Wondering about Kveik and..

[Arcs]

I am not that far off from brewing all grain and partials now. Rather bored of extract brewing per se. However, as a last throw, I know some of you will think it a waste. But I do intend to harvest the Kveik that I intend to buy. But I am asking for recommendations for brewing with Kveik and what brand I should be looking at? I will sorta be doing some extract brews over the summer as I want them done quick. Super yeast is off the menu thanks. I want a Kveik suggestion. One that will hold over from extract brewing to my 1977 book of all grain brewing with partials included. Might even have a stab at double diamond as directed in the brewing book. However, I will be mostly brewing stouts, porters and bitters. Any suggestions as to what yield I should be looking for? Cheers!

 

[phillc]

Also really interested in replies here.

I've started an experiment which will involve using the dried Lallemand Voss Kveik yeast.

Yesterday I put on a batch of Muntons Export Stout extract from the can. Prior to this I cold steeped 250 grams of chocolate malt and 250 grams of roasted Barley for 24 hours. I used 1kg of brew enhancer instead of sugar and also a further 500 grams of dark spray malt. OG was 1053. For this first batch, I used the yeast supplied with the can.

Next batch, planned for Monday, will be the same ingredients as above, but this time using the Voss Kveik.

I'm brewing both batches as close to side by side as I can, in order to compare the end results at roughly the same amount of conditioning time.

I used the Voss Kveik because it was cheap and easy to obtain, but also after watching the Escarpment Labs webinar about yeast flavour diversity (Beer Yeast Flavour Diversity - Crowdcast) it seems like Voss is a decent middle of the road Kveik.

 

[Arcs]

I will take your advice on that Voss, although there is a variant of it from the Malt Miller. Might buy both. But given the kit is so expensive to all grain, I am just gonna take the advice of my fellow brewers here and buy a large pan for now and go BIAB - unless this lock down persists and then I will be able to afford to buy such kit

 

[Lesinge]

Out of interest I did a DD clone - I am liking the results - higher percentage than the real stuff (5.6%) so probably more flavour but I was looking for the sort of beer that I drank as a young chap (Trueman's special etc) so I thought this would do. Not disappointed. Only have the Lallemand Voss Kveik yeast but haven't used it yet (waiting for the temps to get higher in summer) so no help with that.

 

[Arcs]

Well, I managed to get some cheap Kveik off ebay after shopping around - Kveik Beer Yeast Norwegian Farmhouse Ale. Home Brew Sigmund Voss Brewing (Kviek). Some of the homebrew sites seem rather screwy with their pricing, in particular geterbrewed >< Ok, I bought 11g for £4.50 which imo is very reasonable knowing that I can harvest the hell out of it. Buying liquid yeast seems a waste to me given you can make your own starter anyway. I hope to see alot more threads concerning this yeast and the outcome of it ^^

 

[phillc]

Have a look at the mega kveik thread. I posted there yesterday about buying some eBay strains too. And also found #8 Tormgarden is available direct from the farmer.

 

[McMullan]

Have a look at the mega kveik thread. I posted there yesterday about buying some eBay strains too. And also found #8 Tormgarden is available direct from the farmer.

15 Euros plus extortionate postage rates? That's hilarious. Norwegians have unreasonable expectations, don't they? Especially considering what you're actually buying here are spud moonshine yeast

 

[Drunkula]

11g for £4.50 which imo is very reasonable knowing that I can harvest the hell out of it.

I did 23 litres with 0.5g of the packet and it fermented 1.047 to 1.007 in under 40 hours at 35c. When the yeast finishes there's no "Oh Vic, I've fallen." and bubbles every 30 seconds - it's like oi, I'm done, fikking stop pissin about and cold crash me or summat.

 

[nixhaz]

I did 23 litres with 0.5g of the packet

Just dry or did you make up a starter first? I'm setting up a heated brewing area and can't wait to try out the kveik!

 

[matt76]

I did 23 litres with 0.5g of the packet and it fermented 1.047 to 1.007 in under 40 hours at 35c. When the yeast finishes there's no "Oh Vic, I've fallen." and bubbles every 30 seconds - it's like oi, I'm done, fikking stop pissin about and cold crash me or summat.

@Drunkula I take it that's a typo and you did 23L with half the 11g packet?

 

[AdeDunn]

@Drunkula I take it that's a typo and you did 23L with half the 11g packet?

Might be, might not be.... You never know with Kveik. lol Under-pitching is part of how you bring the flavours out with many varieties, along with fermenting at temps over 30 degrees C. Never needed to cold crash a beer made with kveik though either.

Basically I used to just cool my wort to about 38 degrees (instead of 18 degrees) C, tansfer it to a well insulated fermenter, pitch the yeast, let it get on with it. Once it was finished, batch prime it and bottle. No cold crashing, and saved me a ton of water during the wort cooling stage as getting from 30 to under 20 degrees C was always the big water user.

As to brands, my favourite so far has been the Omega Hothead Ale yeast. A liquid strain which if you ferment warm gives lovely flavours, if you ferment at about 20 degrees C is totally neutral. A workhorse of a yeast. Could get quite a few brews out of a single pouch, as no need to pitch the whole lot.

 

[Drunkula]

@Drunkula I take it that's a typo and you did 23L with half the 11g packet?

0.5g exactly on a 100th of a gram scale - a 20th of the packet hydrated with 39c water then pitched into a litre of the wort that I cooled in the sink while the main wort no-chilled to 39c which took about 8 hours. I wanted the wort at 39c but by the time I syphoned it into the fermenter it had dropped to 30.

Fermenter was over under 40 hours, transferred it for a 2 day cold crash that didn't stop it being hazy, force carbed and drank 2 litres - zero flavours caused by the yeast, a slightly raw hop flavour if you look for it. I know somebody that would like that taste because my kolsh was like it and they rated it a 9/10.

I bottled it and it is clearing in the bottles. As part of a test I'm going to lager half and leave half alone.

I'm going to do the next lot at 42c. The orange is there but I want to see if I can get it crazy. I'm doing a 3 way compare of Crisp Maris Otter, Minch Pale and Minch Craft Pale malts.

 

[nixhaz]

@Drunkula thanks so much for the indepth reply! That's some crazy yeast!

 

[matt76]

0.5g exactly on a 100th of a gram scale - a 20th of the packet hydrated with 39c water then pitched into a litre of the wort that I cooled in the sink while the main wort no-chilled to 39c which took about 8 hours. I wanted the wort at 39c but by the time I syphoned it into the fermenter it had dropped to 30.

Fermenter was over under 40 hours, transferred it for a 2 day cold crash that didn't stop it being hazy, force carbed and drank 2 litres - zero flavours caused by the yeast, a slightly raw hop flavour if you look for it. I know somebody that would like that taste because my kolsh was like it and they rated it a 9/10.

I bottled it and it is clearing in the bottles. As part of a test I'm going to lager half and leave half alone.

I'm going to do the next lot at 42c. The orange is there but I want to see if I can get it crazy. I'm doing a 3 way compare of Crisp Maris Otter, Minch Pale and Minch Craft Pale malts.

Wowsers, that's insane! I mean, I think I'd read somewhere it benefits from underpitching but I didn't imagine to that degree!

Could prove interesting mind - I've got a pack of CML Kweik waiting to be used (I think it's 10g, maybe 11g) and I only brew 10-12L-ish batches

 

[nixhaz]

Haha that’s you sorted for the next year of brewing then!

 

[Drunkula]

Haha that’s you sorted for the next year of brewing then!

I'm thinking more like forever! I'm drying the yeast from that batch in the greenhouse on two trays tented in my brewing bag. It's cracked into flakes but I'm going to give it another day. I've also made a 1 litre starter with another half gram of yeast and have crashed it and used 1 spoon in a beer and bottled the rest in miniature bottles. It's in the two on the right here. If it's 1/2 teaspoon pitch per batch that's like 10 batches of 1st generation.

For fun I washed some of the trub from the same lot I'm drying and that's on the left. It's much lighter than the actual trub colour and looks a lot like the 1st gen yeast. I'll be using the 1st gen stuff for real beers and might muck about with something stupid for the other things until I really trust it.

Oh - have tried a gallon of sugar wash with the voss and it isn't blazing through it at all. I've used two heaped teaspoons of nutrient, too. It's working but really slowly. It's just something I did as an experiment so I'll just let it ride for a while. I'll check the pH and see if it needs buffering out with shells or something but for me the experiment is done - it doesn't magically brew out sugar. Oh, actually I think I heard something about some kveiks not liking plain sugar but forgot.

 

[AdeDunn]

I've always found that the Kveiks I used did better with darker worts than lighter ones, so yeah I can imagine them not doing well with just sugar. That's why a lot of the brews I made with them ended up been porters, nowhere near "style" for kveik, but meh, who cares? Aim is to make good tasting beer end of the day eh? lol Bonus of this, dark grain meant I could use more tap water (campden tablet 24 hours before using) than making a paler beer (used to use RO), meaning less need to rebuild the water, and still get a good mash pH.... Win win.

 

[Drunkula]

Ok, the kveik slurry I dried was killed because it got waaay too hot. I kept dropping chips of it into a 500ml 1.040 starter (not stirring) every few hours and nothing happened. I rebolied it wondering if the chips would be nutrient for new yeast. Dipped a wooden skewer into the washed yeast in the bottle on the left. We're talking, pffft, got to be less than a 50th of a ml on it. I stirred the starter with it when it was at 39c and left it and there were a few bubbles after an hour. It got back to room temp and before bed I microwaved it. It got to 45 so I added a bit of water to get it back to 40. I've read that all kviek samples someone tried died at 45c which surprised me as that's only 3 degrees away from the max ferment temp for Voss.

Frothy as buggery when I got up and I swirled it a bit and later noticed that there was a light white layer on the gunky **** from the dead trub. At the 24 hour mark took a gravity reading and it's at 1.012. I didn't degass it so it might be a little high. Anyway, if it's that tiny bit of Voss that's done that and it's not boogieing with some wild yeast then it's lunacy. I had a little taste and it's not sour or vinegary.

I sort of don't trust the test as it's mostly at room temp with no stirrer but I'm not saying it's wrong. I'll see if it goes mad chunky in the next few days like the other stuff did.

 

[DavidHatton]

0.5g exactly on a 100th of a gram scale - a 20th of the packet hydrated with 39c water then pitched into a litre of the wort that I cooled in the sink while the main wort no-chilled to 39c which took about 8 hours. I wanted the wort at 39c but by the time I syphoned it into the fermenter it had dropped to 30.

Fermenter was over under 40 hours, transferred it for a 2 day cold crash that didn't stop it being hazy, force carbed and drank 2 litres - zero flavours caused by the yeast, a slightly raw hop flavour if you look for it. I know somebody that would like that taste because my kolsh was like it and they rated it a 9/10.

I bottled it and it is clearing in the bottles. As part of a test I'm going to lager half and leave half alone.

I'm going to do the next lot at 42c. The orange is there but I want to see if I can get it crazy. I'm doing a 3 way compare of Crisp Maris Otter, Minch Pale and Minch Craft Pale malts.

That's defo worth having a crack at, got a pack of lallemand voss might pitch 1g hydrated or make a starter, whats the worst that can happen I have to add more and it takes an extra 2 days, Will report back a week on saturday

 

[Drunkula]

got a pack of lallemand voss might pitch 1g hydrated or make a starter, whats the worst that can happen I have to add more and it takes an extra 2 days,

I read that Llalemand voss has 31 billion cells per gram. I think if you show the wort a child's drawing of the yeast packet it'll be fermented in under 3 days.

But really, they reckon 1 to 2 million cells per ml for wort of 15 to 20 plato wort - that's between 23 and 46 billion cells for 23 litres - that's in a gram!

http://www.milkthefunk.com/wiki/Kveik#Pitching_Rate