Heady Topper- Can you clone it?

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Finally got to brew a batch....Vegan #5, Its in the fermenter as I write this. Everything went smoothly, but as the boil ended I saw dark "specks" floating on top of the wort. They were undisolved turbinado sugar grains......I added the 8oz of sugar at flameout!? After transferring to the fermenter OG was 1.070..... a bit shy from the 1.071-1.074 range...and it tasted different from any beer I've made. The hop aroma was there, but it tasted first sweet, then bitter.....anyone have a similar experience?
 
Don't sweat it. Provided you followed the recipe correctly, it should all come together nicely at the end. The wort you have now is nowhere near the beer you will have after dry hopping.
 
My IPA worts often taste really sweet and then harshly bitter. If you have good aroma to it then it will come together. RDWHAHB


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Tasted unfermented wort means nothing. It always taste like crap, and you can't tell what the finished product would be like.
 
FATC1TY said:
Tasted unfermented wort means nothing. It always taste like crap, and you can't tell what the finished product would be like.
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I disagree, but that's why they call it my opinion. While you can't tell exactly what the finished beer will taste like, you can tell if it's malty, hoppy, or generally balanced. A big imperial IPA like this should be very sweet with a pretty harsh bitterness to it. Pine and citrus hops are generally noticeable too. I would say the OP has a base beer that is in the right zone for HT (note that there is no claim of likelihood of cloning the beer, just that he is on the right track). Thanks for your opinion, but I'm going to stick with mine on this one. :mug:


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brewski09 said:
I disagree, but that's why they call it my opinion. While you can't tell exactly what the finished beer will taste like, you can tell if it's malty, hoppy, or generally balanced. A big imperial IPA like this should be very sweet with a pretty harsh bitterness to it. Pine and citrus hops are generally noticeable too. I would say the OP has a base beer that is in the right zone for HT (note that there is no claim of likelihood of cloning the beer, just that he is on the right track). Thanks for your opinion, but I'm going to stick with mine on this one. :mug:


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I wasn't saying you were wrong.

I can tell how a beer will be when I design it. I don't need to taste the unfermented wort to tell me anything. It'll be sweet as hell because it's unfermented. Everything from a 100 IBU DIPA, to a 25 IBU blonde will be the same sickly sweet. The bitterness is going to have vary levels, but it's hard to tell what the end product will be anyways.

Ever make a sour wort/mash berliner? Taste the wort. It's hard to judge the sourness early on because of the sweetness and the wheat/pils aroma is so pungent and strong. Ferment it out, and carbonate it, and you'll find that if you thought it was really sour unfermented, then it's REALLY sour after the fact.

There's nothing wrong with tasting it, and deciding if it's what you want, but generally, it does nothing in terms of giving you much more than an educated guess at what it might taste like at the end. If it makes them feel better about their brew, then go for it.
 
Didn't mean to cause controversy...I always taste my brews along the way, looking for something that might indicate a "bad brew". In all the past efforts the un-fermented wort tasted either sweet or bitter, this brew is the first to clearly change on the pallet from sweet to bitter. And the aroma is amazing......thanks for the feedback, the proof obviously is about 3 weeks away. I'll let you know!
 
While I dont mean to perpetuate a cynical nitpicking troll-like behavior (which is typically found in blissfully low percentages here compared to other beer forums), I will add a comment. I have tasted wort prefermentation, and I haven't found it useful in indicating how the beer will taste finished. Yeast play such a large role on flavors, and unfermented wort doesnt obviously wont give you those indications. What I have found while brewing this recipe: I brewed one amazing spot on clone, and I brewed one murky failure of a clone that still ended up being a decent DIPA. The wort from the spot on clone smelled incredible, and it filled my enitre basement with the aroma of amazing hoppiness. The murky meh DIPA really lacked that. As to the whys and hows, thats a different story (pH, hop stand temps, yeast count, fermentation temps), but what can be taken from my little anecdote is that there are some things you might be able to get excited about from wort, and there are things that are perhaps more imaginary.

Agree to disagree you off-topic trolls! ;);):p:cross::D

Oh. Since Im here blabbering, has anyone else used entirely different hops with the same recipe? I am going to do just that soon, using Kohatu among a variety of other more tropical hops. Id be interested to hear results others may have found by straying from this amazing HT set of hops.
 
NuclearRich said:
Oh. Since Im here blabbering, has anyone else used entirely different hops with the same recipe? I am going to do just that soon, using Kohatu among a variety of other more tropical hops. Id be interested to hear results others may have found by straying from this amazing HT set of hops.
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Kimmich tweaks the hop bill in HT regularly. There is no one canonical recipe for Heady, John has described it as a work in progress. So throwing in a new hop is in keeping with the spirit of the beer, IMO.

Plus, our recipe is an educated guess. It gets you damn close but it's not infallible.
 
sweetcell said:
Kimmich tweaks the hop bill in HT regularly. There is no one canonical recipe for Heady, John has described it as a work in progress. So throwing in a new hop is in keeping with the spirit of the beer, IMO.

Plus, our recipe is an educated guess. It gets you damn close but it's not infallible.
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I get that kimmich adjusts based on availability of stock (like dropping in some citra cuz he's low on simcoe), but I'm talking wildly different varietals. New Zealand tropical instead of American dank/citrus/pine, maybe matched up with some experimental varietals.
 
I brewed the original recipe, except I substituted columbus for apollo. It's been in the bottle 6-7 weeks now. Great aroma and flavor, but now it seems way to bitter, compared to my memory of Heady. I am going to lower my boil IBU's from 117 to 100 on my next try.
 
At what point have you guys started ramping temps and at what rate did you ramp? Did you start at a certain gravity, when yeast began dropping out, when krausen fell, or what? I'm fermenting at 63 degrees (beer temp, not ambient temp) and if what I have learned from this and other Conan threads is true, then I'll want to ramp to around 70 near the end of fermentation to get it to finish. I brewed on 4/6 and pitched about 300 billion cells of Yeast Bay Vermont Ale into each fermenter containing 5.7 gallons of wort. The fermenters stopped pushing foam out of the blow offs yesterday. Krausen has started to fall, but there's still a good inch on the beer and it's fermenting pretty strong.
 
kevink said:
At what point have you guys started ramping temps and at what rate did you ramp? Did you start at a certain gravity, when yeast began dropping out, when krausen fell, or what? I'm fermenting at 63 degrees (beer temp, not ambient temp) and if what I have learned from this and other Conan threads is true, then I'll want to ramp to around 70 near the end of fermentation to get it to finish.
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After high krausen I usually up the temp 2* per day. Conan finishes quick though, so maybe 2* every 12 hours.

I'm almost finished fermenting my HT side by side with Conan and US-05. Started 05 at 58* and conan at 66*, with both finishing at 70*. The conan's stuck at 1.016 from 1.074 and the 05 is at 1.012. Going to try and up both to 72* and rouse the yeast today.

Conan tastes like a tropical fruit bomb at the moment, which isn't a good thing. I'm guessing the extra sweetness is holding back the some of the pine/dank. The hop profile actually tastes similar to a MO/El Dorado smash I tried a few months ago for some reason. 05 tastes dank and delicious.
 
I have a feeling some people are working with much weaker strains of Conan than I am. Mine were actually finishing too dry (~90% attenuation), so I didn't use sugar at all on my last clone and it finished at 1.011. I did a head to head with WLP090, which from my experience attenuates about the same as 05, and it finished at 1.014. I don't use oxygen either, but I pitch ~200 billion cells for a 3 gallon batch. I am also err on the side of keeping my temperatures lower because if the temperature goes above 70* it will have a Belgian taste.
 
ianmatth said:
I have a feeling some people are working with much weaker strains of Conan than I am. Mine were actually finishing too dry (~90% attenuation), so I didn't use sugar at all on my last clone and it finished at 1.011. I did a head to head with WLP090, which from my experience attenuates about the same as 05, and it finished at 1.014. I don't use oxygen either, but I pitch ~200 billion cells for a 3 gallon batch. I am also err on the side of keeping my temperatures lower because if the temperature goes above 70* it will have a Belgian taste.
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Did you culture yours? Mine was from Yeast Geek, and was old so I had to build it back up. I read others complaining theirs stalled at 1.020.

I don't think the belgian notes will happen after active fermentation, but I could be wrong.
 
kevink said:
At what point have you guys started ramping temps and at what rate did you ramp? Did you start at a certain gravity, when yeast began dropping out, when krausen fell, or what? I'm fermenting at 63 degrees (beer temp, not ambient temp) and if what I have learned from this and other Conan threads is true, then I'll want to ramp to around 70 near the end of fermentation to get it to finish. I brewed on 4/6 and pitched about 300 billion cells of Yeast Bay Vermont Ale into each fermenter containing 5.7 gallons of wort. The fermenters stopped pushing foam out of the blow offs yesterday. Krausen has started to fall, but there's still a good inch on the beer and it's fermenting pretty strong.
Click to expand...

OK, I just took a gravity reading. I'm at 1.045 from an OG of 1.073 after 4 days at 63 degrees. Fermentation is basically half way done. Time to ramp or no?
 
I'd raise the temp as that seems pretty slow. I didn't test my heady clone with Conan until 10 days (it was at FG then), but my zombie dust clone with wlp005 was at FG when I tested it at five days at 68F and my enjoy by clone with wlp090 was at FG after 3 days at 66F.
 
ja09 - I cultured mine from a can of Heady. From my experience I can let it go over 70* after a 2-3 weeks and not get Belgian esters so I don't think Conan will create Belgian esters after active fermentation either.

kevink - That honestly sounds really slow, the last time I used Conan I got my beer from 1.070 to 1.014 in less than 3 days and I was fermenting at 63* as well. Are you sure you pitched 300 billion cells as I'm really only pitching 20-30% more cells than you. IMO the only way to know if you really pitched 300 billion cells would have been to fully cold crash your starter and verify that it had 75 ml of solid (assumption of 4 billion cells/ml) yeast at the bottom.
 
ianmatth said:
kevink - That honestly sounds really slow, the last time I used Conan I got my beer from 1.070 to 1.014 in less than 3 days and I was fermenting at 63* as well. Are you sure you pitched 300 billion cells as I'm really only pitching 20-30% more cells than you. IMO the only way to know if you really pitched 300 billion cells would have been to fully cold crash your starter and verify that it had 75 ml of solid (assumption of 4 billion cells/ml) yeast at the bottom.
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Yes, it was right around 75mL per fermenter. The beer is only at 1.038 after 6.5 days. If anyone has any ideas I would love to hear them.
 
Agitate, then if you are still stalled after a week I would just pitch some s05 on top

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This is a very long thread.


Thank you for the work put into the clone.

I was planning to brew the recipe straight from BYO published "inspired" brew, but thought, I'd check here first.
I can't seem to make it through the entire thread.

Is the recipe posted as current best in post #1 still current? I assume much has changed to the clone recipe after post 341, which is where I pulled the plug.

I can't get the Conan, but going to use Gigayeast east coast IPA instead. Never had real HT before, so I won't be able to tell how close it is regardless.

Any more detail on the whirlpool method and pitch rates?

I suppose these questions might be answered in the remaining thousand+ posts but seemed to be too many tangents and unanswered questions posed and became wearisome to continue.


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TrickyDick said:
Is the recipe posted as current best in post #1 still current? I assume much has changed to the clone recipe after post 341, which is where I pulled the plug.


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I believe the most current recipe is on pg. 49 post 933 I think. Heady topper attempt 4


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So apparently I made a cat pee delivery mechanism :( I ran my wort through a Simcoe/Chinook/Amarillo Hopback. It's straight cat pee. I hope it mellows. I have to submit this for a local comp in two weeks. I wonder if I can cover the aroma...
 
NervousDad said:
So apparently I made a cat pee delivery mechanism :( I ran my wort through a Simcoe/Chinook/Amarillo Hopback. It's straight cat pee. I hope it mellows. I have to submit this for a local comp in two weeks. I wonder if I can cover the aroma...
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What comp? Buzz Off, Mash Bash or a different one? Would be interested in exchanging one of my HT clones with one of yours, assuming the cat pee mellows out :mug:
 
Is it carbed? I find that beers change when they carb. Maybe it will change the profile of the hops some and be less #1 and more Prize #1.
 
FreddyMar3 said:
What comp? Buzz Off, Mash Bash or a different one? Would be interested in exchanging one of my HT clones with one of yours, assuming the cat pee mellows out :mug:
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I'm going to try to get it to the Buzz off, but I may be out of town by then (Ohio).

I didn't use Conan with this batch, wlp007 so it wouldn't be a true heady clone, but if the cat pee mellows and I'm still around sure :)

DrunkleJon said:
Is it carbed? I find that beers change when they carb. Maybe it will change the profile of the hops some and be less #1 and more Prize #1.
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It's almost carbed, I hit it with gelatin yesterday and added some Keg hops to mask the aroma, (apollo,chinook, amarillo) I'm outside of the heady topper clone now, but I'm just hoping that I can make a drinkable beer :)

The aroma is mellowing a bit, fingers are crossed!
 
I am making a 10 gal batch and just added 30ml of hop extract by mistake. I thought they were 5ml tubes that I bought. Is this going to make it undrinkable?


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mike11b82 said:
I am making a 10 gal batch and just added 30ml of hop extract by mistake. I thought they were 5ml tubes that I bought. Is this going to make it undrinkable?
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What are your pre and post boil volumes? I just did a 10 gallon batch and needed 25mL to hit the correct IBUs with a 16.5 gallon pre boil volume.
 
I think you'll probably be fine. You can only jam so many IBU into a beer based on gravity.

From what I've heard (Charles Bamforth) that it's very difficult to get over 100 true IBUs into a beer. Not sure if that applied to extract though.
 
It should apply to hop extract too because the numbers they are talking about are based on reduced solubility with increasing gravity.
 
This might just be the thing that gets us a perfect clone. Only time will tell. I'll report back


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Hi,

Working a bit on the recipe (from post 1), in BeerSmith. Planning to brew Tuesday.
So, the hop schedule, was wondering, that post 1 says FlameOut hops and then Steeping hops.
Is there a specific/suggested/recommended amount of time to let the FlameOut hops dwell before turning on the immersion chiller to chill to 180ish for the steeping hops to be added?

If I get no specific response, my plan will be to let the FlameOut hops dwell for a good 20-30 minutes, with my whirlpool recirculation arm going, then turn on the chiller leaving whirlpool recirculation going, and let it free-cool (lid on) for 30 minutes, then chill to about 100º before running off through the plate chiller to the fermenter.

Also, fermentation temp schedule? Can someone summarize? Since I cannot get Conan, I am using GigaYeast Vermont IPA yeast on this brew. Never used that yeast before.

Thanks for the work on this one guys.

I'll try to post pics along the way - with great luck, I may be able to use my new plastic temp controlled conical apparatus, but progress has been slow, so I doubt it.

TD
 
I think that GigaYeast IS Conan. It's also available as The Magi from bootleg biology, Yeastgeek sells it, from East Coast Yeast as Northeastern Ale, and I got it from The Yeast Bay sold as Vermont Ale yeast.

Regarding the hop schedule, I would start the chiller right away as steeping at 200F will isomerize the oils almost as much as boiling would and you'll get a noticeable increase in bittering, unless thats what you want if course.
 
masonsjax said:
I think that GigaYeast IS Conan. It's also available as The Magi from bootleg biology, Yeastgeek sells it, from East Coast Yeast as Northeastern Ale, and I got it from The Yeast Bay sold as Vermont Ale yeast.

Regarding the hop schedule, I would start the chiller right away as steeping at 200F will isomerize the oils almost as much as boiling would and you'll get a noticeable increase in bittering, unless thats what you want if course.
Click to expand...

That's sort of what I was thinking. I am thinking that it'll take 5-10 minutes to chill to 180 from boiling temp for the steeping addition. These hops stay in the whirlpool after it gets to 180 as well. Wish we knew more about hop science. So I think I'll being chilling the wort after the FO addition straight away.

TD
 
I've had good results skipping the whirlpool hops and instead doing a 30-45 min stand at ~160 and another at ~140F. I haven't tried to clone heady topper (yet), but that process coupled with ample dry hopping (at ~70F) has produced some insanely aromatic brews.
 

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