Kveik: what is the deal and why it is the "thing"

[Marty_G]

1 minute ago, NewBrews said:

That’s one murky looking wort there @MartyG1525230263

It will clear. it was straight out of the bottom of the fermenter. 

[Naughty Corner Brewing]

1 minute ago, MartyG1525230263 said:

It will clear. it was straight out of the bottom of the fermenter. 

Gravity is probably a point lower with all those solids in there!

[Marty_G]

2 hours ago, NewBrews said:

Gravity is probably a point lower with all those solids in there!

Nah it is actually higher at it was at 29.5 degrees...

[Marty_G]

Day 3: Well the beer has cleared. This stuff is pretty amazing and I now understand the throw out the rule book attitude with Kveik. So less that 72 hours after pitching the brew has finished and cleared.   Now I have to consider when do I keg?  The cold crash will be done after it has been racked into kegs.  

[Marty_G]

So just a tad over 72 hours and the beer has now been transfered to kegs and set to crash to 5^o. I will then add gelatin and crash to 1^o . Hopefully I can have my 1st taste of cold carbonated Kveik fermented Kolsch by Monday.

Harvest 4 jars of trub and some of the Krausen which is also recommended. The Krausen will be dried and pitched into a Stout to be fermented under pressure early next week.  

[BlackSands]

 

Anyone tried this yet?

[Marty_G]

Wow, so I wrote this thread in Feb. Well I certainly found out what the go is with it. I have used it for every ale since, apart from a Belgium Ale. I love the stuff. It suits my circumstances perfectly.  I brew for 3 people and always have something in the fermenter and can go from grain to keg in 7 days with Kveik. I do at least 1 double batch a week  with no compromise on flavour. I actually think the American IPA's are better.  Well at least that is what my son in-law tells me.  It would not suit everyone but if you make supper hoppy beers I would recommend it.  Another benefit is it has freed up my fermentation fridge which i now use as a lager/cold crash fridge. 

[Titan]

Anyone bottle conditioned with this? I would suspect it needs higher temperature to carbonate?

[Marty_G]

2 minutes ago, Titan said:

Anyone bottle conditioned with this? I would suspect it needs higher temperature to carbonate?

I have used at at 22c for a lager and it fermented through that Ok albeit slower.  So I would suspect that as long as the ambient is in the 20's you are fine. 

[BlackSands]

8 hours ago, MartyG1525230263 said:

Wow, so I wrote this thread in Feb. Well I certainly found out what the go is with it. I have used it for every ale since, apart from a Belgium Ale. I love the stuff. It suits my circumstances perfectly.  I brew for 3 people and always have something in the fermenter and can go from grain to keg in 7 days with Kveik. I do at least 1 double batch a week  with no compromise on flavour. I actually think the American IPA's are better.  Well at least that is what my son in-law tells me.  It would not suit everyone but if you make supper hoppy beers I would recommend it.  Another benefit is it has freed up my fermentation fridge which i now use as a lager/cold crash fridge. 

I'm planning to use M12 in my next batch.  I want to brew a low OG, lower-calorie beer and I'm thinking with the higher attenuation this yeast should chomp through a few extra carbs.  3kg grain bill aiming for around 3.2 - 3.5% ABV.

Edited August 25, 2020 by BlackSands

[Titan]

1 hour ago, BlackSands said:

I'm planning to use M12 in my next batch.  I want to brew a low OG, lower-calorie beer and I'm thinking with the higher attenuation this yeast should chomp through a few extra carbs.  3kg grain bill aiming for around 3.2 - 3.5% ABV.

I think the best way of making a low carb beer would be to do a short 10min mash at 65 then raise the temperature to 75 to 78. This will stop or slow conversion of sugars. Then ferment with m12 and you should have a low abv low carb beer with full flavour.

[BlackSands]

15 hours ago, Titan said:

I think the best way of making a low carb beer would be to do a short 10min mash at 65 then raise the temperature to 75 to 78. This will stop or slow conversion of sugars. Then ferment with m12 and you should have a low abv low carb beer with full flavour.

Are you sure?  I would have thought unconverted sugars would result in residual carbs in the beer, as unconverted sugars are still carbohydrates.  Alcohol does of course also count toward the final calorie count.  I don't know though what the calorific balance would be  - unconverted starches vs alcohol, i.e. is it better to convert as much as possible and increase alcohol or convert less and have higher level of residual unfermentable carbs and less alcohol?

My thinking was more that full conversion is actually desired such that as much of the starches (carbs) as possible are fermentable and by using a high-attenuating yeast you end up with less carbs,  though more alcohol.  However by limiting the grist to only 3kg the alcohol is still only going to be around 3.5% in a what will likely be a very dry, reduced carb beer.   The other thing I considered was also using amylase which would also allow any remnant carbs to be further converted and fermented, further drying out the brew.    I'm not sure it's really possible to brew a full-bodied low-carb/low-calorie beer which is why most commercial low-carb offerings are rather thin.   I probably need to investigate further...

Edited August 25, 2020 by BlackSands

[Titan]

I made a 2l starter of voss last week in anticipation of a weekend brew but due to extreme weather conditions i called it off. Split the starter to many containers and stored in the yeast bank. Brew day planned again this week, so 2l starter was again pitched. Now i started this 7am and now im seeing a small krausen. See pics below. I started with a little less than 5ml of yeast. Its a beast.

[Guvna]

howdy all,

Yesterday I made an extract ale with a small hop boil using cascade and amarillo and my first try of the Kviek Yeast - Lalbrew Voss

21 ltrs - @  1.050  - 31.5 ish pitch and hold in fermenting fridge. I think the Heat wrap will struggle to get the brew much higher.

Within 3 hours the s airlock was dry. Topped it up, loosed the lid a little, seemed ok.  Nearly dried again this morning, going beserk.  will be keeping an eye on it today.

How surreal its was to be out in the shed with the over night temp of approx 7c (did have the pot belly raging) and opening the fridge door was like a heater.  

Hopefully it comes out tasty.  

 

[Guvna]

Down to 1.012 last night, still a little bit of action which may drop to the predicted 1.009   brewed friday/crash monday? how unreal?

Sample tasted pretty good. Should be crashing this brew today. This yeast could be very handy come summer time in Adelaide, specially given my ferment fridge is in the tin shed.

Might try and harvest and dry the bottom yeast too!

[RepSpec]

So have people successfully put this brew into bottles?

And have people used this in kit brews?

Or does it suit extract and grain brews. A mate and me (once lockdown ends for us in Victoria) are gonna catch up and brew using this.

Anyone run into any dramas yet? Work around a etc?

[Marty_G]

On 8/29/2020 at 10:49 AM, Guvna said:

Within 3 hours the s airlock was dry.

Need to use a blow of tube. So thread some 8mm tube or the like into the air lock hole and run that into a 2 litre milk carton filled to about 1/2 way.  You can see how i do mine for my pressure ferments.  

[Guvna]

Hey Respec, only limited knowledge to share so far, will be at least another week or two before I get to taste my first use with Kviek.

My brew is pretty much a Coopers PA Kit with BE2 and a 5ltr boil of 500gms DME and hops for 15 mins.

I did find it hard to get the temp up above 32c on my first attempt.  It came out at 30c when made so I just went with that.

Havnt tried bottling, but cant see why it would be an issue?

Guvna

 

Oh yeah, next time I will be making a Blow Off as Marty pointed out 

Edited August 30, 2020 by Guvna

[RepSpec]

1 minute ago, Guvna said:

Hey Respec, only limited knowledge to share so far, will be at least another week or two before I get to taste my first use with Kviek.

My brew is pretty much a Coopers PA Kit with BE2 and a 5ltr boil of 500gms DME and hops for 15 mins.

I did find it hard to get the temp up above 32c on my first attempt.  It came out at 30c when made so I just went with that.

Havnt tried bottling, but cant see why it would be an issue?

Guvna

The bottling (as I saw mentioned but didn't see an answer, but happy to be corrected) involves conditioning at ambient temps to carb the bottles. I was curious if they needed to be stored at higher temps or the standard room temps/20c is enough.

[Norris!]

On 8/31/2020 at 8:23 AM, RepSpec said:

The bottling (as I saw mentioned but didn't see an answer, but happy to be corrected) involves conditioning at ambient temps to carb the bottles. I was curious if they needed to be stored at higher temps or the standard room temps/20c is enough.

I carbed up a bottle with kveik yeast and it came good after a week, the bottle was hard,at least, have not tried the brew itself yet.

[Tricky Micky]

Quick one, and apologies in advance if this is a silly question but would it be okay to use Kveik yeast in with the Coopers European Lager. I'm curious only because the weather is warming up in Victoria and the Kveik yeast seems to boast at least online anyways that it might be able to handle higher temps even when brewing lagers.  

[Aussiekraut]

13 minutes ago, Mickep said:

Quick one, and apologies in advance if this is a silly question but would it be okay to use Kveik yeast in with the Coopers European Lager. I'm curious only because the weather is warming up in Victoria and the Kveik yeast seems to boast at least online anyways that it might be able to handle higher temps even when brewing lagers.  

You can use it in any beer. It is rather happy to ferment in the mid to high 30s without throwing off flavours like any other yeast would do. And it is quick, although I found it to be a little inconsistent. The last time I used it, SG dropped to half way after 24 hours, then did sweet FA for the next day, just to then finish off after 4 days in total. The two batches I made with it were let's call it less successful but that was mainly the beer itself. A rather strong dark ale I made to test the alcohol resistance of the yeast and a simple Coopers Lager can with BE1 in it. Both were awful beers...one way to strong and alcoholy tasting and the other wasn't the best beer to start with and it must have gotten an infection of sorts as it still is murky as hell (yes, I haven't tipped it all out yet). I'll give it another go once it gets warmer, so I can ferment at ambient temps. I'll probably split the batch into two small batches in the small coopers fermenter. One with US05 @18C in the fridge, the other at ambient with Kveik.

[Tricky Micky]

4 minutes ago, Aussiekraut said:

You can use it in any beer. It is rather happy to ferment in the mid to high 30s without throwing off flavours like any other yeast would do. And it is quick, although I found it to be a little inconsistent. The last time I used it, SG dropped to half way after 24 hours, then did sweet FA for the next day, just to then finish off after 4 days in total. The two batches I made with it were let's call it less successful but that was mainly the beer itself. A rather strong dark ale I made to test the alcohol resistance of the yeast and a simple Coopers Lager can with BE1 in it. Both were awful beers...one way to strong and alcoholy tasting and the other wasn't the best beer to start with and it must have gotten an infection of sorts as it still is murky as hell (yes, I haven't tipped it all out yet). I'll give it another go once it gets warmer, so I can ferment at ambient temps. I'll probably split the batch into two small batches in the small coopers fermenter. One with US05 @18C in the fridge, the other at ambient with Kveik.

Hey Thanks Aussiekraut,

I've only done one brew sofar and that was a kit the kids gave me from Mad Millies still waiting for that to finish in the bottles. I've since bought a Coopers kit and going to have a crack with that. The kit hasn't arrived yet , taking forever because of COVID and the weather is warming up. I'd originally purchased Saflager 34/70 and was going to brew the lager from the kit  with BE3 - 200gms Dextrose 500grams LDME.

Is using the 34/70 yeast out of the question  given the temps where I'm living

As I don't have a temp controller for the fermenter I was trying to figure out which other yeasts might handle the slightly warmer weather, I'm down south in Oz so ambient temp is around 16 -20c daytime and can get down to 8-12c at night. 

[Aussiekraut]

20 minutes ago, Mickep said:

Hey Thanks Aussiekraut,

I've only done one brew sofar and that was a kit the kids gave me from Mad Millies still waiting for that to finish in the bottles. I've since bought a Coopers kit and going to have a crack with that. The kit hasn't arrived yet , taking forever because of COVID and the weather is warming up. I'd originally purchased Saflager 34/70 and was going to brew the lager from the kit  with BE3 - 200gms Dextrose 500grams LDME.

Is using the 34/70 yeast out of the question  given the temps where I'm living

As I don't have a temp controller for the fermenter I was trying to figure out which other yeasts might handle the slightly warmer weather, I'm down south in Oz so ambient temp is around 16 -20c daytime and can get down to 8-12c at night. 

Yeah nah, forget the 34/70 without temp control. It's a proper lager yeast and will require low steady temps you can't provide at ambient. It feels at home somewhere around 10-15C IIRC. Kveik works at lower temps than 30+ too but that's where it is the happiest. Using it @20C, it'll take just as long as most other yeasts do from what I hear. The advantage is that unlike most yeasts, it doesn't produce off flavours at high temperatures. Apparently it imparts hints of orange flavours on the beer. If you have no temp control, Kveik might be your safest bet, although the temps you are seeing are a little low. Keep the FW warm, wrap it in an old doona or something to keep the warmth in, that might help. The temp in the FV is a little higher than ambient as the fermentation also create heat. It's funny because most people have the opposite problem, trying to keep the FV cool  

I just checked, Lallemand states their version of the VOSS strain is good for 25-40C and ferments out in 2 days @40C, 3-4 days @30C and 5-7 @25C. So keep the girl warm

 

Edited September 1, 2020 by Aussiekraut

[Tricky Micky]

32 minutes ago, Aussiekraut said:

Yeah nah, forget the 34/70 without temp control. It's a proper lager yeast and will require low steady temps you can't provide at ambient. It feels at home somewhere around 10-15C IIRC. Kveik works at lower temps than 30+ too but that's where it is the happiest. Using it @20C, it'll take just as long as most other yeasts do from what I hear. The advantage is that unlike most yeasts, it doesn't produce off flavours at high temperatures. Apparently it imparts hints of orange flavours on the beer. If you have no temp control, Kveik might be your safest bet, although the temps you are seeing are a little low. Keep the FW warm, wrap it in an old doona or something to keep the warmth in, that might help. The temp in the FV is a little higher than ambient as the fermentation also create heat. It's funny because most people have the opposite problem, trying to keep the FV cool  

I just checked, Lallemand states their version of the VOSS strain is good for 25-40C and ferments out in 2 days @40C, 3-4 days @30C and 5-7 @25C. So keep the girl warm

 

Thanks mate for all your help, appreciated very much.  Would I be better off to ditch the Lager idea for the time being?