Gumballhead Clone

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SpacemanSpiff

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I've been searching around and looking at the various suggestions for a Gumballhead clone. I'm fortunate to live close to Three Floyd's, so at the very least it will be easy for me to do some side-by-side comparison. I've been wanting to get this in the pipeline soon and figured now is as good as time as any.

After researching, I found the all-grain clone recipe on Brewmasters Warehouse. I'm still in the extract with specialty grain phase though, so I used their awesome Brew Builder tool to try and match up an extract recipe. I'm looking for some feedback to see if what I came up with looks reasonable since it's slightly different from the extract recipes I've seen.

I can't quite do a full boil in my current pot. I can safely go to 4.5 or 5 gallons, but don't feel comfortable going up to the full 5.5 or 6 to account for the boil-off. I know that will affect the hopping somewhat, but I don't know how dramatic it would be.

So here's what I came up with:
Steeping:
1 lb. 2-row
1 lb. Caravienne
1 lb. White wheat

Extract:
3 lbs. Breiss Wheat DME
0.6 lbs. Breiss Extra Light DME
(I did the odd amount to match up the OG. DME comes in 3 lb. bags and I have the odd amount of Extra Light on hand to make up the difference)

Hops:
All Amarillo
0.25 oz. at 60 min.
0.5 oz. at 15
0.5 oz. at 5
0.75 oz at flameout
2 oz. dry hop

Yeast:
US-05

Expected stats come up to be:
OG- 1.047
FG- 1.012
IBU- 20.1
SRM- 5.86
ABV- 4.59

These compare very closely to the all-grain recipe expected stats.

Any feedback or suggestions are greatly appreciated. :mug:
 
I've never had gumballhead, so I can't comment on the accuracy of this recipe, but I do have something to point out with your grains.

Both 2-row and white wheat need to be mashed. Technically, this is a partial mash recipe and not just extract with specialty grains. What this means is that you should hold your grains at a temperature of around 154-ish for around an hour to get conversion of the starches therein.
 
I just made a GBH clone and can tell you for certain you are going to want to increase your late addition hops if you want it to have the aroma of a fresh gumballhead. I'd at least double the flameout and 5 min additions... Just my opinion
 
Gumball head does not have caravienna from everything that I've read - just 2-row, wheat and some aromatic malt.

The change in your IBU's from topping off at the end of the boil to make 6 gallons will be very slight - I wouldn't worry about it.

Your numbers are a bit off from a published source...(here they are)

OG: 1.053
ABV: 5.5% (also confirmed on their website)
IBU: 28 (also confirmed on their website)
Hops: Warrior, Amarillo, Simcoe
Grains: 2-row, red wheat, aromatic

FG would be 1.011 to get 5.5% ABV from that OG (78% ADF)

I have a AG clone that came out to be really damn close to the original - but I never got my hands on any fresh Gumball Head to confirm it. Great beer regardless.

6 Gallon Batch

6# Red Wheat malt (Briess) 52.2%
5# 2-Row (Briess) 43.5%
8 oz Aromatic 4.3%

.25 oz Warrior (13.6aa) @ 60 for 16 IBU
.5 oz Amarillo (8.5aa) @ 15
.5 oz Amarillo @ 5
1 oz Amarillo @ 1

1 oz Simcoe dry hopped day 5

fermented at 68 with Cal Ale yeast

Hope this helps
 
Gumballhead Inspired Wheat Pale Ale
Recipe Type: Extract
Yeast: S-05
Batch Size (Gallons): 5
Original Gravity: 1.054
Final Gravity: 1.010
Boiling Time (Minutes): 60
Color: orange-golden
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 9@62
Secondary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 14@68
Tasting Notes: Excellent american hop flavor and aroma, with a full, smooth wheat body

1lb. Caravienne
1lb. 2-row
1lb. White Wheat
5lb. Briess Wheat DME
.5oz Amarillo whole (9.8 AA, 60 min.)
.5oz Amarillo whole (9.8 AA, 15 min.)
.5oz Amarillo whole (9.8 AA, 5 min.)
.5oz Amarillo whole (9.8 AA, flameout)
1oz Amarillo whole (9.8 AA, dry-hop)
1oz Simcoe pellet (12.1 AA, dry-hop)

Safale-05 fermented as noted
 
This is the recipe I saw in my searches. As I was thinking it over, I could've sworn I remembered the ABV being above 5 on the menu. Sure enough, on the web page it shows a higher ABV and IBU than the AG recipe I had seen and that matches what skibb said. Also, in checking out the label, it does say red wheat and boatloads of Amarillo hops. I'm assuming Caravienne simulates what the red wheat does for you? I don't see anything about Simcoe or Warrior on there, but that doesn't mean they're not used.

So I think I'm going to bump up the OG and tinker with the hopping to try and more closely match what the real Gumballhead comes up to.

On the steeping/partial mashing of the 2-row and white wheat. I've had 2-row as part of the steeping grains on kits I've tried before and it only called for the normal steeping at 155 for 20-30 mins. How much is being left out by not doing an hour partial mash?

Thanks for all the responses!
 
i've made it a few times, I used
6lb red wheat
4-5 lb 2-row, and
1 lb aromatic or 40L

I like the aromatic version better as the FG got a few points lower. I usually targeted an OG around 1.054 IIRC.
both recipes were too orange but super good. I used way more hops and targeted 30 IBUs. I think I used 7 ounces of Amarillo total. (including 2 Oz dry hopped) Good news is amarillo are some tasty hops and its gonna turn out good.

If I wanted to try honing in on GBH I would prolly use regular wheat and see if that doesn't change the color...but I don't care to, my recipe is plenty good, and like you, I can get GBH whenever I want it.
 
From what I've read red wheat (a Briess product) is very similar to white wheat malt - if not nearly identical. I do remember one source claiming the red wheat imparts a slight tartness, and according to their website it has slightly higher protein content and diastatic power. I don't think the caravienna was used b/c of the unavailability of the red wheat, I just think whoever made that recipe was just guess at the grain bill.
 
Thought I'd follow up on this. I sampled the keg last week, but by tonight the carbonation is perfect. This beer turned out phenomenally well. Easily top 3 of the batches I've done and I'll probably argue it's the best. I need to grab some bottles of Gumballhead to do a side-by-side, but I'm not all that concerned with the comparison because this is tasty in it's own right.

I tinkered with the extract and the hop additions from what I originally proposed. Not sure what I'd change on the next batch. And there WILL be a next batch. I'd like to try out the red wheat since it's known that it is supposed to be part of the recipe. Maybe in place of the Caravienne.

This Amarillo shortage is going to be brutal. It's Brian Boru season at Three Floyd's now and I'd love to give a clone of that a go as well.
 
Glad that your beer turned out so well!


If you were going to use red wheat, maybe consider replacing the white wheat malt with it. Red wheat is a base malt as well.
 
I actually bought that book a few months back mostly for the section on Gumballhead. That recipe (or ingredient set really) is out there to see but I was hoping for a little more discussion about it in the book. No such luck. Still a good book though.

I've made a version of this about 4-5 times now and I try to make sure I've always got one on tap. I've done it extract and all grain. In my most recent batch, I subbed in Aromatic for the Caravienne since Aromatic is listed in the Brewing with Wheat book. It's carbing now and I can't wait because it's one of the best gravity samples I've tasted. I'm just not sure I'm buying the hop list in the book though. I'm sure it's correct because I don't see why they would lie about it, but I've always made mine with straight Amarillo. I can see using Warrior to bitter instead of wasting Amarillo on that, but I just can't taste the Simcoe in the real version.
 
I actually bought that book a few months back mostly for the section on Gumballhead. That recipe (or ingredient set really) is out there to see but I was hoping for a little more discussion about it in the book. No such luck. Still a good book though.

I've made a version of this about 4-5 times now and I try to make sure I've always got one on tap. I've done it extract and all grain. In my most recent batch, I subbed in Aromatic for the Caravienne since Aromatic is listed in the Brewing with Wheat book. It's carbing now and I can't wait because it's one of the best gravity samples I've tasted. I'm just not sure I'm buying the hop list in the book though. I'm sure it's correct because I don't see why they would lie about it, but I've always made mine with straight Amarillo. I can see using Warrior to bitter instead of wasting Amarillo on that, but I just can't taste the Simcoe in the real version.

Hey Spaceman, I'm looking to brew a Gumballhead Clone as my next beer (I've never even had the beer, it just sounds awesome), and was wondering if you could comment on how the beer turned out with using aromatic malt. A bunch of these clone recipes I've been looking over typically have wheat malt, 2-row pale, and a little bit of caravienna. Just wanted to see which way I should go. It seems like the aromatic malt would be closer to the real thing?
 
LarsonLE said:
Hey Spaceman, I'm looking to brew a Gumballhead Clone as my next beer (I've never even had the beer, it just sounds awesome), and was wondering if you could comment on how the beer turned out with using aromatic malt. A bunch of these clone recipes I've been looking over typically have wheat malt, 2-row pale, and a little bit of caravienna. Just wanted to see which way I should go. It seems like the aromatic malt would be closer to the real thing?

Aromatic is supposedly in the real thing, but I think I'd lean a little toward the Caravienne version. It's not a dead on clone, but I've generally preferred those batches even to the real thing. I think the jury's still out on my Aromatic batches though. The book doesn't give percentages so I've tried a couple different levels. In the most recent batch, I don't know what happened. I've had it happen a couple of times where it just doesn't taste right at first. Hard to describe, but it just seems harsh. After 2-3 months of aging though it comes in and tastes great. I've started to suspect the big dry hop load as that would be an explanation for something that evens out over time. Especially with an American wheat that really shouldn't need to age. But on this last batch even the grav sample tasted kind of iffy.

Long story short, I think for the next batch I'm going to go back to the Caravienne recipe and see what happens. While not a true clone, I don't think you'll be disappointed with the results.
 
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