Heady Topper- Can you clone it?

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Could be true, I guess. But I wouldn't say the yeast in my recent HT had a strong effect on the flavor since I primarily tasted the distinct dank hops like Columbus, followed by the slightly toasty/bready/complex Pearl malt base. Some fruityness was there, but I attributed the flavor more toward a fruity hop like Amarillo than the yeast itself, both of which I've heard described as "peachy". However, I feel I am able to distinguish hop character from yeast esters. They come across differently. Not doubting the importance of Conan in HT, but for me, I sense the majority of any fruity notes coming from the hops over the yeast. If anything, the yeast helps to accentuate the hops, which are the real star.
 
JBCSL said:
I just opened a can last night and it was loaded with chunks. Maybe like home bottling, when they get closer to the end of the tank they get more sediment in the cans?

Since the yeast has a strong effect on the flavor maybe the taste difference you are getting is dependent on how much of the sediment makes it to that particular can. I'm sure there is a marked difference in the amount of sediment from the first case that is canned to the last.
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I was told by a fellow member who lives near the pub that there are differences depending on if you're on the first can off the line last. I think he said the last cans are full of sediment and they sometimes put them aside for people who want the yeast. Still, they are overall more clear, darker like richer orange, and sweeter now.
 
theveganbrewer said:
I am almost completely convinced it's different now. On the perceived sweetness, it's real, the FG is 1.014, that's high for a dry IPA. Kimmich said that he hates sweetness then brews something that ends at 1.014 on purpose. Doesn't make sense to me. Don't think it was always a 1.014, I believe it was 1.010 at a time. Not sure the reasoning behind the change, maybe they just f'd up a batch when they increased capacity. Don't know. Will have some fresh brews here in a couple days to see if it's still 1.014.
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Cool, I thought the same thing.
I was up there yesterday drinking some fresh Heady and, while the beer is still phenomenal, I thought it might have been lacking something that I tasted in the past. I can't really put my finger on it but something wasn't quite right. But I have had so much heady in the past 2 months (sorry :D ) I thought maybe I was just getting a little overload on it.

-Mike
 
Conan completely is the key to heady, no question about it. I brewed a nice wheat ipa with conan (that I usually do with s05) and it had an incredible heady smell and taste.
 
I had a great chat with Dmitri from bkyeast.wordpress.com the other night, and passed some Conan off to him. I ask him what I figured was probably a stupid question: "Is there any way you tell the ancestry of the yeast by studying it under a microscope?" Nope. The mystery of its origin will remain unless Kimmich decides to tell us. (However, it would be simple to tell if it was a lager yeast, as someone on here previously proposed).

The other thing that's been irking me. How would you select for the intensely fruity esters Conan produces, from generation to generation? Obviously, selecting for higher attenuation or flocculation is relatively straightforward, but selecting for esters would be basically impossible, as far as I can figure. Unless you started with a strain already producing similar flavors.

Despite the second/third-hand reports that Conan may be originally an English strain, I am back to wondering whether Conan may be evolved from what was originally a Belgian strain, as someone argued a while ago in this (or the other HT thread). Actually, a saison strain. This would explain: the fruity esters, the high attenuation, and the low flocculation. Kimmich (or whoever developed Conan) could have pressured the yeast to ferment at lower and lower temps, weeding out the "spicy / phenolic" character and leaving the intense fruitiness.

One possible experiment: ferment Conan much warmer than we all have been, like mid-70's. See if it does indeed act more like a Belgian / saison yeast in that range.
 
I got into a freshie today and am happy to report heady is back closer to normal. I haven't degassed yet or pulled out the refractometer but this is not 1.014 anymore. The weird malt taste is also gone.

Who was it that mentioned acid malt? This can more than any other has some tart/tang to it. I think as well the clone needs more Columbus.

Ive got to go back on the latest recipe if the readings are different,which I expect, this is a totally different beer from january's batch.
 
Sure enough, its back to 1.070-1.010. That's just weird. Its also back under 6SRM, noticeably lighter (just did a side by side with last January can I saved for this purpose). I find it very strange the numbers, taste, and appearance are so different. Doubt a commercial brewery messes that much with the recipe. Bad batch? John even said it was 1.014. We had multiple verifications of that January batch being 1.014 too. Was it a yeast adjustment they do when Conan is on its last legs?

Either he's adjusting the recipe as the number of generations on Conan go up or he's not adjusting and just letting the beer go from 1.010 to 1.014 naturally through the life cycle over 3 months. Does that make sense?

Well I'm going back to old grain bill and new hop bill because those January cans sucked. Simcoe/Columbus/Amarillo ftw. No caravienne either.
 
Wow, I just came on here to look for a Heady Topper recipe having no idea it was some mysterious unattainable holy grail....has anyone come up with a recipe thats halfway similar without getting too fancy? Or even a suggestion for something I might like if I happen to like Heady, without getting too deep into it? Sorry to derail the technical talk, much appreciated!
 
becsbrew said:
Wow, I just came on here to look for a Heady Topper recipe having no idea it was some mysterious unattainable holy grail....has anyone come up with a recipe thats halfway similar without getting too fancy? Or even a suggestion for something I might like if I happen to like Heady, without getting too deep into it? Sorry to derail the technical talk, much appreciated!
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Check first page, first post, it's all the info we have.
 
becsbrew said:
Wow, I just came on here to look for a Heady Topper recipe having no idea it was some mysterious unattainable holy grail....has anyone come up with a recipe thats halfway similar without getting too fancy? Or even a suggestion for something I might like if I happen to like Heady, without getting too deep into it? Sorry to derail the technical talk, much appreciated!
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Basically just culture some Conan yeast from a can of Heady and throw whatever the hell you want in it. Report back.
 
Vegan, was the freshie chunky and turbid? The stuff I got a couple weeks ago had pretty much no floaties at all, and was totally darker. I got malty too, weirdly, but kinda passed it off as it being 10 days old and shipped halfway across the country when I got 'em.
 
NordeastBrewer77 said:
Vegan, was the freshie chunky and turbid? The stuff I got a couple weeks ago had pretty much no floaties at all, and was totally darker. I got malty too, weirdly, but kinda passed it off as it being 10 days old and shipped halfway across the country when I got 'em.
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I had a few chunks in this one and whiter sludge. It tasted like traditional good ol heady. The other was as you described, some weird maltiness. It was an overpowering maltiness. No floaties. I found one more can of old stuff I'll take pics side by side with the new cans tomorrow.

Measurements were 8.5 brix and 1.010 on the new one.

What's your best estimate of canning date on yours nordeast? I'm trying to keep track in case we can't learn what's going on from John.
 
theveganbrewer said:
I had a few chunks in this one and whiter sludge. It tasted like traditional good ol heady. The other was as you described, some weird maltiness. It was an overpowering maltiness. No floaties. I found one more can of old stuff I'll take pics side by side with the new cans tomorrow.

Measurements were 8.5 brix and 1.010 on the new one.

What's your best estimate of canning date on yours nordeast? I'm trying to keep track in case we can't learn what's going on from John.
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First batch he got from me was 12/31 secound was 2/18

Interesting vegan because 12/31 was the first time i ever had canned heady and i would love to try this new batch. Unfortunately i dont think ill be able to get back up there before july. I said that last time so i guess well see.

Last batch i did with conan i kept about 1.5oz of random hops after dryhop in the keg to simulate the trub in can and at the 8% close to 80-100ibu range i could tell no off flavors of grassiness from over 3 weeks in the keg (thank god it last that long) but it kept the taste "fresh"

I think a constant fresh dryhop is whats needed at this point.
Funny enough i just had my first "randall'd" beer today thru local hops at a local brewery and im hooked, plan on making a DIY model and see if i can get this clone up to punch.
 
I had some on Friday. I'd wager it was pretty fresh (I was 15 minutes from the Brewery.). Admittedly I'd had more than a few before it, but I agree it tasted rather sweet/malty for a DIPA/compared to the last time I'd had it. It also tasted smoother than I remember.
 
Here's a possibility we haven't taken into account: Kimmich has been following this thread closely and keeps tweaking the recipe slightly, from batch to batch, just to f*** with us.
 
othellomcbane said:
No offense meant! You can never tell over the internet. This thread is full of crazy theories, after all.
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hehe...me either :mug:
I think at one point(maybe in the original thread) someone suggested the same thing. It's also been suggested that John joined here and is feeding us false info. (might actually believe this because I'm goofy enough to do that)
 
whitehause said:
hehe...me either :mug:
I think at one point(maybe in the original thread) someone suggested the same thing. It's also been suggested that John joined here and is feeding us false info. (might actually believe this because I'm goofy enough to do that)
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That would be kind of hilarious. He is making the #1 rated beer in the world, with a final gravity that apparently fluctuates from month to month, and a top secret yeast strain that HBT's most dedicated homebrewers have only scratched the surface of. He can afford to have some fun.

Seriously though, I often wonder what he would make of this thread, if he stumbles across it. Must be surreal, for a brewer, to have your beer analyzed like this.
 
If the FG does vary every yeast cycle of 3 months, it wouldn't make sense for recipe to change would it? Maybe he just let's it go and accepts flavor changes while keeping recipe the same. Would 3 month old abused yeast push out a 1.014 FG when fresh would do the same recipe to 1.010?
 
theveganbrewer said:
I had a few chunks in this one and whiter sludge. It tasted like traditional good ol heady. The other was as you described, some weird maltiness. It was an overpowering maltiness. No floaties. I found one more can of old stuff I'll take pics side by side with the new cans tomorrow.

Measurements were 8.5 brix and 1.010 on the new one.

What's your best estimate of canning date on yours nordeast? I'm trying to keep track in case we can't learn what's going on from John.
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Hitch covered it, he sent me 12/31 and 2/18. I also got some from earlier in Dec and early Jan of this year. All but the 2/18 was the same ol' HT, the 2/18 were the weird can. I commented this on your Untappd, but what do you think about the possibility that the new canning equip. changed the beer temporarily? Just a thought, but a change we know about paralleled by a perceived change in the beer.
Glad to hear that it's back to normal, I was getting worried that I'd actually made something notably better that Heady Topper. :D

theveganbrewer said:
If the FG does vary every yeast cycle of 3 months, it wouldn't make sense for recipe to change would it? Maybe he just let's it go and accepts flavor changes while keeping recipe the same. Would 3 month old abused yeast push out a 1.014 FG when fresh would do the same recipe to 1.010?
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I think we've figured out that this beer pretty much has to be inconsistent; at least as much so as any other brewery of that size's product is. Which IMO and experience, is that small breweries vary some from batch to batch. Now, with a yeast driven beer (or at least partially yeast driven), slight changes in the yeast from gen to gen would definitely show up in the brew. Now, whether Kimmich adjusts the recipe to keep Heady pretty much consistent through the yeast mutations, or he just says "F it" and lets the yeast make the beer it makes with the same recipe, would be interesting to know.

I also think, for obvious reasons like we discussed before, that any beer made by a brewery of that size is going to show changes from batch to batch, year to year, etc. If this year's crop of Pearl is sweeter and more malt forward that last's, well then Heady Topper is going to be sweeter and more malty. Same goes for the hops.
 
NordeastBrewer77 said:
I think we've figured out that this beer pretty much has to be inconsistent; at least as much so as any other brewery of that size's product is. Which IMO and experience, is that small breweries vary some from batch to batch. Now, with a yeast driven beer (or at least partially yeast driven), slight changes in the yeast from gen to gen would definitely show up in the brew. Now, whether Kimmich adjusts the recipe to keep Heady pretty much consistent through the yeast mutations, or he just says "F it" and lets the yeast make the beer it makes with the same recipe, would be interesting to know.
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I've been reading this thread for a while now, and am very grateful for all the work everyone's been putting in.

My question relates to Vegan's findings on inconsistent FG and Nordeast's comment above: How much variance are breweries allowed when labeling the ABV on their packaging? Heady's cans always say 8%, so if the yeast has higher or lower attenuation from one batch to the next, would they need to make adjustments to the OG accordingly, to meet the 8% target? Or does 8% actually mean some confidence interval around 8%?
 
Coopertown said:
How much variance are breweries allowed when labeling the ABV on their packaging? Heady's cans always say 8%, so if the yeast has higher or lower attenuation from one batch to the next, would they need to make adjustments to the OG accordingly, to meet the 8% target? Or does 8% actually mean some confidence interval around 8%?
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scottland touched base on this concern in post #119
 
Coopertown said:
I've been reading this thread for a while now, and am very grateful for all the work everyone's been putting in.

My question relates to Vegan's findings on inconsistent FG and Nordeast's comment above: How much variance are breweries allowed when labeling the ABV on their packaging? Heady's cans always say 8%, so if the yeast has higher or lower attenuation from one batch to the next, would they need to make adjustments to the OG accordingly, to meet the 8% target? Or does 8% actually mean some confidence interval around 8%?
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I'd think that if they're marking it at 8%, meaning paying taxes on it as such, as long as they're not over that number, they'd be ok. I'm not positive, but there has to be some variation from batch to batch in a brewhouse this size.
 
I think the allowed variance is something like .03%. Hence the reason bud is getting sued for watering down their beer allegedly
 
A quick Google search revealed that the legal tolerance for malted beverages is +/- 0.3% from the stated ABV on the label (according to TTB.gov).

So it's possible that the recipe doesn't need to change, even with variances in Conan's attenuation, and Alchemist can still use the same labeling. Assuming the OG is 1.073, an FG of 1.010 would have ABV=8.3% (apparent attenuation=86.3%); with the same OG, an FG of 1.014 produces ABV=7.7% (apparent attenuation=80.8%).

Might it be that when Kimmich told Vegan that the target was FG=1.014, he was only talking about the target at that time, with less-hungry yeast?
 
My conan quit working at 1.018 in my 1.082 I think it was OG Citra DIPA. I say quit working, as it was down to that in 4.5 days, and I haven't checked it since.
 
FATC1TY said:
My conan quit working at 1.018 in my 1.082 I think it was OG Citra DIPA. I say quit working, as it was down to that in 4.5 days, and I haven't checked it since.
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4.5 days isn't a lot but I'm also having some attenuation issues with the batch I cultured up. First brew I used it on was a 1.056 pale ale that got down to 1.012 and tasted great. Used that same yeast on a 1.073 Heady attempt and it just plain stopped at 1.020. Raised the temp, swirled the carboy, etc. and no change. Thought it was a fluke and had some yeast saved from the PA batch. Pitched that into a 1.060 IPA....again stopped at 1.020. I can't get 'em to drop any further. Mash temp on both was 150...no drama. Confused :-(
 

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