added a 30m hop addition and backed off the 60min, IBUs about 55.
Using some washed Wyeast 1272 American Ale II

Thanks for the recipe. I'm sure it'll be great.

Took some bottles of my THA clone (this recipe) to both Thanksgiving feasts. Great reviews all around!

"All your home brew are belong to us!"

I finally tried a bottle of THA when I was out on the east coast. It was crisp/dry tasting yet more subdued hop flavor than I got making with it with US-05. The hop flavor difference could be the age (couple months in the bottle vs. freshly kegged) and the fact that I dry hop in the keg.

I recently made a Pale Ale with a little toasted grain and 1272, which had the same type of crisp/dry flavor, so I think I'll remake this THA recipe again with 1272. For anyone trying to replicate this without the harvested bell's yeast, I think that's the best commercial alternative.

Oh no! Terrible soapy and kind of grassy taste when racking to the keg. Don't think it can recover.

Give it some time - mine had this really off-tasting melon flavor that is now completely gone after 2-3 weeks in the keg. I hated the flavor and thought it was the worst I had brewed so far in the past 3 years. Time did wonders though and I now enjoy it very much. Some long time drinkers of my beer have said this is their favorite to date.

down to my last 3 beers... what an awesome recipe , never had the real deal, but def my best brew to date..will be brewing this again asap

LBA4ME said:

Oh no! Terrible soapy and kind of grassy taste when racking to the keg. Don't think it can recover.

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Soapy - Dude that's too bad.

I suppose you don't have extra kegs so you can let this keg sit out of the rotation for a while?

Dynachrome said:

Soapy - Dude that's too bad.

I suppose you don't have extra kegs so you can let this keg sit out of the rotation for a while?

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I do and maybe a couple of weeks in the ferm. fridge at 40 will salvage it.

I monkeyed around with the hop additions and did a fwh along with a 30 minute addition. If I have to dump this one, I'll try again and stick to the recipe in this thread.

Any thoughts on using WLP001 on a TH Clone? It's clean and a little higher attenuating.

how many days do you let it ferment before adding the dry hops in?

Brewed this yesterday. The only problem I had was that I planned for 75% efficiency hit 70%. OG was 1.061.

rack04 said:

Brewed this yesterday. The only problem I had was that I planned for 75% efficiency hit 70%. OG was 1.061.

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same thing happened for me but i planed for 80 and got 86

Brewed this on Saturday. While the boil was going on I poured in a tiny bit of 2H for good luck. Cold pitched my Bell's yeast into 63 degree wort. By Sunday evening it had risen to 68 degrees and stabilized at that temp in my ferm chamber.

Anbrand said:

Any thoughts on using WLP001 on a TH Clone? It's clean and a little higher attenuating.

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Use the search! Plenty of 001/US-05 tries on this recipe.

Just tapped a keg of this I brewed about 4 weeks ago. Made some mistakes like missing my strike temp by 2 degrees (148). I did not boil off as much as I anticipated so my o.g. was 1.053 but nothing too serious. Everyting else went well i think. I used a 2 litre starter with pac-man yeast and fermented in the low 60's. I dry hopped for a week in the primary after two weeks of fermenting time. I used r.o. water with 4 grams calc. chlor. and 4 grams gypsum (first time with water chemistry so please respond if there is something better I can do). I did a fwh with .5 oz. I will make this again and try to improve my process to hit the strike temp better. I think I will fwh the entire first hop addition instead of half. This is the best beer I have made to date and with some small improvements could be even better.

Had a Christmas party saturday and between this belle's clone and Yoopers house pale ale recipe the party was a hit. Nothing but rave revues on both beers. Thanks hbt for all of the information in helping me improve on every batch I complete.

MidnightShift said:

Just tapped a keg of this I brewed about 4 weeks ago. Made some mistakes like missing my strike temp by 2 degrees (148).

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Here's what I use to calculate my strike temp.

Strike Water Temperature Tw = (.2/r)(T2 - T1) + T2 where
r = The ratio of water to grain in quarts per pound.
T1 = The temperature of the grain
T2 = The target temperature of the mash.

For 13 lbs of grain mashed at 1.25 quarts per pound, with grains that are 60 degrees and a desired mash temp of 150, the strike temp = 164.4.

I will heat my strike water to around 175, pour 16.25 quarts (1.25 x 13) of it into the mash tun and preheat it for 10 minutes, then stir if necessary until its 165 degrees. At that point I'll stir in the grains. I'm usually +/- half a degree doing it this way.

Thanks for the info on initial strike temp. That is what I love about this site is there is always good information to soak in.

anybody tried this with WLP023 Burton Ale or WLP004 Irish Ale? i've never had THA since we can't get it in Tejas, but sounds like a good one to brew Christmas Eve.

Not sure what to think about the crazy attenuation I had with this batch. I pitched nottingham ale yeast at 62 degrees F. The OG was 1.061 and the reading I took today after 6 days at 62 degrees F was 1.008. I verified the reading with alcohol adjusted refractometer and temperature adjusted hydrometer. That is ~86% attenuation and ~7% ABV.

That's crazy attenuation with the Notty! Good for this beer though because 7% I think is right where you wanna be.

I just brewed this for the second time this year on Monday. I used bottle harvested Bells yeast that I washed and jarred from the last batch I made in June. I was a little worried about the vitality of the yeast from storing that long but my concerns were put to rest when I got home from work yesterday to find my blowoff vessel full of yeast and burping and gurggling like never before. This yeast was a beast in June and somehow if even stronger this time. I made a 1L started and aerated very well this time. I love this stuff! Think I'm gonna put something on the cake when it finished in a couple weeks just to see an epic fermentation! Whats in this stuff?! lol

I made a batch of this and it was very, very good. 1 keg was drunk at a Christmas party, and it got raves. The centennial is the main actor here.

A second keg got some spanish cedar on it, and it's disappearing quickly, too.

Thanks for this recipe. Must make again, soon.

Kegged a batch of this 6 days ago. Dry hop taste hasn't quite showed up and it is very hazy. Hoping it will clear and develop taste in a few days.

Grain to glass in 12 days. A little haze but understandable for it's age. Still very tasty. Thanks for the recipe.

This recipe is dead on. Mine is quite cloudy but tastes very similar to two hearted. I was a few points low on my og. Left out the carapils and increased the dry hops by .5 oz.