American IPA Hopslam Clone

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Brewed up my first batch of this recipe about a month ago. It has been conditioning in the bottles for about 2 weeks now and I've not been able to resist sampling a few and I must say, this is one damn fine brew!:mug:

I brewed a PTE clone last fall and at the time, that was the best beer I had brewed, but this Hopslam clone has surpassed it as the best beer I've brewed... :rockin:

It's damn close to the real thing... :mug:
 
Hi there. I've been brewing strictly extract/specialty, but would love to try a partial mash biab for this recipe. Could anyone help me out with a conversion of the recipe that would work with a 5 gallon kettle? Hopefully the kettle size wont be too restricting! Thanks guys.
 
JollyBombadil said:
Hi there. I've been brewing strictly extract/specialty, but would love to try a partial mash biab for this recipe. Could anyone help me out with a conversion of the recipe that would work with a 5 gallon kettle? Hopefully the kettle size wont be too restricting! Thanks guys.
Click to expand...

if kettle size restricts you, just use 4 gallons and when you put in carboy, add a cold gallon of clean water. that's what i do when i'm in a bind sometimes; i've had to do this route the past few batches or so; because of this damn harsh winter we've had i've had to use small pots and back to my stove top! beer tastes fine!
 
BeerLoverHere said:
if kettle size restricts you, just use 4 gallons and when you put in carboy, add a cold gallon of clean water. that's what i do when i'm in a bind sometimes; i've had to do this route the past few batches or so; because of this damn harsh winter we've had i've had to use small pots and back to my stove top! beer tastes fine!
Click to expand...

Thanks beerlover!

So I dug through a few resources but need some expert advise on my partial grain conversion.

According to Green Bay rackers, if I use 10lbs of grain and 1.25 q/lb of water, I should be able to use my 5 gallon kettle just fine. That would mean I could mash 5 lbs of specialty grains and 5 lbs of base malt. That would leave 9.5 lbs of base malt that needs to be converted to LME. Apparently 1lb grain = .75 lb of LME, so I would need just a little over 7 lbs of LME, making my recipe look like this:

5 lbs pale malt
3 lbs Vienna malt
1 lbs caramel/crystal malt
.5 cara-pils/dextrine
.5 lbs honey malt
7 lbs pale LME

Does this look ok? Is that on ok water ratio?

Thanks a lot!
 
Brewed this on saturday, AG. Our batch sparging only got us to 1.076 OG (55% mash eff.) The beer smells fantastic, not sure if it needs 3 extra oz of simcoe but i'm gonna do it. I'm already mourning the loss of probably a gallon of beer to all the hops.

Not sure why the og was so low, our recent batches have been around 75% (even with our recent 10% stout). We are using a homemade cooler (rectangular, not cylindrical)with a coil system, about half a gallon of dead space. the grains were pretty well milled. Any tips for better batch sparging with big beers like this?
 
Ok bottles this 4 weeks ago and still not the slightest carb. I warmed them up and have agitated the bottles but still nothing. What's my best option?


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
 
Brainsnap said:
Brewed this on saturday, AG. Our batch sparging only got us to 1.076 OG (55% mash eff.) The beer smells fantastic, not sure if it needs 3 extra oz of simcoe but i'm gonna do it. I'm already mourning the loss of probably a gallon of beer to all the hops.

Not sure why the og was so low, our recent batches have been around 75% (even with our recent 10% stout). We are using a homemade cooler (rectangular, not cylindrical)with a coil system, about half a gallon of dead space. the grains were pretty well milled. Any tips for better batch sparging with big beers like this?
Click to expand...

We brewed this yesterday and ran into the same problem.. aiming for 1.098 and hit 1.078. We do BIAB and I did make some water volume calculation changes in beersmith, so I think this might be a bigger part of the issue. hope it still turns out well!
 
carlk47 said:
We brewed this yesterday and ran into the same problem.. aiming for 1.098 and hit 1.078. We do BIAB and I did make some water volume calculation changes in beersmith, so I think this might be a bigger part of the issue. hope it still turns out well!
Click to expand...

How do you have your grains milled? I too do BIAB and I mill my grains with a carona mill and I crush them very fine to where it's almost like a powder. I didn't hit 1.098 but I did come in at 1.090 which is pretty much what I was expecting to hit.
 
Used my barely crusher with about a .37 gap. Still working out my settings in beersmith so I think that's the bigger issue. Gives me an excuse to brew this in the future to try again!


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
 
My efficiency was terrible on this brew. I usually get around 80-85% with my 10 gallon cooler/false bottom/sparge arm setup, but then again I have never made a beer this big. I collected 8.5 gallons of wort and boiled off 2 gallons in 90 minutes since my pre boil SG was around 1.070 with my usual 7 gallons. I noticed those 8 oz of hops soaked up a ton of wort. Collected barely over 5 gallons with a gravity of 1.087. Next time I'll plan on 65% or so efficiency and bump up the grain bill.
 
mascervesa said:
My efficiency was terrible on this brew. I usually get around 80-85% with my 10 gallon cooler/false bottom/sparge arm setup, but then again I have never made a beer this big. I collected 8.5 gallons of wort and boiled off 2 gallons in 90 minutes since my pre boil SG was around 1.070 with my usual 7 gallons. I noticed those 8 oz of hops soaked up a ton of wort. Collected barely over 5 gallons with a gravity of 1.087. Next time I'll plan on 65% or so efficiency and bump up the grain bill.
Click to expand...

I typically get 75-77% efficiency and landed around 65% with this brew myself. Between hops sucking up more and my batch sparging efficiency dropping with maxing out my cooler MLT setup, I think 65% is what most should target on this brew.
 
after one week, our beer is about half carbonated. The flavor is fantastic, honey on the back end and very bright (though i wish i had about 2% more ABV).

I think assuming bad efficiency for beers this big should be expected, i'll change my beersmith settings next time and dial up the recipe.
 
to bring it down to 70 ibu's beer smith says the first 8 additions should be .52ozs each. with the 1 oz at each addition I'm coming up with 134 ibu's. that just seems way to high. Are the majority of people using the exact hop schedule for the OP's recipe?

Thx, Dave
 
Put this on tap this weekend.. Unanimous decision was "Wow!"

Great recipe!


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
 
d2xx said:
to bring it down to 70 ibu's beer smith says the first 8 additions should be .52ozs each. with the 1 oz at each addition I'm coming up with 134 ibu's. that just seems way to high. Are the majority of people using the exact hop schedule for the OP's recipe?

Thx, Dave
Click to expand...

I brought mine down to the mid-seventies mostly because I didn't want to bury the honey flavor with bitterness on the backend. To do this, I backed down the 60min/FWH additions and bumped up the 15 min additions to make sure I got the flavor of the hops.
 
Brewed this up yesterday. Changed it to a 6 gallon batch to account for some of the losses to trub and dry hops, just so I make sure I get a full keg out of it. Still managed to get 1.090 for my OG. It's fermenting away quite happily, and it smells amazing (I'm an airlock sniffer :D).

Thanks for sharing the recipe!
 
I brewed this a few months ago and it turned out awesome. Everyone that has one go nuts over it (including me).

10 out of 10

Great job
 
Ok. So I brewed up another batch of this today but I made a bit of a mistake. I forgot to add the honey at 10 minutes. Is it something I could still add now that the beer has cooled or would I be ok just going on without it? I still hit 1.085 on my OG so I'm not looking at gaining any more points to my OG.
 
Is this recipe for a 5 gallon?? Sorry new to this whole home brew thing and I'm hell bent on trying this out.
 
Got the bjcp score sheet from the KY state fair and it scored a 41.5.
 
Just got my hands on this years hopslam. First time having it. Love this beer! Thinking its time for a brew day. So I have a bunch of the actual hopslam bottles. Would it be worth harvesting the yeast from? I know people do it with the two hearted.
 
Two hearted is a good idea, or just a nice big starter of Wyeast American Ale 2. Pac man would do well too... basically any highly attenuating clean fermenting American yeast.
 
I've brewed this a couple times and it's an outstanding beer, unique. A buddy hooked me up with a couple bottles of the real thing and the malt taste is very similar. I think mine has a little more bitterness and the color is darker. The original is just so deliciously smooth. I'm not really hung up on the color but next time I think I'll back off on the early hop addition and substitute crystal 10 to see how that turns out.

image.jpg
 
I'm thinking of brewing this, but leaving out the FWH columbus and the 60 minute simcoe addition in order to lower the IBU's closer to what Bell's advocates. That brings it down to about 70 IBU's. Any thoughts?
 
I just tried the original from Bell's yesterday. It's phenomenal! Usually, Simcoe doesn't agree with my taste buds...

At $17 a six pack... I'm very interested in brewing this myself.
 
Okay I've brewed a different clone that was on beersmithrecipes that has the same grain bill. I think the people who are having color issues are the people who are using dextrose instead of honey.

Here are my major issues with this recipe. First, why is Simcoe being used as a bittering hop? Bittering hop has one job, so you should stick to one hop for bittering. Simcoe is expensive and hard to find during the winter. Second, I would remove the 45M and move the 30M addition to 15M. This is hop forward beer. You're going to get all the aroma and flavor you need with the late additions and whirlpool. Third issue with this recipe is that you do not state how long you whirlpool your hops. Whirlpool hops do add bitterness. You more than likely have your whirlpool hops set at 0M on Beersmith which is not giving you the correct amount of IBU's. I Whirlpool for 15M. Bump this up to a 90M boil and you're golden. I'll place my updated recipe as well
Hop%20Slam.jpg


Hop%20Slam%20Recipe.PNG
 
I agree with just about everything you said especially about the hops.

The one thing I am skeptical of is the honey being required. I believe Bells recommend a "dollop" of it for home brew scale but can't imagine them establishing a separate supply chain so they can procure hundreds (thousands?) of pounds of honey once a year in order to make this, especially when a nearly identical effect in the finished product is achieved using a bit more honey malt and plain table sugar, both from established supply chains. Especially because honey is not the featured element of the beer, I'm not sure it's actually needed at all.
I made a recipe a couple years ago without honey (instead using base 2 row, 0.5 lb crystal 10, 1 lb honey malt and 2 lbs sugar) and people with decent palates kept asking what kind of honey I used.
 
Hanso said:
I agree with just about everything you said especially about the hops.

The one thing I am skeptical of is the honey being required. I believe Bells recommend a "dollop" of it for home brew scale but can't imagine them establishing a separate supply chain so they can procure hundreds (thousands?) of pounds of honey once a year in order to make this, especially when a nearly identical effect in the finished product is achieved using a bit more honey malt and plain table sugar, both from established supply chains. Especially because honey is not the featured element of the beer, I'm not sure it's actually needed at all.
I made a recipe a couple years ago without honey (instead using base 2 row, 0.5 lb crystal 10, 1 lb honey malt and 2 lbs sugar) and people with decent palates kept asking what kind of honey I used.
Click to expand...

I did about 5 minutes of research and couldn't find any clues on anything about the beer besides it being dry hopped with Simcoe. The honey taste goes away after about 6 weeks in the bottle.
 
I might have gotten wires crossed here. The "dollop of honey" is how they imply they make the beer:
http://www.bellsbeer.com/brands/19-Hopslam%20Ale

And FWIW these are two of the most insightful posts on the subject I could find when I did my research... I'm no expert in Hopslam cloning so.. grain of salt.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/hopslam-clone-137117/index8.html#post2611038
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/hopslam-clone-137117/index2.html#post1923124
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/hopslam-clone-137117/index11.html#post3601734
 
I popped open my Hopslam clone about a week ago and got a little bit of a honey bomb. I scaled down the recipe to a 3 gallon batch, due to lack of creating 5+ gallons of brew, and added in close to 1 lb of honey. I added it in with 10 minutes left in the boil. The flavor and aroma is a little overwhelming. Don't get me wrong I'm still going to drink all of it, but I would consider bumping down the amount of honey put in this brew or add it in with 30 minutes left in the boil. This way you can keep the sugar but get rid of most of the honey flavor.

Reading through this thread and what the brewer said from Bell's, Bell's doesn't want Hopslam to taste like honey, when I drink it, I don't get any honey at all, they want it to be more hop flavor forward and showcase the hops.

Don't make the mistake I made, unless you want a honey bomb, mead-like beer. Add the honey earlier in the boil or use less and add some corn sugar to bump up the ABV and help dry it out.
 
lilbova3 said:
I popped open my Hopslam clone about a week ago and got a little bit of a honey bomb. I scaled down the recipe to a 3 gallon batch, due to lack of creating 5+ gallons of brew, and added in close to 1 lb of honey. I added it in with 10 minutes left in the boil. The flavor and aroma is a little overwhelming. Don't get me wrong I'm still going to drink all of it, but I would consider bumping down the amount of honey put in this brew or add it in with 30 minutes left in the boil. This way you can keep the sugar but get rid of most of the honey flavor.

Reading through this thread and what the brewer said from Bell's, Bell's doesn't want Hopslam to taste like honey, when I drink it, I don't get any honey at all, they want it to be more hop flavor forward and showcase the hops.

Don't make the mistake I made, unless you want a honey bomb, mead-like beer. Add the honey earlier in the boil or use less and add some corn sugar to bump up the ABV and help dry it out.
Click to expand...

That's exactly how mine was. 6 weeks after bottling it was prime and the honey calmed down big time
 
Thanks for the recipe! Brewed it last night in my Keggle/BIAB setup. Nailed mash at 150 and sampled 1.098 on the button before pitching. Stone oxygenated the wort for 2 minutes and then dropped ~10oz of S-05 Slurry from a light APA made 10 days ago. It was a slight over pitch, but the size of the beer made me a little nervous. Better on the heavy hand then the light. In my ferm fridge now at 65. Will bump to 68 after it has nearly finished for another week. Looks like this may be 3 or 4 day CC to try to compress that monster cake at the bottom. Fingers crossed. Will post some taste notes, and images in 3-4 when it is ready. Cheers.
 

Similar threads

B
Double Hopped Psuedolager
Replies
0
Views
536
Brewsterguy
B
H
Citrusy Pale Ale to clean out the freezer
Replies
7
Views
752
lumpher
lumpher
S
Autumn Wheat Ale
Replies
5
Views
1K
kwilson16
kwilson16
PashMaddle
Brew day #2 is done.
Replies
22
Views
1K
lumpher
lumpher
Clint Yeastwood
Failure Beer
Replies
9
Views
815
Zambezi Special
Zambezi Special

Latest posts

Back
Top