Hopslam Clone...

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I still think a low mash temp is off base. This beet is crazy malty. I've drank it side by side with Pliny which is much dryer using that same percentage of sugar and yeast. I really think it's more of a 157ish range. It would be fun to do it twice and see.
 
The problem is the 1.084 OG and the 1.012 FG. To get there I think you need a lower mash temp. Of course the yeast strain could help alot too. We should do several brews with 152, 155 or higher and changing the hop profile, etc. Anyone with results on this post them here. Thanks.
 
A brew swap would be fun on this one. Same recipe, different yeast and mash temps. I'll do 158 and wlp001.
 
Damn i would love that but just got all the hops in the mail today for a pliny clone
 
Elsmth said:
The problem is the 1.084 OG and the 1.012 FG. To get there I think you need a lower mash temp. Of course the yeast strain could help alot too. We should do several brews with 152, 155 or higher and changing the hop profile, etc. Anyone with results on this post them here. Thanks.

And this is where I'm thinking a little more honey to dry it out vs mashing lower...
 
And this is where I'm thinking a little more honey to dry it out vs mashing lower...

I agree with that but I'm questioning whether or not they misspoke when they said a 21 plato. At 1.084 it would have to finish at 1.008 to hit 10%. Theres no way Hopslam finishes that low. I just don't see it. Like I said, I've had Pliny and Hopslam side by side more than once and pliny is quite a bit drier than hopslam and Russian River finishes pliny at 1.011. Personally, when I attempt to make a beer similar to this, I'll use more base grain and shoot for a 1.015 finish.
 
Starting with six different hop varietals added to the brew kettle & culminating with a massive dry-hop addition of Simcoe hops, Bell's Hopslam Ale possesses the most complex hopping schedule in the Bell's repetoire. Selected specifically because of their aromatic qualities, these Pacific Northwest varieties contribute a pungent blend of grapefruit, stone fruit, and floral notes. A generous malt bill and a solid dollop of honey provide just enough body to keep the balance in check, resulting in a remarkably drinkable rendition of the Double India Pale Ale style.




Alcohol by Volume: 10.0%
Original Gravity: 1.087
Shelf Life: 6 months
Dates Available: Winter seasonal
Available Packages: Bottle, draft, and 5 liter (1.32 gal.) mini-keg


From there website.... That's why I'd go with the crystal, and glacier,(6 hops) not to mention it's 1.087. Just trying to keep everyone on the same page
 
Thanks Sleepyemt. I have to look at the recipe again. If I bump my honey up to 1.50 lb. I get 1.087 OG. Also, why not use Chinook in there? It is known to have a grapefruit aroma. I'm thinking if I go with more hop varieties to add Chinook (definitely) and perhaps Citra (to get that stone fruit floral note that Bell's talks about).

I'm sure by the time I make this I will have overcomplicated.
 
On the matter of honey, Since last May I have been using 1LB 4 oz in my english IPA. It had been giving me right at 1084 and fermented down to 1014. I did 30 minutes at 150 degrees and then step it up to 1060. However the last time I did 150 for 60 minutes(until conversion actually). It hit 1087 but finished at 1004. When we set down with this years hopslam, my hophead friends thought the honey was the same as hopslam but the beer was dryer. The step version also tasted the honey the same by all of us. I used the cheapest honey my Kroger store had in stock. If you go upwith honey you will present more honey flavor.
 
I'm at the fire station today, but I'll post my last recipe when I get home..., yes you get some flavor from the malt, you also get some from the honey as well.
 
Here's the recipe, I pitched from a 2 liter starter that I got going on brew day with a decant and 1 liter of clean wort to wake up the yeast.I used 1272 due to having that on hand. Just a little over 2.5 lbs of Honey added at flame out. I've done a few side by side comparisons with others and this by far is as close as they come (IMHO).... Slightly more upfront bitterness, but it was really attributed to having a fresher quality than the bottle of hopslam. If anyone gets the chance to do this one, please let me know your experience!:mug:





Recipe: Hopslam (v.2)
Brewer: Jonathan
Asst Brewer:
Style: Imperial IPA
TYPE: All Grain
Taste: (38.0)

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 6.00 gal
Boil Size: 8.73 gal
Estimated OG: 1.090 SG
Estimated Color: 7.0 SRM
Estimated IBU: 68.0 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.00 %
Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU
16 lbs 8.0 oz Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 81.28 %
9.6 oz Caramel Malt - 10L (Briess) (10.0 SRM) Grain 2.96 %
9.6 oz Honey Malt (25.0 SRM) Grain 2.96 %
1.00 oz Hallertauer Hersbrucker [3.50 %] (FWH) Hops 14.1 IBU
3.25 oz Simcoe [13.00 %] (Dry Hop 7 days) Hops -
0.75 oz Amarillo Gold [8.50 %] (Dry Hop 7 days) Hops -
1.00 oz Vanguard [5.00 %] (60 min) Hops 18.3 IBU
2.00 oz Centennial [6.90 %] (20 min) Hops 17.0 IBU
2.00 oz Glacier [5.60 %] (10 min) Hops 8.2 IBU
1.00 oz Hallertauer Hersbrucker [4.00 %] (5 min) Hops 2.4 IBU
1.50 oz Amarillo Gold [8.60 %] (2 min) Hops 7.9 IBU
2 lbs 9.6 oz Honey (1.0 SRM) Sugar 12.81 %
1 Pkgs American Ale II (Wyeast Labs #1272) Yeast-Ale


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Medium Body, No Mash Out
Total Grain Weight: 17.70 lb
----------------------------
Single Infusion, Medium Body, No Mash Out
Step Time Name Description Step Temp
60 min Mash In Add 22.13 qt of water at 164.8 F 153.0 F
 
And a pic to go along with it.... Left is from the bottle, right is mine.

image-422454588.jpg
 
Going to brew it next week. Here's what I've come up with and plugged into beercalculus.hopville.com.

SRM=7
OG=1.094
FG=1.025
IBU= 64
ABV= 9.2%

12 lb pale liquid extract
9.5 oz crystal malt
9.5 oz honey malt

2 oz centennial (60 min)
1 oz vanguard (60)
2 oz glacier (20)
1.25 cascade (5)
2 oz crystal (5)
1 oz hallertau hersbruck (5)

dry hop 7 days: .75 cascade and 3 oz simcoe

The hops are those confirmed straight from Bell's. There are 7 different hops used, and I substituted either glacier or cascade for Amarillo I think because I couldn't find it available.

Let me know what y'all think...this is my first recipe building from scratch.

Should I add all of the LME at the beginning of the boil?

also adding 2.6 lbs of honey at flameout.

Btw, boiling with 3.5 gal, then adding the remaining 1.5 to the wort to get to a 5 gal batch.
 
Should I add all of the LME at the beginning of the boil?


Good luck - let us know how it turns out!

to answer the above - no.

it won't hurt at all, but the beer will turn out darker. Both LME and DME darken considerably when added "early" and your SRM of 7 will be closer to 12.

try 30 minutes in...mostly you're sterilizing it, and then binding with the hop acids, but the hop acids are already binding with the water molecules... (as I understand it)
 
Brewed it on 9/16 2 weeks ago and it's STILL fermenting. Was planning on racking to secondary today and dry hopping but looks like I'll have to wait a few more days. Hopefully that means I'll be able to reach the 10% abv, though.
 
Ahh! It's driving me crazy! All of this talk over the past 2 years, and no one has really posted a good review of how it turned out!

You guys who brewed this in 2010 - how did it go? Have any left? Did it age well? How was the hop profile? Bitterness? Did it end up honey-like? We must know! :)
 
I'll try post better tasting notes, I'm pretty set with how the recipe has turned out. I don't know that I'd change anything
 
Well, I ran into some complications. Around the 3rd day of fermentation, it was so vigorous it actually pushed my blowoff stopper and hose out of the carboy and was shooting out like mount vesuvius. I caught it after maybe 15 min since I was constantly checking on it because the krausen was so large. I lost a lot of hops/beer, and ended up with about 27 bottles of beer with a 10.3% abv. color was a little dark, but this was extract so that was to be expected.

taste was quite off, had almost an orange sweetness too it. I'm thinking I was too heavy on the honey malt, but the beer never carbonated properly so I still can't judge the full taste of the beer.

Overall it was a hell of a learning experience and the first recipe I tried formulating on my own. If I did the brew again I'm sure I would get better results, I know so much more now than I did back in September and am not quite so naive.

Sorry, folks!
 
So Ive brewed several variations of this recipe and think I've figured a few things out. By no means am I an expert, but I think its surprisingly close. First you really need that finished gravity to be low, anything too high will still have a sweetness, when combined with all the late hopping flavor will give that orange sweetness flavor, IMO. I used a less attenuative yeast in one batch and finished way to high, giving the resulting orange sweetness that Southside mentions. you could get away with a little less honey malt, I upped the bittering hops. Secondly Ive done a batch with out honey, and just the honey malt, and couldn't tell any difference ... it would be up to the purist that say its not how Bells brews it. I also changed my mash temps to make sure it drys out. End results seemed to be no difference IMO.

So here's what I've settled on.

16 1/2lbs of 2 Row
.5 Lbs of Honey Malt
.5 lbs of caramel 10
1.5 of corn sugar

1 oz of hersbrucker FWH
1.5 oz of Glacier @60 min.
1 oz of Centennial @30 min.
1 oz. Amarillo @20 min.
1 oz. Hersbrucker @20 min.
1 oz Glacier @ 20 min.
1 oz Glacier @5 5 min.
Gypsum

Dry hop
3.25 Simcoe 8days
.75 Amarillo 8 days
I mashed at 150, O2, fermented with 2 packs of 05, went from 1.084 to 1.012

Surprisingly balanced, very smooth, just enough bitterness to balance the flavor. I dont have great tasting notes from that day... I did bring it by Brewmasters Warehouse for a little sampling, Everyone loved it! absolutely had the hopslam profile and taste. The biggest 2 things would be the dryness and and the dryhops IMO. I subbed glacier instead of the six diferent hops, just because of its clean profile.

Id love to hear feedback if anyone tries it....
 
How long did you leave in primary/secondary/bottles? Fermentation temp? I've done some more reading and 2 of the big things I missed that people keep mentioning are to ferment around 66, and let it sit in the secondary for around 2 months.
 
Fermented around 67 with a 1degree differential, then ramped it up slightly towards the end. I think about 2 weeks in primary, that included cold crashing. Then the Dryhop schedule, at about 60 degrees. Kegged, so no carbonation issues
 
I'm not sure what the point would be to secondary it for so long IMO, unless your waiting to Dryhop as well? So much of the hop is flavor additions, and will fade over time.....
 
There's no way I'd tackle this beer without using REAL honey at or near flameout.
It gives that great flavor and aroma, and it will help dry the beer out...much like how Hopslam is pretty dry for a 10% beer.
 
dave73ok said:
There's no way I'd tackle this beer without using REAL honey at or near flameout.
It gives that great flavor and aroma, and it will help dry the beer out...much like how Hopslam is pretty dry for a 10% beer.

I've done both, there's very minuscule difference, but it only my opinion, your dryhopping so heavily that honey is lost, that's why my latest batch was done with sugar, it drys it out the same.... Anyways my humble opinion
 
Yeah, I should have clarified that I was speaking about using honey as opposed to honey malt. I've also done DIPAs with sugar and yes, got the same dryness. Not so with honey malt.

Kind of excited for Hopslam to arrive in a month or so, too!
 
dave73ok said:
Yeah, I should have clarified that I was speaking about using honey as opposed to honey malt. I've also done DIPAs with sugar and yes, got the same dryness. Not so with honey malt.

Kind of excited for Hopslam to arrive in a month or so, too!

I understand! I was the same way brewing this my first few batches. I need to get another batch going so they'll be ready side by side....
 
Here's what I made:

Hopslam Clone - All-Grain
14C-India Pale Ale(IPA)-Imperial IPA

1.078 OG
1.012 FG
83.6% apparent attenuation
8.8% ABV
67.6 IBU
7.9 SRM

Recipe Overview
Wort Volume Before Boil: 7.00 US gals
Wort Volume After Boil: 6.0 US gals
Volume Transferred: 4.90 US gals
Mash Efficiency: 65.7 %
Boil Duration: 60.0 mins
Fermentation Temperature: 64 degF

Fermentables
Ingredient Amount % MCU When
US 2-Row Malt 16.00 lb 82.1 % 5.0 In Mash/Steeped
US Caramel 20L Malt 1.00 lb 5.1 % 3.4 In Mash/Steeped
US Caramel 40L Malt 0.50 lb 2.6 % 3.4 In Mash/Steeped
Sugar - Honey 2.00 lb 10.3 % 0.7 End Of Boil

Hops
Variety Alpha Amount IBU Form When
US Centennial 10.5 % 1.00 oz 39.0 Loose Whole Hops 60 Min From End
US Centennial 8.7 % 0.15 oz 5.3 Loose Pellet Hops 60 Min From End
US Glacier 5.0 % 1.52 oz 10.6 Loose Pellet Hops 20 Min From End
US Vanguard 5.0 % 1.52 oz 10.6 Loose Pellet Hops 20 Min From End
German Hallertauer Hersbrucker 3.5 % 1.52 oz 4.0 Loose Pellet Hops 5 Min From End
US Crystal 3.5 % 1.52 oz 4.0 Loose Pellet Hops 5 Min From End
US Amarillo 5.0 % 2.00 oz 0.0 Loose Pellet Hops At turn off
US Simcoe 12.2 % 6.00 oz 0.0 Loose Pellet Hops Dry-Hopped

White Labs WLP001-California Ale

Mash Schedule
Mash Type: Full Mash
Schedule Name: Single Step Infusion (67C/152F)
Step Type Temperature Duration
Rest at 152 degF 60

Brewed on 11/6. Big 4L starter on the stir plate. Pitched 48 hours after brewing, with 5+ min of air pump. Hit again 12 hours into fermentation. Transferred to secondary and dry hopped for a week with 6 oz Simcoe on 11/19. Cold crashed until 12/15 at 30-32F. Primed 4.4 gal with 2.6 oz sucrose - target 2 vols.

I dry-hopped with a crapload of Simcoe and it's super, super sweet-smelling and floral. I'd like to have it finish a bit lower, maybe 1.009. Not quite balanced enough on the back of the palate to pass for Hopslam.
 
So Ive brewed several variations of this recipe and think I've figured a few things out. By no means am I an expert, but I think its surprisingly close. First you really need that finished gravity to be low, anything too high will still have a sweetness, when combined with all the late hopping flavor will give that orange sweetness flavor, IMO. I used a less attenuative yeast in one batch and finished way to high, giving the resulting orange sweetness that Southside mentions. you could get away with a little less honey malt, I upped the bittering hops. Secondly Ive done a batch with out honey, and just the honey malt, and couldn't tell any difference ... it would be up to the purist that say its not how Bells brews it. I also changed my mash temps to make sure it drys out. End results seemed to be no difference IMO.

So here's what I've settled on.

16 1/2lbs of 2 Row
.5 Lbs of Honey Malt
.5 lbs of caramel 10
1.5 of corn sugar

1 oz of hersbrucker FWH
1.5 oz of Glacier @60 min.
1 oz of Centennial @30 min.
1 oz. Amarillo @20 min.
1 oz. Hersbrucker @20 min.
1 oz Glacier @ 20 min.
1 oz Glacier @5 5 min.
Gypsum

Dry hop
3.25 Simcoe 8days
.75 Amarillo 8 days
I mashed at 150, O2, fermented with 2 packs of 05, went from 1.084 to 1.012

Surprisingly balanced, very smooth, just enough bitterness to balance the flavor. I dont have great tasting notes from that day... I did bring it by Brewmasters Warehouse for a little sampling, Everyone loved it! absolutely had the hopslam profile and taste. The biggest 2 things would be the dryness and and the dryhops IMO. I subbed glacier instead of the six diferent hops, just because of its clean profile.

Id love to hear feedback if anyone tries it....

Hey there!
I need to know when you added the corn sugar? I am hoping to brew this today! Thanks!
P.S. Any other info would be greatly appreciated! I tried to PM you but your box was full!
 
tigerbass said:
Hey there!
I need to know when you added the corn sugar? I am hoping to brew this today! Thanks!
P.S. Any other info would be greatly appreciated! I tried to PM you but your box was full!

I added the corn sugar and gypsum with 5 minutes left in the boil. It ends up a great beer! Let me know how it goes for you!
 
Anyone pickin up Northern Brewer in this years 'Slam or is it just me? I get it big in the nose.

Also, does the honey add any flavor nuances at all, or does it just spike the ABV an clean it up for a dry finish?
 
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