I am however still searching for a recipe that will results in what looks like you poured tropicana orange juice in a glass reminiscent of brews from omnipollo, noble ale works, highland park— especially omnipollo! I think it's just filters from photo software . Ive used combinations of 2-row, red wheat, flaked oats, flaked barley, C-40, carapils, honey malt, oat malt, Munich I and II you name it. Any and all suggestions would be great!
just my 2 cents... cheers!
I brew these all the time.... probably 50+ batches at the very least. Here is a link to my recipe/strategy. If you follow the link in the first post to post #1418, that is what I would currently recommend. Additionally.... I would say that my strategy of using the "dry hop keg" for the second dry hop is not necessary based on some recent batches I have brewed. You could simply add all of the dry hops to primary at day 3-4 or you could add half at day 3-4 and the other half around day 10-12 ..... 2 days before kegging.
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=568046To the OP....
Honestly - I don't find Heady Topper to be "juicy" in the same regard as say Treehouse, Trillium, Toppling Goliath, etc. It is a far more assertive DIPA than many others.
I think the key things in my experience.....
*Water - use 100% RO water. 5.4 pH in mash and boil kettle pre-boil. Get both sulfate and chloride into the 80-140 range.... As long as they are both in that range somewhere, you will be ok in my experience. Calcium in the 80-90-100 kind of range. Simple solution - 1 tsp each of CaCl and Gypsum to each 5 gallons of 100% RO water used in mash and sparge. No acid needed. That gets you in the ball park - around 120-140 each of sulfate and Chloride with that strategy.
*I use 80% base malt and 18% combination of flaked grains/wheat in any combination basically. 2% honey malt is for a bit of color and sweetness
*I prefer citra/mosaic/galaxy combinations with a 30-50 IBU bittering of Warrior
*Hop stand after flame out and a bit of chilling... get wort down to 170 or so, dump hops in, 30 minutes of steep, stir it up occasionally.
*Yeast is not as important as people make it out. You do not want the beer "yeasty". Honestly, I really like 1272 and 1056 for this beer, along with Conan. I am not a huge fan of 1318 personally.... comes off as "tart" to me.
*Big dry hop at day 3 of ferment.... I think the "haze" seems to come from the hop stand and the first dry hop during fermentation. I think that is where the "juicy" flavors of hops also come from.
Check out the recipe link above and you might get some other ideas you could add to what you are doing.
The batch I have on tap right now -