Kveik

[Cheyne_brewer]

I’ll take those words of wisdom & wait until I have a neipa in the Hopcat. I’ll put the packet in the fridge for now.

 

[Sadfield]

I’ve just got some Voss. I have in my brew queue some AG kits from Worcester Hop Shop - Batemans XXXB, Fullers ESB and a Pilsener. What would be the best guinea pig to try it out - I’m assuming one of the ales?

Brew the lager recipe with less water, for a stronger beer, and you'll be part of the way to using kveik traditionally. If you can find some juniper branches to put in the mash tun, even better. Let the yeast be the star of the show.

 

[jceg316]

Do you know what kind of voss it is? Is it a lab isolate (Lallemand, MJ, Omega etc) or the farmhouse strain?

 

[alefric LeHendz]

Has anyone used the MJ Voss dried yeast? I pitched some yesterday evening and after a few hours there was what looked too be a Krausen forming, by this morning it appears that Krausen has been broken up/dropped already. It's definently still visibly and audibly fermenting, just wondering if anyone has experienced this?

 

[DCBC]

Some thoughts on Stranda and Tormodgarden!

I got these Kveik strains from the Yeaster Bunny on eBay and brewed 40L of a simple cascade pale on 27 December. I inoculated 20L with Tormodgarden and 20L of Stranda. OG 1.043. I added two teaspoons of dried baking yeast (one per 20L) at the end of the boil as yeast nutrient.

I pitched both at 31c but could only keep ambient temp to 20c, don't think this matters too much as the activity is supposed to keep the whole batch relatively warm, in fact a lovely krausen formed pretty quickly. So far both smell and taste great, especially the Stranda, the Tormodgarden is a little more muted and a little sharper. Both quite tropical though.

Observations so far:

Fermentation time:

I can back up the suggestion that if you use a simple pale malt bill, you boil the wort, and it comes in under 1.050 you're going to have a slow fermentation. Perhaps counter-intuitively I would say this one is going slower than a US-05 fermentation. The krausen for both is still very high after over a week and they have only gone down to around 1.020 - the target FG is 1.007 and it's only been a week so I'm not worrying yet but I may need to rouse the yeast in a few days if I'm still above 1.015.

The big unknown factor in this is the temperature. Perhaps if I had held at 30c, both would have had the energy required to ferment out fully in 3-4 days. I'm not sure that it's much of a problem as both are supposed to be able to ferment at above 20c.

Krausen:

Both strains still have as big a krausen now as they did 36 hours after pitching. I don't know if they will ever fall! Tormodgarden is supposed to be a top cropping strain and indeed this one is the one which produced the biggest krausen, pushing up the lid of the fementer and threatening to overflow.

Stranda is meant to be a bottom-cropping yeast but still has a nice brown and white krausen. I think I will try collecting some yeast from the top of this one whilst it's available because if I try to take it from the bottom it will be mixed with trub and hop matter.

Yeast harvesting:

Is fun! I took a spatula and scraped off some of the foam from the top of the Tormodgarden, then spread the foam on parchment paper and dried it out under the light of the oven. The white 'beer' foam evaporated and the brown seams of yeast dried and flaked really easily. I will post some photos when I try the Stranda. I'm sure what I collected isn't as pure as the yeast I received but I have not doubt it will be perfectly viable.

More later :)

 

[jceg316]

Has anyone used the MJ Voss dried yeast? I pitched some yesterday evening and after a few hours there was what looked too be a Krausen forming, by this morning it appears that Krausen has been broken up/dropped already. It's definently still visibly and audibly fermenting, just wondering if anyone has experienced this?

I've not used this one but have used the Lallemand strain. What temp are you fermenting at?

 

[alefric LeHendz]

I've not used this one but have used the Lallemand strain. What temp are you fermenting at?

33/34C. I've used the lallemand one too and was expecting this to be pretty similar

 

[DCBC]

OK so I'm not the only person brewing with these strains but I thought I would share an update anyway for comparison.

Both my Stranda and Tormodgarden beers finished high at 1.012 from 1.043. It puts them on a quaffable 4% and 70%ish attenuation which is lower than I'm used to but as long as it doesn't cause bottle rockets I don't really mind.

The Stranda really took off with an explosive krausen but the Tormodgarden was always much slower visibly, but each tracked the other to within a gravity point throughout. It's a classic "trust the hydrometer, not the airlock" situation. I top cropped and dried a small amount of both and I'll see if my results are successful when I next do a brew. With the lower OG and cooler room temp of 20C, both needed a full two weeks to ferment.

Bottled on Sunday. Both tasted delicious from pre-bottling samples, especially for session beers. Both quite tropical, with the Stranda exhibiting a slightly leathery and tart quality, and the Tormodgarden fruitier and more like a classic APA. Both were hopped with Cascade but with no dry hopping. Let's see what happens when they have been in the bottles for a couple of weeks.

An edit for the post above which I can't seem to edit any more: I got confused when I said the Stranda was bottom crop and Tormodgarden is top crop - I meant the other way around. It was the Stranda which tried to escape from the fermenter and the Tormodgarden which was more reserved and had less of a yeasty krausen too, which makes sense.

 

[Moe]

Hi,
I have a jar of cropped Hornindial in the fridge. It is is a sealed jam jar with a small amount of the wort from which it was cropped.

It has been in there since the end of august though. Do you think this will be any good still?
I wouldn’t mind using it in a stout, and there’s probably two or three tablespoons of yeast.

 

[DCBC]

Hi,
I have a jar of cropped Hornindial in the fridge. It is is a sealed jam jar with a small amount of the wort from which it was cropped.

It has been in there since the end of august though. Do you think this will be any good still?
I wouldn’t mind using it in a stout, and there’s probably two or three tablespoons of yeast.

Do you have any DME? You could try making a small starter and see if it forms a krausen and produces any off-smells and flavours which might be associated with the yeast being weak or having gone through genetic changes as a result of a long period of inactivity.

If the starter goes well I'd suggest mixing it with the original to give it a bit of a kickstart. I think it would be a trade-off between freshness and the fact that I would consider the starter yeast to be the 'next generation' and a little further from the original you obtained. That said, most kveik strains must have very good genetic resilience hence the fact that they can be repitched over and over without changing their characteristics much if at all. I'm fairly new to this part of things though so I'll defer to those who know more!

 

[Moe]

Thanks,
I’m not set on using it. It’s just the last stout I used it in was amazing.

I have a sachet of Nottingham, and a sachet of CML kveik ( think this is Voss) so I could use either of those.

 

[DCBC]

What's your brewery capacity? Could you make a larger batch, 30L and do half Hornindal and half something else? Taste test and insurance policy

 

[BlackRegent]

Apologies if the following queries have been addressed before, but I'm going to struggle to find the time to go through all 90 pages of this thread!

I've bought a few strains from yeasterbunny (Ebbergarden, Skare, Gausemel, Stranda and Arset) to experiment with

My usual (non-Kveik) yeast regime is to overbuild a starter and then pour off the top 300ml or so into a mason jar with the yeast still in suspension. I then whack that into the fridge ready for the next time I need that particular strain. It seems to work well.

Is a starter a good idea for all strains of kveik?

Can I recycle the yeast through storing part of the starter or should I be top cropping? (I would rather do the former if I can as it seems easier to me).

Some of the strains I've bought are multi strains and some have a bacteria component. Is top cropping the best (or even only) way to maintain the balance between the strains and bacteria?

 

[SmallSpacesBrewing]

Hi,
I have a jar of cropped Hornindial in the fridge. It is is a sealed jam jar with a small amount of the wort from which it was cropped.

It has been in there since the end of august though. Do you think this will be any good still?
I wouldn’t mind using it in a stout, and there’s probably two or three tablespoons of yeast.

I had Hornindal in a jar for over a year in the fridge. Took off like a rocket after only 7 hours. Kveik I a beast

 

[SmallSpacesBrewing]

Also last time I used the same horningdal I wanted to try and make a starter. I left the yeast on the spinner for 12 hours. That yeast made the beer go from 1060 to 1010 in day and a half. Roughly 34 hours. The beer came out fantastic

 

[Moe]

Thanks, that’s good to know. I’ve used Voss in the stout now but I’ll keep the Hornindial for future brews.

 

[SmallSpacesBrewing]

Thanks, that’s good to know. I’ve used Voss in the stout now but I’ll keep the Hornindial for future brews.

Haven't tried my horningdal in a stout yet but I had great success with a red ale this Xmas. Also really quick to mature. I bottled a six-pack to see if there was any changes and I've had 2 of the bottles since then,Beer finished in mid December, and I can't really taste any difference from the kegged stuff. I used to be a voss fan, used it exclusively for over 2 years, but now I only use horningdal

 

[Moe]

Haven't tried my horningdal in a stout yet but I had great success with a red ale this Xmas. Also really quick to mature. I bottled a six-pack to see if there was any changes and I've had 2 of the bottles since then,Beer finished in mid December, and I can't really taste any difference from the kegged stuff. I used to be a voss fan, used it exclusively for over 2 years, but now I only use horningdal

I highly recommend the hornindial in a stout.

The one I’ve just brewed with Voss has finished fermenting, it reached a lower FG and when I had a taste out of the trial jar and it seemed to have a bit less body than the hornindial.
They used different recipes though so not really comparing apples with apples.

 

[Richard_H]

Brewed my first Kviek at the weekend, an experimental brew with 1 whole grapefruit and 2 blood oranges (all cut in half) thrown in the boil 10 mins before the end and left in the wort overnight as it chilled naturally to 40 degrees. The recipe was:
5KG MO
750G Toasted wheat
250G Amber
250G Melanoidin
Lallemand Kviek Voss
Stupidly forgot to take notes on hops used when I raided the freezer but I 'think' it was 50g Pilgrim(60 min) 100g Admiral (5 min) 50g Topaz once the wort reached 80.
Ended up with 17 litres in the FV with 5 litres left behind in the kettle with I'm ok with considering the amount of 'stuff' that went in, been doing my best to keep this at 35 degrees and it went from 1.060 to 1.010 in 2 days! not sure if this strain will go any lower? the sample smells fantastic and is a lovely light amber colour.

 

[SmallSpacesBrewing]

Sounds awesome. I

Brewed my first Kviek at the weekend, an experimental brew with 1 whole grapefruit and 2 blood oranges (all cut in half) thrown in the boil 10 mins before the end and left in the wort overnight as it chilled naturally to 40 degrees. The recipe was:
5KG MO
750G Toasted wheat
250G Amber
250G Melanoidin
Lallemand Kviek Voss
Stupidly forgot to take notes on hops used when I raided the freezer but I 'think' it was 50g Pilgrim(60 min) 100g Admiral (5 min) 50g Topaz once the wort reached 80.
Ended up with 17 litres in the FV with 5 litres left behind in the kettle with I'm ok with considering the amount of 'stuff' that went in, been doing my best to keep this at 35 degrees and it went from 1.060 to 1.010 in 2 days! not sure if this strain will go any lower? the sample smells fantastic and is a lovely light amber colour.

Your beer sound awesome. Love the citrus touch you get with Voss kveik . But yours I think must be at a whole different level. 1010 sounds normal to me. This is going to be one hoppy beer :) please keep us updated on how it went.