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theveganbrewer
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Which LBHS stocks ECY? Didn't know 29 was ready to go commercial yet.
Heady Topper- Can you clone it?
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Which LBHS stocks ECY? Didn't know 29 was ready to go commercial yet.
I think it is from the Columbus...I got that same earthy/oniony note from the bag of pellets I used and in the final beer. My clone used 2oz Columbus in the whirlpool, and 2oz in the dry-hop.
It is not unpleasant and I think essential to HT...provides a nice dank/earthy/piney/skunky compliment to the big time fruitiness from the Simcoe/Centennial.
Vegan...
Got a few 4-packs from Monday 4/15 from a buddy. I read your thread on trying to differentiate between generations based off color but there's much less sediment in these cans compared to ones from earlier this year. Do you have any insight as to what generation yeast those cans might be?
Got a few 4-packs from Monday 4/15 from a buddy. I read your thread on trying to differentiate between generations based off color but there's much less sediment in these cans compared to ones from earlier this year. Do you have any insight as to what generation yeast those cans might be?
bottlebomber
Well-Known Member
Columbus is dank but also very peachy IMO, kind of like overripe fruit almost but in a good way. It's definitely in this beer.
Coff
Well-Known Member
theveganbrewer said:
Philly Homebrew Outlet, formerly Barry's Homebrew in Philadelphia. This is probably the 3rd time they have carried it. Last time Al came and spoke at our club meeting there and he brought ~50 vials to sell and a Farmhouse brewed with Brett Nard.
As far as I know this is the first batch of 29 to be sold. Next month I am going to do a side by side pale ale, 15 gallons split 001/Conan/ECY29. I'll probably have one or 2 of them on tap at NHC club night.
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theveganbrewer
Well-Known Member
Hard to say now. It's been awhile since I had verification of a generation from John. I think he got a fresh batch of yeast the 1st week of January and then went on switching out ever 10 generations. I haven't gotten another update since.
PoconoParadiso
Active Member
Looking for a little input on how to proceed with my Heady Topper inspired brew. I was looking for a big DIPA with a dank tropical fruit profile for a rum barrel IPA experiment. I have a 5 gallon oak barrel that I cured with a few bottles of Appleton Estate rum. I brewed a partial mash version of this HT clone that I now intend to age in the rum barrel for 3-4 weeks. I'm wondering if I should age it in the barrel first and then proceed with the 3 stage dry hop, or dry hop first and then age, or break it up with some dry hopping before and some after. I'm looking for a nice balance between the rum barrel influence while retaining some of the dank fruit aroma. Please let me know what you think!!!
Cheers!
Cheers!
Coff
Well-Known Member
Ah ok, so he has only just started with the 10 pitch rule?
Yea do this is getting pretty old then, I have my original culture I can build up and luckily got ECY29.
I have to check my notes but my las DIPA had some massive attenuation. I actually have it going in a Berliner Weisse and a Pale Ale right now.
Next beer I'll do a 11 gallon batch split, my Conan and ECY29. I'll report back my results.
Yea do this is getting pretty old then, I have my original culture I can build up and luckily got ECY29.
I have to check my notes but my las DIPA had some massive attenuation. I actually have it going in a Berliner Weisse and a Pale Ale right now.
Next beer I'll do a 11 gallon batch split, my Conan and ECY29. I'll report back my results.
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theveganbrewer
Well-Known Member
Yes, he started January and went with 10 generations from there onwards. The good thing for us is that Heady should no longer get up to 1.014 and for those of us who still need to get dregs because we can't get ECY, it'll be fairly fresh yeast regardless of generation.
Looking forward to how your split comes out. I'd imagine that there are significantly more contaminants in the dregs versions, and that Al has isolated Conan fairly well. Wondering how that will change the beer. Keep us posted!
paulster2626
Well-Known Member
So I pulled a pint last night - this is close. Real close. One of the best beers I've ever made, actually.
It's really not that bitter though, any my abv was way low. I wasn't trying to nail a clone, just trying to get the dry hops right.
When I kegged it though, it looked infected. Like, big nasty looking bubbles on top, and a hazy "skin" - could this just be a boatload of hop oil? Tasted fine - actually tasted REALLY grapefruity on that first day (used a carb cap to test some), but a week later everything seems to have mellowed out together and it's got that nice dank HT smell and taste. LOVE this beer - gotta brew it again.
Colour and all that business are spot on.
Paul - do you have your full recipe posted anywhere?
CliffMongoloid
Well-Known Member
I need to try this brEw
paulster2626
Well-Known Member
jammin said:
Hope this works...
Conan IPA #1
Style: American IPA
Type: All Grain Calories: 168
Rating: 0.0 Boil Size: 23.44 L
IBU's: 59.43 Batch Size: 20.82 L
Color: 4.2 SRM Boil Time: 60 minutes
Preboil OG: 1.050
Estimated Actual
Brew Date: - 04/01/2013
OG: 1.052 1.054
FG: 1.010 1.013
ABV: 5.50 % 5.37 %
Efficiency: 72 % 74 %
Serve Date: 05/25/2013 / /
Fermentation Steps
Name Days / Temp Estimated Actual
Primary 25 days @ 64.0°F 04/01/2013 04/01/2013
Dry Hop 6 days @ 68.0°F 04/26/2013 04/16/2013
Bottle/Keg 21 days @ 72.0°F 04/22/2013 05/04/2013
Grains & Adjuncts
Amount Percentage Name Time Gravity
10.00 lbs 88.89 % Pearl Malt 60 mins 1.038
1.00 lbs 8.89 % Pale Malt, Maris Otter 60 mins 1.038
4.00 ozs 2.22 % Carafoam 60 mins 1.033
Hops
Amount IBU's Name Time AA %
0.75 ozs 33.12 Columbus (Tomahawk) 60 mins 14.00
1.25 ozs 20.02 Columbus (Tomahawk) 10 mins 14.00
1.00 ozs 6.29 Cascade 10 mins 5.50
0.50 ozs 0.00 Columbus (Tomahawk) 0 mins 14.00
0.50 ozs 0.00 Cascade 0 mins 5.50
Yeasts
Amount Name Laboratory / ID
1.00 pkg Conan
Additions
(none)
Mash Profile
Medium Body Infusion In 60 min @ 154.0°F
Add 13.31 L ( 1.18 L/lb ) water @ 170.8°F
Sparge
Sparge 16.40 L ( 0.00 L/lb ) of 160.0°F water over 7 mins
Carbonation
(none)
Notes
Dry hop: .7oz Simcoe, .3oz cascade, 1oz Columbus.
Taste without dry hops: pretty good, nice ale. Can't really tell any Conan specialty though.
www.iBrewMaster.com Version: 2.834
Paul.
(mobile)
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theveganbrewer
Well-Known Member
First stage of the dry hop went in tonight. Simcoe, Columbus, Amarillo, Centennial, and Apollo. Roused with CO2 wand and sealed up. Next set going in on the 20th. Then 4 more days and I'm going to get it carbed up a few days early because it's at TG.
bottlebomber
Well-Known Member
Finally got ahold of some of this, and have the stirplate working on it now. This can doesn't have nearly the amount of debris of the can I had a year ago. And it doesn't taste quite the same either. I'm getting huge dank piney hops from this, with the emphasis way more toward dank than citrusy. I'm pretty sure on Chinook, at least as a dry hop. Cascade or Centennial, but not so much as to compete with the dankness. Columbus definitely.
satph
Well-Known Member
I've been drinking some Headys that were canned on 4/29. The first one I had on 4/30 was very good, but a bit disappointing, as I was expecting an epiphany. The one I had on 5/1 was the best beer I've ever had. The aroma was very citrusy, not too dank, and the taste was perfectly balanced between malt, bitterness and residual sweetness. I've had a few more over the past two weeks, and the citrus has receded and the aroma is dank. The beer also seems more bitter than those first two cans. I'm looking at the dregs in my glass, and the widely dispersed sediment is now confined to the last sip, so perhaps it would be easier to culture now? I'm pretty amazed at how this beer has changed in less than 3 weeks since it was bottled.
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theveganbrewer
Well-Known Member
I have verified there is no Chinook in the dry hop and am fairly sure John said there wasn't any Chinook in the beer either. But I wonder which characteristics in Heady made you think of Chinook?
bottlebomber
Well-Known Member
theveganbrewer said:
Strong danky pine flavor.. I'm only familiar with Chinook providing that. I use Apollo in abundance, and it's not quite like that. Neither is Nugget. It's definitely used late in the boil if at all, because I absolutely detest Chinook as a bittering hop in any capacity, and can pick it out every time. I'm actually really confused by hop profile. It could be Nugget.
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theveganbrewer
Well-Known Member
I'm with you on being confused. I too thought it was Chinook way back when and then John shut me down. I remember an email I sent him one time with a recipe that didn't have any Chinook in the boil or whirlpool but did in the dry hop and he said, "and get rid of that Chinook in the dryhop."
Those last few words always stuck with me. Why say dry hop specifically if that was the only mention I made to Chinook? Why not say, take out the Chinook? So then I put Chinook in the 5 min and whirlpool and didn't really care for it. Maybe I read too much into it.
I too was looking for the pine from it and some dank from Columbus. Never actually got that out of the final homebrew though, which to this day pisses me off. I haven't found the right amount of pine yet.
bottlebomber
Well-Known Member
There's really only a few hops that I know of that produce piney flavor. The main one is Chinook. Northern Brewer also gives some pine. Nugget is more herbal and resiny. Actually I get a lot of pine from a large dose of Tettnanger, but I highly doubt that's in the beer. I'm going to have to try Chinook at flameout, I won't be able to rest until I do. On a happier note, my yeast harvesting seems to have been a success. The 1.030, 500ml starter is at high krausen after just 24 hours. I'm going to let it go another day, crash it for a couple, decant, build it up to 2L.
Vegan has said, "I wouldn't decant unless it was physically necessary to get the next step of wort in" in the Conan harvesting thread, so I wouldn't do the crash/decant unless you need to.
I'm between my 3rd and 4th step so I'm at about 1.8 L volume right now with all my previous steps into the same 2 L flask. Now I'm crashing and decanting for the last step because all I have is the 2 L flask.
bottlebomber
Well-Known Member
I think Simcoe produces a lot of things, depending on the time of harvest. I've never gotten a lot of pine from it though, mostly funky citrus and cat piss.drive45 said:
Thanks, I'll just do that then!mtnagel said:
Just pitched my first conan culture into an IPA I brewed yesterday. My conan culturing strategy was as follows:
24 hour stir plate sessions followed by 24 hour crash cooling sessions for 8 days......
200ml step
800ml step
3200ml step
3200ml step
resulted in 150ml of very thickly compacted washed slurry that was pitched into 10 gallons of IPA wort 2 weeks later. The IPA isn't a Heady Clone mind you but I'll be harvesting and washing the two yeast cakes then sharing the conan with my brew club. Hopefully some of them will try to brew a Heady clone with it. I know I'll be saving some for that purpose myself.
BTW: When I was in Vermont a month ago I met a brewer from the cannery who wouldn't give many details but did tell me I was going in the wrong direction when I told him I planned on fermenting Conan "on the cold side" (which seems to be the current recommendation in this thread) so I opted for a 67F fermentation temperature and will be raising it to 70F in a few days for a nice diacetyl rest. Now he might have been trying to throw me off the proper trail but I figured I would add this bit of information to this great thread.
24 hour stir plate sessions followed by 24 hour crash cooling sessions for 8 days......
200ml step
800ml step
3200ml step
3200ml step
resulted in 150ml of very thickly compacted washed slurry that was pitched into 10 gallons of IPA wort 2 weeks later. The IPA isn't a Heady Clone mind you but I'll be harvesting and washing the two yeast cakes then sharing the conan with my brew club. Hopefully some of them will try to brew a Heady clone with it. I know I'll be saving some for that purpose myself.
BTW: When I was in Vermont a month ago I met a brewer from the cannery who wouldn't give many details but did tell me I was going in the wrong direction when I told him I planned on fermenting Conan "on the cold side" (which seems to be the current recommendation in this thread) so I opted for a 67F fermentation temperature and will be raising it to 70F in a few days for a nice diacetyl rest. Now he might have been trying to throw me off the proper trail but I figured I would add this bit of information to this great thread.
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theveganbrewer
Well-Known Member
I don't think he's throwing you off. The numbers seem to clearly say they ferment at 68, rise to 71-72 after a few days for diacetyl rest, then bring it 58 to age and dry hop.
I've been trying to debunk this low 60s thing for a while now after I tried a couple attempts in the low 60s last year.
The brewer also said they were trying to "clean heady up a bit" and that I should notice it in this particular batch / moving forward. I will say that I didn't find as much trub in these cans but I also didn't find as much hop aroma or flavor in them either. Seemed more like a bitter bomb compared to previous batches.
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theveganbrewer
Well-Known Member
Probably trying to stop us from getting Conan. Or maybe John got sick after drinking the trub from the bottom of that year old can when he shot that stupid FAQ video.
FATC1TY
Well-Known Member
Probably trying to stop us from getting Conan. Or maybe John got sick after drinking the trub from the bottom of that year old can when he shot that stupid FAQ video.
I think it's part of their expansion of the cannery, that allows them to produce a bit more, and slow the whole process from grain to can down. Allows them to crash out the yeast and hop debris a bit more than in the past.
I also think there's the struggle between wanting to have a "pretty" beer, and telling people that drinking out of the can is better. Storing it in a can is probably better, but drinking it isn't.
They can kill two birds with one stone by allowing it to sit a bit longer in the process to drop out.
whitehause
Well-Known Member
Agreed.....I think in an attempt to widen the distribution, they also realized that the "less informed" might look down on seeing all that stuff floating around when they pour it in to a glass. Not a bad thought really, but I hope they don't sacrifice the quality in order to make it more "marketable" as often happens. Lets face it, in business, 1000 people saying " it's not what it used to be" doesn't matter as much as 1,000,000 more people being able to access you product because of expanded distribution.
Coopertown
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I understand where both FatC1ty and Whitehause are coming from, but I don't think Mr. Kimmich cares how "ugly" some find Heady to be. They sell out of every canning run--sometimes within a handful of hours--all without worrying about distribution costs a great deal.
I have been fortunate to drink a lot of Heady over the past year, and I've found there to be considerable variation in the cans regarding how many "floaties" there are. I don't think it's due to a trend toward cleaning the beer up. I think it's likely just variation in terms of where in the tank the beer was sitting prior to canning. If people have recently had cans from top-of-the-tank beer, it might look like they're cleaning the beer up. I recently had a couple of fresh 4-packs that must have come from nearer to the bottom-of-the-tank since I practically needed a fork and knife to eat the beer.
I have been fortunate to drink a lot of Heady over the past year, and I've found there to be considerable variation in the cans regarding how many "floaties" there are. I don't think it's due to a trend toward cleaning the beer up. I think it's likely just variation in terms of where in the tank the beer was sitting prior to canning. If people have recently had cans from top-of-the-tank beer, it might look like they're cleaning the beer up. I recently had a couple of fresh 4-packs that must have come from nearer to the bottom-of-the-tank since I practically needed a fork and knife to eat the beer.
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theveganbrewer
Well-Known Member
Coopertown is right on the floaties, there were batches last year that had no floaties, others that did. A member who lives next to the cannery told me that the last cans off the run are so full of floaties and yeast John can't sell them and places them aside and sells them to locals who want the yeast.
By cleaning up the beer, I think they were referring to what John told me was increased batch blending. Instead of blending two runs, they now have 4 tanks blends and "increased consistency". He's still doing a 28 day cycle. The only other thing that changed was yeast gen, so we shouldn't be getting 1.014 beers anymore. I would like to know if anyone has recently gotten a 1.014 beer, anything canned after April 1st would be good to test.
By cleaning up the beer, I think they were referring to what John told me was increased batch blending. Instead of blending two runs, they now have 4 tanks blends and "increased consistency". He's still doing a 28 day cycle. The only other thing that changed was yeast gen, so we shouldn't be getting 1.014 beers anymore. I would like to know if anyone has recently gotten a 1.014 beer, anything canned after April 1st would be good to test.
FATC1TY
Well-Known Member
Ahem... If I could get more Heady I'd be able to test that theory, and get some new yeast...
Anyone up for a trade?
Anyone up for a trade?
FATC1TY
Well-Known Member
As per the floaties.. while I don't think the ultimate driving goal was to clear/clean the beer up a bit, it was a side benefit to them having more tanks and time to allow the beer to condition before canning.
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theveganbrewer
Well-Known Member
On the Chinook thing. A couple of practice batches ago I tried throwing quite a bit of Chinook in there at 5 minutes and in the whirlpool. It was the worst attempt I'd done thusfar, really herbally and almost smoky. I was just reading about Chinook hops and saw a couple articles that said if used late in the boil, there is a district, strong herbally smoky character. I would highly recommend not using them in a clone.
FWIW my conversation with the brewer who said they were trying to clean the beer up had everything to do with the floaties (not sure if he meant the yeast too) and nothing to do with blending to reach a more consistent product.
bottlebomber
Well-Known Member
theveganbrewer said:
I usually avoid Chinook like the plague. Hate the stuff. Don't like Arrogant Bastard. I'm just completely miffed at where that piney skunky flavor comes from. I just got some nugget nectar in the mail today. I know it's bit long in the tooth, but I'm hoping the hop profile will ring a bell.
terrapinj
Well-Known Member
It's been a few months since I had a can of HT but I don't recall it being very piney - dank for sure
i've gotten a nice pine aroma (along with the citrus) from an all simcoe beer but it didn't carry over to the flavor at all
i've gotten a nice pine aroma (along with the citrus) from an all simcoe beer but it didn't carry over to the flavor at all
bottlebomber
Well-Known Member
Having a nugget nectar, and while it does share some of Headys hop profile it is more the part that I associate with Colombus and not the dank aspect. There's only one thing left for me to do. When I get this yeast under wraps I am going to make a beer and pour an assload of Apollo pellets and a good amount of Simcoe and see if I can draw anything close to that quality out of it. Not a clone, but for me this recipe has to be attacked in chunks, and right now that dank thing is kind of getting to me. I think I am going to go with Centennial, Simcoe, Apollo for my first shot. I've got two pounds of Apollo in the freezer and at least 8 ounces is going in.
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theveganbrewer
Well-Known Member
The general recipe we have now is quite close. From talking with John, he uses Columbus to get the dank aroma in the whirlpool and dry hop. But be somewhat restrained in the DH, not more than 1.5 ounces of Columbus total in the DH.
^not surprising to me. My "heady-esque" brew I did I last weekend used Simcoe and Columbus in the hopback and I'm planning going light with Columbus in the DH. Heavy on Simcoe. Replacing centennial with Amarillo as that's what I have.
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