What about using ECY29?
Heady Topper- Can you clone it?
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What about using ECY29?
geoffey
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I just reached day 10 on my Heady clone on Sunday and the FG was 1.018. This was easily my best batch ever in terms of temp stability during the mash (specifically not overshooting or running my HLT water hotter than desired to make up for losses from the MT). OG was 1.071, fermenting volume was 6 gallons. I used one vial of White Labs Northeast Ale (Conan) stepped up to a 4 L starter (two steps), and aerated with a Fizz-x (instead of the usual O2 stone). Pitch temp was 64F, fermentation bath was kept at 65.5F, and after 3 days I let that rise to 68F.
I don't think there's much I could have done different. Maybe the rise from mast temp to mashout took too long and unfermentables were generated. Maybe add some yeast nutrient to the wort? The first taste from the fermenter was a bit more bitter than I would have chosen, so I think I'll be okay if it's a little sweeter than normal to balance that.
Save some yeast from this batch and brew it again. I'll think you'll be surprised how low FG gets with second generation yeast.
dstar26t
If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing
Derek of bear-flavored says, "Conan will only ferment cleanly and attenuate for those with the purest of hearts."
Maybe some introspection is in order.
I agree with this. I have started taking my first generation Conan yeast through a 1.040 - 1.045ish type blonde ale or lightly hopped pale ale. This gives me a chance to harvest quite a few jars of pretty clean yeast. I then use those for my APA's, IPA's, DIPA's, etc... I again hold one of the jars back and brew a blonde/smaller APA and repeat.
I have found these second generation (and beyond) ferments to be much more complete and reach that 1.011-1.014 range.
irishrover32
Well-Known Member
i searched white labs northeast ale and couldn find anything, as far as i know they dont do a conan strain, there's an east coast ale but thats not conan, can you elaborate on this. did you mean yeast bay?
He likely meant The Yeast Bay (who has their yeast propagated by White Labs)
This.
I did save a jar of yeast from the fermentation. My plan was to use it for a repeat attempt at an apricot-peach ale, as I didn't like my last one fermented with 1098. The British fruitiness just doesn't taste like what I want in a summer fruit beer. The big change I'm planning besides the yeast is to do a yeast inactivation in the secondary before I add the fruit so it doesn't get dry and tart.
Juno_Malone
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Just got to this thread for the first time...317 pages, wow. Can someone point me towards the recipe that is generally agreed to be the closest thing to Heady Topper at this point? Thanks!
The recipe on the very first page posted by Vegan is the generally agreed upon best one, although there are some who disagree.
Regardless of whether it's an exact clone, the beer is amazing- the best I ever brewed.
I would say bobbrews post #2967 (should be page 297) is the best at this point.
kvistbrygghus
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Hi,
According to the current best recipe on page 1, the steeping don't add any IBU, which in reality is false.
By adding hopshot to 120IBU, then additional hops, you'll end up close to 200IBU, a bit off the original Heady.
Any tips on how to approach this? Is the best to calculate how much the different hop additions yield, and then use hop shot to obtain a total of 120IBU?
Apologies if this has already been answered, but after reading through quite a few pages, I decided to post a question..
Cheers from Norway
According to the current best recipe on page 1, the steeping don't add any IBU, which in reality is false.
By adding hopshot to 120IBU, then additional hops, you'll end up close to 200IBU, a bit off the original Heady.
Any tips on how to approach this? Is the best to calculate how much the different hop additions yield, and then use hop shot to obtain a total of 120IBU?
Apologies if this has already been answered, but after reading through quite a few pages, I decided to post a question..
Cheers from Norway
Generally agreed upon by whom? That attempt is over 2 years old. It produces a fine beer, but it is not a clone for HT... not even close. There are also no boil (hop) additions in Heady.
Agreed. This recipe is closer to the real thing. The problem is that this is such a complex beer that more tweaking and research is needed. Even bobbrews agreed to that.
Bamsdealer
Well-Known Member
Don't worry about overhopping. The beer will hit it's saturation point below 120 ibus. You really can't tell any difference between 120 and 200 ibus.
I like the grainbill. Obviously, conan is the yeast. I have never felt like the hops were really in line with Heady. As mentioned.... you aren't going to get 200IBU's..... no matter how it calculates. You will get some bittering with the whirlpool, depending on how long it sits above 185 or so.
My latest attempt is at about day #7 in the fermenter...... I took the easy way out on the hops. Did the hop shot at 60, and then I took the following hops, put them all in a gallon ziplock, mixed them up thoroughly and basically turned them into a blend, and then added 4 oz. at flame out, 5 oz. in a sub 180 hopstand/steep for 45 minutes. The last 5 ounces I am going to use in a 2 stage dry hop - About 60% went in at day #7 of primary. I will add the last 40% will go in around day #12 or so.
4 oz. simcoe
2 oz. columbus
2 oz. Galaxy
1.5 oz. Amarillo
1.5 oz. Centennial
1 oz. Ahtanum
1 oz. Apollo
1 oz. Comet
Not sure what I will get..... but that is what I tried. Will give it a taste in 3-4 days out of the fermenter.
Some people get so hung up on this. Our scales are completely different so it makes sense that the process will be different. Just because you don't match one tiny detail of the process, doesn't mean the beers won't be close enough.
That is awesome. I like the simplicity.
Not sure where to post this, but another beer that home brewers should attempt to clone is Fiddlehead Brewery's Second Fiddle. I sometimes think it's even better than the Heady Topper! less IBU's (80), little more ABV (8.2), lots of citrus, little resin, and pine. Very drinkable. Nothing beats that freshness The Alchemist gets into that can, but sometimes I think Second Fiddle is a little smoother, and taste just as good. Only negative is that it ALOT harder to get. What do you guys think? Just trying to start some conversation. Going to try a variation on the Heady Topper clone posted. Going to add some Nugget, and Mossaic to get some more grassy, resiny, and citrus notes. Also, have some Conan yeast being delivered, just hope the website I got it from is reliable.
Hey guys I've been reading this post off and on and there's a lot of good stuff on here. I just wanted to point out a few things that I heard on a couple podcasts from John Kimmich himself. He states that Heady Topper is 75 ibus on the Under My Host podcast. Then on The Tap Handle show podcast he says that his wife can't drink beers with wheat so there isn't any wheat in Heady and I believe all his hoppy stuff. I'm not sure if this has been covered in this thread so I apologize if so. Cheers!
Vegan confirmed the 75 IBUs (lab tested), but the wheat comment is new, IIRC. Nice work!
I'll try this one with my next HT go around. I have done the Vegan clone twice and it's excellent, but not quite HT.
The thing is... which HT are we comparing these recipes to? The actual HT changed quite a bit from the first can I ever had (winter 2012-3) to the last (about a year later). It might taste very different now.
I will be brewing this tomorrow. At least the NB all grain kit version. Very excited to have it on tap again soon.
Well, transferred this to a secondary keg today. Spent about 12 days or so in primary. I threw in 2-3 ounces of the dry hop at about Day 7. I am trying this strategy for a secondary, and second stage of dry hop - http://www.bear-flavored.com/2014/09/how-i-dry-hop-my-ipas-with-no-oxygen.html
It tasted great out of the fermenter. Hoping the second dry hop will make it even better. I will probably give it a day at room temperature and then throw it in my chest freezer and drop it to 33-35 for 2-3 days before transferring it, under pressure to another keg for carbing.
It is not heady topper..... Color is pretty well there. Grain bill is great..... Hops are awesome as well - but it just is not the same hopping as heady. More Centennial I think for sure. Maybe more columbus??
It is a dank, tropical bomb though. Seemed to work well to just turn all the hops into a blend.
I'm trying to clone the farmhouse kit version using the NB kit version. I'm pretty confident.
copper2hopper
Well-Known Member
Can someone help me out with the water profile on this one? I'm trying to really elevate the sulfate level on this one obviuosly so I know I wanna add plenty of Gypsum (20 grams currently plugged in) but with the water profile I have and will be brewing with (Yorkville Illinois water cut with distilled water), it gets my Calcium level really maxed out on the EZ calculator in the 140's and the RA to -179 (should I really be concerned about the RA on this on any recipe really for that matter?). In addition to this, when I plug in an additional 8 oz of acidulated malt it only calculates out to my room temp ph to be 5.48. Do people here have an issue with EZ water calculator to be "off" by .2-.3ish?
Here are the mineral additions I did on my 2nd attempt. That one won 3rd place out of 37 IPAs. I just brewed it again a couple months ago and I went with 350 ppm sulfate for some reason.
I use Bru'n Water and find it to be pretty much spot on. I think it helps that the water profile doesn't fluctuate a lot locally (from what I understand).
Also, I'm only focusing on the pH I want at the moment. My water is fairly hard and has a lot of Bicarbonates. Once I get the pH where I want I might start messing with a few additions for flavor or mouthfeel on rebrews, but I'm keeping it simple at the moment. From what I've read in this and the Hill Farmstead thread, pH is the most important and then the rest is salt and pepper to get where you want. Personal thoughts there though.
Good luck!
Also, I'm only focusing on the pH I want at the moment. My water is fairly hard and has a lot of Bicarbonates. Once I get the pH where I want I might start messing with a few additions for flavor or mouthfeel on rebrews, but I'm keeping it simple at the moment. From what I've read in this and the Hill Farmstead thread, pH is the most important and then the rest is salt and pepper to get where you want. Personal thoughts there though.
Good luck!
My batch seems to have stopped at 1.015. It doesn't taste the greatest but I haven't dry hopped yet. And I wasn't crazy about it last time at this point either and I thought it was awesome on draft. 1.015 seemed quite high to me but I'm seeing several folks reporting 1.018 on first generation. I'm planning to brew another IPA batch this coming weekend to see what my second generation experience is. I've read that attenuation gets better, and also that it gets worse. Should be a fun experiment.
Thanks for the info. I'm gonna try to run this one through several generations this summer.
Sry im to lazy to read the whole thing but can someone tell me why u guys are 2 stage dry hoping for 8 days. I thought u get all u can from hops in just a few day of dry hopping. And what exactly is the process and benefits of 2 stage, do u do first hop when fermenation is almost done and then second a few days beofre kegging?
geoffey
Well-Known Member
I sealed mine up and hit it with a blast of co2 the other day. Came back today to start dry hop and it had already developed some carbonation. So I set up half the dry hop in the keg and did a force transfer "jump" and put it in the kegerator. Tastes decent but it's gonna need the dry hops. Doesn't have that hoppy juiciness yet and we'll see if the "keg hop" approach will get me there.
Thought some might be interested to see lab results for a clone put together using this thread. The results can be found in post #42 in this thread
Vital specs:
OG - 1.074
FG - 1.014
IBU - 120
Yeast - ECY29
Batch size - 5.25gal
Water treatment:
Carbon filtered, 22g CaSO4 in strike water, sparge water left untreated. My tap water was:
Ca - 22
Mg - 6
K - 2
Na - 20
Cl - 35
SO4 - 13
HCO3 - 68
Vital specs:
OG - 1.074
FG - 1.014
IBU - 120
Yeast - ECY29
Batch size - 5.25gal
Water treatment:
Carbon filtered, 22g CaSO4 in strike water, sparge water left untreated. My tap water was:
Ca - 22
Mg - 6
K - 2
Na - 20
Cl - 35
SO4 - 13
HCO3 - 68
dstar26t
If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing
Thanks for that.
How much strike water did you use and what is your efficiency into the kettle?
How much strike water did you use and what is your efficiency into the kettle?
4.77gallons of strike water, efficiency into the kettle was 70%.
My goal was to hit 750ppm (calcium) hardness through gypsum additions alone in the mash, per the screen cap of the HT brew sheet that is floating around. Given minor variations in process, malt crop, and recipe, I would say that my results are pretty close to the real thing, at least in terms of ion profile.
View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1436470218.189819.jpg
Drinking my most recent attempt, a NB kit. It tastes great but it's missing the crazy hops in your face aroma. I rushed the dry hop and did most of it cold to get it ready for today. Next time I'd do the first dry hop at least warm. Last time I had more of the great aroma.
Drinking my most recent attempt, a NB kit. It tastes great but it's missing the crazy hops in your face aroma. I rushed the dry hop and did most of it cold to get it ready for today. Next time I'd do the first dry hop at least warm. Last time I had more of the great aroma.
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