Even since my last trip to Vermont I’ve been fascinated with the Conan yeast strain. It’s roots are from Greg Noonan of the Vermont Pub & Brewery and supposedly it has English roots. If you’re not familiar it’s supposed to kick off a bit of peach, essentially act as hop steroids, and is Heady Toppers claim to fame. I’ve loved the APAs I’ve brewed with it but it’s tough to tell where the hops end and the yeast begins.
My last brew was an American IPA that I decided to split batch with the Yeast Bay’s Vermont Ale (Conan) and S-05. I took inspiration from a local brewery and went 80% Pale, 10% white wheat, 10% flaked oats for the grain bill with a touch of acid malt for pH. The hops were Chinook, F7, Amarillo, & Cascade all added during a 170f hop stand or dry hopped. Bittering was from a single CTZ charge at 60m. The beer that I was inspired by (same grain bill and Conan) said they serve it up super fresh, 2 to 3 weeks from brew day. Going off of this I cold crashed after 14 days and served on day 21.
For the S-05 I simply added the packet to the wort. Vermont Ale was a 3rd generation mason jar of washed yeast boosted up with a starter.
At day 21 I hosted a little party and tapped the two. Overwhelmingly everyone preferred the Conan beer (10 Conan, 3 S-05) and it tasted like a completely different beer - although surprisingly the yeast character almost seemed more Belgium than English. However there was a major variable affecting the experiment - there was a touch of diacytel flavor in the S-05. I’ve never had this problem with S-05 before but I’ve also usually don’t cold crash at 2 weeks and usually brew lower gravity beers.
So in the end the experiment was pretty flawed so I’ll probably redo with a fresh vial of Vermont Ale and 1056 or something. But the takeaway was still that Conan adds a crap ton of flavor to an IPA and worth experimenting more with.
Yeah, the pitch differences were your ‘flaw’. You definitely want to get a comparable pitch between the two. With the diacetyl, the S-05 just didn’t have the time and energy to clean it up. A healthier pitch would have been a fairer comparison. Kudos for experimenting, though.
Interesting. I have heard so much about heady topper but can’t get it.
I use US05 for a lot of APA/IPA type beers. I do like it for my purposes but have been looking for something that adds just a bit of something without getting in the way of the hops. I have been experimenting more with malts in these styles and tend to go a bit overboard and cover up the hops more than I should…
Yea, I think time was the key and the starter would have accelerated everything. I don’t think I under pitched tho - a full packet of dry yeast for a bit under 3 gallons of 1.060 wort should do the trick. But with the goal being a quick turnaround a starter would have helped even the playing field.
Normally when I use Chico it’s S-05 without a starter. Since Vermont Ale is a bit expensive and has to be shipped I’ve been harvesting and reusing it so I figured I’d first tailor the experiment to how I’d use them personally. But I definitely want to redo with the same cell count liquid-to-liquid to have a better Conan Vs Chico comparison.
Definitely try it out, imo it compliments citrusy hops really well. The Yeast Bay sells it as Vermont Ale. East Coast Yeast has a version too but thats harder to come by.
I expect that even rehydrating before pitching might have made a difference. I don’t think I’ve ever seen documented numbers, but conventional wisdom is that dumping dry yeast right into the fermenter can kill up to half the viable cells compared to rehydration.
Enough is going to vary, though. Will you have enough to ferment? Yeah, you should, but the health of the fermentation could be affected. You might have a bit longer lag time, or the yeast cleaning up after itself may take longer. I’m just saying that in an experiment like this, under a compressed time frame, it may have made a difference.
That had been my understanding as well. I usually rehydrate but had read some stuff here and there about how it may not be needed. But you’re definitely right that in an experiment and when looking for a quick turnaround at least rehydrating would have made sense. Using two fresh liquid vials may be the best approach.
I love this stuff, thank you for sharing your results! I did a similar xBmt comparing TYB Vermont Ale to my beloved WLP090 SDSY and my results matched yours-- blind tasters preferred the beer fermented with Vermont.
I think it matters in certain situations (cool ferm temp, high OG) and doesn’t matter so much in others. My xBmt on the topic suggested blind tasters weren’t terribly good at distinguishing between the same beer fermented with dry yeast sprinkled on vs rehydrated.
If you read my “Just say no” thread, you will understand where the Belgian notes came from in the Conan batch. Rinsing yeast with boiled water is the brewing equivalent of taping a sign that says “Kick Me” to one’s back. My recommendation is to avoid the practice in the future because yeast rinsing opens the culture up to wild yeast and bacteria infection. Belgianesque flavors are often a sign of wild yeast infection. Unlike British strains, most Belgian strains are not that far removed from their wild origins. For example, the main Duvel strain groups closely with the Saccharomyces diastaticus strain NCYC 361 from a genetic point of view1. Saccharomyces diastaticus is a wild beer spoilage species.
Hmm, interesting stuff! I’ll dive into that post when I have some time - I had always read this was a good practice. That being said the belgium yeast like notes that could have been from a wild yeast caused by washing were awesome. Definitely another negative as far as experimentation goes but positive in the beer for sure.
I bet that you read that information on a very large home brewing forum. That site is chock-full of bad information, and anyone who dares to challenge the status quo is met with extreme resistance.
The common justification given for rinsing yeast with boiled water is page 168 of the book “Yeast: The Practical Guide to Beer Fermentation.” However, it is clear that those who as using it as a justification for what is a marginal practice at best have never actually read the book because that’s not what the authors say. The process outlined on page 168 is used to answer the question “How does one select the best yeast when harvesting the entire contents of a fermentor?” The authors also mention in passing that it “may” be beneficial for commercial breweries to use the technique to separate yeast from green beer when harvesting yeast from high gravity beers. However, anyone who has studied brewing science or has been brewing for a number of years knows that repitching yeast cropped from high gravity batches is not a good practice.
1.) Leave about one U.S. quart to about one liter of green beer behind while racking
2.) Use the remaining green beer to swirl the solids back into suspension
3.) Wait a few minutes for the heaviest fraction to settle (this fraction will be composed of mostly break, organic matter, and dead yeast cells)
4.) carefully decant the cleanest 350 to 500ml of thin slurry from the fermentation vessel (I crop the cleanest 350ml)
The process outlined above accomplishes the same task as the process outlined on page 168 while keeping the force field that the culture built for itself intact. While this force field is toxic to the culture, it is even more toxic to wild microflora. Storing yeast under green beer instead of boiled water has the added effect of making cellular glycogen stores last longer. The crops shown below were harvested using this method.
With that said, believe it or not, one can use the scoop and pitch method if one is not picky about break and other organic material carry over. Many brewers use the scoop and pitch method.
In the end, what matters the most is not giving invaders an opportunity to infect one’s crop; therefore, a brewer should limit the amount of handling that needs to be performed between cropping and repitching because every handling event represents an infection opportunity. Removing the force field that the culture built for itself just compounds the problem.
Appreciate all the feedback - once I have 350-500ml of slurry in my flask should I just pitch the whole thing into a new brew or do you do any further separation/starters?
If you collect thin slurry per the process outlined above, you should end up with between 150ml and 200ml of thick slurry after the solids have settled. A good rule of thumb to use is that 1ml of thick slurry contains approximately 1.2 billion cells; therefore, one can expect to have between 180 and 240 billion yeast cells in a 350ml thin slurry crop.
You should decant and discard the supernatant (the clear liquid that lies above the solids) before pitching the thick slurry. You should get into the habit of wiping any surface over which yeast will be poured with a cotton ball that has been saturated with 70 - 90% alcohol before pouring. Regular isopropyl alcohol will work; however, if you want to use clear spirits, then you need to pick a product that is at least 140 proof (proof = 2 x alcohol by volume percentage).
Wiping with alcohol is a safeguard against infection. Wild microflora does not crawl into a fermentation or starter vessel. It rides through the air on house dust. Wiping before pouring ensures that the lip over which the yeast will be poured is dust free. If ones does not wipe, one runs the risk of dragging dustborne microflora into the fermentation (the threat increases with length of storage). This step is the brewing equivalent the alcohol prep that a nurse or doctor does before giving one an injection. The alcohol prep helps to prevent the needle from dragging microflora that is on one’s skin into the injection site.
