Heady Topper Extract Clone Opinion

I can't speak to these actual kits, but I can say...

Keystone Homebrew: Excellent LHBS.
Maltose Express: Never heard of them. That's not to say they couldn't be excellent.

 

That shop is in CT, the owners authored those Clone books.

 

Oh.

 

Keystone is my LHBS and they are an excellent store.

I have zero experience with their kits (I am not a kit brewer) but I would expect that they put together high quality kits.

Cheers!

 

Say no more.

 

The article from BYO with the clone recipe. The author notes "This is my attempt to clone one of my favorite double IPAs coming out my home state of Vermont, Heady Topper from The Alchemist Brewery." Implying it may be the first attempt at the clone, so who knows how close.
https://byo.com/component/k2/item/2808-hop-stands

 

BYO had a Vermont clone issue with heady, double sunshine, abner etc. The ehady recipe in there has close to a pound of hops. Cant speak for the heady clone, but the double sunshine is damn close.

 

The author of that article (which is an excellent article IMO) is Dave Green (@telejunkie ). Maybe he will provide some feedback here.

Cheers!

 

yeah, I guess the one I linked to (March/April 2013) was from a different issue. The Vermont issue was October 2013

 

Maltose Express is an excellent LHBS that specializes in extract clone recipe kits. Should be a good DIPA regardless of how close it is to HT. The quality of the clone is going to depend a lot on the brewer in addition to the ingredients. For a good Heady clone you need the Alchemist's yeast. I've done two in the past and actually getting Conan from a can was the difference. Good luck.

 

I was given one of those clone books as a b'day present last year; pretty inaccurate relative to what we know about commercial beer recipes these days. Maybe my book is an old edition(too lazy to go find it)?

 

The BYO recipe lists 100+ IBUs but Teh BeerSmith brings this puppy in at just under 45.

No way anyone gets 100+ IBUs with 1/2 z of Magnum @ 60" + 1 z of Simcoe @ 15".

 

I've seen recipes that all seem to agree Alchemist uses Co2 Hop extract to bitter early in the boil, and then only add hops at flameout out, and in the hopstand.

So yeah, I think something was amiss- or the author was getting more IBU's from the hot hopstand, which beersmith wouldn't calculate correctly anyways.

 

fatc1ty, has it right, basically a good deal of iso alpha conversion is going to occur in the hot hopstand...the thing is that if you're going to drop your wort temp down to the 170-180F range for the whirlpool, you'll need to bump up your bittering addition to compensate for the loss of conversion in the whirlpool. Hop extract is the thing to use, but a super alpha hop with clean bittering profile like apollo, warrior or magnum would be a good sub.
I can attest for keystone's clone kits, a buddy brewed a batch of the Nugget Nectar and it stood up well. Maltose Express is a great shop as well, although don't always 100% agree with their recipes, but the Szamutulskis have been in the business for years and a great at what they do...their reviews speak volumes

 

Thanks for the kind words Jack!

So the deal is that the recipe for the March/April issue was (i believe) after three attempts although two were 11 gallon batches that I was able to play around with dry hops & yeast. A lot of the suggestions came from the heady topper thread with Koopa & skivtjerry among others really pitching in a lot of knowledge. So the recipe in the March/April was the winner of the 5 different variations i brewed. The recipe from the October issue was changes John made to that recipe. I brewed it and it wasn't as close though...although obviously dozens of variables could have contributed to that fact.

Anyway as for yeast, if you can get conan, use it, if not, nottingham is pretty good and chico can work as well.

 

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Hi telejunkie - can you please repost or send me a link to the recipe in March/April that was the winner of the 5 different variations you brewed? Also have you updated your recipe since? Would love to hear of any recommendations you have for sourcing the ingredients or a kit for some of the ingredients. I have never homebrewed but decided to start as I can't buy Heady in Toronto. I just ordered this kit from Kickstarter. Would also appreciate any opinions on kits like this versus other methods... https://www.kickstarter.com/project...craft-beer-home-brewery/posts/1609357?lang=es

 

I can tell you since i'm using the conan yeast now that without it i don't think any recipe would work. When i open my keezer there's a strong smell of peaches/fruit.

 

Heck I thought a $50-60 kit was expensive but that one is out of site
Never had Heady and would love to try but that's too steep
I maxed out at $50 on a extract Pliny clone and while I've never had a real one the brew turned out great, that kit had 16oz of hops