American Pale Ale: Hopslam

[Fletch78]

Notes: Upon tasting my hydrometer sample this morning (1.010) it is very dry. It's almost meady, winey. Not much hop character from the dry hop. I'll see how it improves with refrigeration and carbonation. I'm somewhat deflated with my hydro sample. The first thing that comes to mind is the fermentation temp was in the mid 70's causing the fusely winey character. Hopefully that mellows when it's chilled, and the carbonation will bring out more of the aroma hops, and it will be drinkable. If it tastes like this after carbonation and chilling, it might be a dumper, because it's pretty much undrinkable as-is.

 

[headfullahops]

1.010 sounds dry to me, all things considered. Maybe some hop flavor/aroma are contributing to a perception of sweetness. I'm always amazed at how much chilling and especially carbing have on drying out and mellowing what might otherwise be considered off flavors. That and, on bigger beers, time plays a huge part in flavor developement, too.

 

[skibb]

what was your OG?

An email from bells stated "Terminal gravity will be below 3 Plato." That's about 1.012. The website states Hop Slam OG is 1.087. You are looking at about an 85% attenuation...quite dry.

Looks like Bell's redid their website and it states Hop Slam uses 6 different kinds of hops - all pacific northwest varieties... whic,h according to that last little bit of info that is appartently from the brewer, seems to fit

 

[headfullahops]

1.010 sounds dry to me, all things considered. Maybe some hop flavor/aroma are contributing to a perception of sweetness. I'm always amazed at how much chilling and especially carbing have on drying out and mellowing what might otherwise be considered off flavors. That and, on bigger beers, time plays a huge part in flavor developement, too.

 

[slowbie]

1.010 sounds dry to me, all things considered. Maybe some hop flavor/aroma are contributing to a perception of sweetness. I'm always amazed at how much chilling and especially carbing have on drying out and mellowing what might otherwise be considered off flavors. That and, on bigger beers, time plays a huge part in flavor developement, too.

1.010 is pretty consistent with everything I've heard about hopslam clones. And given the OG of 1.057 I don't think the FG is the problem.

However, I think your main problem flavor-wise is that 2lbs. of honey would be great in a 1.087 beer (e.g. real Hopslam), but it's way too much in a 1.057 beer. The way I count it, almost 1/3 of your fermented sugars came from honey. You're starting to get into braggot territory at that point.

Look, I don't want to be a jerk, but I'm not going to lie either. This recipe is not going to come remotely close to hopslam. You could come up with a good beer, but it's not going to taste like hopslam. Your OG was 30(!) points too low, and you only use three hop varieties instead of six. I also calculated that you came out to just over 30 IBUs, about 2/3 of which came from your 60 minute addition. According to the Bells email, Hopslam is over 60 IBUs and the majority of the IBUs come from late additions.

Obviously you should go through with the beer you have and carb and condition it and see how it turns out. With that much honey it just might need some extra conditioning time. However, if you want to start working on your next attempt at cloning Hopslam, here are my suggestions:

1. Up the grain bill. OG of 1.087. Mash at 150ish.

2. Redo the hop schedule. I would have 15 IBUs or fewer coming from the 60 min addition if I were you. The rest should come from additions at 15 minutes or later. Use the hops mentioned in the Bells email.

Steps 1 and 2 are more or less mandatory if you want to clone hopslam. Here are some of my suggestions that may or may not be accurate:

3. I don't think Hopslam has a full pound of crystal. A pound is a lot, and I don't think it would be considered 'a touch of crystal for color' in the Bells email. I would do a half pound max. Of course, that means you probably want to go with a darker color (I would say 60L off the top of my head, but I would run it through a calculator and do some research to see what people estimate Hopslam's SRM to be)

4. I would consider eliminating the 60 min addition altogether and just doing 15 and below.

5. I would use the yeast suggested in the Bells email (or harvest from a smaller Bells beer e.g. amber or best brown). WLP001/Wyeast 1056 will give you better attenuation than WLP008 that you used, and you'll need that with the higher gravity beer. WLP008 also has a lower alcohol tolerance.

 

[Fletch78]

I agree slowbie. Because it was my first mash, I didn't want to start with 16 pounds of grain, in case I messed it up. As I mentioned before, I didn't necessarily want to end up with a clone of hopslam, I misspoke in the OP. I wanted an APA that tastes like grapefruit, similar to hopslam, or my recollection of it.

I also agree with you on the braggot-ness, I am really surprised how meady it tastes. I'm used to using 2-3 pounds per gallon for a mead, so I didn't think 2# for 5.5 gallons was too much, in fact I suspected it wouldn't even be detectable. I almost added 3 pounds.

I've got a few ideas on changes, but I want to give this a real taste test before I start spinning my wheels on changes.

 

[Fletch78]

You know, according to my calculator, this WLPoo8 has attenuated to 79%, and there are still bubbles.

 

[skibb]

I'm really curious to know if Bell's has any whirlpool hop additions. Well here's my first draft...

6 Gallon Batch

OG: 1.087 (with 70% efficiency)
FG: 1.012
SRM: 8.6
IBU: 65.9
ADF: 85%

17.25# Pale 2-Row
2# Honey (perhaps Orange Blossom)
8 oz Crystal 80

Mash @ 150 F for 60 minutes

Boil for 60 minutes...

1 oz Hersbrucker @ 60 (about 13 IBU)

1 oz Crystal @ 20
1 oz Simcoe @ 20

1 oz Centennial @ 15
1 oz Vanguard @ 15
1 oz Glacier @ 15

.5 oz Hersbrucker @ 10
.5 oz Crystal @ 10
.5 oz Simcoe @ 10

.5 oz Centennial @ 5
.5 oz Vanguard @ 5
.5 oz Glacier @ 5

2 oz Simcoe @ Day 7


Yeast would be Bell's yeast recultured from one of their lighter ABV beers but to be honest I doubt you will be able to tell much of a difference considering the massive amount of hop flavors coming from this beer. So I may just brew with WL008.

We really need to email Bell's some more and get as many little details as we can...

 

[slowbie]

You know, according to my calculator, this WLPoo8 has attenuated to 79%, and there are still bubbles.

The honey you used will greatly increase attenuation. The numbers quoted for each strain are based on some specific testing parameters that are kept consistent from strain to strain. I'm not sure what those parameters are and had trouble finding them on the websites of White Labs and Wyeast. I would imagine that it involves a consistent pitching rate and grain bill with a mash temp of about 154. So what this means is that the attenuation numbers are more a guideline for comparing between strains, and are not always a good guideline for what to expect in each specific batch.

Yeast would be Bell's yeast recultured from one of their lighter ABV beers but to be honest I doubt you will be able to tell much of a difference considering the massive amount of hop flavors coming from this beer. So I may just brew with WL008.

I would still suggest WLP001 (as per the email from Bells) both for its higher alcohol tolerance and its better attenuation. Other than that my only other change I'd make to your recipe is to add a half ounce of amarillo to the dry hop.

 

[skibb]

Yeah I was thinking the same thing with the Amarillo. I'm not sure if that hop maybe used during the kettle too - or what hop it would replace. Would use 001 for sure, dunno why I posted 008.

 

[skibb]

Well, Bells did just confirm to me that Amarillo is used in the kettle and they state that Simcoe is used as the dry hop. I'm now wondering if Simcoe is even used in the kettle.

Edit: confirmed - Simcoe is only used as the dry hop and not used during the boil

Thank you for taking the time to contact us. We keep most of the Hopslam recipe pretty tight to our vest, but I can confirm that we do use Amarillo in the kettle and Simcoe as the dry-hop.