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If I remember correctly I think @peebee is interested in historical brews and might be interested?
WHAT! Cheeky so-so. I'll have you know I'm young and hip ...

🪂🏋️‍♂️🧗‍♂️🚵‍♂️🏇 ... 👉 ... (ouch, oww, ouch) 😵‍💫🤕👨‍🦽

Okay. I get it. Where can I get a copy?
 
WHAT! Cheeky so-so. I'll have you know I'm young and hip ...

🪂🏋️‍♂️🧗‍♂️🚵‍♂️🏇 ... 👉 ... (ouch, oww, ouch) 😵‍💫🤕👨‍🦽

Okay. I get it. Where can I get a copy?

In the emojis above I've done 2,4 and 5 (plus the words in brackets standing up or sitting down). Still do 4 plus running and swimming and I'm no spring chicken either :laugh8:.

If you're patient I can send you my copy when I've finished it. If not then Amazon.
 
Just got this. A good read about how farmhouse beer was (and in some cases still is) made in the rural areas of europe. There's a good bit about how yeast was harvested from slurry by dipping a straw wreath into it then hanging it up to dry in the barn. Birds lived in the barn and inevitably cr@pped on the wreaths. To inoculate the next brew they knocked off the cr@p and shoved the wreath in the wort. I knew all this hygiene lark was overrated :laugh8:. Up to the chapter where it talks about malting which makes me wonder about doing some myself or at the least deliberately mix grains that I wouldn't normally do to see if I can get more complex flavours.

If I remember correctly I think @peebee is interested in historical brews and might be interested?

View attachment 100586
This was one of the best written brewing books I have read. Personally malting sounded like a nightmare though!
 
Just got this. A good read about how farmhouse beer was (and in some cases still is) made in the rural areas of europe.
It's a cracking read. I was fascinated to learn about farming at the edges of viability. If one thing stuck in my head, it was the idea that a farm could only be as big as the number of cattle the farmer owned as he needed these to manure the land.
Bear in mind that wild European juniper is non toxic but many garden varieties are thoroughly poisonous.
I read the book a few years ago and immediately bought 3 European Juniper trees (30 cm). I'm still waiting for them to be big enough to pull branches off. 🤣🤣
There are still people round here (North pembs) who brew in the same way.
I'd be very interested in learning more about that if there's any literature about.
 
I don't think there's any literature about it but I know people still do farmhouse brewing in the Gwaun valley. Bessie who used to run the pub in Pontfain was famous for it but you'd only ever get some if you were a local and in a lock-in, it being not exactly legal. My Mrs was chatting to a guy who works in our local supermarket and it turns out he and his family brew like that too. Maybe one day I'll persuade him to let me have a look when they're brewing.
 
About a third of the way through now and it is a good read. The thought of juniper is interesting, I was thinking about just sticking some berries in for the flavour/bitterness as an experiment rather than grow bushes. Still early thoughts. Still like the idea of being able to brew something unique by roasting my own malt, don't think I'll malt though.

Having not really paid much attention I thought kveik was a single thing like Notty or Belle Saison but its actually a group of yeasts collected from various towns although yeasts can be categorised as kveik. So now if I bought a kviek yeast I'd be wondering which one ? Pitching hot and bottling on the third day is appealing.

Interesting about some brewers switching from farmhouse (their own in-house yeast) to bread yeast (whilst acknowledging it doesn't taste as nice). There is also the suggestion that what was the "beer" genus (?) of yeast has/could be been renamed "beer/bread". There is a hint that you can treat it like kveik and brew it hot. It is said that bread yeast keeps going until 60c (which I've taken advantage of making dutch oven bread). So 30c+ brew with bread yeast is on the cards (small batch 😁).

Good stories about people making beer using techniques that they have learned from predecessors but no real idea why they do some of the steps, but they work. Amazing that one of the brewers judged the strike temp to within 0.2c on two occasions without a thermometer.

Looking forward to reading more.
 
Bakers' yeast and Brewers' yeast are both Saccharomyces cerevisiae, albeit adapted and evolved for different purposes

I brewed a Gotlandsdricka with bread yeast and juniper a good few years ago when I first started reading Lars' blog.

The yeast was a poor flocculator, didn't attenuate fully, but had an ester and phenol profile similar to a weizen yeast.

May have to have another go when the juniper in my current garden has grown a bit.
 
About a third of the way through now and it is a good read. The thought of juniper is interesting, I was thinking about just sticking some berries in for the flavour/bitterness as an experiment rather than grow bushes. Still early thoughts. Still like the idea of being able to brew something unique by roasting my own malt, don't think I'll malt though.

Having not really paid much attention I thought kveik was a single thing like Notty or Belle Saison but its actually a group of yeasts collected from various towns although yeasts can be categorised as kveik. So now if I bought a kviek yeast I'd be wondering which one ? Pitching hot and bottling on the third day is appealing.

Interesting about some brewers switching from farmhouse (their own in-house yeast) to bread yeast (whilst acknowledging it doesn't taste as nice). There is also the suggestion that what was the "beer" genus (?) of yeast has/could be been renamed "beer/bread". There is a hint that you can treat it like kveik and brew it hot. It is said that bread yeast keeps going until 60c (which I've taken advantage of making dutch oven bread). So 30c+ brew with bread yeast is on the cards (small batch 😁).

Good stories about people making beer using techniques that they have learned from predecessors but no real idea why they do some of the steps, but they work. Amazing that one of the brewers judged the strike temp to within 0.2c on two occasions without a thermometer.

Looking forward to reading more.
I tried this last September using 50g berries and the Voss recipe in the book scaled back to 6%. 2h mash, 2h boil. It was not very successful. Attenuation wasn’t good with the dried Voss, berries made it fruity and not much else. Eventually added a dry hop as I was worried it would be undrinkable. After a long time in the bottle it was passable but I wouldn’t repeat. There are trees that can be substituted for juniper but you need to know your ids.
 
I tried this last September using 50g berries and the Voss recipe in the book scaled back to 6%. 2h mash, 2h boil. It was not very successful. Attenuation wasn’t good with the dried Voss, berries made it fruity and not much else. Eventually added a dry hop as I was worried it would be undrinkable. After a long time in the bottle it was passable but I wouldn’t repeat. There are trees that can be substituted for juniper but you need to know your ids.
Haven't got to recipes yet, I assume they are later in the book.
 
LOL.

I was buying some stock earlier and had a browse of the yeasts and the Lallemand Voss kveik is from one of the farms that the author visited. So I've got some.

I was at a beer festival last night and stumbled across a kveik beer. Hmmm. There was fruit but it was sour, a bit like having a bitter lemon. I didn’t think they were supposed to be sour ? Maybe not a good example or a variation?
 
I was at a beer festival last night and stumbled across a kveik beer. Hmmm. There was fruit but it was sour, a bit like having a bitter lemon. I didn’t think they were supposed to be sour ? Maybe not a good example or a variation?

Some strains do have a bacterial component (usually lactobacillus), but it's possible to get some that don't sour. Some good sources of the genuine article on eBay.
 
Having not really paid much attention I thought kveik was a single thing like Notty or Belle Saison but its actually a group of yeasts collected from various towns although yeasts can be categorised as kveik. So now if I bought a kviek yeast I'd be wondering which one ? Pitching hot and bottling on the third day is appealing.
When the kveik yeasts hit the scene, some years ago, I experimented with Voss and Opshaug. To cut a long story short, I didn't like the flavour that Voss gave to the half-dozen different brews, I tried. I liked Opshaug much more, but then lost the strain and didn't replace it.
More recently I had to have A Peroni Clone ready in six weeks for a guest who only drinks Peroni. I used Omega Lutra, an incredible yeast: it ferments warm and quickly and leaves the beer clean. I'm not sure whether my beer was a good copy of Peroni as I don't drink the stuff, but our lad couldnt get enough of it!
Well worth a go if you want to experiment with Kveiks.
https://omegayeast.com/yeast/kveiks/lutra-kveik

By the way, I never fermented the opshaug really hot, but, after a sprinting start, it seemed to take ages, a couple of weeks, to finish fermenting.
 
There's kveik beers and then there's beers made with Kveik yeast. Kveik beers shouldn't be sour, that's usually prompt for the farmhouse brewer to discard their yeast and ask a neighbour for some of theirs. Also, the juniper branches and a small hop addition inhibit the bacteria in contaminated yeast.

From milkthefunk.com.

Lactic Acid Bacteria and Wild Yeast Contaminations​

Some of the kveik cultures that are not isolated cultures have reportedly been contaminated with lactic acid bacteria. These contaminations probably occurred during handling of the yeast at some point. See Justin Amaral's statements regarding this issue. The lactic acid bacteria found in contaminated kveik cultures can be inhibited by ~10 IBU [43]. Traditionally, if contaminating microorganisms start having an impact on the flavor of the beer, the brewer would throw away their kveik and borrow a fresh culture from a neighbor [17].

See also:

Juniper Antimicrobial Effect​

Juniper twigs partially inhibit Lactobacillus growth. Juniper needles, ripe berries, and unripe berries have little to no significant impact. Juniper is often used in farmhouse brewing. Sometimes it is used as a mash filter, and sometimes it is used to make a juniper infusion called "einerlog" which is sometimes used for the mash water [22]. See Lactobacillus "Other Plant Type Tolerance" for more information.
 
When the kveik yeasts hit the scene, some years ago, I experimented with Voss and Opshaug. To cut a long story short, I didn't like the flavour that Voss gave to the half-dozen different brews, I tried. I liked Opshaug much more, but then lost the strain and didn't replace it.
More recently I had to have A Peroni Clone ready in six weeks for a guest who only drinks Peroni. I used Omega Lutra, an incredible yeast: it ferments warm and quickly and leaves the beer clean. I'm not sure whether my beer was a good copy of Peroni as I don't drink the stuff, but our lad couldnt get enough of it!
Well worth a go if you want to experiment with Kveiks.
https://omegayeast.com/yeast/kveiks/lutra-kveik

By the way, I never fermented the opshaug really hot, but, after a sprinting start, it seemed to take ages, a couple of weeks, to finish fermenting.

Useful info here.

Re: the opshaug I could cope with the 2 week wait, sounds like you used it a few times so it must have tasted OK ?

I like the sound of the Lutra, a quick, clean ferment would be nice. From memory (although we tend to drink the zero % stuff most) I think clean would be a good description of Peroni. I'll put it on my shopping list.

athumb..
 

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