Kveik yeast in a first attempt ginger beer

[BreweyMcHops]

So like a lot of us, I gave kveik yeast a try for beer. I went the Voss. Ok, so it seems to ferment fast, not quite as fast all the hype but faster than say the kit coopers yeast , and yes seems to work and be fine in the 30's which other yeasts just aren't.  

Enter , Ginger Beer. 

I used fresh ginger and heaps of dried , its all hot n spicy, 1kg brown shugar and 2kg raw, pitched a decent pitch of kveik ( not going for any kveik beer style underpitch) and it started and on day 9 its STILL fermenting away, gradually dropping gravity day by day. I'm at about 4.8% , with the fermentables and conditions i should be at 6.5% in 5 days if it was a beer not a ginger beer. 

Has anybody else had this, made a ginger beer with kveik (tastes good straight from fermenter  by the way) but found it took a long ass time to ferment out with ginger beer compared to kveik in regular malt beer? Original gravity 1.058 , at day 9 1.030

[rugbrod]

@BreweyMcHops I'm currently doing the exact same here, with Kingsley Phillips' recipe for Ginger Beer. I pitched about 4-5g of Voss so I think I'd be around about the "right" amount of pitching rate (Split the packet between this 23L batch and a 15L and 8L).

Did you simply do ginger and sugars as your recipe, or did it have a bit of other gear in it? I'm wondering if maybe your brew doesn't have enough nutrients in it to power the yeast. I've read up on kveik a fair bit recently and because it is used to the farmhouse brews, it's apparently developed a big hunger for nutrients that generally come from the more complex malts (compared to dextrose/simple sugars). I added yeast nutrient to mine just to be safe.

My brew has been sitting at 30s for the last few days (pitched Friday arvo), so I'll take an SG reading tonight (72hrs in) to see how we're travelling and check back in.

[rugbrod]

@BreweyMcHops

So mine has gone from 1.040 to 1.002 within the 72hrs since pitching. This puts it at about 5% so not too far from yours.

All three of my brews have fully fermented out with voss in this time. As I mentioned earlier, I feel like yeast nutrient might be a potential cause here, but this only comes from me reading and doing this round of brews. Hopefully it's progressing since you posted last!

[BreweyMcHops]

19 hours ago, rugbrod said:

@BreweyMcHops I'm currently doing the exact same here, with Kingsley Phillips' recipe for Ginger Beer. I pitched about 4-5g of Voss so I think I'd be around about the "right" amount of pitching rate (Split the packet between this 23L batch and a 15L and 8L).

Did you simply do ginger and sugars as your recipe, or did it have a bit of other gear in it? I'm wondering if maybe your brew doesn't have enough nutrients in it to power the yeast. I've read up on kveik a fair bit recently and because it is used to the farmhouse brews, it's apparently developed a big hunger for nutrients that generally come from the more complex malts (compared to dextrose/simple sugars). I added yeast nutrient to mine just to be safe.

My brew has been sitting at 30s for the last few days (pitched Friday arvo), so I'll take an SG reading tonight (72hrs in) to see how we're travelling and check back in.

Interesting, everyone is saying that about nutrient. What's in this Kingley Phillips recepie? I used boiled bread yeast as nutrient for the kveik   but apart from that just raw shugar n brown shugar

Also, i used HEAPS too much ginger i brewed a firEwAtErrrr!

[rugbrod]

@BreweyMcHops ah righto, I've heard about using boiled kit yeast so that makes sense. One of Kingsley's variations on his recipe is as follows:

 

Quote

 

1 x Morgan's Ginger Beer Kit

1.5 kg Soft brown sugar

500gm Natural honey

500gm Fresh ginger

25gm Dried ginger

2 x Fresh chili

2 x Kaffir lime leaves

1 tblsp Nutmeg

1 tblsp Cinnamon

1 x US-05 yeast starter

Wazzed the fresh ginger & chili up in the food processor.

4 ltrs water in pot on a med boil, added all ingredients (except GB can and yeast) stir well.

Med boil for 30 mins.

Strained into fermenter, added GB can and topped up to 23 ltrs and stirred well...

Pitched yeast at 21c and fermented @ 17c for 3 weeks... Cold crashed 7 days and will be bottled conditioned 5 months...

Should be close to 5.5%abv...

 

 

I had a similar recipe for mine, only I used 50g dried ginger and 4 birdseye chillis and 4 kaffir lime leaves.

[BreweyMcHops]

On 11/01/2021 at 3:21 PM, rugbrod said:

@BreweyMcHops

So mine has gone from 1.040 to 1.002 within the 72hrs since pitching. This puts it at about 5% so not too far from yours.

All three of my brews have fully fermented out with voss in this time. As I mentioned earlier, I feel like yeast nutrient might be a potential cause here, but this only comes from me reading and doing this round of brews. Hopefully it's progressing since you posted last!

Actually i was off on the abv,  noticed it didnt look right ,   1.058 , at day 9 1.030 is actually 3.68% , so it took 9 days to reach that . Bottled on day 12 in the end only hit about 4%

[BreweyMcHops]

On 09/01/2021 at 3:37 PM, BreweyMcHops said:

So like a lot of us, I gave kveik yeast a try for beer. I went the Voss. Ok, so it seems to ferment fast, not quite as fast all the hype but faster than say the kit coopers yeast , and yes seems to work and be fine in the 30's which other yeasts just aren't.  

Enter , Ginger Beer. 

I used fresh ginger and heaps of dried , its all hot n spicy, 1kg brown shugar and 2kg raw, pitched a decent pitch of kveik ( not going for any kveik beer style underpitch) and it started and on day 9 its STILL fermenting away, gradually dropping gravity day by day. I'm at about 4.8% , with the fermentables and conditions i should be at 6.5% in 5 days if it was a beer not a ginger beer. 

Has anybody else had this, made a ginger beer with kveik (tastes good straight from fermenter  by the way) but found it took a long ass time to ferment out with ginger beer compared to kveik in regular malt beer? Original gravity 1.058 , at day 9 1.030

Update: Second batch, went from 1.060 to 1.016 in 9 days. Same duration but i got a lot more action out of it with powdered nutrient mix from home brew shop , as opposed to just boiled bread yeast for nutrient .

Slurry/cake straight from the previous batch (bottom harvested)  works just fine, a couple of shots, without any fancy kveik rings or starters or any of that.

I reckon the bottom line is that Kveik does not ferment cider or ginger beer as fast as malt beer wort, but it does work and it can be done straight through the Australian summer without a fermenting fridge 

[Aussiekraut]

On 1/9/2021 at 5:37 PM, BreweyMcHops said:

So like a lot of us, I gave kveik yeast a try for beer. I went the Voss. Ok, so it seems to ferment fast, not quite as fast all the hype but faster than say the kit coopers yeast , and yes seems to work and be fine in the 30's which other yeasts just aren't.  

Enter , Ginger Beer. 

I used fresh ginger and heaps of dried , its all hot n spicy, 1kg brown shugar and 2kg raw, pitched a decent pitch of kveik ( not going for any kveik beer style underpitch) and it started and on day 9 its STILL fermenting away, gradually dropping gravity day by day. I'm at about 4.8% , with the fermentables and conditions i should be at 6.5% in 5 days if it was a beer not a ginger beer. 

Has anybody else had this, made a ginger beer with kveik (tastes good straight from fermenter  by the way) but found it took a long ass time to ferment out with ginger beer compared to kveik in regular malt beer? Original gravity 1.058 , at day 9 1.030

was/is the temp in the 30s during ferment? Apparently. Kveik doesn't do much below 25, which could be your problem. I haven't tried it in Ginger beer but in beer, it is a beast, just ripping through a brew. Last attempt, it dropped the SG from something liek 1.048 to 1.010 in 24 hours and down to the FG in approx. 48 hours. The warmer the brew, the faster Kveik works. So far, I am not a major fan of the yeast due to its flavour profile but man it is a beast.

[BreweyMcHops]

On 2/11/2021 at 5:26 PM, Aussiekraut said:

was/is the temp in the 30s during ferment? Apparently. Kveik doesn't do much below 25, which could be your problem. I haven't tried it in Ginger beer but in beer, it is a beast, just ripping through a brew. Last attempt, it dropped the SG from something liek 1.048 to 1.010 in 24 hours and down to the FG in approx. 48 hours. The warmer the brew, the faster Kveik works. So far, I am not a major fan of the yeast due to its flavour profile but man it is a beast.

Yes definitely in the 30 degrees range, this was in Perth January. I have sussed it out a bit better now, you definately need yeast nutrient from brew shop , and it helps a lot of you add a bit of malt, i experimented and found 500g ( half a tin) of Saunders liquid malt extract from woolies works perfectly.  Just use plain white shugar and half a tin of saunders and it tastes and ferments better than using brown or raw sugars