Heady Topper- Can you clone it?

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Conan will clear eventually. My last batch was muddy for the first half. Then cleared bright. The flavor is very different cloudy vs clear. With all the suspended yeast and hops, my beer tasted very similar to HT at first. Once it cleared the profile changed from dank peach to orange/lemon.
 
In the keg. 1.071 to 1.011 and 7.9%. 85% attenuation. Sample taste like paradise!

Happy holidays everyone! :)
 
PasbitinusBluinusRibbinus said:
Can you make a starter from one can of heady? Trying to plan if I need to avoid drinking two of my 4 pack... which, you all know, is extremely difficult.
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yup, but start slow and small. dump the dregs of 2 cans into 200 ml of 1.025 starter. let that go for a few days, then add 500 ml of 1.030 directly into it (do not crash & decant beforehand). after that you should be good to go with a 2 L starter (after crashing & decanting the spent starter beer).
 
started mine from a single can, four steps. Came out magical. Here's what I did:

200ml ~ 1.025 ~ 3-4 days
600ml ~ 1.030 ~ 2 days w/ stir plate
1.2L ~ 1.040 ~ 2 days w/ stir plate
2.8L ~ 1.040 ~ 2 days w/ stir plate
 
Getting ready to brew in an hour or so... Just weighed out my hops and salt additions! That's a lot of hops :)

IMG_6243.jpg
 
I liked the yeast geek yeast. Fresh, strong, and had the peach notes at first. My batch ended up oxidized, but it was really good for a couple days.
 
 
ScotzinBros has it but damn it $15 to ship! Highway robbery... And the Yeast Bay from their blog looks like they are going public in January?
 
BeerGrylls said:
You'll do better to track some cans of heady down and culture some yeast. Plus, you'll get to drink it!
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Just got some heady in a trade and have 3 cans left. Is there really enough in there to where if you take the last inch or so and pour it in a starter mix, it will start up?
 
nab911 said:
Just got some heady in a trade and have 3 cans left. Is there really enough in there to where if you take the last inch or so and pour it in a starter mix, it will start up?
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Yes and no. It will work, but its not the healthiest starter. You really want to grow it incrementally starting with 200mL of 1.025 wort, and go from there.
 
NuclearRich said:
Yes and no. It will work, but its not the healthiest starter. You really want to grow it incrementally starting with 200mL of 1.025 wort, and go from there.
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I just made my first starter after building a stir plate on my last beer. No problem trying to step it up. Might have to give this a shot.
 
Gonna give this a shot tomorrow. Sorry if it's been answered, but any advice on what the best ferm temp is to achieve the peachy notes with Conan? Lower mid sixties? Upper mid sixties?
 
White Labs is going to start producing yeast for The Yeast Bay. Vermont Ale (which I hope/assume is Conan) is supposed to be available mid January. See email below.

http://www.theyeastbay.com/brewers-yeast-products/vermont-ale

Dear Yeast Bay Subscriber,
Happy holidays from all of us at The Yeast Bay! It’s been too long since our last update, and we wanted to send you all a progress report on our launch activities. Over the last two months, we've been busy and have a lot to update you on regarding the launch of product on our website.

As you likely know if you have been following our progress, White Labs will be banking and contract manufacturing/packaging all of our product strains. In mid-November, wanting to solidify our relationship with White Labs prior to our launch, we took a trip to San Diego to meet everyone and get a close up tour of where our yeast will come to life. It was really great to meet Neva Parker, the lab crew and the front office folks we've been in close contact with for so many months prior. The tour of the facility was very educational and full of lab-related nerd banter, and it was pretty awesome seeing where our yeast will be manufactured. We’re sure this relationship will continue to grow as we get up and running and look forward to developing it as we move forward.

While we were down in San Diego, we also decided to pop into Modern Times Brewery and meet with Alex Tweet, one of the brewers. We sent a number of our strains, primarily Brettanomyces, to the brewery in July when Mike Tonsmeire (aka The Mad Fermentationist) was down there. The strains have since been used in a number of beers in their barrel-aged program that we got to sample while we were there, and seem to be progressing nicely. Not only did Alex give us a tour of the brewery, he went one step further and gave us an awesome beer tour of San Diego, taking the entire day to show us a bunch of his favorite beer spots. Thanks to Alex, we got to see a lot of San Diego beer culture, which we hope to play a more active role in as we launch. If you’re in the San Diego Area, check these guys out. The beer is great, and the brewery is an eclectic and welcoming atmosphere in which to drink the day away with some good friends.

Regarding the launch of homebrewing vials, White Labs just finished banking and evaluating all of our Saccharomyces strains, and are wrapping up their banking and analysis of all our Brettanomyces strains. We’re anticipating that every strain will be banked by the end of the year, and that Saccharomyces and Brettanomyces strains and blends will be available in mid-late January. For commercial sales, we should be prepared to start taking orders by mid-late January as well, and all of the commercial pitch prices are now on the commercial section of the website. You can click on the links below to view the descriptions of the Saccharomyces strains. The descriptions of the Brettanomyces strains should be up on the website shortly.

We continue to get flattering comments regarding our logo, and have been receiving a lot of inquiries regarding the sale of merchandise such as koozies, t-shirts and sweatshirts. I can tell you that while we’re planning to offer a number of items with our logo in the future, our primary focus in the present is on getting yeast up on the website and continuing to isolate and evaluate new strains. Once we settle in and begin selling our yeast strains and when our isolation efforts begin to slow down, we’ll start exploring merchandising opportunities.

We can’t wait to start serving the homebrewing and craft brewing communities, and we’ll send out all of the information about the exact product launch date in the coming weeks. We will also be passing along information regarding the launch of our Facebook page which is currently under construction. This will be a great way for all you subscribers to keep in touch with The Yeast Bay in real time!

Thanks again for subscribing, and feel free to pass this update along to any yeast enthusiasts that you know who currently are not on our mailing list. Cheers!
 
Chug said:
Gonna give this a shot tomorrow. Sorry if it's been answered, but any advice on what the best ferm temp is to achieve the peachy notes with Conan? Lower mid sixties? Upper mid sixties?
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Unless your setup can guarantee that the temperature does not go above 68* I would err with going in the lower sixties. As long as you keep the temperature under 68* you should get peachy notes rather than Belgian notes, but if the temperature goes above 70* you will get Belgian notes.
 
ianmatth said:
Unless your setup can guarantee that the temperature does not go above 68* I would err with going in the lower sixties. As long as you keep the temperature under 68* you should get peachy notes rather than Belgian notes, but if the temperature goes above 70* you will get Belgian notes.
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I did an APA with Conan that came out VERY Belgian. First 3 days were rock solid 68F, next two were 72F, then dropped to 70F for the next 5 days. I keg conditioned with dextrose around 72F for two weeks.

From now on I'm being a lot more careful with fermentation temps, especially Conan. The beer is good, but not at all what I wanted.

Incidentally, I'm gearing up to do Vegan's 4.0 recipe again. I'm thinking about using WLP0001 instead of Conan. My last go around with this recipe used Wyeast 1099 and it came out great. Any perspectives on alternatives to Conan?
 
I've brewed many times with conan and I think it should be stated as a fact that conan above 70 turns bad belgian. Ferment low 60s and you will adore this yeast.
 
Petekiteworld said:
I've brewed many times with conan and I think it should be stated as a fact that conan above 70 turns bad belgian. Ferment low 60s and you will adore this yeast.
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Good to hear, I've had mine at a steady 63/64 degrees (around 58 ambient) and the yeasties seem pretty happy.
 
Anyone use the Conan strain from GigaYeast?
http://www.gigayeast.com/vermont-ipa-yeast-gy054

It's not very prevalent in online stores and after inquiring about it with my local home brew supply store they came back a few days later and said that they heard it was tried but it never took off by a client?

I ordered it and it's expensive due to the shipping cost ($12) and now I'm terrified. I'm glad to hear the YeastBay is doing a Vermont strain now too though.
 
jamursch said:
Anyone use the Conan strain from GigaYeast?
http://www.gigayeast.com/vermont-ipa-yeast-gy054

It's not very prevalent in online stores and after inquiring about it with my local home brew supply store they came back a few days later and said that they heard it was tried but it never took off by a client?

I ordered it and it's expensive due to the shipping cost ($12) and now I'm terrified. I'm glad to hear the YeastBay is doing a Vermont strain now too though.
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While I can't compare it to the original I've been very happy with the GigaYeast Vermont IPA I picked up locally here in the SF Bay area. I used it in 2 batches (v4 Heady clone and an all Galaxy IPA, which I just bottled). It is nice and fruity and no Belgian-y off flavors/smells.
 
jamursch said:
I'm glad to hear the YeastBay is doing a Vermont strain now too though.
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That may change. I've been following biobrewer's efforts via reddit. He posted the following (source http://www.reddit.com/r/Homebrewing...ish_heads_ta_henket_has_harvestable/ceiyywf):

"The Vermont Ale might be the one strain I hold out on releasing for sales, depending on the reviews from the few I gave out. I reisolated, and the attenuation appears a little better than what I have now, which seems to be consistently in the 70-72% range. The beers are definitely not sweet tasting and are pretty pleasant, but a lot of people are wanting better attenuation. If I do sell the strain, to start off with, the attenuation will be in bold print so there are no misconceptions about how it will perform. I want to make sure I represent the product as honestly as possible to avoid the frustration I have seen some people have with similar strains."​
 
theveganbrewer said:
Damn, it's a shame this strain is going downhill so fast. Sabotaged?
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I harvested some yeast from 2 cans I bought in mid November, and the first beer I did with it I got 82% apparent attenuation. Maybe I lucked out and got a newer generation, but it seems to be all good.
 
I got 89% attenuation on my recent Heady clone (1.071 OG/1.008 FG)...and the entire fermentation and dry hopping was done in a Better Bottle carboy. Interestingly enough the last 5 beers I made with the Conan I harvested all had an FG of 1.008, even my light IPA that had an OG of 1.028.
 
Has anyone heard anything about the new retail store in Waterbury yet? My annual VT ski trip is coming up in February, and I really don't want to be stopping at every damn liquor store looking for a 4-pack.
 
Nothing happening that I know of....and not many liquor stores carry Heady....I got mine at the Montpellier Food Coop. Had to be there the morning it was delivered from Alchemist, all gone by noon..
 
There's a twitter account called @headytracker or something along those lines that tracks deliveries
 
eandersen said:
There's a twitter account called @headytracker or something along those lines that tracks deliveries
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This sounds like the glory days of tracking cars parked in tech company parking lots (on the weekends) just before the dot-com bubble bursting. We're not in an IPA bubble are we? Say it isn't so!
 

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