American IPA Bell's Two Hearted Ale Clone (close as they come)

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Northern Brewer has a three hearted recipe kit (shown below). If you look at the hop additions for it they use .75 oz at 60 minutes and they are mashing at 153, though the grain bill is different.... I think I'll try the OP's recipe but lower that initial hop addition as he later posted. Going to harvest the yeast from 3 or 4 bottles of their Pale Ale this weekend. I have no erlenmeyer and no stir plate, so I'm going to pour it into a sanitized two liter bottle. I'm thinking of making a starter like on Tuesday and stepping it up Saturday for the Sunday brew day. Any suggestions on that?

Fermentables

* 11 lbs. Rahr 2-Row
* 1 lbs. Briess Caramel 40

Boil Additions

* 0.75 oz. Centennial (60 min)
* 1 oz. Centennial (20 min)
* 2 oz. Centennial (5 min)

Special Ingredients

* 1 oz. Centennial Hops (dry hop)

If you choose dry yeast

* Safale US-05. Optimum temperature: 59-75° F.

If you choose liquid yeast

* Wyeast #1056 American Ale Yeast. Optimum temperature: 60-72° F.

Mash Schedule

* 153° F for 60 minutes
* 170° F for 10 minutes
 
I finally got around to doing this reciupe. I ramped up yeast from a bells amber and becasue I just did 2 10 gallon all grain batches this past weekend I went for a partial boil in the kithchen. Basically all grain with 3# DME to make up for bad eff. and partial boil.

few mondifications:

8# 2 row
2# Munich 10L(all I had)
8oz cara pils
8oz c-20L

1.4 oz centennial 60min
1 oz centennial 15min
1 oz centennial 5 min
1 oz centennial 1 min
1 oz centennial dry hop

partial boil about 4 gallons and will add 3# Light DME at end of boil..calculations come in about 55 IBU's
and OG around 1.066 give or take still boiling so we shall see when I am done.

This is very close to a Stone IPA clone I make that is very tasty..half the crystal malt which is fine im hoping for 1.012ish final gravity
\

Well it has been a bit since I last did a partial mash and my OG was 1.070 so my efficiency was higher than expectyed ..bit bigger beer than 2 hearted I just hope I can get 80% attenuation so it drys out a bit...


J
 
I did a mini mash of this recipe -my first mash ever with 6lbs DME and the vienna in the mash tun, mashed too high and finished high on my FG.

Even with that mistake this is my best beer to date.
 
They don't sell 2 hearts in WA state, unfortunately. But, I drink beer, and can judge for myself if this brew is any good. To date, this is my favorite beer I've brewed. Crisp, fresh, nicely hopped, good abv - all around great. Only problem is, I can't only have just one! (more like 5).
 
I brewed the Northern Brewer Thre Hearted and it was the best beer I made.
I have a large supply of whole leaf hops on hand so I think I may do this receipe in a few weeks.
I'll order everything except the hops from BMW...I just got back from BevMo and no Bells beer there, damn.
 
I had a chat with the quality control manager at Bell's a few weeks ago. He just GAVE the recipe for Two Hearted!! I havn't brewed it yet but i will soon. I think the posted recipe could use a little adjusting. No offense, I think it is probably a great beer.

cheers
 
oldschool said:
I had a chat with the quality control manager at Bell's a few weeks ago. He just GAVE the recipe for Two Hearted!! I havn't brewed it yet but i will soon. I think the posted recipe could use a little adjusting. No offense, I think it is probably a great beer.

cheers
Click to expand...

Why don't you post it?
 
oldschool said:
Keep in mind they shoot for a little less than 60 ibu I try to shoot a little over since mine ususally come out too sweet. And my centennial AA% is pretty low so you may need to adjust. I have not brewed this to tell you exactly how close it really is. View attachment 14884

something i forgot in beersmith. Dude said dryhop heavily. But i guess you knew that
Click to expand...

So no hops for the 1st 30 minutes of the boil? Also, are the 0 minute hops at flameout or did you intend those to be dry hopped?

This is the first 2 hearted clone recipe I've seen with Amarillo hops. I'm drinking one right now and I honestly can't detect them. I guess if this recipe came straight from the source, it must be correct...right?

Last question, did he give you the recipe for a 5.25 gal batch or did you have to convert from something larger?
 
Interesting recipe. I'm surprised at that much crystal malt in the recipe. There's about, what? 7-8% crystal in the OP's recipe? And in this one, over 15%?

And no bittering hops, just late addition? And the amarillo?

Well, I'm no expert on Bell's but it sure seems like that would give a very sweet (albeit hoppy) beer with real grapefruit aroma from the amarillo.

Strangely, I don't get that from Bell's Two Hearted at all. I'd be willing to swear that there are bittering hops in there, less crystal, and no amarillo hops. I hear that Larrry Bell keeps this recipe a closely guarded secret- could it be that someone was pulling someone's leg?
 
By the way, I brewed this (original) recipe again on 1/28/10 and am drinking it now. Literally, right now.

It's great, and I think it's very close to the original. I don't use carapils, so mine is without the carapils, probably subbed more crystal for the carapils, but otherwise the same recipe. I really like this beer! I took it to some friends last night, and they liked it too.
 
I think i posted the wrong text. NO AMARILLO!!! I will correct when i get home. I was in a hurry. Whoops.
 
Here is what the quality manager told me. Nothing is exact. Pale malt, enought crystal to get an SRM of 10, and all centennial. Lots of late additions shooting for IBU mid to upper 50s. Their yeast is ideal but second best would be american ale. Oh yeah...dry hopped. Close enought to play around with until it is right. Sorry for the mix up.
 
Just finished brewing the original recipe using harvested Bell's yeast. Unfortunately, some how broke the thermometer in the boil kettle right when I was chilling. I only broke the tip, not the actually thermometer. I just did some research on this site and found that I am probably fine. I used a metal screen when I filled the carboy, and will obviously be using a secondary and will have to be careful when I rack. Hopefully this is the best, and not the last beer I ever have!
 
It will sink to the bottom of the trub and if you secondary there's not much of a chance of it making to the final bottle or keg.
 
oldschool said:
Here is what the quality manager told me. Nothing is exact. Pale malt, enought crystal to get an SRM of 10, and all centennial. Lots of late additions shooting for IBU mid to upper 50s. Their yeast is ideal but second best would be american ale. Oh yeah...dry hopped. Close enought to play around with until it is right. Sorry for the mix up.
Click to expand...

Living on the west coast, I've never actually had a Bell's. But I did brew this recipe. I thought it was a little too sweet, even though I got great attenuation. Could have been I over did the flavor hops and/or that I used a more British style 2-row.

10 SRM would be different than the recipe given here. I had thought about doing the recipe a little darker, like you are suggesting, using maybe crystal 60 instead of the lighter stuff. Has anyone tried that?
 
I'm all set to brew this for the first time today. A few weeks back I bulk ordered hops, including a pound of 2009 Centennial. I pulled out the package from the freezer this morning and noticed the AA on these are only 5% (not the the 9.5% in the OP recipe). So do I need to effectively double the entire hop schedule including the late and dry additions?
 
HopBomb said:
I'm all set to brew this for the first time today. A few weeks back I bulk ordered hops, including a pound of 2009 Centennial. I pulled out the package from the freezer this morning and noticed the AA on these are only 5% (not the the 9.5% in the OP recipe). So do I need to effectively double the entire hop schedule including the late and dry additions?
Click to expand...

Not the late additions, since you don't get much in the way of bittering anyway, and not the dryhopping. I'd change it like this:
2.25 oz Centennial [5.00 %] (60 min)
1.50 oz Centennial [5.00 %] (15 min)

1.00 oz Centennial (5 min)
1.00 oz Centennial (1 min)
1.00 oz Centennial (Dry Hop 7 days) Hops

That would be around 53 IBUs.
 
I am with your brother... brewing this one today too! Looking forward to it... just mashed in at 151ish.

I have a bunch of Centennial that I bought at the end of last year... (Dec, freezer kept) I have heard that the AA's go down during storage. How much would they lose over the 3 months?
 
I finally did a head-to-head taste test. This beer is very, very close. I'm not sure I could say which is the clone and which is "real". The clone may be ever so slightly darker when I hold them up to the light, one has a coppery glint while one has a golden glint. Otherwise, pretty much identical.

I did the recipe as written, I believe, but did FWH with my 60 minute hops.

Thanks for this recipe! I love it, and will still make it when I have a large supply of centennial hops!

I did some interesting water adjustments- ending up with a fairly balanced sulfate/chloride ratio rather than a heavy-to-sulfate water. I think it worked great in this recipe!
 
I really want to try this for my next brew and have an excess of cascade....do you think I can get away with using cascade for the 60 min addition without really messing up the overall flavor?
 
Im kind of confused by this recipe as it seems a little light on the O.G. Bells has Two-Hearted listed at 1.064 which if it finishes around 1.012 would give you ~7%ABV the only thing im having trouble finding is the IBU's.
 
So i brewed up this bad boy last week and its almost time to transfer to the secondary. Came in perfect on the OG @ 1.064. The color looks good, i did something close to the original recipe, but adjusted the hop additions a little.

10#2-row
2#vienna
.5#crystal20
.5#cara-pils

all .5oz centennial @
60min
45min
30min
15min
5min
1min

and i also used US-05, so we'll see how the taste is but color looks perfect thus far, i compared it to a two hearted i had in the fridge

1z4ctgl.jpg
 
I brewed the recipe as posted two weeks ago. Sampled from primary today and it's great. Is there any good reason the primary is written as "at least 4 weeks"??
 
I can't wait to try this recipe! Unfortunately I just tried another one that was close but it called for 1.5 oz of hops at 60 min. That made it way to bitter and kind of soapy tasting for the TH. So next time I am for sure using this recipe. I don't have much CaraPils(if any) on hand right now... so what would you all bump up to compensate, the Pale Malt or the Vienna?

Also has anyone had luck dropping the 60 min addition? If so to what? I LOVE the TH and really want to get this one close, and personally I think making sure it doesn't have a strong bitter quality to it is key.
 
Mine came out a little pale.....

30589_10150206022465553_790740552_12404821_222818_n.jpg


Still, a fine tasting beer.

Edit: Has really cleared up over the past week.....

DSCN1921.jpg
 
I just brewed this one today after getting in 1lb of hops a couple weeks ago. Vigorous fermentation after only about 5 hours using a triple-stepped starter from the dregs of 2 bottles of the real thing. Wish I drew a bigger hydro sample... this one tastes GREAT! I hit 60 IBUs (11.5% Centennial and was too lazy to convert) so maybe I'll dub this one Two-60...

:off:
First time I did a bulk buy on whole leaf. I didn't want to leave my kitchen! I have always used my vacuum sealer to store using regular vacuum bags, not the mylar stuff. They get REALLY compact then sent to the freezer. How do you store your leftover hops?
 
So here is what I can not figure out.
I made the extract version a while back and could not distinguish it from the real thing.

I go out of town for a few weeks, come back to my keg that is still half full and now it has the taste of amber malt that you get with DF 60min. I expected the hop aroma to be knocked down a bit, and it was, but where the hell did this amber malt taste come from?
It is not such a bad thing having a keg of IPA that goes from tasting like Bells to DF 60min, :) but I can not figure out why...

Any ideas?
It was in the fridge and being drank upon for 2 weeks prior to me leaving town for 2 weeks. Prior to that I did a month long primary at 65F with Safale-05, no secondary,
and dry hop in primary.
It still taste great, but this is damn confusing. I haven't even made the DF clone in several months and this is the only keg of IPA I have right now so it's not like I got them mixed up or anything.
 
My LHBS has Centinnial that is 6% instead of 9.5%. I tried to convert and came up with using roughly 1.6oz of 6% for each 1oz of 9.5%. Can someone who knows what they are doing check my math on this? Given the big difference in alpha acid, would y'all recommend sticking with the centenial or changing to a high AA hops? Thanks in advance for any help. Worth
 
machinelf said:
I've seen more than one extract recipe... can you point to the one you used? Thanks!
Click to expand...

Damn, now I can't be sure, but I am almost positive this was it. (I am not near my computer with beertools)

Light LME-7.5 lbs
Cara-pils .5 lbs
C-20 .5 lbs
Centennial .5oz 60 mins
Centennial .5oz 45 mins
Centennial .5oz 30 mins
Centennial .5oz 15 mins
Centennial .5oz flameout
Centennial 1 oz DH
 

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