Heady Topper- Can you clone it?

Yakima 728
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Helly said:
Mine is cranking away at 59/60 degrees. I hope that's not too cold, if there's such a thing. Looks and smells healthy at the moment.


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Checked this morning and it appears to be steadily moving along. It's up to the 62-63 degree range. Going to try to keep it there until I can gauge how much the gravity has dropped.


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What ferm temps have you guys noticed working well with this yeast as far flavor profile, floculation, and of course attenuation?


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Low 60's. There is an entire thread on Conan yeast that is quite helpful b


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lbond2 said:
What ferm temps have you guys noticed working well with this yeast as far flavor profile, floculation, and of course attenuation?


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Yeast bay recommends 68ish and raising to 70 at tail end of fermentation to finish it up. Some folks in low 60s haven't gotten the attenuation needed. It improves with generation generally (depending what gen you are starting with)



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My Conan attenuates great. 68* is ideal IMO, but going over 70* is asking for Belgian esters. I have gone as low as 58* and it turned out great. I would err on going lower unless you can tightly control temperature.
 
It sounds like then I am going to start at 65 and slowly ramp up to 68 just before high krausen ends...


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PackerfaninSanDiego said:
Beer turned out delicious from my kit. But I have way too much foam. I open the bottle, let it sit for a few mins and foam is slowly oozing out. Wtf?
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I had this problem on my recent stout and I knew the problem right away. I did my priming calculation based on an estimated 4.8 gallons, but due to high losses from powdered cocoa, I only ended up with about 4 gallons in the bottling bucket. Even some of the ones I 'burped' at 4 days at around 65 degrees started to foam up. Based on a suggestion in another thread, I opened all the bottles and covered them with sanitized aluminum foil and let the CO2 escape and then re-primed with a small amount of sugar directly into the bottles. I should know when I get back from vacation how it worked, but the principle behind it makes sense. I'm in no rush to drink them since my previous stout got better with age and the hop character isn't the star of the show, but it might be a different story with a hoppy brew like this.
 
I'm still unsure as to why I have potential bottle bombs. I opened a room temperature bottle in the sink 2 days ago and it spewed all over in the sink. I did this thinking I could open the bottle to release some CO2 and recap. I did have one in the fridge, opened that one and was able to recap. Will see tomorrow what the condition of the beer is. So I put all remaining bottles in my fermenter chamber and lowered the temp to 40 degrees and if my test bottle(recapped one) is ok, then I'll recap the remaining bottles. Still unsure why all the foam, it was in the fermenter for 28 days and held steady @ 1.020 which is a bit high FG.
 
This is why I keg...controlling every aspect of the homebrew!!!


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PackerfaninSanDiego said:
I'm still unsure as to why I have potential bottle bombs. I opened a room temperature bottle in the sink 2 days ago and it spewed all over in the sink. I did this thinking I could open the bottle to release some CO2 and recap. I did have one in the fridge, opened that one and was able to recap. Will see tomorrow what the condition of the beer is. So I put all remaining bottles in my fermenter chamber and lowered the temp to 40 degrees and if my test bottle(recapped one) is ok, then I'll recap the remaining bottles. Still unsure why all the foam, it was in the fermenter for 28 days and held steady @ 1.020 which is a bit high FG.
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Well, 1.020 is pretty high to bottle at. How did you prime? (Forgive me if you've already mentioned that but I didn't see it). I'm wondering if when you primed, say with simple sugar, it re-activated the yeast and it went back after the leftover sugars in the beer.

I have a black ipa I did recently with conan which was a little stubborn. Took some extra time in the fermenter to get it from 1.018 to 1.014 but sometimes that extra effort and time helps to avoid issues like this.

So what was your time line for fermentation and at what temps?






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geoffey said:
Well, 1.020 is pretty high to bottle at. How did you prime? (Forgive me if you've already mentioned that but I didn't see it). I'm wondering if when you primed, say with simple sugar, it re-activated the yeast and it went back after the leftover sugars in the beer.

I have a black ipa I did recently with conan which was a little stubborn. Took some extra time in the fermenter to get it from 1.018 to 1.014 but sometimes that extra effort and time helps to avoid issues like this.

So what was your time line for fermentation and at what temps?






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Corn sugar...4oz
28 days
67-68F
 
PackerfaninSanDiego said:
Corn sugar...4oz
28 days
67-68F
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Seems like a reasonable amount of priming sugar and fairly good conditions for priming. Given that info, I'm with geoffey. Fermentation probably wasn't complete and the priming sugar woke the yeast back up, which proceeded to chow down on the extra sugars.

The only other thing I can think of that could be causing the problem is an infection.
 
Brewed 4th attempt last evening. Grain bill I subbed in some 2row as I only had 10lbs of Pearl on hand. Otherwise the grainbill was the same.

Good starter of Gigayeast Vermont IPA yeast - chilled wort to 61, fermenter was bubbling and at 64 this morning. I anticipate it free rising to 66-68 with active fermentation over the next 2-3 days. As soon as I see it level and fall back a bit, I will bring it upstairs (warmer) where it should be able to finish out at 68 or so.

No hop shots.

FWH = Centennial (1oz.)/Chinook (.5)/Columbus (.5)
-Everything else was 1 oz. addition-
5 min = Simcoe/Centennial
0 min = Columbus/Simcoe
Whirlpool (30 min. @160-180) = Galaxy/Citra/Centennial/Simcoe
Dry will be 3 days = Amarillo/Cascade/Citra/Simcoe/Apollo (maybe .5 columbus too).

275 sulfate. Total Hardness was around 400

We'll see I guess...... To be honest, I am starting to play around a bit with it to suit my own tastes somewhat. Was not real fond of all the apollo and have cut that back. Did not like the hopshots.
Last batch I was looking to bring in some firmer bitterness and added chinook...... I thought it was the right direction - but I took it a bit too far. Less chinook and more centennial in this one.....

All 4 versions I have made have been really great IPA's (although with differences from Heady) and everyone has absolutely loved them. Hoping this one is the best of the 4 so far.
 
I think I have decided to use the "best attempt recipe" on page on first to see how that turns out...then I will be using my favorite blends of fruit/citrus infused hops I love and use in my IPAs to see how great I can get this beer...I still love the peril or Maris otter malt and won't change that.


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Just sampled mine. Down to about 1.012 so that part is good. The taste isn't there though. Not getting enough fruitiness and I'm definitely picking up some Belgian esters rather than peachy flavors. Disappointed at this point. It hasn't been dry-hopped yet though. So I'm gonna let it sit for a few days and then dry hop as planned. Hopefully that will improve it quite a bit. Fingers crossed.


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for a two stage dry hop do you add hops, let sit 4 days then add the second dry hops or do you take the initial hops out before adding the second set?
 
I just made this clone finally, I have been using Conan a lot though. Conan is always a gamble to me, sometimes i get great character, sometimes i get bad attenuation, sometimes it has no character. Well this time no character so the beer is unlike heady but decent. I am going to drop hop shots I think. All my hoppy beers lately have had this weird bitterness and I am thinking it is the hop shot. I will have to try this clone again though.
 
I brewed the recipe in the first post to the T with the Yeast Bay's Vermont Ale a few months ago but have not posted my thoughts. The beer was good, but not even close to Heady and I'm pretty familiar with the real deal. Mine tasted a lot like Victory Dirt Wolf, actually, and I'm not the only one who thought that. It would have passed for a Dirt Wolf clone.
 
So I just tasted it at day 11 and it tastes much better than at day 7. Still has a spicy clove Belgian note but the hop flavor has emerged. At first I was going to dump dry hops in a bit early but I think I'm gonna give it several more days and stick to day 14 in schedule for dry hop 1. It's gotten much better in the past few days so my optimism is renewed.


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This stuff is getting better by the day. Getting fruitier and less spicy. I pitched dry hop 1 just now.


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Just took dry hop 1 out and pitched dry hop 2. It's good and getting better with the dry hops. Not exactly going to be HT and it certainly won't be perfect. But I think it will be a very fruity, very drinkable IPA. Just in time to share at Christmas unless SWMBO drinks it all first.


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I think it's probably at about 66-67 degrees at this point. In the basement on my brew room work table.


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gregkeller said:
I just finished a keg of this. Brewed the recipe on page 1 of this thread. It was awesome. I used the yeast from gigayeasts and pitched a 5l stir plate started into 12 gallons of wort. Maybe a little under pitched. Finished at 1.016.

Tasted freaking amazing. The color was significantly darker than a fresh can
Of heady that I had side by side with this. Aroma and flavor were spot on with the real thing. Wouldn't change a thing in the hop bill. I wonder how much of the caramel to drop? Maybe cut the British caramalt in half and up the base malt a little bit.

I really like the techniques used in this beer, both a flameout and a cool hop stand. I'm not sure that I like the extract as it left globs of hop oil on stuff but it cut down on the vegetal matter in the beer.

Great work for figuring this out. I might not brew an exact clone again but I'll be using variations of the grain bill and/or hopping to make most of my future ipas.


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How many days did it take to reach FG?
 
Got batch #4 in the keg, on gas for the last couple days. Will maybe sample it tonight or tomorrow. Gravity finished higher than I wanted - 1.015. The gravity has been the most inconsistent thing for me. I think I have ranged from 1.011 to 1.016 on the 4 attempts. I can't think of any other beer I brew where my gravity fluctuates like that. Tasted good at transfer, otherwise. Will be able to taste it side by side with the real thing once it gets carbed.....hopefully it is in the ballpark.
 
Braufessor said:
Got batch #4 in the keg, on gas for the last couple days. Will maybe sample it tonight or tomorrow. Gravity finished higher than I wanted - 1.015. For me, the gravity has been the most inconsistent thing for me. I think I have ranged from 1.011 to 1.016 on the 4 attempts. I can't think of any other beer I brew where my gravity fluctuates like that. Tasted good at transfer, otherwise. Will be able to taste it side by side with the real thing once it gets carbed.....hopefully it is in the ballpark.
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I'm still catching up on this thread. Same yeast each time? Conan?
 
Based on the current best recipe on the first post, does anyone think that adding the Simcoe and Columbus at flameout is worth doing? Or just upping the steep?

Simcoe is extremely high in Myrcene, and Columbus is decently high. It seems like we could possibly decrease the amounts and use them in the steep to help retain more of the attributes of the hops. Maybe I'm completely wrong, but from what I've been reading, Myrcene has a low boiling point, so even adding these high myrcene hops at flameout would decrease their effectiveness?
 

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