Wyeast Fat Tire Ale Yeast

has anyone used this yet? i made a 1000ml starter with this yeast a few days ago, and just bumped it up to 2000ml because i plan on freezing this strain given it's limited availability. the beer i decanted off the yeast cake had a strange flavor. not really bad, just weird. it smelled ok. the wort for the starter was made from rahr 2-row. i went ahead and pitched it, so we'll see. if anyone has relevant experience let me know what you think.

thanks

I bought one of these from NB and haven't used it yet--but will. Let us know what you find out regarding your finished product.

i will certainly let you know, the fat tire is next on my list. if you're a fan of NBB beers, i'll be posting my Sunshine Wheat clone recipe soon, just need to taste this latest batch.

any suggestions for the fat tire recipe? i'm going to follow the BYO recipe here, but that recipe calls for .5 lb of chocolate in the grain bill!? entering the recipe in beersmith without the chocolate makes it look right color-wise, but it's short the gravity by about 5 points. i'm wondering if the chocolate is a typo. i've also peaked at a few other recipes in a couple of those clone books, and you'd be surprised at how different they are. i suppose being as geeky as i am i'll eventually get around to brewing all of them to compare.

I haven't used it yet, but I wouldn't worry about the smell. Yeast starters can often smell a bit odd, yet be perfectly fine to use. Have you tried tasting some of the fermented beer yet? I find that is a better test (if there is something wrong with the starter, you are likely to pick it up when you taste it).

Another question, has anyone see the specs on this yeast yet, like its preferred fermentation temperature range, or its expected level of attenuation? It doesn't appear to be on the label or the Wyeast website????

it was the taste that i was concerned about, not the smell. now that i've been thinking about it the taste resembles a unique odor in the smack pack when i opened it. the 2000ml starter is raging right now, so who knows.

as for the data, i emailed wyeast about a month ago for that info and never got a reply. i think i'll take the initiative and email new belgium, they're really good at replying to emails.

given that the brewery is an hour away, shouldn't i just take my starter up there and make pete bouckaert taste it!!!

Sorry -- I could have sworn you said smell. My bad.

If you do get a response, I would sure appreciate it if you post it here. I was going to do up a batch soon, but have no idea how to treat this yeast! I'll try emailing Wyeast again, too.

Cheers!

I have a batch of Yooper's Fat Tire clone with that yeast in the primary right now. Fermentation was down right violent. A 5.5gal batch in a 6.5gal fermenter almost reached blowoff. I did notice that the smell was quite sour during fermentation though. Maybe that's what you're referring to? The taste of the beer was nearly spot on to fat tire though: no off flavors there.

Question: does Wyeast put out a line of yeast strains from commercial breweries for home brewers? I was looking on their website and I didn't see anything about fat tire yeast. I'd love to use some genuine magic hat yeast in my next #9 clone.

Kubed said:

Question: does Wyeast put out a line of yeast strains from commercial breweries for home brewers? I was looking on their website and I didn't see anything about fat tire yeast. I'd love to use some genuine magic hat yeast in my next #9 clone.

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You need to look at the VSS - Very Special Strains. Since they've started these, they sometimes do a commercial brewer (Rogue, Flying Dog, NBB) or style (Belgians, Gluten Free). They release a few VSS's every few months and it's been only one commercial at a time.

Cheesefood said:

You need to look at the VSS - Very Special Strains. Since they've started these, they sometimes do a commercial brewer (Rogue, Flying Dog, NBB) or style (Belgians, Gluten Free). They release a few VSS's every few months and it's been only one commercial at a time.

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Here is a direct link. http://www.wyeastlab.com/vssprogram.cfm?website=2

http://www.wyeastlab.com/vssprogram.cfm?website=2 said:

Therefore, we present the VSS Program- Very Special StrainsTM- featuring strains from our archives, new strains as we obtain them, and even occasionally Proprietary Strains from our craft brewery partners such as Rogue Ales PacmanTM Ale yeast and Flying Dog Ale yeast. We feature 3 strains in each VSS promotion and each promotion runs for 3 months.

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Does anyone know if they re-release these strains? I have a few vials of Tim Taylor in the freezer, and I love that stuff. Does everything from milds to pales to IPA's and going to try a porter with it soon. It's great yeast.

Just wondered if they put them out again..

I called the brewery this afternoon and left a voicemail with one of the brewers. i also sent an email. we'll see . . .

Very cool. Thanks for the heads up.

I just got a call back from Grady at New Belgium. He said that the yeast is fairly flocculant, and gave me some interesting info on their procedure for Fat Tire concerning temperature. He said they start fermentation at 50F and let the wort slowly rise to 74F, not allowing it to go higher than that. He said this is done to prevent some bad flavors that the yeast can produce during the beginning of fermentation. Another interesting thing he told me, they use this yeast for Sunshine as well!

Thanks for the info, Grady!!

Thanks for passing that along SW. That's good info, especially about the lower end of the temperature range.

I just finished a batch of a Fat Tire clone recipe that I fermented with this yeast. I had originally planned to use the recipe published in Zymurgy a while back, but my LHBS owner convinced me to try his recipe. Both of those recipes normally call for 1056 but as this had just become available, I had to give it a try. It will be interesting to do another batch with 1056 and compare, because from what I understand this is a fairly clean fermenting yeast anyway.

Anyway, the fermentation was very slow to get started -- I did not use a starter, just smacked the smack pack, which plumped nicely after a few hours. It sat for about twelve hours before I pitched it though. Even after one to two days, the airlock was only bubbling once every five seconds or so. This went on for like a week. The OG was 1.050 and the ending gravity finally finished out at 1.010.

I let it go a second week in the primary and one in the secondary, and then kegged it. It just finished carbonating a couple of days ago and it turned out to be quite close to Fat Tire. I did an extract version of the recipe the same day my buddy did AG and we'll be comparing next week.

If anyone is interested, the clone recipe I used, which came out very close, is available in the "Belgian Amber Ale" kit (a misnomer since this is not a Belgian) available at http://www.highgravitybrew.com/productcart/pc/viewPrd.asp?idcategory=67&idproduct=1634.

I just used this yeast last saturday. It was my first time using a smack pack but that was easy enough, the pack swelled nicely and I pourded it directly into my aerated wort. The fermentation started within about 10 hours and was not too intense, more slow and steady, with bubbles every 15-20 seconds 4 days later. I pitched into approx 75 degree wort and fermented in a bathroom that is around 65-70 this time of year (I hadn't seen the info about starting it off colder) I'm racking to secondary tommorow so I'll see if it caused any esters or off flavors and post back what I find out.

SenorWanderer said:

i plan on freezing this strain given it's limited availability.

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I've got a 1000ml starter of this going right now as well. I'm not sure when or if I actually plan on using it, but I enjoy yeast harvesting and like you said, it IS a limited time strain.

cguzik said:

I just finished a batch of a Fat Tire clone recipe that I fermented with this yeast. I had originally planned to use the recipe published in Zymurgy a while back, but my LHBS owner convinced me to try his recipe. Both of those recipes normally call for 1056 but as this had just become available, I had to give it a try. It will be interesting to do another batch with 1056 and compare, because from what I understand this is a fairly clean fermenting yeast anyway.

Anyway, the fermentation was very slow to get started -- I did not use a starter, just smacked the smack pack, which plumped nicely after a few hours. It sat for about twelve hours before I pitched it though. Even after one to two days, the airlock was only bubbling once every five seconds or so. This went on for like a week. The OG was 1.050 and the ending gravity finally finished out at 1.010.

I let it go a second week in the primary and one in the secondary, and then kegged it. It just finished carbonating a couple of days ago and it turned out to be quite close to Fat Tire. I did an extract version of the recipe the same day my buddy did AG and we'll be comparing next week.

If anyone is interested, the clone recipe I used, which came out very close, is available in the "Belgian Amber Ale" kit (a misnomer since this is not a Belgian) available at http://www.highgravitybrew.com/productcart/pc/viewPrd.asp?idcategory=67&idproduct=1634.

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Update:

I did a tripple comparison yesterday. I compared both the extract Fat Tire clone and my buddy's AG version -- basically the same recipe -- with Fat Tire. The results are that his color is basically spot on, but his batch does not have as much of a bready/malty flavor. Mine is much darker than the Fat Tire, but does have the bready/malty flavor. I think my color is off because of possible scorching when I steeped the specialty grains.

In addition to Sunshine, I'd be curious to know which other beers New Belgium uses this year for.

Hey cguzik, good to hear back! so i take it from your post that your buddy replaced the 6lbs mutons LME with a pale 2-row? and you guys both used the same specialty grains? it's interesting that his looked better, but yours tasted better. the recipe you posted surprised me with the carared. i'd expect some biscuit in there instead. i cant imagine that the carared is in there for anything but color, and the biscuit is going to give you the same color.

when i talked to Grady at NBB, he told me they used the yeast for some other beers, and when i pressed him about which he just said sunshine, but i could tell from the tone of his voice i was getting into territory he wasn't comfortable talking about so i left it at that. if i had to guess i'd say skinny dip would be an excellent candidate for the yeast, just based on its similar qualities.

try tasting sunshine and fat tire together some time. they both have that very unique bready flavor, and it makes me wonder how much of that is coming from a particular grain, and how much is coming from the yeast. i can't imagine that they have much in common with their grain bill, except maybe some carapils, given that sunshine is SO light. i just cracked open my sunshine clone a few days ago and compared side by side with a sunshine and the color was way too dark, but the taste was spot on, except for the malty bread taste!!! i'm pretty sure i screwed the color by priming with wheat dme; i recall it as being much lighter when i was racking into the bottling bucket. i'll be trying a batch soon with the fat tire yeast, and if that doesn't give me the right flavor then i'll have to take a serious look at my grain bill. i have my last starter of the yeast going right now. its a half gallon, and i'll be ready to prep the yeast for freezing on tuesday before i head over the river and through the woods. when i get back on monday i have to take a shot at fat tire, i have a belgian i need to brew for a comp coming up in january, and i suppose i should do another sunshine while i have the yeast viable. if it wasn't for family and holidays and such i'd become a brew hermit!

SenorWanderer said:

Hey cguzik, good to hear back! so i take it from your post that your buddy replaced the 6lbs mutons LME with a pale 2-row? and you guys both used the same specialty grains? it's interesting that his looked better, but yours tasted better. the recipe you posted surprised me with the carared. i'd expect some biscuit in there instead. i cant imagine that the carared is in there for anything but color, and the biscuit is going to give you the same color.

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That's correct. The recipe calls for Weyermann 2-row but he used Breiss. I think the Victory is supposed to provide the biscuit flavoring.

I have both Sunshine and Fat Tire in the fridge, so I'll give them a try side by side soon.

Where did you get your Sunshine clone recipe?

the sunshine recipe is converted from an AHS clone kit. i converted it to all grain and have been tweaking it since. i plan to post it as soon as i have it nailed.