Heady Topper- Can you clone it?

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mtnagel said:
Hopefully. I'm entering this in a beer competition coming up.
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Just to follow up, I've kegged this and have had a few pints and it's very good (way better than my first attempt last year). I might say it's my best beer yet in 40 batches. Not attributing it solely to the pH, but I made a few changes to my process that I think helped.

tyke said:
how long for fermentation to begin?
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Not sure if you are talking to me, but using harvested Conan that I made a starter with, my fermentation began very quickly. If not in a few hours, it was bubbling by the next day.
 
trimixdiver1 said:
Did the hardness in the 750 range help?
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My total hardness as delivered was 498 ppm. I don't know what the finished beer total hardness is, which is what the 750 ppm number is.

Anyway, hard to say why this beer is so much better as I made a lot of changes to my process from my 1st attempt last year to this attempt.
 
tyke said:
3 days and no sign of fermentation :( :( :(
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Check your gravities with a hydrometer. If it's truly not fermenting, you have a problem with your process or your yeast. You have only a few posts so you may be a new brewer? If yes I'd suggest making a new thread in the beginners forum, it's very helpful.
 
tyke said:
3 days and no sign of fermentation :( :( :(
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+1 on the gravity reading. What is your wort temp (from the gravity reading)? If you used Conan yeast and it didn't work I would consider cal ale yeast from any manufacturer in its place.

If this is one of your first brews/your first all grain brew then hats off to you. This is a beast to tackle but should end up as a really good beer.


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Well, I brewed up another version of the 4.0 for my 30th birthday party to put on tap in 10 days. I subbed the Pearl for a 50/50 mix of two row and golden promise, as was suggested here before, and I significantly upped (and slightly changed) the dry hop. I just added my first of two charges today with my new stainless dry hopper in my corny and purged with co2. First addition was 2 oz Simcoe, 1 oz CTZ, 1 oz Amarillo, 1 oz Centennial, 0.5 oz Apollo. Second addition will be in about 4 days and will be 1 oz Simcoe, 1 oz CTZ, 1 oz Citra, 0.5 oz Apollo. Should give me more than enough time to force carb at 20-30 psi before the party. The beer came in at 7.8% and was damn tasty and aromatic before any dry hopping.
 
brewski09 said:
+1 on the gravity reading. What is your wort temp (from the gravity reading)? If you used Conan yeast and it didn't work I would consider cal ale yeast from any manufacturer in its place.

If this is one of your first brews/your first all grain brew then hats off to you. This is a beast to tackle but should end up as a really good beer.


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no krausen when i cehcked before work this afternoon. i've brewed a number of times before, and i've never had a problem with fermentation. i'll try a gravity read when i get home.
 
Adaman05 said:
Well, I brewed up another version of the 4.0 for my 30th birthday party to put on tap in 10 days. I subbed the Pearl for a 50/50 mix of two row and golden promise, as was suggested here before, and I significantly upped (and slightly changed) the dry hop. I just added my first of two charges today with my new stainless dry hopper in my corny and purged with co2. First addition was 2 oz Simcoe, 1 oz CTZ, 1 oz Amarillo, 1 oz Centennial, 0.5 oz Apollo. Second addition will be in about 4 days and will be 1 oz Simcoe, 1 oz CTZ, 1 oz Citra, 0.5 oz Apollo. Should give me more than enough time to force carb at 20-30 psi before the party. The beer came in at 7.8% and was damn tasty and aromatic before any dry hopping.
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If you got the pH and hardness right, you should end up with something better than Heady...your friends will be impressed. Anyway, it's possible I was reading the 4.0 recipe wrong with the amount of hops, and 5.5 oz is the total, but until the OP or someone who knows what he did for the 4.0 recipe verifies, we'll never be sure. Anyway, a beer with 9 oz total for dry hops will definitely get your party started, and the second dry hop will make it a bit different from Heady so it will be your own thing.
 
ianmatth said:
If you got the pH and hardness right, you should end up with something better than Heady...your friends will be impressed. Anyway, it's possible I was reading the 4.0 recipe wrong with the amount of hops, and 5.5 oz is the total, but until the OP or someone who knows what he did for the 4.0 recipe verifies, we'll never be sure. Anyway, a beer with 9 oz total for dry hops will definitely get your party started, and the second dry hop will make it a bit different from Heady so it will be your own thing.
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I think it will turn out well. I used Madison tap water, which is very hard, and I used lactic acid to get the pH in the ballpark. I don't measure the pH, and maybe I should, but I've used this semi-recent guide for brewing with Madison water for a while now and all of my hoppy beers have turned out very well as a result.

http://www.madisonbeerreview.com/2011/01/five-gallons-at-time-water-chemistry_10.html

I've tried RO water and building it up, and haven't noticed a difference from my water with lactic, which is just easier.
 
RO isn't needed at all, but I'd recommend at least using a filter as you really don't want chlorine in your beer. I use my municipal water supply, but I'm running through an ionizer with a heavy duty filter that removes chlorine, flouride, and iron. The off the chart amount of calcium and sulfate from the gypsum made a BIG difference for me, so until the guy who wrote that review makes the #1 IPA in the world, I'll take John Kimmich's word over his about gypsum additions.
 
whatever. did a gravity reading, no dice. must have gotten a bad vial? i said '**** it' and pitched some brett c. it's obviously going to be a totally different beer now, but i love brett and i don't even care at this point. i'm moderately pissed about it, though.
 
Tyke, that's a beer I would love to try. A cross between heady and surly's pentagram...


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haven't had anything from surly (aside from the not-so-good collab they just did with de proef), but i did check for fermentation today and the brett is active :D

i still plan on dry hopping just as the recipe calls for. should be a fun beer.
 
I pulled my first dry hops (5.5 oz) yesterday from the awesome stainless dry hopper and sampled the keg before adding the second addition of 3.5 oz. Holy crap, so much aroma already. I can't wait to see what the second addition will do, especially with 1 oz of Citra in there. Oh yeah, the taste was absolutely phenomenal as well.
 
I can't imagine it tasting better than I currently have, but were I to brew another clone, what suggestions would you all have for water additions? I'm primarily interested in the hardness.

I have hard tap water and currently treat it with lactic acid to get the pH in the ballpark and use campden to strip chlorine/chloramines.

Here's my water report from last year: http://www.cityofmadison.com/water/documents/waterQuality/2013_WQ_IOC_UW13.pdf

Some quick and dirty points from the report:

Alkalinity (CaCO3): 312
Calcium: 79
Chloride: 37
Hardness: 383
Sulfate: 19
pH: 7.5
Magnesium: 45

Toying with the idea of adding gypsum, maybe other salts? Water chemistry is rather foreign to me, so any suggestions are appreciated! I have no complaints with my hoppy brews thus far, but just wondering if there is something I should be doing differently with my water. I do not want to use RO and build up.
 
I would consider posing your question in the Brewing Science Subforum.... If your hardness is that high, and your calcium/Sulfate is all that low, is it all coming from Bicarbonate?
I would be leery of brewing an IPA with Bicarbonates in the upper 200's+ and then throwning another 8 grams (2tsp) of gypsum on top of it. It seems like you could potentially get a pretty harsh beer as a result.
I know you said that you did not want to cut your water with RO water, but my guess is, that is what they may tell you in the Brew Science area. They may have some other ideas as well, but I think you will get a more in depth explanation there.
Cheers
 
I got 3rd out of 37 IPAs using this recipe in a local home brew competition. It's the first time I ever placed in the few competitions I've entered. I was pretty happy with that.
 
Adaman05 said:
Just to the mash? None for the sparge water?
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Everyone sparges a bit differently so I don't know what to tell you there. I'm basing it off of a brew sheet from the Alchemist where they are hitting 750 mg/L hardness primarily through the use of Calcium Sulfate. It works for them and it worked great for me. I think the easiest way to mimic what they are doing it to shoot for 750 mg/L hardness with the addition of gypsum for the initial mash, shooting for a pH of 5.4-5.6 at room temperature (5.1-5.3 (at mash temperatures) as John Kimmich states.) I don't add any more gypsum after that because if the 750 mg/L is after the boil, then I would want it a little lower going into the kettle, so any extra sparge water should be equivalent to the boil off. I don't think it's worth it getting too exacting about the hardness. The bottom line is that Heady Topper has a ridiculous amount of calcium and sulfate, and from my experience that was the difference that took my clone to the next level. Of course my water was nowhere near as hard as yours to start, so you may get something different trying to do the same thing.
 
Thanks for the responses. I just tapped my keg and I'm not sure I can imagine it tasting any better, so if I do add gypsum, I may do so in small increments and maybe just try my next batch with 1 tsp in the mash. Upping the dry hop and hopping in a keg with co2 really took this recipe to the next level for me.


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ianmatth said:
Everyone sparges a bit differently so I don't know what to tell you there. I'm basing it off of a brew sheet from the Alchemist where they are hitting 750 mg/L hardness primarily through the use of Calcium Sulfate. It works for them and it worked great for me. I think the easiest way to mimic what they are doing it to shoot for 750 mg/L hardness with the addition of gypsum for the initial mash, shooting for a pH of 5.4-5.6 at room temperature (5.1-5.3 (at mash temperatures) as John Kimmich states.)
Click to expand...

I think what is lost on a lot of people here is that the Alchemist is targeting a final beer hardness of 750mg/L, NOT the starting brewing liquor.

Malt adds significant amounts of Ca & Mg to the beer, so the final calculated hardness ends up being 750ppm. This has been tested by Ward Labs: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/heady-topper-results-ward-labs-481031/

If you are trying to achieve 750ppm hardness via calculation by ONLY by the addition of calcium salts to your strike/sparge water and/or kettle, you are vastly over-mineralizing your water. Remember that the influence of Mg on hardness calculations (as CaCO3) has a much bigger influence than Ca due to their respective atomic weights. This means that salt additions at the Alchemist are in reality considerably more moderate than what is being proposed here, and are more in line with accepted brewing practice.

The way to find out the closest approximation to what the Alchemist is actually doing would be to brew the clone in de-ionized water and have the final beer analyzed by Ward Labs. The CaSO4 and/or CaCl2 additions could then be calculated by difference based on the results obtained for the real thing.

Bottom line is that some homebrewers appear to be adding way too much gypsum, at least if your goal is to truly clone this beer.
 
g-star said:
I think what is lost on a lot of people here is that the Alchemist is targeting a final beer hardness of 750mg/L, NOT the starting brewing liquor.



Malt adds significant amounts of Ca & Mg to the beer, so the final calculated hardness ends up being 750ppm. This has been tested by Ward Labs: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/heady-topper-results-ward-labs-481031/



If you are trying to achieve 750ppm hardness via calculation by ONLY by the addition of calcium salts to your strike/sparge water and/or kettle, you are vastly over-mineralizing your water. Remember that the influence of Mg on hardness calculations (as CaCO3) has a much bigger influence than Ca due to their respective atomic weights. This means that salt additions at the Alchemist are in reality considerably more moderate than what is being proposed here, and are more in line with accepted brewing practice.



The way to find out the closest approximation to what the Alchemist is actually doing would be to brew the clone in de-ionized water and have the final beer analyzed by Ward Labs. The CaSO4 and/or CaCl2 additions could then be calculated by difference based on the results obtained for the real thing.



Bottom line is that some homebrewers appear to be adding way too much gypsum, at least if your goal is to truly clone this beer.
Click to expand...

G-star, I think I may be one of the people confused as to whether the Alchemist is targeting 750 mg/l of hardness in the final beer.

My confusion stems from the brew sheet that is clearly targeting 750 mg/l for the brewing liquor which to me means the starting water, not the finished beer.

Is it impossible to start with 750ppm of hardness in the starting water and end with the same hardness in the finished beer after the contribution from the malt and the effect of fermentation?







Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
 
g-star said:
I think what is lost on a lot of people here is that the Alchemist is targeting a final beer hardness of 750mg/L, NOT the starting brewing liquor.

Malt adds significant amounts of Ca & Mg to the beer, so the final calculated hardness ends up being 750ppm. This has been tested by Ward Labs: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/heady-topper-results-ward-labs-481031/

If you are trying to achieve 750ppm hardness via calculation by ONLY by the addition of calcium salts to your strike/sparge water and/or kettle, you are vastly over-mineralizing your water. Remember that the influence of Mg on hardness calculations (as CaCO3) has a much bigger influence than Ca due to their respective atomic weights. This means that salt additions at the Alchemist are in reality considerably more moderate than what is being proposed here, and are more in line with accepted brewing practice.

The way to find out the closest approximation to what the Alchemist is actually doing would be to brew the clone in de-ionized water and have the final beer analyzed by Ward Labs. The CaSO4 and/or CaCl2 additions could then be calculated by difference based on the results obtained for the real thing.

Bottom line is that some homebrewers appear to be adding way too much gypsum, at least if your goal is to truly clone this beer.
Click to expand...
I know I've tried to say this, but thanks for clarifying for everyone.

GRBC said:
Is it impossible to start with 750ppm of hardness in the starting water and end with the same hardness in the finished beer after the contribution from the malt and the effect of fermentation?
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Yes. See the thread linked above.
 
g-star said:
If you are trying to achieve 750ppm hardness via calculation by ONLY by the addition of calcium salts to your strike/sparge water and/or kettle, you are vastly over-mineralizing your water.
Click to expand...

Thanks for clarifying about the hardness, but IMO it's about the calcium and sulfate rather than the hardness. My gypsum calculations are based on the calcium sulfate they are actually using not their final hardness numbers. They are using close to 18g per 5 gallons. That is over 4 tsp per 5 gallons, but I would suggest that someone who isn't using RO or distilled water should use less.
 
GRBC said:
G-star, I think I may be one of the people confused as to whether the Alchemist is targeting 750 mg/l of hardness in the final beer.

My confusion stems from the brew sheet that is clearly targeting 750 mg/l for the brewing liquor which to me means the starting water, not the finished beer.

Is it impossible to start with 750ppm of hardness in the starting water and end with the same hardness in the finished beer after the contribution from the malt and the effect of fermentation?
Click to expand...

Yes, as mentioned above it is impossible to start and end with the same hardness level, mostly due to the large amount of Mg supplied by the malt. Calcium contributions from the malt are considerably less.

Look closely at the oft-referenced Alchemist brewing sheet and you'll notice that the 750mg/L figure is give as the *target* value. After the analysis of the actual HT was done by Ward Labs, it is clear the brewers are adding enough CaSO4 and CaCl2 dihydrate to achieve a hardness of 750ppm in the final beer, accounting for contributions of Ca and especially Mg from the malt.

The analysis of HT indicated 113ppm Mg, which is equivalent to 465ppm as CaCO3 or 62% of the total calculated hardness (as CaCO3).

The Ward Labs analysis and target brew sheet can actually be used to do a rough calculation of CaSO4 and CaCl2 dihydrate additions. Given the very low starting alkalinity/hardness noted on the sheet, we can assume nearly all Ca can be sourced to salt additions. Given the final Ca value (110ppm) and the amounts of salts added per the brew sheet, one can calculate the approximate batch size and salt/gal addition.

I won't do all the math here (unless asked to show my work), but I get a batch size of about 67 barrels and a dose rate of 0.36g/L gypsum and 0.02g/L CaCl2 dihydrate. That works out to about 7g CaSO4 and 0.5g CaCl2 per 5gallon batch.

Note that if there is significant contribution of Ca from the malt (unlikely), the salt additions would be even lower.
 
Thanks for all the work that's gone into the water chemistry aspect of it. It's definitely helpful. On my way home from the golf course, I picked up one of my favorite DIPAs - Avery Maharaja and tried it back to back with my Heady clone. Of course Maharaja is a different beer, but the hops in it are quite similar - CTZ, Centennial, Simcoe, (Chinook is an outlier).

Not surprisingly, my beer was lighter, yet hazier than Maha. Aroma on mine was more pronounced, yet similar to Maha. And of course, my beer tasted hoppier, brighter, and was more refreshing. Just thought it was cool that my homebrew tasted better than a world class DIPA, but I may be a little biased. And of course they are not the same beers, and I highly doubt Maha was anywhere close to fresh. This was just a comparison I felt like doing on a whim. It's fun making great beer ;)
 
g-star said:
I won't do all the math here (unless asked to show my work), but I get a batch size of about 67 barrels and a dose rate of 0.36g/L gypsum and 0.02g/L CaCl2 dihydrate. That works out to about 7g CaSO4 and 0.5g CaCl2 per 5gallon batch
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Good work g-star. Based on what Heady Topper actually tests at (rather than what the brew sheet says they are adding) it would seem that a little less than 2 tsp gypsum per 5 gallons will get the appropriate calcium and sulfate concentrations of Heady Topper. Maybe John was trying to throw us an off brew sheet unless the malt is somehow sucking up calcium. If I plug the numbers from the Alchemist brew sheet into the brewersfriend water profile calculator it shows over twice the calcium and over three times the sulfate level the Ward Labs test showed, but that is the mash water rather than the finished beer. At the very least I'll probably drop my gypsum addition to 2-3 tsp per 5 gallons for my next IPA until I do some head-to-head batches to see what I like best.
 
I posted in the other thread. Another thought would be that maybe calcium sulfate anhydrous doesn't provide nearly as much calcium sulfate on a gram per gram basis as gypsum, but from what I know about chemistry it should be exactly the opposite.
 
ianmatth said:
I posted in the other thread. Another thought would be that maybe calcium sulfate anhydrous doesn't provide nearly as much calcium sulfate on a gram per gram basis as gypsum, but from what I know about chemistry it should be exactly the opposite.
Click to expand...

The calculations were based on anhydrous calcium sulfate.

There is more calcium in the anhydrous salt than in the dihydrate. It is a simple percentage based on molecular weight:

Anhydrous = 29.5% Ca (40.1g/mol / 136.1g/mol)
Dihydrate = 23.3% Ca (40.1g/mol / 172.1g/mol)

So if using the dihydrate (gypsum), one would have to bump up the addition to 8.8g. Again, this assumes starting from very low hardness water and little calcium contribution from the malt.
 
So any idea how over 18g of calcium sulfate anhydrous per 5 gallons results in only 110 ppm calcium and 156 ppm sulfate? John must be screwing with us.
 
ianmatth said:
So any idea how over 18g of calcium sulfate anhydrous per 5 gallons results in only 110 ppm calcium and 156 ppm sulfate? John must be screwing with us.
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See post #2510, it is clear he is not adding 18g/5gal. The number is closer to 7g/5gal. This would theoretically work out to be closer to 250ppm sulfate, if it was fully soluble in the strike/mash water, but we all know that CaSO4 has limited solubility in water.
 
From this it looks like he clearly is adding 18g/5 gal

HTwater2.jpg
 
tyke said:
how long for fermentation to begin?
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The short answer..."It depends"....so many variables. What yeast did you pitch? Liquid or dry? Did you make a starter? What size starter? What temp did you pitch? You know what I mean? It could start in 2 hours or 48 hours.
 
70ls1nova said:
The short answer..."It depends"....so many variables. What yeast did you pitch? Liquid or dry? Did you make a starter? What size starter? What temp did you pitch? You know what I mean? It could start in 2 hours or 48 hours.
Click to expand...

True but he also determined using his hydrometer that fermentation was not occurring. IIRC, he pitched some bugs instead.
 
ianmatth said:
From this it looks like he clearly is adding 18g/5 gal
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It seems you have trouble with reading comprehension.

The 750ppm number has been shown through testing to be the target beer hardness, after salt addtions AND a large contribution of Mg and to a lesser extent, Ca from the malt.

Back-calculations done using the data on the HT analysis and the actual amounts of salts added to the brewing liquor on that sheet indicate an addition of 7g/5 gallons.

The final Ca and SO4 numbers reported by Ward Labs support this.

There is no way they are adding 18g/5gal. The data doesn't support it.
 

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