Heady Topper- Can you clone it?

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Sorry guys, I postponed attempt 2 of Eddy Topper on Saturday night. There was a fresh cake of ECY08 staring me in the face and an assortment of Saaz, Belma and Naked Golden Oats that needed to be morphed into a Saison.

:(
 
NordeastBrewer77 said:
Not to be "that guy", but I think you should really go back read through this thread, and the thread in General Beer Discussion that preceded this thread. :mug:
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I have been following both. Last I remember vegan was still adding Munich as a small percentage of the grain bill and now he says its not in there...
 
It seems our definitions of reliable sources are quite different. When someone says they confirm something, that usually denotes a degree of certainty, i.e. info from someone who actually knows, and not from someone who thinks they taste something.
 
dbennett78 said:
I have been following both. Last I remember vegan was still adding Munich as a small percentage of the grain bill and now he says its not in there...
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skibb said:
It seems our definitions of reliable sources are quite different. When someone says they confirm something, that usually denotes a degree of certainty, i.e. info from someone who actually knows, and not from someone who thinks they taste something.
Click to expand...

Hmmm, apparently the both of you need to go back and re-read some more. Not just skim, but re-read the threads. I think you'll find that his sources are fairly reliable.... but maybe that's just me. ;)

Remember, there was an extremely long thread in the GD forum that preceded this Recipe thread.


I just pulled a pint of my clone to have with lunch. Still needs to carb more, but good enough set to 40 psi overnight plus the co2 during dry hop. Damn close, aside from needing to tweak the hops to get more dank and less fruit, damn close. I'm going from memory, but it does seem a tad drier than HT, and definitely more bright hops and less dank/pine. I think I will try the caravienne in place of carapils and adjust the hops for more diggety for the next attempt!
 
I highly doubt the validity of those sources and the overall sensibility of the clone attempts... Plus it doesn't say Munich or Oats are definitely NOT used.

http://www.maltosecart.com/india-pale-ale/heady-topper-clone/

"Our recipe has over 9 ounces of hops spread over 6 hop additions." (What happened to the original plan of definitely no middle additions, a large bittering and large 5-0 minute addition, plus dryhop?? 9 total hop ounces seems severely weak for a proper HT clone)

"IBU: 105" (You previously said it was 120 IBUs Tinseth... I think it may possibly be even higher, theoretically)

"Liquid Yeast: Wyeast Activator or White Labs" (presumably Cali Ale yeast, and not harvested Conan)

"Specialty Grains" (I think of already converted grains, like crystal and honey malt when I read this vague term which we know HT does not contain)

http://byo.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=2808:hop-stands&Itemid=167

"15 lbs. British pale ale malt" (Nice specificity... 15 lbs. minus everything else also seems awfully high for a 5.5 gallon batch of HT).

"4.0 oz. Caravienne" (What happened to definitely no crystal malts?)

"1 lb. Sucrose" (There was also a high doubt that simple sugars were even in this beer)

"Mash at 155 F for 40 minutes" (That's nutty)

"White Labs WLP001 or Wyeast 1056 (American Ale) yeast" (1.5 qt./~1.5 L yeast starter) or Lallemand BRY 097 or 1 sachet Safale US-05 yeast at 65 F" (Just plain wrong)

"19.5 AAU Simcoe® hops (30 min)" (This is the first hop addition. Strikes me as odd considering Alchemist's website says this beer is well over 100 IBUs and you said they use hop extract)

"Citra in the dryhop" (Definitely not included, sorry)

Not to knock you or benney, but I think that our collective brainstorming and individual attempts will yield more accurate results.
 
Oh yeah, internet. No photo, no happen.....

HPIM2060.jpg

BLAAAM!!
 
I have never tried the kit, talked to the owners, or seen any of the ingredients. Benney sent me the link and I thought it was pretty cool since I didn't know any clone kits being commercially available. There have been a number of posters here interested in trying a clone, thought they might be interested since the guys who did it wrote the huge clone books that a lot of us have read.
 
Doing the same thing with my Pliny clone Nord, just put on the keg last night.:mug:

Got a few irons in the fire to get some Heady and get this project started after 2 months now. I know someone a while back(in the old thread) said they were using some honey malt. Anyone else try this? Was at the LHBS and picked up a pound just to have on hand. Didn't know if this was tried and tossed, or if it had some success.
 
whitehause said:
Doing the same thing with my Pliny clone Nord, just put on the keg last night.:mug:

Got a few irons in the fire to get some Heady and get this project started after 2 months now. I know someone a while back(in the old thread) said they were using some honey malt. Anyone else try this? Was at the LHBS and picked up a pound just to have on hand. Didn't know if this was tried and tossed, or if it had some success.
Click to expand...

Skinnypete was the guy who did it with honey malt. He did an excellent write-up of his results in the other thread, found here:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/heady-topper-310445/index75.html#post4856008
 
whitehause said:
Doing the same thing with my Pliny clone Nord, just put on the keg last night.:mug:

Got a few irons in the fire to get some Heady and get this project started after 2 months now. I know someone a while back(in the old thread) said they were using some honey malt. Anyone else try this? Was at the LHBS and picked up a pound just to have on hand. Didn't know if this was tried and tossed, or if it had some success.
Click to expand...

Hmmm, never thought of honey malt in this. But it may be worth trying in very small amounts. Honey malt always comes across very sweet to me, sweet like middle L caramels, so I'm not sure it'd be in HT. To me, at least, honey malt stands straight out in a beer, and I didn't get that from HT. That said, I do think there's some specialty malt in there providing just a touch of malt sweetness, a tiny bit of honey malt would definitely be worth trying.

Or.... you could just listen to the dude who beat me to the punch with links and all.
 
NordeastBrewer77 said:
Hmmm, apparently the both of you need to go back and re-read some more. Not just skim, but re-read the threads. I think you'll find that his sources are fairly reliable.... but maybe that's just me. ;)

Remember, there was an extremely long thread in the GD forum that preceded this Recipe thread.
Click to expand...

To be fair, though, these people were asking about Munich no longer being in the recipe. They weren't asking the sources of everything. A couple days ago, vegan said Munich was definitely not in it but gave no explanation why, could easily have been a difference source than previously, and they asked where he heard that, that's all.
 
libeerty said:
To be fair, though, these people were asking about Munich no longer being in the recipe. They weren't asking the sources of everything. A couple days ago, vegan said Munich was definitely not in it but gave no explanation why, and they asked where he heard that, that's all.
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This and last I read Amarillo was still a fairly hotly debated hop and he said it was for sure in there
 
I'm sure there is Amarillo in there.. how much, well thats up for debate.

People seem to think there needs to be more piney/resinous/earthy dankness to the beer, but still with some citrus.

I think the Simcoe and Columbus need to be upped to make that happen. Columbus is dank as hell in a dry hop.
 
FATC1TY said:
I'm sure there is Amarillo in there.. how much, well thats up for debate.

People seem to think there needs to be more piney/resinous/earthy dankness to the beer, but still with some citrus.

I think the Simcoe and Columbus need to be upped to make that happen. Columbus is dank as hell in a dry hop.
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I agree that Amarillo is likely to be in there. And even if it is not, it still may make it taste more like HT than without it. That's why, I think, it is okay for BYO to put Citra in it for their clone, or for the other kit to use WLP001.. the goal isn't to pinpoint every detail in the recipe as much as the goal is to create a beer that tastes just like it.
 
FATC1TY said:
I'm sure there is Amarillo in there.. how much, well thats up for debate.

People seem to think there needs to be more piney/resinous/earthy dankness to the beer, but still with some citrus.

I think the Simcoe and Columbus need to be upped to make that happen. Columbus is dank as hell in a dry hop.
Click to expand...

That's where I'm stumbling. Everything I've read from clone attempts with Amarillo say they added too much. So I don't know what the threshold is for too much Amarillo or what flavor is too much that they are assigning to Amarillo. The guy who made the recipe that's in BYO had Amarillo in his first attempt and then removed it for Citra/Apollo. Not sure why.
 
Bob did make all very good points in post #89.

We're better off discussing and attempting further than to believe a few links at face value when there is obviously so much wrong with the details we do know about this beer.
 
EyePeeA said:
Bob did make all very good points in post #89.

We're better off discussing and attempting further than to believe a few links at face value when there is obviously so much wrong with the details we do know about this beer.
Click to expand...

It need not be an either/or proposition. Folks can make a clone recipe strictly based off of Post #1, or they can pick-and-choose. I don't think anyone--veganbrewer or anyone else--is saying, "Hey, trust my previous attempts, and do not brew a clone without accepting everything I am claiming." The information is here to use it if you want it.

I, for one, want to make a clone so I can see for myself how it should be changed to get closer to HT. Not because I don't believe everything that has been said, but I want to do it myself.
 
libeerty said:
I, for one, want to make a clone so I can see for myself how it should be changed to get closer to HT. Not because I don't believe everything that has been said, but I want to do it myself.
Click to expand...

All the more reason to have a thread like this where we can communicate with one another and say, "This beer definitely has Amarillo and Conan and here are the sources." And also, "I personally had more accurate results using 3 oz. total Amarillo and fermenting Conan at 63 degrees than I did when I used 6 oz. of Amarillo and fermented at 67 degrees. What are your experiences?" Now wouldn't this get you a bit closer than just doing it yourself with no prior solid information from your peers, blogs, articles, and the brewery?
 
Anyone in here have experience doing 1-gallon recipes from scaled down 5-gallon ones? Would that be something worth looking into try a few different hop schedules and trying to narrow down the grain bill a little more? I was going to do a full 5 gallon tomorrow, but have some 1-gallon jugs lying around I could do smaller batches in. I'd imagine you have to mash in a regular pot or in a grain bag?
 
EyePeeA said:
All the more reason to have a thread like this where we can communicate with one another and say, "This beer definitely has Amarillo and Conan and here are the sources." And also, "I personally had more accurate results using 3 oz. total Amarillo and fermenting Conan at 63 degrees than I did when I used 6 oz. of Amarillo and fermented at 67 degrees. What are your experiences?" Now wouldn't this get you a bit closer than just doing it yourself with no prior solid information from your peers, blogs, articles, and the brewery?
Click to expand...

Yeah, I think that is what is happening. Not sure your point, but it seems moot anyways.
 
My Pliny throws a little pineapple and that only has Columbus, Simcoe,Centennial. I'm trying to figure out the dank as well.
 
Went to the brewery today to pick up some Heady. Noticed one fermenter at 54 and the one right across from it was at 45. They were brewing that day and when I got there it was around 4. Anyway I got a pic of a portable pump that had a keg on top. They were running something into it and back out. The keg had steam coming from it. Maybe a hop rocket type setup? Also in the way back by the boil kettle there was another smaller container with steam coming from it. Anyway, thought I'd post it up hopefully it helps you guys.

 
snail said:
Went to the brewery today to pick up some Heady. Noticed one fermenter at 54 and the one right across from it was at 45. They were brewing that day and when I got there it was around 4. Anyway I got a pic of a portable pump that had a keg on top. They were running something into it and back out. The keg had steam coming from it. Maybe a hop rocket type setup? Also in the way back by the boil kettle there was another smaller container with steam coming from it. Anyway, thought I'd post it up hopefully it helps you guys.

Click to expand...

Nice! You gotta jump the wall and get in there man. Run until you find a bag of hops or something. Steam coming out of a keg must be some sort of hot whirlpool, no? The other fermenters being so low is interesting. So the tank there on the left, with the clear tube coming out of it, was at 54?

A lot of us are getting fruity, florally results fermenting at 62. Wonder if they are fermenting lower than that. Conan is a tough nut because there are no temp guidelines for it. We're already fermenting at the low end for ale strains.
 
I couldn't really see where the hoses and stuff were going to from the keg/pump combo. I'm assuming it must have been the conical. It looks like the keg is a bottom draining vessel. I wonder if there is a false bottom or something in it and they use it as a hop rocket type thing. At one point one of the workers grabbed the hose going into the keg and kinda moved to spray whatever was in it (again assuming hops).

The fermenters line the left and the right. There is a half-wall that you look over. The closest fermenter to me on the left read 54 and the one on the opposite side read 45. On one of the signs that describes the brewing process it said once most of the sugars are digested the yeast starts to settle to the bottom of the tank. This is when we chill the beer to 40 deg F to encourage settling. We condition 2-3 weeks before it is packaged.

So maybe the 45deg one was being chilled ?

edit: Oh and the whole building smelled like amazing hops from brewing!
 
Seems like it is a hopback. Not sure we've ever had evidence of one running there, thank you for posting. Possibly similar to this setup:

 
Last edited by a moderator:
After looking closer at the pic,the other possibility is that it's a cleaning or sanitizing solution that's being pumped through the tanks. The red hose coming out of the pump system looks similar to rubber hot water line. After watching Vegans Vid though.....?????
 
My contribution tonight is this, a pic from a gravity reading of the real Heady Topper, degassed, at calibration temperature of a calibrated hydrometer. Taken last night.

2zdvorp.jpg


1.014. An explanation of why there is a sweetness none of us can quite explain? This changes the recipe a bit. OG higher, FG higher, mash temp, etc. I can also confirm target gravity of the real Heady Topper is 1.014. I did this test to ensure I wasn't being thrown off the trail. I'm not sure if the recipe was changed over the past year or two, or if the guy who degassed on the beeradvocate thread initially and found 1.010 was wrong, but it's 1.014 now.

I know some of you might not trust my source, but they led me to this information, I check and verified.
 
Keep in mind breweries have ranges that are considered acceptable. They could be shooting for 1.012-1.014. Or 1.014 to 1.016. Who knows.

Personally, I've never had the beer, so I can't contribute on that front. But know that you have 1/2 Plato (.002sg) worth of leeway.
 
To the point where you think you are completely ridding the C02, will degassing a cold sample of beer that has been can conditioning for awhile yield dead accurate FG results when using a hydrometer? Maybe not. We need more than just two experiments, one on BeerAdvocate (1.010 FG) and the other on Homebrewtalk (1.014 FG) to come to a solid conclusion.
 

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