Heady Topper- Can you clone it?

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The issue with not getting it from the can is what generation it is. I'm not saying it's not good stuff, but you know it's a flavorful generation when you prop it from a can. Also there was a post about figuring out what gen it is by the FG of the beer in the can, which I could find that now.
 
Thanks, I read (or possibly made up in my head) speculation that they were going to can it with a different yeast.

Good to know that that's not the case.
 
masonsjax said:
The Yeast Bay's Conan is turning out some great beers for me. I heard the ECY version had some issues, but haven't heard anything bad about any of the other vendors.
Click to expand...


My Heady Clone was fermented with ECY, fermented down to 1.009 from an OG of 1.072. Last dry hop addition this sat, keg and carb next weekend. Hydro sample was very tasty.


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wobrien said:
Thanks, I read (or possibly made up in my head) speculation that they were going to can it with a different yeast.

Good to know that that's not the case.
Click to expand...


There was a rumor going around late last year/early this year that they had changed yeasts, but it was another brewer that got their yeast from the alchemist. It caused a lot of confusion for a while.


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brewski09 said:
There was a rumor going around late last year/early this year that they had changed yeasts, but it was another brewer that got their yeast from the alchemist. It caused a lot of confusion for a while.


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Click to expand...


That's it! At least I'm not crazy...haha
 
Just did a side by side, same aroma, same taste and mouthfeel, but the aftertaste is different. I'm not complaining, I really don't like the hop twang that sits there. This clone doesn't have that so I say you guys improved it.
 
ImageUploadedByHome Brew1405205959.764473.jpg

Heady on left, clone on right
 
My recent clone with 4 tsp gypsum, 1% acidulated malt, and Hopshot for the boil is the best so far. I also got a pH meter so I can really dial it in in the future. At this point I think I'm going to play around with the hops a little and start doing my own thing. I had already changed this recipe up a little bit by substituting Citra, El Dorado, and Galaxy for Amarillo, as well as doing a 50/50 mix of 2-row and Golden Promise rather than Pearl malt, and also dropping the wheat and sugar. I'm thinking I might drop the Simcoe a little bit because I would prefer a little less piney taste.
 
ianmatth said:
My recent clone with 4 tsp gypsum, 1% acidulated malt, and Hopshot for the boil is the best so far. I also got a pH meter so I can really dial it in in the future. At this point I think I'm going to play around with the hops a little and start doing my own thing. I had already changed this recipe up a little bit by substituting Citra, El Dorado, and Galaxy for Amarillo, as well as doing a 50/50 mix of 2-row and Golden Promise rather than Pearl malt, and also dropping the wheat and sugar. I'm thinking I might drop the Simcoe a little bit because I would prefer a little less piney taste.
Click to expand...

Gypsum in the boil?

what pH are you shooting for? I've done 5.2 several times, but I think I am going to bring it up to 5.4

I just did the second stage dry hop for this recipe, but subbed out all of the hops with mostly new zealand tropical varieties. Interested to see how it turns out, and will post once its carbed up.
 
NuclearRich said:
Gypsum in the boil?

what pH are you shooting for? I've done 5.2 several times, but I think I am going to bring it up to 5.4

I just did the second stage dry hop for this recipe, but subbed out all of the hops with mostly new zealand tropical varieties. Interested to see how it turns out, and will post once its carbed up.
Click to expand...

I have a batch fermenting right now..... I used about 7 grams of gypsum in the mash (90% RO Water), this got me to 5.4 pH. I then added another 3 grams of gypsum to the boil. Basically, I wanted to avoid adding to much to the mash and bringing my pH down toward 5.2...... So, I added what it took to get to 5.4 and then added the rest to the boil for the additional hardness and sulfate levels.

This was still not the crazy high numbers that some have been trying out - 350 sulfate maybe...

Gonna dry hop it in the next couple days and should have it carbed and on tap in 10 days or so...... so, we will see.
 
I'm using 4 tsp of gypsum in my mash water to hit the high Ca and sulfate levels that will bring out the serious hop flavor that Heady is known for. That's how much gypsum is needed to hit 700+ ppm of hardness. According to the brewersfriend.com Mash Chemistry and Brewing Water Calculator that gets me to a pH of 5.5. I add 1% acidulated malt to hit a calculated pH of 5.4. I got a pH meter recently so I'll see where I actually am on my next batch.
 
I'm brewing my second attempt at this. I'm brewing it exactly 1 year to the day from the last one.

The last one I didn't add minerals, wasn't controlling for pH, didn't have all the hops and didn't have the hop shot. I'm doing all that now so I'm hoping for a marked improvement.

After much back and forth, I think this is my final water profile:

Ca - 170 ppm
Mg - 18 ppm
Na - 26 ppm
SO4 - 400 ppm
Cl - 55 ppm
HCO3 - 72 ppm

And this is what I'm adding to my tap water to get there:
Gypsum - 2.11 g/gal
Epson Salt - 0.35 g/gal
Calcium Chloride - 0.14 g/gal

That gypsum is around 4 tsp that some are adding (but not as much as was posted on the brew sheet). I'm adding some Mg and SO4 through the epsom salt to not raise the Ca too high. And I'm adding the CaCl at around the same rate as the brew sheet posted is adding.

Anyone see anything crazy with those additions?
 
So I went ahead and brewed as I posted above. Hopefully it turns out okay. Everything went pretty well except my mash pH was 5.6 when Bru'n Water predicted 5.45. I did add additional acid to bring it down to 5.53, but it was probably too late (~25 mins into mash).

I also figured it would be better to add all the hops to the kettle and then filter afterwards and I figured the bag I use for BIAB would be ideal, but there were so many hops, it clogged the bag, so I had to use another bag then that one clogged, so I had to mess with them to get all the wort out, but in the end, I ended up with almost 5 gal, so that's good. Cooling took forever with the warm water we have even using a pre-chiller in an ice bath and putting my kettle in an ice bath. I got it down to 70F and then pitched the Conan. I put it in my Cool Bag and it was down to 65F this morning and bubbling away.

Due to needing it on August 16th for a competition, I will be compressing the dry hopping scheduling, probably dry hopping after 5 days, then doing the second dry hop after another 5 days and then kegging around 15. Of course we have a weekend vacation and possibly moving our house in the middle of that. Ugh, what was I thinking!
 
Your pH might have been fine as the 5.1-5.3 pH John Kimmich suggests is actually 5.4-5.6 at room temperature. Also, that is the pH at the end of the mash. What you really want to do is check your pH at the end of the mash. If it is 5.1-5.3 at 150* or 5.4-5.6 at room temperature you are on target. I mashed based on the brewersfriend.com water calculator saying I needed 4 tsp of gypsum and 1% acidulated malt to get my pH to 5.4, but when I tested the pH, it was 5.3 at room temperature so I will not use acidulated malt in the future unless I am using less gypsum. You can also try doing a small mash (a 9 qt cooler is $10 and perfect for 1-4 lbs of grain) rather than having a full 5 gallon batch potentially be off, but trying to adjust your pH during the mash when you don't know where your pH will end up after the mash isn't a good idea IMO.
 
Thanks for the info, but does the pH really change that much throughout the mash? What I've seen recommended here is to measure at 15 mins. I think the pH was actually 5.63 (target of 5.45 at room temp), so that's why I tried to lower it even though I figured it wouldn't really matter at that point since I was almost halfway into the mash. I know I should do a test mash, but I don't unfortunately.
 
I'm pretty sure it does change, not sure how much. When John Kimmich stated that he shoots for a pH of 5.1-5.3 people on this thread said that he is measuring after the mash at the mash temperature (which equates to 5.4-5.6 at room temperature), but maybe they're wrong.

EDIT:
I looked into it a little more. Someone was saying the mash pH will not change much after 30 minutes, however a lot of people are recommending to check mash pH at 5 minutes. It seems that checking the pH earlier allows for adjustments, but the target pH is at the end of the mash. Maybe someone else who is more of an expert on this can let us know.
 
I wish I remember where the post is but there is a photo of the brew spec sheet for Heady Topper from the Alchemist Brewery posted somewhere here and there is a view of the water profile. Total hardness was like 740.


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Yes but that is the finished beer and since we don't know what the malt contributes we don't know what the starting water profile should be. There was a whole thread about I that I linked to above.
 
I really don't think that being .2 ph points either way will really be evident as much as you think. It's more important to get your hardness up there to keep those hops from hiding.
 
kchomebrew said:
I wish I remember where the post is but there is a photo of the brew spec sheet for Heady Topper from the Alchemist Brewery posted somewhere here and there is a view of the water profile. Total hardness was like 740.


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Click to expand...

Here it is:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f128/heady-topper-video-750-total-hardness-477834/

I think that it is safe to assume that you are looking at high sulfate as others have talked about earlier in the thread. I have brewed this twice and brewing it a third time tomorrow I think. I brewed with about 200 sulfate the first time and 300 the second time (just poured the first couple pints the last day or two). The 300 was a lot better than the 200. I am going to shoot for 400 tomorrow and see what I think of that.

**I have been adding enough gypsum to mash to keep pH at 5.4 and then adding the rest directly to the boil kettle.
 
ianmatth said:
I'm pretty sure it does change, not sure how much. When John Kimmich stated that he shoots for a pH of 5.1-5.3 people on this thread said that he is measuring after the mash at the mash temperature (which equates to 5.4-5.6 at room temperature), but maybe they're wrong.

EDIT:
I looked into it a little more. Someone was saying the mash pH will not change much after 30 minutes, however a lot of people are recommending to check mash pH at 5 minutes. It seems that checking the pH earlier allows for adjustments, but the target pH is at the end of the mash. Maybe someone else who is more of an expert on this can let us know.
Click to expand...
This was asked and answered in the brew science forum recently:
mabrungard said:
+1 for the mash pH more typically rising very slightly during the course of the mashing period. I typically observe a few hundredths rise in pH.
Click to expand...
So I don't think that's enough to worry about.
 

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