Cloning New England Brewing Company's Gandhi-bot

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Took a gravity reading today on day eight of fermentation. It's down to 1.011 as predicted by BeerSmith because of the reduction in the corn sugar add. This beer right now smells and tastes pretty close to Gandhi-bot. After a hit of dry hops for four days I am expecting it to be very close once it has some carbonation to carry the aroma. I am really glad I e-mailed the brewer because there is no way I would've got this close on the first try without his help. Never would have guessed Columbus was one of the late hops.
 
Good stuff. Just took a gravity reading of mine because your post made me! Sitting at 1.030 after 4 days. This beer smells hoppy as hell, smells just like peach and tastes like pineapple. It's very yellow in color almost the color of Heady Topper at the moment.
 
nukebrewer said:
Took a gravity reading today on day eight of fermentation. It's down to 1.011 as predicted by BeerSmith because of the reduction in the corn sugar add. This beer right now smells and tastes pretty close to Gandhi-bot. After a hit of dry hops for four days I am expecting it to be very close once it has some carbonation to carry the aroma. I am really glad I e-mailed the brewer because there is no way I would've got this close on the first try without his help. Never would have guessed Columbus was one of the late hops.
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I Love Columbus I think that CTZ is all around a great hop! :mug:
 
Added the dry hops tonight. Probably not going to make much of a difference, but I decided to up the Columbus dry hops to 3 oz instead of 2 oz just so I could say I used a full pound of hops in this batch.
 
Good ****, nuke.

Can we trade bottles once they're carbed?
 
Absolutely! I would love to see how this recipe is with Conan. I'm working most Saturdays these days so NEBCO is out, but if you wouldn't mind meeting up at Two Roads one Sunday in the near future I would be down for that. Failing that we could just meet at a non-beer place, but that would be pretty lame, haha.
 
nukebrewer said:
Absolutely! I would love to see how this recipe is with Conan. I'm working most Saturdays these days so NEBCO is out, but if you wouldn't mind meeting up at Two Roads one Sunday in the near future I would be down for that. Failing that we could just meet at a non-beer place, but that would be pretty lame, haha.
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That works. I am 15 minutes from both.

My IPA is still going. Still bubbling, although slightly. I will wait another 4-5 days before I transfer to secondary and take a gravity sample. That'll determine whether I dry hop or not.
 
Going to secondary mine today and add the hops. Still smells unbelievable.
 
Dry-hopping as we speak. Beer isn't quite down to where I wanted it to be but then again I could've used a lb or more of DME to get it to Gandhi-esque ABV.
 
Remmy said:
Dry-hopping as we speak. Beer isn't quite down to where I wanted it to be but then again I could've used a lb or more of DME to get it to Gandhi-esque ABV.
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How far down did it get? With an OG 0f 1.078 (right?), it would have to be pretty underattenuated to be less than 8%. I would call over 8% close enough.

Removed the dry hops last night and took a gravity sample. It's a has a bit of a fruitier aspect to it than before the dry hops. Not sure how that's going to effect the final beer as far as how close it is to Gandhi-bot, but my pre-dry hop sample tasted really close, so I fear it may be a detriment. Not saying it won't be good, the sample I just took was very good, just think it wasn't as close to Gandhi as the first one. We'll find out in about two weeks because I will be bottling this bad boy tomorrow afternoon or evening.
 
It's currently sitting at 1.024. I Secondaried it today and had to put a blowoff tube on. The yeast are still working a bit. There is still some activity.

One of the reasons I added a blowoff is because I added two muslin bags with hops in them and once they began to soak up beer and float to the top (and ultimately expand), it led to an overflow out of the airlock.

The activity/bubbles carried the muslin bags even higher up into the neck of the carboy.


I also harvested the yeast for future use. I have 4 mason jars of Conan now.
 
Bottled up the batch. Two more weeks until the official results are in but so far it's looking good. Got all the numbers pretty much spot on, but I did have an issue with hop absorption. I had just over 5 gallons into the fermenter and only about 4 1/3 gallons come out. I severely underestimated the power of 4 ounces of hops to absorb wort. I even wrung them out when I removed them and they still had absorbed a lot of wort. I ended up getting 44 bottles out of it which was actually more than expected once I saw what was in the bottling bucket. I'll have to compare it a real GB, but I think I got the color pretty damn close. Maybe just a tad darker than GB. Check it out.


Untitled by aaron.j.lott, on Flickr
 
Doing a side by side with the clone and a real GB. Gandhi on the left, clone on the right. First thing I noticed was that mine needs some more carbonation which will come with a little more conditioning time. Second thing is that Gandhi is just a shade lighter than the clone, so I will have to back off on the C40 next time. For the star of the show, the hops, I feel like I pretty much nailed this. The aroma, while the clone is not as strong (due to the current undercarbbed state of the beer), it's pretty much the same as far as the content of the aroma. The flavor is right on, or at least so close that my palate cannot discern the difference, though I think the clone might actually be a touch more bitter than GB. Body and finish are also almost spot on. So the tentative result, though I will do another side by side once it's fully carbed, is that with a couple minor adjustments to color and bitterness levels we'll have ourselves a good old fashioned Gandhi-bot clone! This will definitely be brewed again in short order and I will be enjoying the current version while waiting for the next one to ferment and carb.


20131105_164300 by aaron.j.lott, on Flickr
 
Good stuff, nuke.

My clone smells hoppier than the real Gandhi. I can't wait until this stuff is carbed.
 
finsfan said:
that is a thing of beauty! Nice job nuke, I will be making this once I make all the other brews that are in line :D
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Thanks! I'd wait until I or someone else nails the recipe, though, but with all your other brews in line you probably have plenty of time. Instead of the Centennial IPA I had planned next I will be brewing this again with the modifications I mentioned.

Remmy said:
Good stuff, nuke.

My clone smells hoppier than the real Gandhi. I can't wait until this stuff is carbed.
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Thanks! Excited to try it as well as to have you try mine.
 
nukebrewer said:
Thanks! I'd wait until I or someone else nails the recipe, though, but with all your other brews in line you probably have plenty of time. Instead of the Centennial IPA I had planned next I will be brewing this again with the modifications I mentioned.
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With as close as it sounds like you got, there shouldnt be much to tweak. I really only have 2 recipes that I absolutely need to do, Yoopers hoppy amber ale and this! https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f68/pumpkin-buffalo-sweat-clone-441026/

I will probably move this up to spot #3 :D
 
You'll have to brew this with Conan some day.
 
I don't know about any of you, but I get a strong allium (garlic / onion) taste and aroma from this beer, which to me usually signifies the use of Summit hops.
my .02.
AO
 
m750 said:
I don't know about any of you, but I get a strong allium (garlic / onion) taste and aroma from this beer, which to me usually signifies the use of Summit hops. my .02. AO
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I've had Gandhi at least 50 times. No onion or garlic. Mozzarella and Pepperoni, yes.
 
m750 said:
I don't know about any of you, but I get a strong allium (garlic / onion) taste and aroma from this beer, which to me usually signifies the use of Summit hops.
my .02.
AO
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I've never had Gandhi before, but I've gotten similar flavors from Simcoe beers before (Weyerbacher Double Simcoe).
 
Alright you boys have roped me into doing this clone also. I'm going to give it a try. My LHBS only has Simcoe, and Columbus in Leaf and with that much hops I won't get any Beer! They don't carry any apollo at all and I want to use it in my clone attempt. I ordered Simcoe & Columbus Pellets 6oz each from www.williamsbrewing.com and I ordered 8oz of Apollo pellets off of ebay as everywhere else I could find them had only leaf or were overpriced. After seeing Nukes notes on color I think I will back off on the crystal 40 a bit and do 1 lb. Probably won't be able to brew this until next weekend once the hops arrive. Can't wait :rockin:

Edit: Once I get it brewed I'll probably need to find someone to send me some of the real thing so I can side by side! :mug:

hops.jpg
 
When I test mine, I will be getting a growler of fresh Gandhi from NEBCO.
 
I got some today but unfortunately, my clone isn't ready. I hate that NEBCO runs out of Gandhi so quickly. They're gonna have to pull an Alchemist some day. :rockin: :D Well, they ARE moving.

Wish I could get Lolo some fresh stuff.
 
Remmy said:
I got some today but unfortunately, my clone isn't ready. I hate that NEBCO runs out of Gandhi so quickly. They're gonna have to pull an Alchemist some day. :rockin: :D Well, they ARE moving.

Wish I could get Lolo some fresh stuff.
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I was there on Friday.They put a new keg on when I walked in. It kicked less than 20 minutes later.

I ordered the supplies to do this. Probably won't be brewing it until around Thanksgiving though. Looking forward to it.

I'm going to drop the C40 down to a pound, I think. Also going to be brewing this with Conan yeast.
 
Remmy said:
I've had Gandhi at least 50 times. No onion or garlic. Mozzarella and Pepperoni, yes.
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The first time I have Gandhi, out of the pain tall-boy cans with the sticker on them, I hated it because of what I felt was an onion taste that I attributed to Summit. It must have been me that day or an off flavor because I have had Gandhi many times since and never got the flavor again, included the cans I got at the brewery Friday that were 2 days old. I will be giving the recipe a go for sure.
 
LoloMT7 said:
So you can still get cans but they just aren't as fresh?
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Cans are pretty fresh. They sell-out quick. I'd say 3-4 days tops.

I have also been to NEBCO on more than one occasion where they've had to tap a fresh keg of Gandhi. It's awesome.
 
Remmy said:
Cans are pretty fresh. They sell-out quick. I'd say 3-4 days tops.

I have also been to NEBCO on more than one occasion where they've had to tap a fresh keg of Gandhi. It's awesome.
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Ok 10-4 I'll let ya know once i've brewed the clone and maybe we can work something out. :tank:
 
LoloMT7 said:
Ok 10-4 I'll let ya know once i've brewed the clone and maybe we can work something out. :tank:
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If you're real and I can ship to a real address, no problem.
 
I think I'm going to do something crazy for the next brew of this. I read a few articles about getting massive hop flavor and aroma without dry hopping, but have never tried it myself. So I'm thinking I'll go out on a limb and take the dry hops, all 5 oz of them, and split them between late boil and aroma steep. This jacks up the calculated IBUs to 140+, but I am confident this won't be reflected in perceived bitterness because it's almost entirely in the late hops. I think this will really brighten up the hop character. While what I said was true about the flavor and aromas being almost the same, though less intense, I neglected to mention that I didn't find the aroma to be very crisp, the characters of the individual hops as distinct as they are in Gandhi. This is what I aim to fix by venturing into uncharted waters with this hopping technique.
 
JohnnyO said:
I was there on Friday.They put a new keg on when I walked in. It kicked less than 20 minutes later.

I ordered the supplies to do this. Probably won't be brewing it until around Thanksgiving though. Looking forward to it.

I'm going to drop the C40 down to a pound, I think. Also going to be brewing this with Conan yeast.
Click to expand...

Were you the guy that showed me the Ghoulship bottle? Didn't realize my howler fill was perfect timing!
 
nukebrewer said:
I think I'm going to do something crazy for the next brew of this. I read a few articles about getting massive hop flavor and aroma without dry hopping, but have never tried it myself. So I'm thinking I'll go out on a limb and take the dry hops, all 5 oz of them, and split them between late boil and aroma steep. This jacks up the calculated IBUs to 140+, but I am confident this won't be reflected in perceived bitterness because it's almost entirely in the late hops. I think this will really brighten up the hop character. While what I said was true about the flavor and aromas being almost the same, though less intense, I neglected to mention that I didn't find the aroma to be very crisp, the characters of the individual hops as distinct as they are in Gandhi. This is what I aim to fix by venturing into uncharted waters with this hopping technique.
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Interesting. The smell out of my airlock is stronger than that of Gandhi. I steeped for about 45 min. And dry-hopped with 2 oz of each type of hop.
 
Remmy said:
Interesting. The smell out of my airlock is stronger than that of Gandhi. I steeped for about 45 min. And dry-hopped with 2 oz of each type of hop.
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We'll see what happens once it's fully carbed, but for now I'd like to give this method a try and what better beer try it on than Gandhi?
 

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