Awesome, just cloned hopslam!

i'm pretty sure hopslam doesn't have galaxy hops in it. Although I like the idea of hopslam w/ galaxy hops. Or, real hopslam, dry hopped with galaxy in a cask.

 

I don't understand this statement. Please explain. It is common practice to add sugar to the boil to help dry out beers. How does adding it during primary fermentation have a different effect upon FG?

 

That doesn't sound like you cloned Hopslam at all. It does sound like a good IIPA though.

 

Bell's yeast is a proprietary strain, so without that I can maybe see how you'd get close, but cloning it would be very difficult...(this from a guy who has tried to "clone" Schlenkerla Maerzen...which is about like trying to clone Original Coca Cola IMO).

 

You can buy it in every bottle of their ales, except for the Winter White IIRC. It is true that you can't get it form Wyeast or White Labs.

 

True. Should have said "cloning it using Safale-05 would be very difficult." How close do you feel like you've gotten by culturing their yeast?

 

I find it strange that homebrewing will often result in product that is equal to or better than a microbrewery's product. Maybe it has something to do with small batches and extreme control over the quality of ingredients (and tiny modifications performed by the home brewer based on his/her palette).

 

There is a certain bias as well. Don't get me wrong, i've had great homebrew, but most of it is pretty mediocre compared to most breweries products.

 

For the beers that I have done, the yeast gives the mouthfeel and esters that the Chico strain lacks. You can get close using the Chico strain, but to do a clone you need the yeast from Bells.

Some of the old timers in our club state that Larry Bell said they used 1056 starting out. If they kept repitching in the old downtown brewery with open fermenters, it must have taken on house character. More estery, and the krauesen it makes is larger. Then again, they could have found another yeast in a yeast bank. Only Larry Bell could say for sure.

 

The intensity of the flavors in HopSlam is such that the subtleties of any reasonably clean Ale yeast will be all but lost anyway. US-05 will do just fine, IMO. Indeed, I would go so far as to suggest that the specific hop varieties are, likewise, not critical as long as you're in the ballpark. At least that was my experience a year or so ago when I brewed my version of a HopSlam-ish beer (pretty convincing, I must say, despite the 11.5% ABV). It's all about hops and honey.

 

This is very true. The homebrews that medal in big competitions are very good. The ones that don't are often flawed.

 

I always do this when adding sugar to my recipes. Supposedly, its better for the yeast to start out fermenting the maltose instead of the sugar. This is because maltose is more complex and therefore requires more "energy" from the yeast to decompose. If the yeast find the simple sugars first, they will eat the easy stuff first and be a little stressed/tired for the more difficult fermentables. In any case, I have found that my FG goes lower (and closer to estimations) if I add the sugar at about the third day into primary fermentation, than if I just add it at the end of the boil.

 

My Hopslam 'clone' and an earlier batch of Cream Ale we're two of the best beers I've ever had. The only real difference between my homebrews and my commercial favorites is that the commercial stuff is more consistently good, while mine vary from merely OK to phenomenal, even when using the same recipe. Too many variables that I haven't quite mastered yet.