dry west coast style IPA recipe -DME

Should make a decent enough beer. Couple things though: Did you calculate IBUs? That much bittering hops with only 2 lbs DME, might be a bit harsh. Also, why split your bittering hops between FWH and 60? Add them all at one or the other. And drop the Munich- .5 lb won't add much, plus it should really be mashed instead of steeped. And it will darken it, which sounds like you don't want. Good luck!

 

Funny, I was drinking one a few days ago and commented to my wife, "You know, this beer is sweeter than I would have told you it was if you'd asked me yesterday. I guarantee you there's a decent amount of crystal malt in here."

Sure enough, from Fat Head's website:
ALCOHOL CONTENT: 7.5% ABV BEGINNING GRAVITY: 17.0 Plato
ENDING GRAVITY: 3.4 Plato
IBU: 87
COLOR: Deep Golden
YEAST: American Ale
HOPS: Columbus, Simcoe, Centennial
MALT: Pale, CaraMalt, C-15, Cara-Pils


Notice that they use 3 different "Cara" malts. If you want a beer like Head Hunter, the info above is a good start. If you want as dry a beer as possible, skip the specialty grains completely. You won't ever get super dry without being able to control the mash temp, but you could always add some more sugar in place of extract.

 

Yeah, I often find that if I want to replicate a beer or even just take inspiration from it, the brewery website is oftentimes more helpful than clone recipes. The website will (almost, see Modern Times' website) never give you an actual recipe, but they often tell you the malts, hops, and yeast. Drop those things into a recipe calculator in a way that makes sense to you, and try to hit the IBU, SRM, OG, and FG provided on the website. I bet that gets you closer than most clone recipes you can find.

 

The Munich stands out to me as possibly unnecessary. Over the years there has been some debate on whether small additions of Munich malt are detectable. I would think the presence of all those hops would make it even tougher to find the small amount of Munich. But perhaps some really good palates out there would find it. If you do decide to use it, steep it at 150 degrees wit 0.5-1.5 quarts of water to mimic mash conditions. It might help convert starches to sugars. Perhaps that won't make much of a difference, either, being as it is a small amount.

 

I'll agree and disagree with you here...I've written a ton of clone recipes and the first place to go is their website. That info you try to draw up a recipe, then you send that recipe to the head brewer for feedback. Can't tell you how many times the feedback flies in the face of what the website says. Often when pointed out, they say that the website hasn't been updated in years. Obviously some breweries are much better at updating their sites than others.

Another options is that with older clone recipes, you'll find that the breweries will have often re-written the recipe...so you maybe brewing the 2008 version (or something close to it) instead of the 2017 version.I just had to work on updating a Winter Ale recipe that used to a old ale style of beer...now it's a red IPA. Yeah, the old clone recipe looks ridiculous in light of the changes...why the brewery still holds onto that beer's name is beyond me considering the overhaul unless it was incremental.

The final possibility is that the clone author didn't do his due diligence or was written before said info was available.

 

As for the original recipe, yeah, I'd agree with Peter to ditch the munich...it's not doing anything here. I'd say add 1/4-1/2 lb of either caramalt or carastan if you're going for a Head Hunter. Also, try to use RO or distilled water if you can.

 

Are you doing full wort boils, or topping up with water at the end? If you're doing full wort boils I would still add the dme right before you start boiling and make it a gentle boil. I started doing a less aggressive boil with my pilsen dme beers and it works great for color, and then your hop utilization isn't all wonkey.

 

I would do half dme at the beginning and half at 5minutes. That way your hop utilization is even.