Heady Topper- Can you clone it?

CornyKegs 728
Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
g-star said:
WOW! You added at least 20x the amount of gypsum for what would be considered really pushing the limits. This much Ca2+ in solution likely drove you mash pH into the low 4's. Not likely to turn out very well.

Read a bit on water chemistry and buy a gram scale. 25g of gypsum (1/20th lb) is about as much as you would ever add to a 5 gallon batch.
Click to expand...

Yeah it was my bad.

Just out of curiosity, when you say not likely to turn out very well... bad taste? bad fermentation? what should I be expecting?
 
Yeah this sucks, I intend on sharing this brew at a work event on Jan 30th... I've resorted to a plan b with another brew session this weekend. I'm kegging and force carbing to accelerate the "time to pint glass".

Wondering if I should ditch this batch all together. I need to get it out of the carboy so I can put the next batch in this weekend.

Question : if my gravity reading is in a good range, will that tell me if the batch is ok? Also, a taste test to see how the flavor is...?

My OG was 1.061...
 
Yeah - taste it before you dump. But, with that much gypsum, I would expect it to be very "chalky" tasting, but you just never know unless you taste it. If it does happen to turn out "undrinkable" - don't fret on dumping one. It sucks for sure and costs $ - but making mistakes is part of the process. I have dumped all or part of dozens of batches over the years - I would never choke down a bad beer over pride. I am constantly trying different strategies and sometimes it does not work out, or sometimes I just screw something up. When I do, down the drain it goes. No shame in making room for newer and better batches.
 
1.020 gravity reading after 5 days. Definitely high. Taste wise it was a little bit off. But it was also 65 degrees and flat. It's drinkable. I think I'll drop it in a fermentation bucket with some extra hops I have and need to get rid of.

Going to save the 2 dry hop packs I got with the farmhouse kit for my next brew. I'm going to try a different (non HT) recipe but using some similar hops and conan. Going to throw some nugget in during boil. And also the rest of the hopshot I have left.

Need to get this ready to drink in two weeks so not going to have time for topper :-(
 
lzrdkng14 said:
1.020 gravity reading after 5 days. Definitely high. Taste wise it was a little bit off. But it was also 65 degrees and flat. It's drinkable. I think I'll drop it in a fermentation bucket with some extra hops I have and need to get rid of.

Going to save the 2 dry hop packs I got with the farmhouse kit for my next brew. I'm going to try a different (non HT) recipe but using some similar hops and conan. Going to throw some nugget in during boil. And also the rest of the hopshot I have left.

Need to get this ready to drink in two weeks so not going to have time for topper :-(
Click to expand...

Let it go for another week and warm it up a few degrees to help it finish out...

Taste again then. Don't rush it. Are you kegging?
 
Yes, kegging. Was going to transfer to a bucket tonight and pitch some more yeast that I harvested from my last batch... will also do a light dry hop.

My issue is, I need the carboy for my next batch tomorrow night. And don't want to waste my keg space on this "bad batch".

Honestly it is salvageable, not just the same HT taste and such I don't think.
 
lzrdkng14 said:
Yes, kegging. Was going to transfer to a bucket tonight and pitch some more yeast that I harvested from my last batch... will also do a light dry hop.

My issue is, I need the carboy for my next batch tomorrow night. And don't want to waste my keg space on this "bad batch".

Honestly it is salvageable, not just the same HT taste and such I don't think.
Click to expand...

Warm it up until the brew day and transfer then with your dry hops. I wouldn't add yeast with the dry hops. If you add more yeast, you could add it for a few days, then dry hop after confirmed it isn't fermenting anymore.
 
There's a reason this thread is 3600+ posts long. Let's learn how to brew beer in another more appropriate forum, not a recipe specific post. Turbinado Sugar?
post
 
dstar26t said:
There's a reason this thread is 3600+ posts long. Let's learn how to brew beer in another more appropriate forum, not a recipe specific post. Turbinado Sugar?
post
Click to expand...

How about you give the kid a break.... his post is relative to this beer, and his problem may be something another person might even run into...

You guys and your holier than though mentality is getting pretty old.
 
lzrdkng14 said:
Yes, kegging. Was going to transfer to a bucket tonight and pitch some more yeast that I harvested from my last batch... will also do a light dry hop.
Click to expand...

I would also recommend not adding more yeast. 1.020 after 5 days isn't horrible and you could probably get it down to 1.015 by adding the dry hops and letting it sit at 70* for 5 days.
 
ianmatth said:
I would also recommend not adding more yeast. 1.020 after 5 days isn't horrible and you could probably get it down to 1.015 by adding the dry hops and letting it sit at 70* for 5 days.
Click to expand...

Yup, I am thinking this is salvageable. I added half of the dry hops last night. But not going to add the other half, instead I am going to use the pack of hops to dry hop the brew I am doing tonight. Thanks for the help guys.
 
The pound of gypsum is pretty funny, just a massive overkill mistake. Hopefully it is still comes out okay. Part of this recipe is a massive amount of gypsum added to it. Now we can all see what happens when gypsum is at the max. See what you can make of it. You will look back at it and laugh later.

I didn't add enough gypsum to my current batch, but I am happy with how it turned out. My fruity batch is like pineapple fruit punch, and the other is more similar to the heady recipe and is like dank grapefruit. More hopshot and upping the gypsum will be the only major corrections to my next batch. The bitterness is at the minimum acceptable limit. Mine also went from 1.092-1.016 at about 10% after boiling off way more than intended. Still haven't decided which one I will enter in competition.

Here is Carlin checking out batch A. He can probably smell the hops. It is pretty cloudy from the hop haze.

IMG_2357.jpg
 
dstar26t said:
There's a reason this thread is 3600+ posts long. Let's learn how to brew beer in another more appropriate forum, not a recipe specific post. Turbinado Sugar?
post
Click to expand...

It's likely not turbinado, though theveganbrewer recommended turbinado much earlier in this thread. So everyone just rolled with that.

The sacks of sugar spotted at the brewery were Cerulose brand Dextrose, which is a monohydrate form.
 
EyePeeA said:
It's not turbinado. Though theveganbrewer recommended turbinado much earlier in this thread. So everyone just rolled with that.

The sacks of sugar spotted at the brewery were Cerulose brand Dextrose.
Click to expand...

I wondered this since I saw turbinado at my local store and it's dark sugar crystals. Didn't think this matched up to keep the light color of heady.
 
I just noticed the temperature of 156 F on the right of this image, below carbonate. This image was posted earlier in the thread to display the hardness.

It seems that the hot liquor tank is 156 F before the grain is added, which would reduce it to the mid to high 140s. If that is the case, we can probably estimate the exact mash temp by the amount of grain required to reach the OG at 776 gallons. I would say 147F is the sweet spot. What do you think?

"They brew on a 15 barrel system. There are 31 gallons per barrel which is 465 gallons."

Untitled.jpg
 
EyePeeA said:
I just noticed the temperature of 156 F on the right of this image, below carbonate. This image was posted earlier in the thread to display the hardness.

It seems that the hot liquor tank is 156 F before the grain is added, which would reduce it to the mid to high 140s. If that is the case, we can probably estimate the exact mash temp by the amount of grain required to reach the OG at 776 gallons. I would say 147F is the sweet spot. What do you think?

"They brew on a 15 barrel system. There are 31 gallons per barrel which is 465 gallons."
Click to expand...

Yes, I noticed that as well. They definitely use a low mash temperature.
 
ianmatth said:
I would also recommend not adding more yeast. 1.020 after 5 days isn't horrible and you could probably get it down to 1.015 by adding the dry hops and letting it sit at 70* for 5 days.
Click to expand...

Well guys, the mega gypsum batch is in good shape. I brewed this on 1/8. Transferred to a dry hop keg tonight and took this reading. This is 6 days after the 1.020. Took a taste, warm and flat but still pretty tasty. Might have some slight chalkiness.

View attachment 1453263760197.jpg

View attachment 1453263789304.jpg
 
The solubility of gypsum is around 2.4 g/L in pure water. Just something to keep in mind in the future. Any more than that, and it's not dissolving, no matter how much you stir.

____________________________


On a side note, make sure you guys know your water profiles for the particular season/year you are brewing. I live in Northeast NJ and I only brew in the Winter. Last Winter was awful, which resulted in a significant increase of Sodium and Chloride in our water due to all of the runoff. This Winter is quite mild, as you can see from the figures (yet sodium and chloride are still quite high). Last year, the sodium level was in the 80s and chloride level was in the 150s. Basically, if you ask for your water profile without sending in a very recent sample to a lab, then your water company simply averages the findings over the course of a year. The actual figures of your water as of right now will be wildly different.

2015/16 Winter NNJ Water Profile

Ca: 24 mg/l
Mg: 9 mg/l
Na: 62+ mg/l
Cl: 81+ mg/l
SO4: 62 mg/l
Alkalinity as CaCO3: 46 ppm
Hardness as CaC03: 84 ppm
pH 7.2

So to brew Heady, I would need to cut my city water with a significant amount of distilled water (at least half) and incorporate Gypsum and Lactic Acid to correct the profile.
 
On a side note, make sure you guys know your water profiles for the particular season/year you are brewing. I live in Northeast NJ and I only brew in the Winter. Last Winter was awful, which resulted in a significant increase of Sodium and Chloride in our water due to all of the runoff. This Winter is quite mild, as you can see from the figures (yet sodium and chloride are still quite high). Last year, the sodium level was in the 80s and chloride level was in the 150s. Basically, if you ask for your water profile without sending in a very recent sample to a lab, then your water company simply averages the findings over the course of a year. The actual figures of your water as of right now will be wildly different.

2015/16 Winter NNJ Water Profile

Ca: 24 mg/l
Mg: 9 mg/l
Na: 62+ mg/l
Cl: 81+ mg/l
SO4: 62 mg/l
Alkalinity as CaCO3: 46 mg/l
Hardness as CaC03: 84 mg/l
pH 7.2

So to brew Heady, I would need to cut my city water with a significant amount of distilled water (at least half) and incorporate Gypsum and Lactic Acid to correct the profile.
Click to expand...

Your water is not that bad. Your Sodium is less than 100 ppm, so don't worry to much about. (See Brungard Facebook post about it) Ditto with Chloride. Your Alkality is also not too bad. My RA is 60. You only need to add Calcium sulfate to get hardness to 750 and Latic acid to get to 5.2 ph (if required) If your really concerned about it, then just mix 50/50 with RO water.
 
Trillium said:
Your water is not that bad. Your Sodium is less than 100 ppm, so don't worry to much about. (See Brungard Facebook post about it) Ditto with Chloride. Your Alkality is also not too bad. My RA is 60. You only need to add Calcium sulfate to get hardness to 750 and Latic acid to get to 5.2 ph (if required) If your really concerned about it, then just mix 50/50 with RO water.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I know I can brew a good IPA with my current water + gypsum. But I was talking about coming as close to the Heady Topper water profile as possible. For that, I would need to cut the sodium & chloride below 40, hit about -114 alkalinity, while drastically boosting the calcium and sulfate.

I was shooting for:

Ca: 110-143 mg/l
Mg: 5 mg/l
Na: 31 mg/l
Cl: 40 mg/l
SO4: 345 mg/l
Alkalinity: -110 ppm
Mash pH: 5.2

Hardness Calculation: [(Ca/20)+(Mg/12.5)]*50

When calculating hardness, that only brings me in the 300-375 ppm range... Kind of afraid to go beyond that to be honest.

Or perhaps the mash is 750ppm, but the sparge is very low in minerals, which would result in a more sensible overall mineral profile.
 
EyePeeA said:
Or perhaps the mash is 750ppm, but the sparge is very low in minerals, which would result in a more sensible overall mineral profile.
Click to expand...

The oft-quoted 750ppm hardness figure is for the final beer. This has been lab tested. You would far exceed the solubility limit for CaSO4 if you tried to hit 750ppm hardness in the mash.

If you start out with moderately hard water, add 20-25g of gypsum to the mash and your final beer will be in the 750ppm hardness ballpark with similar sulfate levels to the real HT (~ 500ppm). This is for a typical 5 gallon batch. This much Ca will also drive your RA low enough to hit a desireable mash pH (~ 5.1 - 5.2 at RT).

Malt adds Mg, Cl-, SO42- (among others) to the final beer. The Mg in particular jacks up the final hardness calculation due to its lower equivalent weight.
 
g-star said:
You would far exceed the solubility limit for CaSO4 if you tried to hit 750ppm hardness in the mash.
Click to expand...

I hear it's not that difficult, though not recommended.

See below:

ajdelange said:
You can easily get that level of hardness by dissolving 1.3 g of gypsum in each litre of water which will result in sulfate at 720 mg/L.
Click to expand...

For a point of reference, the solubility limit of gypsum is 2.4 g per liter of water.
 
g-star said:
The oft-quoted 750ppm hardness figure is for the final beer. This has been lab tested. You would far exceed the solubility limit for CaSO4 if you tried to hit 750ppm hardness in the mash
Click to expand...

The quoted 750 hardness is from the Heady Topper 1000 brew video that was posted on The Alchemist website.
 
So I took the brewery worksheet figures (referenced with the red circle), scaled them down, and plugged it into Greg Noonan's Vermont Pub & Brewery's Water Witch: https://byo.com/resources/brewwater

As you can see, the layout of this calculator looks incredibly similar to the snapshot of the brew sheet.

Here are the results for 6 gallons: (Keep in mind, the Alchemist reportedly uses "Plaster of Paris" instead of Gypsum. Also, homebrewer lactic acid is typically 88% strength vs. the 85% version shown here).

________________________________________

I supplied two different results (in color). Notice the difference when using Calcium Sulfate Anhydrous (Plaster of Paris) vs. Calcium Sulfate Dihydrate (Gypsum) that must be used to hit 750 mg/L.

The information when whittled down, lines up... 6 gallons, approx. 21.6 grams plaster of paris, 1.2, grams calcium chloride, and then adjust mash pH to 5.1-5.3 with lactic acid.

________________________________________

Untitled.jpg


Gypsum.png


Plaster of Paris.png
 
Aaaaarg, you beat me to. I found the Vermont Brewpub spreadsheet a few weeks ago. I entered the Alchemist water profile in the spreadsheet and the desired profile and the calculated salt additions were exactly the same as the brew sheet. Well done Bobbrews.

The only thing I was scratching my head over was the Lactic Acid amount. I had to change the desired alkalinity to -6 to get 121 ml

HT Profile.png
 
Last edited:
So I just did this recipe this past weekend and did a video for it as well. I used most of the information from this thread so if anyone is interested in the process check it out. I did go way less on water additions just because I could not justify that much hardness for a homebrew.

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hk2cMwmt34[/ame]
 
Mr. Malty is recommending 2 packs of Gigayeast Vermont Ale yeast for a 1.2 liter starter in a final volume of 5.5 gallons.

1 pack supposedly contains 200 billion cells. The date on the package is 12/29/15.

Without accounting for the added liquid volume from the packs, I made a 1.5 liter starter using 2 packs with 118 grams of DME. Is this overkill? What are the repercussions of overpitching?

I am intermittently shaking the starter for 3 whole days, including a 1 day cold crash, prior to brewing.
 
I would advise cold crashing to see how much yeast you are actually pitching (assume 4 billion cells per ml of solid.) Maybe this is why people are getting bad attenuation with Conan while I consistently get 85-93% attenuation. In fact I got 87% attenuation on a 1.060 OG DIPA pitching at .65 recently. BTW, does anyone know what The Alchemist actually pitches Heady Topper at? I feel like that is the last piece of information I'm unsure of to make a DIPA that actually matches or beats Heady Topper.
 
http://www.brewersfriend.com/yeast-pitch-rate-and-starter-calculator/

When I say what do they pitch at I mean million cells / ml / degree plato

I think the curve is saying that they pitch a certain amount on each of the first 4 days, but it doesn't match up to million cells / ml / degree plato, so I assume they are using a different volume measurement, but the total number is 19.5 and since they say they pitch low I assume they mean less than .75 million cells / ml / degree plato. I'm sure there is someone here who knows what units they are using, but if I don't hear anything I am just going to multiply their numbers by 0.03 and try pitching my next DIPA that way.
 

Similar threads

S
Autumn Wheat Ale
Replies
5
Views
1K
kwilson16
kwilson16
3 Dawg Night
Pliny the Elder American Pale Ale
Replies
14
Views
2K
redrocker652002
R
F
Advice on developing clone of Mast Landing "Windbreaker" NEIPA?
Replies
4
Views
661
poptarts
poptarts
Clint Yeastwood
Failure Beer
Replies
9
Views
814
Zambezi Special
Zambezi Special
pawleysplayr
Building Towards a Pilsner Taste - Yeast suggestions
Replies
27
Views
3K
ghpeel
ghpeel
Brewer's Friend 300

Latest posts

Back
Top