Kveik

[Aussiekraut]

I'm about to conduct an experiment using kveik. I spent a couple of hours tweaking a recipe using the spreadsheet, throwing together a few leftovers I had around. The result is a fairly high ABV dark ale with an expected OG of 1087, which I plan on brewing at ambient temps (both fridges are in use). Kveik is supposed to be able to handle high ABV and temps without negative side effects, so it is the yeast of choice here. The two things I am not sure about are whether to use one or two sachets of yeast? I don't want to under pitch but kveik is also said to go bonkers. This brings me to the next question: Is it advised to use the krausen collar on this one? 

 

[Shamus O'Sean]

David Heath Homebrew Youtube Channel has a recent video on Kveik yeast.  Sounds like you need less of it than typical yeast pitches.  Therefore if you are doing around 23L, I would think that one 11g sachet would be enough.

I would use the krausen collar for this brew.  I did a RIS a while ago with an OG of 1092.  I used the krausen collar and the foam still nearly got to the underside of the lid.

Edited November 17, 2019 by Shamus O'Sean
added weight of sachet for clarity

[ben 10]

With Kweeeeaaaakkkkaaaaaa there is no underpitch.

Saison yeast works EXTREMELY well at ambient shed temps too.

[Mark D Pirate]

Where are you getting sachets of Kveik from?  

I've only ever seen it as liquid culture or home dried flakes of slurry. 

As per pitching rate it does tolerate stupid low cell counts but needs quite a lot of nutrients 

[ben 10]

I have seen them, some yeast guy has them.

https://cheapyeast.com.au

[Aussiekraut]

3 minutes ago, Ben 10 said:

I have seen them, some yeast guy has them.

https://cheapyeast.com.au

That's where I got mine from. I plan on keeping the slurry and maybe drying some of it again.

[Aussiekraut]

7 minutes ago, Mark D Pirate said:

Where are you getting sachets of Kveik from?  

I've only ever seen it as liquid culture or home dried flakes of slurry. 

As per pitching rate it does tolerate stupid low cell counts but needs quite a lot of nutrients 

https://cheapyeast.com.au as Ben had mentioned. 

Yeah I read it likes to have some nutrients. I just want to see the beast in action

 

[Mark D Pirate]

6 minutes ago, Ben 10 said:

I have seen them, some yeast guy has them.

https://cheapyeast.com.au

Hmmm,  original mixed culture for the Voss.... Doesn't say the package size or cell count though 

I only have a few pure strains,  so far they've proved unbreakable. 

[Mark D Pirate]

8 minutes ago, Aussiekraut said:

https://cheapyeast.com.au as Ben had mentioned. 

Yeah I read it likes to have some nutrients. I just want to see the beast in action

 

It's a handy tool for brewers but not perfect for many beers due to the Ester production. 

Increased pitching rate will encourage slightly lower esters but not as much as a lower ferment temp will. 

Which strain are you using? 

[ben 10]

I used the Voss, from white labs. It was 8 months past used by.

Is estery, one glass will be superb, the other nasty - all from the same keg.

I'll give it another go soon. Scientifically valid sample of 1 I prefer saison - at this stage.

[Aussiekraut]

9 minutes ago, Mark D Pirate said:

It's a handy tool for brewers but not perfect for many beers due to the Ester production. 

Increased pitching rate will encourage slightly lower esters but not as much as a lower ferment temp will. 

Which strain are you using? 

It's the Sigmund strain.

[Mark D Pirate]

2 minutes ago, Aussiekraut said:

It's the Sigmund strain.

Have you read through Larsblog ? 

Very good source of knowledge about brewing with Kveik. 

In my own experiences with dozens of batches it does everything it claims. 

Ferment is fast but not a huge krausen producer,  if using a screw top fermenter then a blow off tube is needed since it'll blow an airlock dry. 

If using the Coopers FV you should be fine without the collar. 

Lag times are often under a few hours,  I pitch at 1/3 of my standard ale rate so 0.25 mill / mL /P° @ 39° C  and set temp in fridge to that for 3 days and then ramp temp down to CC after swapping back to an airlock .

Due to Voss Ester production and increased perceived bitterness I'll reduce early hops by 10-15% .

[Aussiekraut]

1 hour ago, Mark D Pirate said:

Have you read through Larsblog ? 

Very good source of knowledge about brewing with Kveik. 

In my own experiences with dozens of batches it does everything it claims. 

Ferment is fast but not a huge krausen producer,  if using a screw top fermenter then a blow off tube is needed since it'll blow an airlock dry. 

If using the Coopers FV you should be fine without the collar. 

Lag times are often under a few hours,  I pitch at 1/3 of my standard ale rate so 0.25 mill / mL /P° @ 39° C  and set temp in fridge to that for 3 days and then ramp temp down to CC after swapping back to an airlock .

Due to Voss Ester production and increased perceived bitterness I'll reduce early hops by 10-15% .

Gonna check it out.

I've heard a lot about kveik being fast and resilient, so I thought I give it a go  

Should I rehydrate it?

 

[Gullys Brewing]

1 hour ago, Aussiekraut said:

Gonna check it out.

I've heard a lot about kveik being fast and resilient, so I thought I give it a go  

Should I rehydrate it?

 

Not needed, just dump the yeast in.

I have Voss from Mark and it works a treat, my latest stout tastes awesome using Kveik and only been a few weeks old has quickly conditioned to my liking.

[hakobrew]

Hi discovered this yeast today looking for yeast nutrient on cheapyyeast it sounds very interesting so I had to order some.

Aparently if you stress it you get a nice juicy orange flavour.

Interesting vid here where they compare warm, underpitched ferment to a standard 18c higher yeast count ferment of the same wort. 

 

[Aussiekraut]

8 hours ago, hakobrew said:

Hi discovered this yeast today looking for yeast nutrient on cheapyyeast it sounds very interesting so I had to order some.

Aparently if you stress it you get a nice juicy orange flavour.

Interesting vid here where they compare warm, underpitched ferment to a standard 18c higher yeast count ferment of the same wort. 

 

Very interesting video. The orange flavours could play into my experiment or destroy it. The beer is a high ABV dark ale, with Northern Brewer and Fuggles and some choc malt addition. So the beer could taste a little like Jaffas or taste festy as  I'll see. I was going to dry hop tomorrow but considering its speed at the 30C it is sitting in atm, maybe today would be suitable.

[hakobrew]

awesome let us know how it goes!

im still brewing extract but I plan on trying it on simple APA type recipe probably just with citra or galaxy. I am really excited about this yeast I have spent hours reading everything I can find about it lol.

This is an article written when the exact yeast we are using was found. http://www.garshol.priv.no/blog/291.html 

[hakobrew]

I got my Kveik sigmund yeast yesterday. Threw it into a 500ml starter to see if its viable, i used a softdrink bottle and had it getting tight within an hour or two. By the morning I could see small bubbles coming up and it looked pretty much done fermenting by the time I got home.

I put down a simple brew

coopers lagar

500g ldme

500g white sugar

250g crystal 90

30g citra 10min

will dry hop with another 20g citra once primary fermentation is over.

just a simple brew to see what i get out of the yeast.

 

I pitched 250ml of my 500ml starter. 

 

[Aussiekraut]

Ok, so I bottled KE1 (Kveik Experiment 1) yesterday. Today, the plastic bottles are rather firm. This yeast really is a beast. I bulk primed the beer and I am sure that toward the end of bottling, there were a fair amount of bubbles building up on the surface. Now let's wait a while and then see how it turns out. 

[hakobrew]

I bottled mine on tuesday and threw a bottle in the fidge yesterday (about 10 days from putting the brew down to drinking) and I can say I am happy with the results. I get a slight fruit salad kind of aroma and taste I guess you could say its orange but I think more like those tins of fruit salad you get from the supermarket. It could be the citra but I brewed this exact recipe recently with the coopers kit yeast and it came out nothing like this. Its a pretty tasty beer to me I will be doing this one again soon with more hops.

 

[hakobrew]

@Aussiekraut howd your fg go? I put my second one down 6 days ago, dark ale, briess 1.5kg amber, 500gm ldme, 250g crystal 145, 50g choc, citra, galaxy and centenial hops 20g each at flameout.

Fermentation took very strong, this time i pitched at 40c. i pitched about 3 teaspoons of yeast slurry from brew #1. 

after 3 days i measured the SG and it was 1018, 3 days later and its still @ 1018 seems slightly high and it does taste a bit sweet. Ill give it a few more days then bottle. Ive heard they need lots of yeast nutrients so have ordered some from kegland.

Edited December 18, 2019 by hakobrew

[Aussiekraut]

10 hours ago, hakobrew said:

@Aussiekraut howd your fg go? I put my second one down 6 days ago, dark ale, briess 1.5kg amber, 500gm ldme, 250g crystal 145, 50g choc, citra, galaxy and centenial hops 20g each at flameout.

Fermentation took very strong, this time i pitched at 40c. i pitched about 3 teaspoons of yeast slurry from brew #1. 

after 3 days i measured the SG and it was 1018, 3 days later and its still @ 1018 seems slightly high and it does taste a bit sweet. Ill give it a few more days then bottle. Ive heard they need lots of yeast nutrients so have ordered some from kegland.

Mine had come down to something like 1024, as predicted. I can't tell you exactly as I have kinda overwritten my spreadsheet with the recipes and notes in it  Had to start again from scratch.

I'll try another batch soon. Just a small batch, this time a light coloured beer. The strong dark ale I made isn't that good and the orange flavours from the yeast aren't doing too well with it. I hope it will improve over time. 

 

[ben 10]

To add to @Beerlust's confusion or knowledge or someting...

I used https://www.whitelabs.com/yeast-bank/wlp518-opshaug-kveik-ale-yeast

in this

Amt              Name                                             Type          #          %/IBU         Volume        
3.00 kg          Pilsner (Weyermann) (3.3 EBC)                    Grain         1          75.0 %        1.96 L        
1.00 kg          Wheat Malt (Barrett Burston) (3.0 EBC)           Grain         2          25.0 %        0.65 L        
20.00 g          El Dorado [15.00 %] - First Wort 60.0 min        Hop           3          38.4 IBUs     -             
3.65 g           Brewbrite (Boil 10.0 mins)                       Fining        4          -             -             
         

And it looks like this

 

And it tastes like?????

Um, citrussy off the charts. Bitter citrus. I am confused. I like it. It's become some sort of a pale ale without any late hops.
I pitched VERY warm, the cube was still warm the next day, possibly about 35°c, I did attempt to measure but it is a bit difficult with a probe not wanting to immerse it in the wort.

[Aussiekraut]

4 minutes ago, Ben 10 said:

And it tastes like?????

Um, citrussy off the charts. Bitter citrus. I am confused. I like it. It's become some sort of a pale ale without any late hops.
I pitched VERY warm, the cube was still warm the next day, possibly about 35°c, I did attempt to measure but it is a bit difficult with a probe not wanting to immerse it in the wort.

I wasn't keen to use an AG batch on an experiment just yet. My KE2 was a simple Coopers Lager I had around and a kilo of DME. 3g of yeast pitched @ about 32C. I fermented it at ambient at temps in the high 20s and low 30s. It tastes more like orange zest than fruit and the first impression was that it is an awful beer. It had this sour smell and taste of an infected beer. As it matures, the taste is improving and it is beginning to taste like a beer one wants to drink but it needs a more time. Even KE1, the previous experiment is getting better. It hast the same orange zest flavour but it seems to be fading a little. It's main problem is the 8.5% ABV and the associated alcohol taste. We'll see. I kept the slurry from the last batch, so there is more to come in the future. 

[Beerlust]

Thanks for the info Ben.

10 minutes ago, Ben 10 said:

in this

Amt              Name                                             Type          #          %/IBU         Volume        
3.00 kg          Pilsner (Weyermann) (3.3 EBC)                    Grain         1          75.0 %        1.96 L        
1.00 kg          Wheat Malt (Barrett Burston) (3.0 EBC)           Grain         2          25.0 %        0.65 L        
20.00 g          El Dorado [15.00 %] - First Wort 60.0 min        Hop           3          38.4 IBUs     -             
3.65 g           Brewbrite (Boil 10.0 mins)                       Fining        4          -             -             

Good recipe base to test out a new yeast on.

The origins & desired ferment temp range have me a little hesitant to use despite some conversation around this strain's inherent ability to avoid some of the ester nasties often associated with fermenting at this temperature. Sounds very Belgian to me. If you like that sorta thing then fair enough.

There was a lot of hype around "gigayeast" strains 12 months ago, but not hearing much chatter lately about them being anything super above strains that have been available for quite some time now.

I'd probably need to taste a beer fermented with it before I'd take the plunge to buy the strain & use it.

The interest is there, but not enough to reach into my wallet just yet.

Lusty.