Kveik (After two years)

[Rogermort]

To save me and hundreds like me from wading through 68!!!! pages of the main Kveik thread, is there a Kveik basics thread on here? Never used it, I generally use dry Nottingham, SA05 or BRY97 and when I first started brewing five years ago used to use White Labs and building starters. I don't bother with that so much these days.
Will I notice much of a difference if I brew my usual recipes but pitch Kveik rather than my usual and are any particular strains of Kveik 'similar' to my usuals?

 

[xozzx]

I dont know of a basics kviek thread but I have been using it alot recently, below my opinions on it:

You probably wont notice much of a difference, there will be some differences but it could be better or worse - only way to know is to try it.
There are loads of different kvieks out there, I just read the description online before buying, I have only used 3 different strains so far - WHC Bjorn - good for IPAs, hoppy beers. WHC Hornindal - Similar to bjorn. Lallemands voss (dried) - got my first brew on with this, a Scottish export.

For the bjorn I first made a starter then split this into small vials of about 5ml each. I used one vial per 20L brew and ferment at between 35 to 40C. I think I got about 8 brews out of it and am making another starter from one of the vials to keep it going. It does give a nice fruity addition to IPAs and is great for making a quick and hoppy beer. I normally ferment at 38C for 3 days, drop to 20C and dry hop for 4 days, cold crash then keg.

The hornindal is similar, Ive been meaning to brew 2 of the same beer and ferment each one with bjorn and one with hornindal but havent got round to it - when my wife gives in and lets me buy a B80 it will be easier to do this

I bought the Lallemands voss as it is supposed to be a more neutral yeast. It still ferments like crazy at 38C, I used it for a scottish export which I didnt want too much fruityness in. I used half the pack of dried yeast and have kept the trub in a sanitised mason jar. Ill use a spoonful of the trub in future beers to reuse it (probably make a very small starter to be sure it is alive still).

My suggestion would be just find one that sounds appealing to you and experiment, it is a very forgiving yeast. Underpitch like crazy, it does feel weird using such a small amount, ferment really hot and see what happens. I read that if you are dry hopping it is best to cool to less than 25 before adding the hops.

I still use the "normal" yeasts occassionally as I always like to experiment and not always in a rush to get the brew finished.

 

[Joust]

Here's a table of all the kveik's and some information about each
http://www.garshol.priv.no/download/farmhouse/kveik.html

 

[MyQul]

If any of the forum kviek meisters would like to write a guide....?

 

[Rogermort]

For the bjorn I first made a starter then split this into small vials of about 5ml each. I used one vial per 20L brew and ferment at between 35 to 40C. I think I got about 8 brews out of it and am making another starter from one of the vials to keep it going. It does give a nice fruity addition to IPAs and is great for making a quick and hoppy beer. I normally ferment at 38C for 3 days, drop to 20C and dry hop for 4 days, cold crash then keg.

You see in that paragraph you've answered loads of my questions! :)

The starters thing sounds intriguing though. Are you making the starters on a stirplate with DME in the same way that I would for say WLP05 but at higher temperatures?

 

[Drunkula]

Will I notice much of a difference if I brew my usual recipes but pitch Kveik rather than my usual and are any particular strains of Kveik 'similar' to my usuals?

If you take a typical grain bill and brew with voss at 39c it won't even taste like a 'beer' as all the malt will have gone and pretty much all the late hop additions. You'll have something that's almost an alcoholic squash. It's got its place but it's not the magic I was hoping for. As I said in another thread CML Kristalweizen is far more like what I expected from it at 39c.

I'll be doing experiments and different temperatures to see if there's a balance. At 20c it's got absolutely not speed advantages.

But so far I've only used voss. Want to try more. Will try more.

 

[Brew_DD2]

Ferment warm, use little and you'll have a beer ready inside a week.

 

[SmallSpacesBrewing]

If you take a typical grain bill and brew with voss at 39c it won't even taste like a 'beer' as all the malt will have gone and pretty much all the late hop additions. You'll have something that's almost an alcoholic squash. It's got its place but it's not the magic I was hoping for. As I said in another thread CML Kristalweizen is far more like what I expected from it at 39c.

I'll be doing experiments and different temperatures to see if there's a balance. At 20c it's got absolutely not speed advantages.

But so far I've only used voss. Want to try more. Will try more.

it seems your experiences and mine are totally different. Ive made some very very lovly beers in just that way with Voss kveik. No off tastes or strong alcoholic tastes here. Most have fermentet to around an fg of 1010 and been wonderfull. there are some tricks to it. dont dryhop when the beer is at 39 degrees for example. Under pitch is also one .

 

[Drunkula]

No off tastes or strong alcoholic tastes

I didn't have either of those. All the maltiness was gone. It might as well have been made with sugar.

 

[xozzx]

The starters thing sounds intriguing though. Are you making the starters on a stirplate with DME in the same way that I would for say WLP05 but at higher temperatures?

I make the starter in the usual way with a stir plate but I dont bother with temperature control, usually it will be around 20C. I add a small amount of yeast nutrient as well.

... that reminds me.. I also use yeast nutirent when Im brewing with kviek - 10g/20L batch added with 10 min boil remaining. I dont use nutrient with other yeasts but read that kviek works better with it. I also recently read you dont need to aerate the wort if using kviek but havent tried this yet.

 

[Joust]

I make the starter in the usual way with a stir plate but I dont bother with temperature control, usually it will be around 20C. I add a small amount of yeast nutrient as well.

... that reminds me.. I also use yeast nutirent when Im brewing with kviek - 10g/20L batch added with 10 min boil remaining. I dont use nutrient with other yeasts but read that kviek works better with it. I also recently read you dont need to aerate the wort if using kviek but havent tried this yet.

I read somewhere that the nutrient helps with lower OG. But I'm not sure if that's true...

 

[Tom Parsons]

If you take a typical grain bill and brew with voss at 39c it won't even taste like a 'beer' as all the malt will have gone and pretty much all the late hop additions. You'll have something that's almost an alcoholic squash. It's got its place but it's not the magic I was hoping for. As I said in another thread CML Kristalweizen is far more like what I expected from it at 39c.

I'll be doing experiments and different temperatures to see if there's a balance. At 20c it's got absolutely not speed advantages.

But so far I've only used voss. Want to try more. Will try more.

This is really interesting. I brewed a NEIPA @34C using Voss and found the same thing - I blamed it on my hop rocket not allowing decent circulation, perhaps it was inevitable? It wasn't awful - I drank it all, but hop character was missing.

I'm conditioning another beer (more of a west coast style this time) fermented @30 will be interesting to see how that turns out.

At this time of year with my kit, fermeting at 20C is not an option, so I hope I can find a balance that works with kveik and late hops

 

[An Ankoù]

I've only used a couple of strains and read a bit of useful stuff in Lars Garius Garshol's excellent book. Here are my findings to date:

Kveik's are strains of brewers yeast, not something weird and different. Certainly not "funky farmhouse" yeasts.
They can ferment quickly and at very warm temperatures without giving any off flavours.
A number of kveik isolates are available and each has slightly different flavour properties.
But the fullness of the yeasts' flavour only comes out with warm fermenting; below about 19C they are pretty neutral.
If you want to enhance the yeast's flavour then massively underpitch to stress the yeast.
Kveiks don't produce diacetyl or fusel alcohols. They don't produce phenolic off-flavours like Belgian yeasts.
While it is possible to have a beer ready for drinking within a week of pitching, the beer will continue to improve and be much better after a month's conditioning.
I use kveik so that I can brew in the summer without refrigeration, I'm not particularly interested in getting the specific flavours at this stage so I pitch a full pack in 25 litres and ferment at about 25C.
The isolates I have used tend to ferment down to about 1010 and they drop out and compact very easily, leaving clean and clear beer. They also have high alcohol tolerance.

I shall be looking to see what happens at the low end of the fermentation temperature range, and how low they'll go.
Hope that helps.
I'm using Lallemand Voss at the moment, but I think my favourite is Opshaug.

 

[Drunkula]

The voss rice lager and elderflower have changed and have much less of the sharpness they had at first and are both really nice, but not really beery.

I've got 9 different yeasts in now at 36c and man alive the brew freezer smells of acetone. Can't wait to see which ones are up to the job like the Kristalweizen was. I can tell you this much: even at 36c MJ 44 West Coast is still as much of a draggy feet git as it is at every other temperature. Most of the others have already flocced out and it's still above 1.020.

They don't produce phenolic off-flavours like Belgian yeasts.

I can't wait to see what the Belgian comes out like. It was pretty 'complex' at normal temps and challenged me to readjust my internal tasting parameters.

 

[An Ankoù]

it seems your experiences and mine are totally different. Ive made some very very lovly beers in just that way with Voss kveik. No off tastes or strong alcoholic tastes here. Most have fermentet to around an fg of 1010 and been wonderfull. there are some tricks to it. dont dryhop when the beer is at 39 degrees for example. Under pitch is also one .

I would say my experience is the same as yours and I don't ferment much higher than 25-27C. The beer definitely improves with keeping. I made a 6% abv version of Summer Lightning with Voss and drank one 5 litre keg after a week and the second after three weeks or so. The second was infinitely better.

 

[An Ankoù]

The voss rice lager and elderflower have changed and have much less of the sharpness they had at first and are both really nice, but not really beery.

That's exactly what I want to experiment with when the weather cools down. The recipes I've looked at for, eg, Vossaøl are a million miles from anything Pilsnery and I wonder if a "lager-like" beer can be made with this yeast.

 

[AdeDunn]

My experience with Kveik is that you just tweak your process a bit, like if you want hoppy beer WITH kveik flavours stick to early hops during the boil, then dry hop at ambient temperature once it's finished fermenting pretty much. If you want a malty beer, don't push for the "kveik" flavours, keep your FV at ambient with just a blanket or something to try to stop rapid temperature fluctuations. If you want a hoppy beer and the yeast to be neutral, hop as usual during the boil, ferment at ambient temperature, dry hop as usual.

I've only really played with Stranda and Voss so far to be honest though, and Voss was pretty boring as I didn't underpitch enough or push the temps up overly, so was neutral. Stranda (Hothead) I've used as both a neutral yeast, a fruity yeast, and somewhere in the middle, and was delicious every time. I still have some Ponder's Paradise Porter left, that combines hoppy and malty (new world hops, lots of chocolate and brown malt) as well as some fruitiness from the yeast... I overcarbed it though, as the stuff is VERY good at carbonating in the bottle and I didn't reduce the amount of sugar used a little to compensate. So I just pour it into a big jug to knock the gas out a bit before I pour it into a glass.

Currently in the fridge waiting to be used I now have Lallemand Voss, Omega Hornindal and Omega Lutra (an isolate from Hornindal they reckon can produce something akin to a lager (psuedo-lager) without any temperature control, pitched at 32 degrees C).

Regarding nutrient, I always use it with kveik, especially with pale ales. My understanding is it's to do with how much micro nutrients come out of the malt when mashing rather than just sugars. The one time I forgot to add nutrient I got a lower apparent attenuation.... I use Tronozymol though, not just DAP.

 

[Banbeer]

Found this so might be of some use?

Oslo Kveik - clean crisp lager like beers, ferment at 24 - 37°c, pitch at 30°c with no phenolic or bacteria.

Wollsaeter - Estery,sweet tropical, slightly peppery - most saison like kveik ferment at 20 - 38°c, pitch at 34.5°c no phenolic or bacteria.

Simonaitis - Orange, tropical fruits and stone fruits with spicy earthy undertones, frement at 24 - 35°c, pitch at 35°c both phenolic and bacteria.

Espe - Warm alcohol & fruit cognac and plums, most expressive fermented hot, ferment at 20 - 37°c, pitch at 20°c, no phenolic or bacteria.

Lida - Soft apricot and stone fruit with a milky caramel aroma, ferment at 27 - 35°c, pitch at33° no phenol yes bacteria

Framgarden - Tropical fruit especially pineapple and mango, light farmhouse straw notes, ferment at 27 - 35°c, pitch at 30°c, no phenolic or bacteria.

Tormodgarden - Tropical fruit when fermented hot neutral when cool, slightly earthy aroma, ferment 15 - 35°c, pitch at 30°c phenolic no, bacteria no

 

[AdeDunn]

If you want to read a list of farmhouse yeasts, including kveik, best one probably know is this one. Along with information on where it's from, pitch temp, fermentation temp, how to harvest it for future use....

 

[Kveik Freak]

I'm a newbie who has never used anything apart from kveik, so I can't say much about how it compares to normal yeast. Here is my 2p on using and harvesting it:

• I can't say much about beer character since I'm still experimenting with my processes. What I can say is that I've produced some very tasty light beers with usual estery tastes- pineapple, funky tropical fruit salad, honeyed peaches etc.
• The length of time the esters last in the beer seems to vary by strain. Although I'm not sure how much my amateurish brewing's impacting this.
• The time they take to ferment varies a lot. Not all of them are in the "beer in a week" territory, some take 4 days or more in primary fermentation.
• I'd recommend Stranda if you want a fast fruity beer. It's a natural isolate (1 strain) with no bacteria. Smells and tastes FABULOUS.
• I always use yeast nutrient. Presently I'm using up some old baking yeast, putting it into the boiling wort about 10-20 mins before the end of the boil.
• Kveik strains seem to handle hops differently to normal beer yeast strains- much more pronounced bitterness at least.
  • Smaller quantities later in the boil or after primary fermentation seems to be the way to go. This varies by strain.
• A large basin and a bucket with some water in it and an aquarium heater is great for keeping a small fermenter at temperature up to 33 degrees C.
  • I'm considering a pool heater and a reptile keeper's thermostat for Voss and the other higher temperature strains.
• From dry, 1/4g in 3-5L of wort works perfectly. Just don't panic if it doesn't start fizzing immediately.
  • Starters sound like a great plan, I'm presently getting the gear together to do them.
• The strains with bacteria sometimes produce pellicles. Layers of slime over the trub/yeast in the bottom also appear to be normal for bacteria +ve strains.
• I'm presently eliminating priming sugar. I don't know if this is different from normal beer yeast, but these strains seem to like slowly fermenting away slightly in the bottle and carb themselves nicely after about a week
  • Letting the beer condition in the fermenter for about 3 days is supposed to improve flavour and you can dry hop in this time. Then bottle it and let it carb. This is what I'm trying now.
  • The batch I'm fermenting just now will have its dregs bottled in a small plastic screw top bottle that will be aged along with the beer. When the bottle is solid it'll be carbed.
  • So far the only issues I've had with over carbonation have happened when I stupidly bottled too soon. Won't be making that mistake again.
• Top harvesting and drying the yeast is easier if you take off and discard the krausen when it starts to really get going, and then do your harvest when it re-forms. Removes a lot of trub and hop-related debris
• When harvesting multi strain kveiks, consistency is key to maintaining the correct proportions of the different strains. Each kveik culture has a time window where it's multiplying exponentially and has a good krausen. I use my first brew with a strain to find this window so I know when to harvest later brews.
• This little dehydrator has been perfect. It's big enough to take a good harvest and the plastic trays are easy to chemically sterilise.
  • I heat sterilise some strips of kitchen paper and baking parchment. The kitchen paper goes under the baking parchment and the krausen goes on the baking parchment. The kitchen paper wicks water away from the parchment while it is in the dehydrator.
• If you are bottom harvesting, spread the yeast very thinly when you dry it. It takes a surprising length of time to dry and needs to be crispy dry before you put it in the freezer.