I brewed this up on Friday, and tasted the primary today (wanted to check on progress). I think I might have gotten close by doing the following:
1) Used Tasty's water profile for pale ales, which has a rather high SO4 level (350 ppm). I have very soft well water, and normally add a teaspoon of Gypsum and a Teaspoon of CaCl2 to just the mash. This hasn't been getting me anywhere near his water bill. So I followed his exactly (ended up with something like 1.5 teaspoons of Gypsum in the mash, 2 in the sparge, and small amounts of CaCl2, Epsom salt, and NaCl). This is way more gypsum than I normally use.
2) I took the first Liter of mash runnings, and boiled it down to a thick syrupy deliciousness. Took about 30 mins of boiling to remove all water and caramalize. Added back into the boil with 10 minutes left.
It's still very early, so I'll report back after dry hopping, but I wanted to see what other people are using for their water salts when brewing this clone.
I feel like the water is important in getting that Lagunitas sweetness, and I also feel like all of my previous Lagunitas clones (mainly IPA) missed that toffee / caramel sweetness that Lagunitas beers seem to have. I can't believe this is strictly from their yeast, so I was thinking that maybe they crank up their boil kettle to full blast, and develop hot spots in the process that lend a bit of caramel/toffee to their beers.
I don't know, maybe I'm crazy...