trimixdiver1
Well-Known Member
Just drank some more... Yea this is damn close.
Heady Topper- Can you clone it?
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NuclearRich
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Gypsum in the boil?
what pH are you shooting for? I've done 5.2 several times, but I think I am going to bring it up to 5.4
I just did the second stage dry hop for this recipe, but subbed out all of the hops with mostly new zealand tropical varieties. Interested to see how it turns out, and will post once its carbed up.
I have a batch fermenting right now..... I used about 7 grams of gypsum in the mash (90% RO Water), this got me to 5.4 pH. I then added another 3 grams of gypsum to the boil. Basically, I wanted to avoid adding to much to the mash and bringing my pH down toward 5.2...... So, I added what it took to get to 5.4 and then added the rest to the boil for the additional hardness and sulfate levels.
This was still not the crazy high numbers that some have been trying out - 350 sulfate maybe...
Gonna dry hop it in the next couple days and should have it carbed and on tap in 10 days or so...... so, we will see.
I'm using 4 tsp of gypsum in my mash water to hit the high Ca and sulfate levels that will bring out the serious hop flavor that Heady is known for. That's how much gypsum is needed to hit 700+ ppm of hardness. According to the brewersfriend.com Mash Chemistry and Brewing Water Calculator that gets me to a pH of 5.5. I add 1% acidulated malt to hit a calculated pH of 5.4. I got a pH meter recently so I'll see where I actually am on my next batch.
chugalug06
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Are you able to please post it? I'm not sure I'm looking at the correct recipe... Thanks dude!
Are you able to please post it? I'm not sure I'm looking at the correct recipe... Thanks dude!
It's already posted on page 1. Just go to the first page of this thread and brew the only recipe listed there. It's delicious.
![Craft A Brew - Safale S-04 Dry Yeast - Fermentis - English Ale Dry Yeast - For English and American Ales and Hard Apple Ciders - Ingredients for Home Brewing - Beer Making Supplies - [1 Pack]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41fVGNh6JfL._SL500_.jpg)
trimixdiver1
Well-Known Member
Other than getting the hardness up to 750, this clone is damn good.
I'm brewing my second attempt at this. I'm brewing it exactly 1 year to the day from the last one.
The last one I didn't add minerals, wasn't controlling for pH, didn't have all the hops and didn't have the hop shot. I'm doing all that now so I'm hoping for a marked improvement.
After much back and forth, I think this is my final water profile:
Ca - 170 ppm
Mg - 18 ppm
Na - 26 ppm
SO4 - 400 ppm
Cl - 55 ppm
HCO3 - 72 ppm
And this is what I'm adding to my tap water to get there:
Gypsum - 2.11 g/gal
Epson Salt - 0.35 g/gal
Calcium Chloride - 0.14 g/gal
That gypsum is around 4 tsp that some are adding (but not as much as was posted on the brew sheet). I'm adding some Mg and SO4 through the epsom salt to not raise the Ca too high. And I'm adding the CaCl at around the same rate as the brew sheet posted is adding.
Anyone see anything crazy with those additions?
The last one I didn't add minerals, wasn't controlling for pH, didn't have all the hops and didn't have the hop shot. I'm doing all that now so I'm hoping for a marked improvement.
After much back and forth, I think this is my final water profile:
Ca - 170 ppm
Mg - 18 ppm
Na - 26 ppm
SO4 - 400 ppm
Cl - 55 ppm
HCO3 - 72 ppm
And this is what I'm adding to my tap water to get there:
Gypsum - 2.11 g/gal
Epson Salt - 0.35 g/gal
Calcium Chloride - 0.14 g/gal
That gypsum is around 4 tsp that some are adding (but not as much as was posted on the brew sheet). I'm adding some Mg and SO4 through the epsom salt to not raise the Ca too high. And I'm adding the CaCl at around the same rate as the brew sheet posted is adding.
Anyone see anything crazy with those additions?
So I went ahead and brewed as I posted above. Hopefully it turns out okay. Everything went pretty well except my mash pH was 5.6 when Bru'n Water predicted 5.45. I did add additional acid to bring it down to 5.53, but it was probably too late (~25 mins into mash).
I also figured it would be better to add all the hops to the kettle and then filter afterwards and I figured the bag I use for BIAB would be ideal, but there were so many hops, it clogged the bag, so I had to use another bag then that one clogged, so I had to mess with them to get all the wort out, but in the end, I ended up with almost 5 gal, so that's good. Cooling took forever with the warm water we have even using a pre-chiller in an ice bath and putting my kettle in an ice bath. I got it down to 70F and then pitched the Conan. I put it in my Cool Bag and it was down to 65F this morning and bubbling away.
Due to needing it on August 16th for a competition, I will be compressing the dry hopping scheduling, probably dry hopping after 5 days, then doing the second dry hop after another 5 days and then kegging around 15. Of course we have a weekend vacation and possibly moving our house in the middle of that. Ugh, what was I thinking!
I also figured it would be better to add all the hops to the kettle and then filter afterwards and I figured the bag I use for BIAB would be ideal, but there were so many hops, it clogged the bag, so I had to use another bag then that one clogged, so I had to mess with them to get all the wort out, but in the end, I ended up with almost 5 gal, so that's good. Cooling took forever with the warm water we have even using a pre-chiller in an ice bath and putting my kettle in an ice bath. I got it down to 70F and then pitched the Conan. I put it in my Cool Bag and it was down to 65F this morning and bubbling away.
Due to needing it on August 16th for a competition, I will be compressing the dry hopping scheduling, probably dry hopping after 5 days, then doing the second dry hop after another 5 days and then kegging around 15. Of course we have a weekend vacation and possibly moving our house in the middle of that. Ugh, what was I thinking!
Your pH might have been fine as the 5.1-5.3 pH John Kimmich suggests is actually 5.4-5.6 at room temperature. Also, that is the pH at the end of the mash. What you really want to do is check your pH at the end of the mash. If it is 5.1-5.3 at 150* or 5.4-5.6 at room temperature you are on target. I mashed based on the brewersfriend.com water calculator saying I needed 4 tsp of gypsum and 1% acidulated malt to get my pH to 5.4, but when I tested the pH, it was 5.3 at room temperature so I will not use acidulated malt in the future unless I am using less gypsum. You can also try doing a small mash (a 9 qt cooler is $10 and perfect for 1-4 lbs of grain) rather than having a full 5 gallon batch potentially be off, but trying to adjust your pH during the mash when you don't know where your pH will end up after the mash isn't a good idea IMO.
Thanks for the info, but does the pH really change that much throughout the mash? What I've seen recommended here is to measure at 15 mins. I think the pH was actually 5.63 (target of 5.45 at room temp), so that's why I tried to lower it even though I figured it wouldn't really matter at that point since I was almost halfway into the mash. I know I should do a test mash, but I don't unfortunately.
I'm pretty sure it does change, not sure how much. When John Kimmich stated that he shoots for a pH of 5.1-5.3 people on this thread said that he is measuring after the mash at the mash temperature (which equates to 5.4-5.6 at room temperature), but maybe they're wrong.
EDIT:
I looked into it a little more. Someone was saying the mash pH will not change much after 30 minutes, however a lot of people are recommending to check mash pH at 5 minutes. It seems that checking the pH earlier allows for adjustments, but the target pH is at the end of the mash. Maybe someone else who is more of an expert on this can let us know.
EDIT:
I looked into it a little more. Someone was saying the mash pH will not change much after 30 minutes, however a lot of people are recommending to check mash pH at 5 minutes. It seems that checking the pH earlier allows for adjustments, but the target pH is at the end of the mash. Maybe someone else who is more of an expert on this can let us know.
kchomebrew
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I wish I remember where the post is but there is a photo of the brew spec sheet for Heady Topper from the Alchemist Brewery posted somewhere here and there is a view of the water profile. Total hardness was like 740.
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Yes but that is the finished beer and since we don't know what the malt contributes we don't know what the starting water profile should be. There was a whole thread about I that I linked to above.
trimixdiver1
Well-Known Member
trimixdiver1
Well-Known Member
I really don't think that being .2 ph points either way will really be evident as much as you think. It's more important to get your hardness up there to keep those hops from hiding.
Here it is:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f128/heady-topper-video-750-total-hardness-477834/
I think that it is safe to assume that you are looking at high sulfate as others have talked about earlier in the thread. I have brewed this twice and brewing it a third time tomorrow I think. I brewed with about 200 sulfate the first time and 300 the second time (just poured the first couple pints the last day or two). The 300 was a lot better than the 200. I am going to shoot for 400 tomorrow and see what I think of that.
**I have been adding enough gypsum to mash to keep pH at 5.4 and then adding the rest directly to the boil kettle.
This was asked and answered in the brew science forum recently:
So I don't think that's enough to worry about.
Hopefully. I'm entering this in a beer competition coming up.
Just to follow up, I've kegged this and have had a few pints and it's very good (way better than my first attempt last year). I might say it's my best beer yet in 40 batches. Not attributing it solely to the pH, but I made a few changes to my process that I think helped.
Not sure if you are talking to me, but using harvested Conan that I made a starter with, my fermentation began very quickly. If not in a few hours, it was bubbling by the next day.
trimixdiver1
Well-Known Member
Did the hardness in the 750 range help?
My total hardness as delivered was 498 ppm. I don't know what the finished beer total hardness is, which is what the 750 ppm number is.
Anyway, hard to say why this beer is so much better as I made a lot of changes to my process from my 1st attempt last year to this attempt.
3 days and no sign of fermentation
Check your gravities with a hydrometer. If it's truly not fermenting, you have a problem with your process or your yeast. You have only a few posts so you may be a new brewer? If yes I'd suggest making a new thread in the beginners forum, it's very helpful.
brewski09
Well-Known Member
3 days and no sign of fermentation
+1 on the gravity reading. What is your wort temp (from the gravity reading)? If you used Conan yeast and it didn't work I would consider cal ale yeast from any manufacturer in its place.
If this is one of your first brews/your first all grain brew then hats off to you. This is a beast to tackle but should end up as a really good beer.
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Well, I brewed up another version of the 4.0 for my 30th birthday party to put on tap in 10 days. I subbed the Pearl for a 50/50 mix of two row and golden promise, as was suggested here before, and I significantly upped (and slightly changed) the dry hop. I just added my first of two charges today with my new stainless dry hopper in my corny and purged with co2. First addition was 2 oz Simcoe, 1 oz CTZ, 1 oz Amarillo, 1 oz Centennial, 0.5 oz Apollo. Second addition will be in about 4 days and will be 1 oz Simcoe, 1 oz CTZ, 1 oz Citra, 0.5 oz Apollo. Should give me more than enough time to force carb at 20-30 psi before the party. The beer came in at 7.8% and was damn tasty and aromatic before any dry hopping.
Just an FYI, I recently received an email from Farmhouse Brewing Supply stating they now carry IBU extract. I just wanted to let you all know there's another supplier for that.
Cheers!
http://www.farmhousebrewingsupply.com/ibu-injectors/
Cheers!
http://www.farmhousebrewingsupply.com/ibu-injectors/
no krausen when i cehcked before work this afternoon. i've brewed a number of times before, and i've never had a problem with fermentation. i'll try a gravity read when i get home.
