I just wanted to comment on my recent HT clone attempt. I haven't posted in a while because I've been busy building my current rig, photo attached! In the process of testing I discovered my Blichmann 15 gal does not respond to induction heating, so for brew day I just used my propane burner on the gas grill to direct fire the MLT. I have since added a third kettle and I'm building a full E-HERMS, Kal style, minus the fancy control box.
I followed Vegan's clone recipe almost to the letter, save for a few issues and errors. I had to sub in a bunch of Ahtanum for much of the Amarillo, and I had no Conan, so I went with Wyeast 1099 and 1098 (I split the batch). At the end of the mash I made a big time rookie mistake. My OG was about 1.046, but I neglected to account for temperature (168F)! So as I kept heating it up in the BK, I added LME (Munton's light) to bring up the gravity.. but strange thing, the gravity stayed the same. Then I remembered I had to adjust for temp, and had now way overshot. To get back to my target gravity, I had to increase the batch volume from 8 gallons to 10, diluting my hops a bit... pre-ferment OG was 1.072.
I did the hop steep using a nylon bag. In retrospect, I think I should have just dumped them all in there and did a recirculating whirlpool, and maybe strained them out before fermentation.
As I said, I went with Wyeast 1099 and 1098. Hoping to get a little Conan going, I also added half a can of HT to each fermentor. Pitch temp was 68-70F.
The 1099 batch sat in my fermentation cooler, where I maintained a water bath at 66F under PID control. The 1098 batch was harder to control, sitting in a tub of water in a 70F room, using wet t-shirts to keep the temp down. It spent quite a bit of time at 72F, then 70F, and now it's been swapped into the fermentation cooler where it's 68F.
Both batches had high krausen within 18 hours, and I had to clean out the airlocks multiple times. A blowoff tube definitely would have helped.
It's been exactly 5 days, and I checked gravities (and tasted the beer). The 1099 batch was about 1.018, and tasted..... like HT!! I couldn't believe how close the hop profile was, and only 5 days in, with no dryhop yet. WAY TO GO VEGAN.
The 1098 batch (which fermented at a higher temp) was at only 1.025, and the sweetness definitely overwhelmed the hop flavor. I could also taste some extraneous alcohols. The guys at my HBS have some kind of yeast activator they say works, so I'll probably add some of that, and shake vigorously every day. I've brought the temp up on both to 68-70F. I wish I had an oxygenator.
Now would be a great time to upgrade to a mini keg setup, with 10 gallons of worthy beer waiting in the wings.