Kveik, The Hottest New Centuries Old Beer Yeast You've Never Heard Of

Hot off the presses.

 

Localish brewery has been doing a whole series of Kveik beers. Had their most recent one the other day called Thai Tom Kah. My favorite of the bunch is their peach cobbler one. They won gold at GABF last year for their Kveik 1. Not a fan of their branding but the Kveik series beers are tasty. This was posted a year or so ago tho I think. Oh well! Cheers

 

I made a Kveik starter yesterday. Looking forward to the homebrewed beer with that yeast.

 

I'm getting ready to try brewing it for the first time next week. I'm excited to see what it's like. The temps here are finally getting brutally hot so it should be interesting. I look forward to trying to dry the yeast and save it in the freezer afterwards. Apparently you can keep using it for 20 years that way. It really is something else.

On a side note, any fan of beer or just interesting stuff in general in this thread that hasn't yet done so, should go check out the larsga farmhouse beer blog. It's fascinating and highlights some really cool aspects of beer and culture that you don't often get to read about. That's what stoked a lot of the current interest in kveik.

 

What beer style will you be brewing with your Kveik yeast strain? Which specific brand/strain are you using?

Maybe you could start a thread in the homebrewing forum sharing your thoughts about the batch.

Cheers!

 

That's a good idea. I always forget to participate in the homebrewing section on here. I just might.

I will be using Voss Kveik from Escarpment labs. I decided to try an IPA since the yeast apparently throws orange esters and I thought that could go well with some of the hops I have on hand. I plan on fermenting it around 90. I have yet to decide if I'm going to severely underpitch or not. I've read that that if I pitch a"normal" amount it is just really clean, which also sounds nice. I will try to keep track of what I do and post something. From what I've read I could theoretically have a bottle conditioned IPA by next NBS, but we'll see how it all goes.

 

I just, for the first time, heard of this company a couple of weeks ago during my conversation with the brewer of Big Spruce Brewery (Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia). They obtain their yeast from Escarpment.

Does Escarpment sell 'better' than other yeast vendors (e.g., Wyeast, White Labs,...) at your homebrew stores? Are they fresher?

Cheers!

P.S. I too have thought about using a Kveik yeast strain to brew an IPA. I look forward to reading about your adventure here.

Cheers!

 

Definitely not. There are actually a couple local yeast places, the other is out of here in Québec. They have a pretty limited selection where I buy my ingredients compared to the other companies, but what I've tried has been good and the packs are always fresher than wlp and wyeast.

 

One of the cool things is you dont need a starter. I used one pouch of Omega Voss in 5.5 gallons DIPA OG 1.070. It hit 1.012 in 3 days. And i pitched it at 90F

 

Haven’t seen any Kveik yet in the greater Los Angeles area

 

This was 5 dried chops of yeast, in a small ziplock. The supplier said to make a 1 liter starter.

Edit these were supplied by Escarpment Labs out of Guelph Ontario. My guess is the you had Omega.

 

Chips of yeast.

 

I have been looking into an ale where I can break this stuff out and harvest off of it. I am going to be doing a hemp ale with my buddy in August, I have researched it and it seems like it is going to work out with a pale ale back bone with the hops. Galaxy and fuggles seem like it is going to give a good balance to the hemp, but I feel this kviek is going to add a great balance. Any suggestions?

 

Depends on the strain, obvs, but the general advice is to underpitch if you want the fruity esters and overpitch if you want a lager-like clean ferment. But yeah, people are pitching like 1g of dried or 1 tsp of slurry for a 5-6gal batch and still having fermentation finish in 2-3 days.

 

2 to 3 days!?!?!?!?

 

Indeed.

I've been seeing primary fermentation finish in 36 hours recently on non-kveik batches where I do a 1L starter (mostly saisons), but a couple-few days with 1g/1tsp of yeast is still bonkers.

 

Is it even recommended to have yeast started and let it go longer than 2 to 3 days?

 

I'm not sure I understand the question.