Heady Topper- Can you clone it?
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theveganbrewer
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No I'm out in Oregon. But someone sent me a pm a while ago about maltose and the clone so I emailed and called them probing for info and tried to bargain for tips before I knew they weren't close on the recipe.
My mom bought me one of their Clone books for xmas. I haven't tried any yet. So you're saying they aren't very good at cloning or just way off on HT?
aiptasia
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My question is, why would you want to clone it?
There are three beers that are so over-hyped to the point of ridiculousness and HT is one of them. Granted, it's not a bad beer, but it isn't exactly a flavorful standout beer either. There's nothing unique about it. Nothing.
The other two beers IMHO are over-hyped are Pliny and Zombie Dust. Even though none of the breweries that produce these beers distributes to my area, I do taste them fairly often at local bottle shares. They're just underwhelming to me, and I think, "Really? People obsess over these beers?! Por Que?!"
IMHO, Lagunitas Sucks 2012-2013 was the mass produced commercial IPA of the year.
There are three beers that are so over-hyped to the point of ridiculousness and HT is one of them. Granted, it's not a bad beer, but it isn't exactly a flavorful standout beer either. There's nothing unique about it. Nothing.
The other two beers IMHO are over-hyped are Pliny and Zombie Dust. Even though none of the breweries that produce these beers distributes to my area, I do taste them fairly often at local bottle shares. They're just underwhelming to me, and I think, "Really? People obsess over these beers?! Por Que?!"
IMHO, Lagunitas Sucks 2012-2013 was the mass produced commercial IPA of the year.
Troll alert 
Remmy
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I live one town over from Maltose. I've brewed 3-4 of their kits this summer. I was really looking forward to brewing the Sculpin IPA clone because I love the original (made by Ballast Point). What I got was a solid, solid beer. But nothing close to the real Sculpin. No hints of grapefruit and not a lot of citrus.
I am going to brew the Heady kit I got from them last week. But after hearing some things about it, I am not so sure the outcome will be anything close to the real Heady. For this reason, I plan to save my Conan yeast and use it for a BETTER clone of HT. I will use Wyeast 1056, which is what Maltose recommends for its Heady clone, when I brew.
I'm expecting this beer to be a solid IPA without any real identity.
Troll alert
Haha right? I feel like we have to answer this question over and over to people...why even bother coming into this thread if you aren't interested in cloning Heady, and then furthermore ask a question that has been answered multiple times in this very thread ... sigh
libeerty
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Oh man. What a bunch of time we have wasted. Thanks for letting us know!
What a troll. "Look at me, I'm a contrarian. My tastes are so superior to the thousands of people who love Heady Topper. 'Paranormal Brewing' makes beer so much better than anyone else. Why do people flock to VT for HT when they should be coming to me! I do not understand it!"
You know what's truly scary? The fact that you don't think you're a troll. But mostly the fact that you think your opinions are facts, which must make going through daily life very difficult as everyone around you must think you're completely obnoxious. Absolutely one of those "Well, actually..." people that everyone rolls their eyes at. A trait which usually comes from deep-rooted insecurities.
Coff
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I'll bite.
Everyone has different tastes, its not an exciting beer to you but to others its one of the best. Thats part of what makes beer so much fun, exploring everything and finding out for yourself what you like and dont like. Hype is a good thing or else you wouldnt even search out these hard to find beers to find out for yourself.
Then add our obsession for homebrewing into the mix and loving a beer so much that you want to clone it, plus the fact that there is no recipe out there, makes the challenge even more fun.
Sucks was an awesome beer, I prefer Heady however.
Wow! Excellent post! We need to copy this to the numerous other posts about over hyped beers!
Though I do have to agree that lagunitas sucks is an AWESOME beer, though I do plan on having my first heady tonight so I will see!
Thanks for the info. I planned to brew some of their beers from the book I just haven't gotten to them yet.
And BTW, you can use the Conan more than once. I've started always making a bigger starter than needed (or more steps) to make enough cells to always keep ~100 b extra and then split it off to pitch some and keep some so that I always have it. In fact, I always have 2 portions of Conan just in case something happens with one (infection, I drop it, etc). Or you could always wash the yeast after brewing with it.
libeerty
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Making a bigger starter would be so simple. That is advice I have read before and always forget to do. Not sure why I never do it, always forget. Such an efficient way to do things. Thanks for the reminder!
It does usually require planning pretty far ahead, which I know can be difficult. Especially for 5 gal of mid to high gravity beers. I've started making smaller batches, like just now I have a Conan starter going that I'm using in the HT clone, but I'm only doing 2.5 gal, so I made a 1.8L starter, which will be good enough to split off for the batch and to save some. I made the starter on Tues and I'm brewing on Sunday. I'm fermenting for 2 days and crashing the rest.
I also use the continuous starter method. I've had the same starter of Conan going for the last 4 batches. I keep everything in the same flask, continuing to step it up, then pitch most, then step up, then fridge it for a week or so, then step it up, then pitch most, then fridge, etc...I think I had the same starter going in the same flask for a period of 6 weeks or so. I finally got around to boiling a mason jar and keep whatever Conan I had left in the fridge. Its amazing how easy it is to reuse yeast this way and how much money you save which is the biggest benefit to me personally.
Oh and 2 of the last 4 batches were DIPAs and they both went down to 1.012 so you know the yeast are staying healthy and active in the starters.
Oh and 2 of the last 4 batches were DIPAs and they both went down to 1.012 so you know the yeast are staying healthy and active in the starters.
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theveganbrewer
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I'll echo what Remmy said, very good beers, but not really accurate clones. They are missing just about every ingredient in Heady. Now, you could probably get away with that and be close if you had Conan, maybe, but with no caramalt, no pearl, no wheat, I would be shocked if it was Conan. Great beer it might be, but probably a little disingenuous to call it a Heady clone unless they've unearthed some more evidence and changed the kit recently.
Thanks for the info. I really appreciate it. At my stage in home brewing experience, in general, I'm going more for making good beers than note for note, hop for hop, taste for taste clones, so it's good to know they have some decent recipes in their book.
Remmy
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And that is why I am calling this beer Heady Flopper, once I brew it.
whitehause
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Well said, and thanks again for the Heady so that I could harvest Conan for this overhyped, un-unique beer. Good thing I have my Pliny and Zombie dust clones on tap to hold me over till I get another batch brewed up. ( I really do have Pliny and Zombie dust clones on tap )
I pretty much clone beers I can't get in my area, or that have very limited release. I've done some available beers too, but it's the hard to get ones that I do on a regular basis.
This is the same kind of person that is just looking for attention, and for someone to validate their point of view. Why you would come to a clone thread to do that I have no idea, but I'll go right along doing what I want.
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theveganbrewer
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I clone beers I like to save money and to get beers with limited distribution.
jaydog2314
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I'm in the process of harvesting dregs from 2 cans...I'm on my 4th step and plan on at least 1 or 2 more so that when I'm done I'll have a full 2L starter that I will split into 4 mason jars giving me about 100B in each for future brews!
threephase
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I say you give it a shot with the conan... worst case you wash the yeast at the end and have even more conan!!!! Don't be disappointed with what comes out at the end, it was very good. I'd say it's closer to Hop Stoopid from lagunitas which I gladly pay 6 bucks for a bomber of...
Remmy
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threephase said:
Too late. I won't bother. I got some 1056 from Maltose earlier today and sadly, that's what I'm going to use. I had to grab some other yeast for some new stuff I am brewing this week anyhow.
Saw one of these on this thread before, but thought I'd share both.
edit: for some reason the GIFs won't show. See here: http://beerlabelsinmotion.tumblr.com/post/50199669698/heady-topper
edit: for some reason the GIFs won't show. See here: http://beerlabelsinmotion.tumblr.com/post/50199669698/heady-topper
NuclearRich
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Just a little update on this puppy.
I brought this to a group of friends, along with an actual heady topper, ghandi bot, and they brought stone ruinten, and a pliny the elder. The 5 were blinded, labeled with numbers, and then served. So I blindly ranked my clone #1, ghandi #2, HT #3, pliny #4, and ruinten #5. The rest of the group except for one person placed the HT clone in the higher half, or knew what it was since they had tasted the commercials all before. Pretty rave reviews, though. I'll be keeping this on the pipeline
Just brewed this up. Thought I was low on my pre-boil gravity and I was getting ready to figure out how much DME I would need to add, but then I realized when I put it in Beer Smith, I told it I was adding the turbinado sugar in the mash. Oops. Once I fixed that I was only 1 point off the new gravity target. Everything else went great.
Question: what's the best way to remove the first dry hop if dry hopping in primary bucket? I'm thinking of using a muslin bag and tying a string to it and then hanging it out under the lid so I can just grab that. I'm assuming it will still seal and be airtight, but is that sanitary? Thoughts?
Question: what's the best way to remove the first dry hop if dry hopping in primary bucket? I'm thinking of using a muslin bag and tying a string to it and then hanging it out under the lid so I can just grab that. I'm assuming it will still seal and be airtight, but is that sanitary? Thoughts?
threephase
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I can almost guarantee you it will probably be better than my real "clone". I had brewed it at my in laws because I have no way of keeping it cool enough (they have a basement I don't). I guess their basement wasn't as cool as I thought it was. I really think it was a bit too warm for the first few days. I just racked to secondary after 2 weeks and there is a strong diacetyl flavor..... crap.
Brewed a quick extract cream ale that I threw onto the yeast cake from the HT clone, keeping that one a little cooler. We shall see how that goes. Chances are this will only be a wintertime yeast for me (until I have room for a chilled ferm chamber of some sort)
DangerRoss
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Swamp cooler will solve your problem.
Remmy
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The airlock began to bubble 4 hours after I pitched the yeast. This morning, my basement smelled great. It'll be a good beer for sure but I don't anticipate it tasting VERY close to the real Heady Topper. IMO, it'll be just another IPA. My OG was 1.078.
HawksBrewer
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First carbed pour off the keg. Fantastic beer, and my buddy and I will be doing a blind tasting with the real thing later this week or next.
Hoplander
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So I went to the cannery this weekend and the video confused me a bit. At one point, when John is putting in hops, it looks like he mixes a liquid with either grain or hops. What's that about? Also, is he adding hops to the mash? I apologize if this has been covered already.
Johnnyhitch1
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Any news on the new batch of YG001? Trying hard to get in on this last batch
Cheers!
libeerty
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That is a thing of beauty. Gorgeous. What is your impression of it compared to the real deal? I mean, before you actually do the side-by-side.
In other news, not nearly as good yet, I'm hoping to have something that pretty in a couple of weeks. Brewed 10G of the clone (slightly modified because I wanted to use a few things I had on hand, and then my hop inventory got messy) couple weeks back. It is my fiance's favorite beer in the world so I wanted it to for her 30th birthday party. Anyways, I am in the midst of moving so I was away from the carboys for two weeks, left them in the basement with blowoff tubes. Brewday was in the 90s, but basement much cooler. Swamp cooler had me where I wanted it to be, then would (in theory) naturally warm up as the ice melts, which is how I've used Conan with my Simconan Pale Ale and loved the results. When I left it that day, it had started chugging along ~3-4 hours after I pitched. However, overnight the temperature dropped cooler where it stayed for the next few days, so I was a little nervous, but the fluctuations in the basement are never drastic.
I had a fermentation checker (who doesn't brew or even drink much beer so couldn't have done much, I just had her make sure the blowoff tube wasn't clogged, and I made her send me pictures.) Everything looked fine, normal. Yadda.
But the other day I enter the basement. The carboys are sitting real pretty. I take off one hose and immediately get a scent that I hate: movie theater popcorn "butter." Diacetyl. F.
But I get my hydrometer out, hoping it is my breath or something. Smell it. F. Take a sip. Diacetyl. Literally cannot taste anything else. The color was perfect though! And spot on FG. And no sour taste at all, so I am pretty confident (but not positive) it is not an infection-related diacetyl.
Somewhere in the back of my head was a memory that you can add more (krausen) some yeast into the fermenter if they kick out before they can finish eating the diacetyl. So I come on HBT, and sure enough, there's the advice, and unanimously folks said that it worked for them. When you send in reinforcements and there are no fermentables left to eat, they eat the diacetyl.
So, first I brought them into a ~70 room to see if the yeast came to life. And they did! Left it there for 24 hours or so, whipped up a starter overnight, and sent in some reinforcements to help conquer the diacetyl. If I didn't need this beer in 2 weeks, I would have first given the initial yeast a chance to clean up its mess before sending in a second army, but because I need it in 2 weeks, I gave them some help. Oh, and I did this all in a keg too, so I can taste it. Some folks say they eat it up in a couple days, other folks say longer, so hopefully it is quicker rather than later, then I can dry hop (probably only 4 days), cold crash, carb, add gelatin, and see how it comes out. Or maybe the taste doesn't go away fast enough and I wait longer, or maybe it doesn't go away at all and I cry.
The good thing is they are definitely at work because the pressure relief valve has told me. What a PITA.
And as a backup, today I brewed 10G of a very hoppy 1.032 pale ale. I didn't use my Conan, just in the chance there is some sort of infection, but used Nottingham since it will ferment out by the end of the week.
Why so negative?
Petekiteworld
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my pale ale with conan, da bomB! 1.055 to 1.012, wheat, loads of whirlpool hops and two stage dry hop
Remmy
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As theveganbrewer mentioned, the recipe I used to brew this beer doesn't contain many of the ingredients used in real Heady. That is why I didn't bother using my Conan.
HawksBrewer
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This beer is absolutely delicious. Very dank aroma w/ hints of tropical fruit, flavor is 100% hops from start to finish w/ a very firm bitterness, but also a smooth hop presence. Hard to explain w/ how many I've had the past two days, I'm still trying to wake up.
savylemons
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I used the east coast yeast Conan strain and that thing was a BEAST. It tore through 1.073 sg wort in 48 hours down to 1.011. The peach/apricot esters of this beer taste beautiful.
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