theveganbrewer
Well-Known Member
Vegan - another question.
Do you smell your starters as you go along? I ask because of this.
Step one was extremely peachy, much like the aroma from the can of HT I drank. Step 2 is chugging along. Some krausen and definite yeast sediment in the bottom of the flasks.
However, today, the aroma I get, especially when I swirl it well before I remove the foil lid to smell, is very VERY lightly pepper/clove phenolic. It may just be the power of suggestion, because I read another thread today where some people were reporting peppery, almost Belgian like qualities early on in beers made with Conan. Universally, the phenolics and esters disappear after a couple of weeks conditioning the finished beers.
Have you noticed this with your Conan cultures?
I went back over my sanitation procedures and find it unlikely (though not impossible) that I picked up some wild yeast.
On harvest day, I wiped the whole top of the can with a cotton ball soaked in rubbing alcohol. I decanted the beer into a glass, leaving about 100 ml behind in the can. The dregs of the can went into a sanitized flask for one, a sanitized mason jar for the other. The rims of both receiving vessels had been wiped with alcohol and flamed (as had the mouth of the mason jar containing my canned, sanitized wort). I even did a quick starsan soak (soak not spray) of the aluminum foil that went over the mouth of the step one vessels. Both got O2. But I boiled my oxygenating stone and then gave it a starsan soak before oxygenating.
The samples still smelled peachy when I put them in the step 2 flasks last night. Both flasks got a full submersion in starsan. The mouths of everything were wiped with alcohol and flamed like I did in step one. The O2 stone got the same treatment (boil then starsan). The foil that went over the caps got starsan.
The aroma is not objectionable at all. But it is definitely clovey. If that is not expected, I can only think of 2 things that might have happened:
1. I picked up some wild yeast one of the times I popped off the aluminum foil to smell whether it smelled malty or like alcohol. I find that hard to believe because I have 2 flasks going and both of them have the identical smell at exactly the same level of concentration (perceptually anyway).
2. The room where my stirplate and shaken flasks were sitting all day today does get a little warm in the afternoons. It is upstairs and can get to 75-77F ambient. Although a couple of posts here discuss keeping them warm for propagation.
I brew in 10 gallon batches and am considering only giving half of my batch the cultured Conan. Just in case. I am not making a HT clone. But I am making a standard IPA with my first attempt.
Any ideas?
That sounds normal to me, I don't think you picked any bugs up. You sound very well-versed in sanitation, and you are doing more than I am in that sense. You were smelling the actual Heady Topper in the first step. I usually get Heady smell in the first two, then other smells take over. The juicy peach is always in the final beer though. I wouldn't worry about ruining your beer with it, I'd proceed as originally plan, do the entire 10 with it.
I've harvested up to 78 degrees before and the final beer always tasted the same. It throws some funky smells, which is why I think it could be a hybrid Belgian strain, but it didn't deter me and I never had bad fermentation from it.