I've seen people discuss stepping up Heady Topper dregs to get a starter of Conan yeast going and I had a few questions for those people. First, what was the process you used to make the starter? Was a single can enough to start it? Second, how were the results when used in a beer? Did the peachiness come through? How was it's attenuation? I just got back from the Alchemist and I'd really like to see what Conan can do in my own IPAs. I was thinking about pairing Conan with Mosiac and Chinook/Simcoe. But I was curious to see how it worked out for people, especially since it seems like all those hops in Heady Topper could have negatively effected the yeast. Thanks.
I have some conan at the house in the fridge that I haven't used yet. I know there's a guy on here, veganbrewer that has done this a few times himself.
I know someone who built it up using the dregs from 2 cans in starters from 100 ml - 250 ml - 500 ml - 1000 ml. He is brewing a HT clone and says he's getting the peach flavors from it. I think the key is sanitize, and slow and steady. Treat it like a baby.
I used 4 cans and did the following schedule: 200ml for 24 hours on stir plate 24 hour crash cool 800ml for 24 hours on stir plate 24 hour crash cool 3200ml for 24 hours on a stir plate 24 hour crash cool 3200ml for 24 hours on a stir plate 24 hour crash cool washed yeast It looked like I had 150ml of dense slurry at this point. 2 week cold storage I was going to do another starter before pitching, but the majority of people on BA that responded to my thread said I had plenty of yeast. pitched into 10g of 1.069 OG IPA wort mashed at 153F 7 days ago @ 68F gravity only down to 1.021 so far (90% fermented) in the first week. I roused the yeast and will give it a few more days before checking the gravity again. If it has dropped at least 2 more points by then, I will let it ride. If it hasn't changed by then, I might rack to secondary and pitch some US05 to finish the fermentation.
I did this a few months back and just got to taste the first beer I made with Conan yesterday. It was a nice American pale wheat with some kolsch malt and dry hopped with Mosaic, Cascade, Citra and Nelson. The peach definitely came through in the final product although it's still a bit young. I used dregs from 2 cans (maybe 4oz total) into 1600mL of starter wort at about 1.030 OG, let it ride for 2 days then cold crashed it about 12 hours prior to pitching. Conan doesn't flocc very well at all so I pitched about 400mL of the starter into my beer. This probably wasn't quite enough yeast tbh (took almost a day to really take off) but John Kimmich says he likes to slightly underpitch with Conan to draw out more of the citrusy/peachy flavors. I'd love to see what the yeast could do with other styles, thinking about doing something with Belgian blonde/saison type recipes or possibly blending with other strains. Good luck!
Cool, my thread has come back from the dead. I followed the basic formula GatorBeer mentioned above: 2 cans into a 200 ml starter and then stepped it up twice to get to a liter. Shaken, not stir (plate)ed. From memory my IPA had a 1.060sh OG and it dropped to 1.009. Conan is a monster. After a few weeks in the keg my beer is pretty clear, much more so than I used to get with US-05 in bottles, but then it could be a function of me just switching to kegging. The mosiac and simcoe hops I used worked wonderfully together in equal parts. A real fruit bomb with melon and berries, just a hint of pine. Its hard to tell what fruit profile came from the Conan, but this is the fruitiest IPA I've brewed to date.
Heres what the Conan Ive been growing up looks like. We put it under a microscope today. I stepped it up 3 or 4 times, if I had it to do again I think I would have just done a session IPA after the 2nd time. I ended up with about 8 ounces of very clean yeast though... 500ml, 1000ml , 2000ml, 2x 2000ml.
