Heady Topper

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SkinnyPete said:
Just finished a brew with Conan and I fermented cool around 63. The yeast flavor is very Heady. I tried a lower gravity beer with just all galaxy hop as a trial for this yeast before I threw it at a big beer like a heady clone and it turned out great. Nice and dry. But, I'd also recommend fermenting a little on the cool side. The good news is, I still had some of my heady clone that I've been experimenting with on tap so I mixed the two brews together and wow...the yeast makes all the difference in the world. That big hop finish with the conan yeast in the back was exactly heady. I'll be doing my heady clone recipe using this yeast for the first time next week. Fingers crossed.
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Glad to hear your brews turned out great! Good luck with the clone, I'm curious to see your results.
 
othellomcbane said:
Yep, that's me. I'm seeing 62-64 as the sweet spot for Conan. It's happy to ferment as low as 60 (haven't pushed it lower than that) without lag.
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Dude, love your blog!! Once I get my Conan built up, I plan on fermenting low like that. It's my usual temp range anyway for IPA, and from what you've said, it's the way to do Conan.
 
Ah very cool - I'm glad you all have messed around with it and are getting the desired results at those low temps. It's kind of surprising but that's what makes brewing so interesting!
 
Perfect day to brew HT

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NordeastBrewer77 said:
62's what I've been seeing for Conan too. S'posedly that's where it'll kick the big apricot and tropical fruit notes.
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how do we know that this is strictly a yeast-driven note? Seems the tropical fruitiness would be coming from the unique hop combo in large part.
 
g-star said:
how do we know that this is strictly a yeast-driven note? Seems the tropical fruitiness would be coming from the unique hop combo in large part.
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It's not strictly yeast driven. I think what's special about this yeast strain is that it draws out the 'new school' aroma hop character from more traditional american hops. Or at least that's what everything I've read about it would lead me to beliece as I've never had HT or brewed with Conan. The latter is in the works though. Conan + NZ hops + brett bottle conditioning = :fro:
 
g-star said:
how do we know that this is strictly a yeast-driven note? Seems the tropical fruitiness would be coming from the unique hop combo in large part.
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Have you read Othello's notes on his blog? Or what Kimmich himself says about Conan? ".....Conan is the heart of the beer....." I'm sure that hops play into it a good deal, but it seems that Conan fermented at the right temp makes for a very Heady-like character. Mind you, I'm only speaking from what I've read, I'm still building up my harvest.
 
This is probably asking to much but if i sent someone say $20 would that be enough to send "1" can to me in New Zealand, or i could send some 2012 NZ hops to you in exchange. Would love to try this beer and harvest the yeast!!

Just a thought :mug:
 
Probably the worst brew day on my 30 batch career. 70 mph wind gusts, driving rain, and freezing cold temps. Got her done though, 1.071 with a big whirlpool at 180 for 20 minutes. Had to hold the umbrella for the last 45 minutes straight.

The hop extract I got from Yakima smelled amazing. A little citrus, nice floral tone, ended up using 5.5mL of the hop shot from them.
 
PissyFingers said:
This is probably asking to much but if i sent someone say $20 would that be enough to send "1" can to me in New Zealand, or i could send some 2012 NZ hops to you in exchange. Would love to try this beer and harvest the yeast!!

Just a thought :mug:
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Unfortunately I doubt that would cover half of the shipping.. But maybe you can brew your own some day! :mug:
 
NordeastBrewer77 said:
Have you read Othello's notes on his blog? Or what Kimmich himself says about Conan? ".....Conan is the heart of the beer....." I'm sure that hops play into it a good deal, but it seems that Conan fermented at the right temp makes for a very Heady-like character. Mind you, I'm only speaking from what I've read, I'm still building up my harvest.
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A few posts up, I was told that the sample of HT that I found to be good but relatively unimpressive and lacking in tropical fruit character was due to getting an old can (faded hops). So I'm trying to reconcile my experience with what people seem to be preaching about this "magical" yeast.
 
Just got a case of Heady, my cousin made a special trip to VT to load up on HT and Hill Farm and I was lucky enough to get a case and 6 bottle of Hill Farm.

It had been about 6 months since the last time I had Heady and it of course did not dissapoint, as good as ever. I had 2 cans of it and whipped up a starter to culture up the yeast, about 125 ml of 1.030 wort and about 50ml from each can spinning on the stirplate. Its hard to judge how much youre leaving behind in a can as opposed to a bottle. If I am unsuccessful I will be trying again for sure.
 
othellomcbane said:
Glad to hear your brews turned out great! Good luck with the clone, I'm curious to see your results.
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Thanks, man. I felt like I was hijacking your blog so I wasn't sure if I should have posted again there. I got my hands on some hopshot which arrives this week as well, and I'm pretty confident in my grain bill. Excited to brew when hopshot gets here next week. I'm more of a lurker so I'll post the results in 5-6 weeks when it's ready :)
 
Regarding yeast culturing from the can... I have a commercial brewer friend, whom I asked to help me in trying to start a Conan culture. He went through the procedure, and his (autoclaved, sterilized) petri dishes had 9 out of 10 lager yeast colonies. In talking to a couple of other brewer friends, it's indicated that when canning beer, it's not uncommon to use a clean lager yeast on a finished commercial ale. I'd never heard anything like this, but the sources giving me this information are very much professionals, working in the brewing industry (hands on, not "I work for X, putting together boxes" but rather "I make and sell beer" and "I sell and instruct in the use of brewing equipment" etc...

Mixing ale and lager yeasts in primary at ale fermentation temps seems to me like it would not yield desirable results, if one's after a very clean tasting IPA.

Those of you who have made Conan cultures, did you do it via leaving beer in the bottom of the can? I'm asking because I want to do this, but I'm thinking that I may have to try multiple petri dishes, and try to cherry pick the ale yeast colonies (they should look different) but I'm apprehensive about the process.
 
TapeDeck said:
Regarding yeast culturing from the can... I have a commercial brewer friend, whom I asked to help me in trying to start a Conan culture. He went through the procedure, and his (autoclaved, sterilized) petri dishes had 9 out of 10 lager yeast colonies.
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to be clear: your commercial brewer friend cultured some heady topper dreggs and he/she got mostly lager yeast? wow.

TapeDeck said:
it's not uncommon to use a clean lager yeast on a finished commercial ale.
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i've read this as well, but only for bottle conditioned beer: a little lager yeast is added at bottling to ensure that the priming sugar is consumed thus carbonating the beer. since HT is canned, it doesn't make sense to me why there would be lager yeast in there, at least for this reason. logical conclusion: if there is lager yeast in there, it's there for some other reason.

the presence of lager yeast might explain 2 things about conan:
1) why this yeast does better at lower temps
2) its fruity character. while 60-62*F is low for ale yeast, it's high for lagers. so fermenting at that temp might yield a lot of esters in this yeast/yeast blend.
 
Yeah. I asked him if there's any way this could have been a contaminated sample, etc, and he said that we should definitely try again (LOL this is almost surely his elaborate means of drinking more of my beer for free...) but that he's confident that this wasn't the issue... he believes that if it were contaminated, we'd have seen other things on the dishes.

He said that he can only go based on what he just saw, but it's the whole smoke/fire kind of thing. In other words, he stopped short of saying "Heady Topper requires ale and lager yeast."

I am going to redouble efforts on sanitizing the next can I do this to, on the off chance that I wasn't thorough enough... the only other way I see contamination as a source would be if something else spilled on the can we opened, and somehow I was not diligent enough with my cleaning procedure. I would vastly prefer this to be a case of accidental contamination, than a case of ale and lager yeast in the can... because I don't want to blend them at primary, unless I'm sure that makes sense for this beer... I HATE the idea of a wasted brew day for a beer that I might have to dump, and I don't want to store a keg of "meh" beer. :)
 
This is certainly interesting. What if John was himself trying to sabotage the Conan yeast from getting out and was putting in another strain to take over whatever conan might be left? I don't know if that's possible, since they don't filter the Conan and it takes it so long to flocculate.

I guess that if the results are true about the lager colonies, we need to decide if that is Conan, or if that is lager yeast added after fermentation with Conan.
 
someone with the right equipment should be able to isolate an ale colony among all the lager clumps, and patiently grow that up to pitching numbers. pitch into separate worts, then it's a case of comparing the pure ale beer with the mixed population beer. any takers?
 
I'm not sure if it matters, but Haedy is canned and shipped cold. That is where the problem lies in shipping it.
For the drinkers out there, I'm not sure I have ever had one over two weeks old. They can on Thurday, we get it on Friday and have it done in by the next week. I'm not sure what an older can tastes like, because even the stores in the area don't have stock longer than one week.
Drinking one right now infact. Since this thread started I feel guilty about pouring out the last sip with all the yeast.
 
I don't think Heady's can conditioned, is it? Would they even need to re-yeast on the way to the canning line? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that they were canning an unfiltered, carbonated beer.
 
Oh, and not to be that guy, but my starter of Conan smells like the esters I get from Heady, not like a lager starter fermented at nearly 70 F. Not a dish and microscope, but I didn't get any lager character out of it at all.
 
The whole unfiltered part is puzzling. If that's so, you'd expect more Conan in that mix. Maybe this TapeDeck character is really John Kimmich posting false info now that we're onto the conan and the recipe ;)

Whatever Conan I put in my batch yesterday smells very fruity and amazing at 62 degrees. Once I get to sampling day this weekend I should have a better idea if the yeast is correct or not.
 
In a relatively small operation like The Alchemist, I doubt they would go to the trouble of adding a separate "canning" yeast, and conditioning in the can. At the rate they make it I would think they aren't storing cases and cases for weeks while it conditions.
But what do I know.....could be wrong.:drunk:
 
What about the possibility of Conan being a warm loving lager yeast? It prefers cooler temps (Alchemist reportedly ferments at 58), kicks big fruit, seems to be unlike many yeast strains..... I'm only saying this assuming that TapeDeck isn't full of poo, which I'm not sure I assume.... but it's a thought. Maybe this'll be the yeast experiment that makes me go out and get a 'scope, who knows.
 
NordeastBrewer77 said:
I don't think Heady's can conditioned, is it? Would they even need to re-yeast on the way to the canning line? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that they were canning an unfiltered, carbonated beer.
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pretty sure it's not conditioned. once fermentation is done and dry-hopping complete, you want to get a beer like this carbonated and packaged ASAP. bottle/can conditioning is a waste of time - precious time during which hops begin to fade. i'm certain they force-carbonate with CO2.
 
sweetcell said:
pretty sure it's not conditioned. once fermentation is done and dry-hopping complete, you want to get a beer like this carbonated and packaged ASAP. bottle/can conditioning is a waste of time - precious time during which hops begin to fade. i'm certain they force-carbonate with CO2.
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That's what I'm saying. I'd have a hard time believing that they do anything other than run that thing from the bright tank to the canning line. Think about the size of the operation, they're working on a brewpub scale, but canning their brew instead of running it to the tap room.
 
Is there a way to tell if this is a lager by looking at my fermentation that's currently at high krausen? What should I look for? I only did one lager before a while back.
 
theveganbrewer said:
Is there a way to tell if this is a lager by looking at my fermentation that's currently at high krausen? What should I look for? I only did one lager before a while back.
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The only way you can tell a lager ferment is if you have it in the low 50's and it is still fermenting, slow and steady with a lower krausen than normal. A few ale yeasts will go very low too though, such as Notti and Wyeast 1728. I wonder what the difference is under the scope.
 
NordeastBrewer77 said:
Me too... it's pretty much the only way to tell for sure.

for the record, I don't buy for a minute the claims made above that have started this tangent of the converstion
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It does have the ring of horse dookey to it, doesn't it.. I know some breweries such as Chimay bottle condition with a different strain, but I've never heard this business of lager yeast.
NordeastBrewer77 said:
Just for fun, this is the first step of my and DangerRoss' harvest. We added 4 cans of dregs to 250ml of ~1.02 wort. I'm gonna start stepping this up tomorrow.
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Nice! Buddy! ;)
 
bottlebomber said:
It does have the ring of horse dookey to it, doesn't it.. I know some breweries such as Chimay bottle condition with a different strain, but I've never heard this business of lager yeast.
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My laptop started smelling quite similar to a bull's ass the minute I began reading that post. But hey, who am I to be the guy to point a finger and call BS, maybe dude has a link or some photos of this "petri dish". :D
 
Latest batch of Conan off the press. Got 550 billion or so here going into the deep freeze. One last can's dredgings to build up from 250mL or so and I'll be done with it all. Wife isn't happy I'm done, house usually stays a few degrees warmer during yeast harvest.

 
Drank this fantastic beer out of the can, as the instructions on the can demands. Taste is full of hops with smooth hints of grapefruit and rosemary. The finish is perfect and keeps you wanting more. They did a great job controlling the intensity of the hops with the balance of citrus flavors. A beer that lives up to all the hype in my opinion. ---Rated via Beer Buddy for iPhone

Leaflet Printing Uk
 
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