Kveik

[Metacomet]

It seems to have survived the high temp without any issues. 1.074 to 1.021 in 4 days, and there was still a bit of activity so may get another point or 2 yet.
The sample tastes very good already. No off flavours, no alcohol burn, plenty of body.
A few more days and I'll split it up and add different flavours to each one.

 

[IainM]

Hi @BeerCat, I'm just drinking the raw stout you sent me, which has been in the fridge since March. Lovely! Thick cream coloured head, jet black, carbonation spot on, nice balance between sweetness and bitterness. The stout background is nice and smooth, but I can also pick up quite a lot of DMS, which is par for the course for raw beer, and some orangey undertones from the Kveik yeast. Interesting and certainly not something you can get in the shops. I like it. Thanks for sending!

 

[BeerCat]

Thank you very much Iain for the feedback. Really happy you liked it. Last raw brew was a wheat beer and before that a kolsch and Lager. :)

 

[BeerCat]

I am going to be doing 2 small strong batches ready for the end of year. Thinking another RIS, different ABV. Not sure if i should go higher or lower. And a barley wine. I have loads of adjuncts, might try some rice or corn to stop them finishing high.

 

[BeerCat]

Seriously my first attempt with this demon yeast ended up with a super attenuated 7.2% beast of a pale ale. Very drinkable and the hop/malt combination i think is a winner. I just need to recalculate how much this yeast attenuates to get it back to now blowing your face off!!!!

Sounds awesome. I generally don't like strong beers but i found myself keep going back for more of the RIS. You don't get any alcohol bite so i cant wait to try some more. Going to do a dry Irish stout first and use the yeast cake for another RIS and BW. Will do the RIS recipe from scratch as the last had 6 different dark malts, rye and a bit of everything. Question is should i go over 10% dark malts or less?
Last had 20% but was cold steeped so i probably lost some points. If it does get stuck i have some enzyme i could try out.

 

[Hoddy]

Sounds awesome. I generally don't like strong beers but i found myself keep going back for more of the RIS. You don't get any alcohol bite so i cant wait to try some more. Going to do a dry Irish stout first and use the yeast cake for another RIS and BW. Will do the RIS recipe from scratch as the last had 6 different dark malts, rye and a bit of everything. Question is should i go over 10% dark malts or less?
Last had 20% but was cold steeped so i probably lost some points. If it does get stuck i have some enzyme i could try out.

I know what you mean. It’s really odd I can’t help myself to go back and drink more. I think if it was maybe 6% it would be even better. But I’m really pleased with the orange character that’s come out with the yeast and blended nicely with the hops. I’ll send you one if you’ve got something to swap?

 

[Zephyr259]

Thought I'd add some more recent experience to this discussion. I fermented my Old Ale with the Gjernes Voss strain and it did a good job. Full 23L batch so I got an extra heat mat which held it at 39c no bother at all. Took a bit longer to ferment the 1.082 wort but it got down to 1.022 which required a 74% average attenuation in my software which is 1% higher than previous brews. I mashed in at 40c as that's an old practice which is meant to increase efficiency, given I had a 7.75 kg grain bill in a Grainfather I figured it couldn't hurt to try and boost efficiency, the main mash rest took place at 68c. Bottled 7 days after brewing as it took 6 days to confirm a stable FG. Half is bottled and tasting pretty good, this one needs time due to me adding half a tin of treacle along with my DME to hit my OG, I managed to hit 72% efficiency but had an extra litre of wort so my gravity was lower than I wanted. There's a little bit of alcohol heat to this but probably due to it being 7.9% and my other 8% beers aren't close to drinkable at 3 - 4 weeks old.

@BeerCat I'd probably lean on the lower side of the dark malts but that's because I'm not such a fan of the bitterness you get from lots of roasted malts. I recently noticed that Greg Hughes' RIS has the exact same weight of crystal and roasted grains as his milk stout (which I've brewed), kinda makes sense, unless you want more intense roast you don't need to increase the grams/litre of the malts even though they higher OG means they will be less percentage of the grain bill.

 

[BeerCat]

@Hoddy I have the RIS V3 i am drinking now which i am really enjoying. 10.8% ABV. And some assorted lagers. Would love to try your beer.

 

[Hoddy]

@Hoddy I have the RIS V3 i am drinking now which i am really enjoying. 10.8% ABV. And some assorted lagers. Would love to try your beer.

Ooh where I like a stout I’m fascinated by the lagers. What do you have that I haven’t tried? Your last one was lovely.

 

[Stephenj]

2 questions if you could be so kind to answer;

If making a starter fron a vial to keep some for future starters, how much should I make?

How much would you pitch into a 20l ale? Notice comments on under pitching.

Cheers

 

[Zephyr259]

My first 2 batches got the standard ale pitch of 0.75 billion cells per litre per plato and were pretty clean The old ale got half that but I pitched the yeast into 1L of first runnings and held at fermentation temp while I completed the brewing, it's maybe got more yeast character but there's a lot going on in that beer and I've only tried 1 bottle after 3 weeks.

If memory serves I pitched my vials in 500 ml of 1.040 wort to build up. After that i further built them up for brewing as per the spreadsheet here. I've since read that traditional practice is to pitch a couple of teaspoons of slurry into a 5 gallon batch, but it's also woken up like I did with the old ale. Kveik is strange stuff.

 

[Metacomet]

2 questions if you could be so kind to answer;

If making a starter fron a vial to keep some for future starters, how much should I make?

How much would you pitch into a 20l ale? Notice comments on under pitching.

Cheers

I'm no expert on liquid yeast or kveik, but I grew my small sample in 500ml of 1.040 starter for 2 days, then poured off the beer and topped it up to 750ml.
I got a decent layer of yeast after just a couple of days (more than the few other liquid yeasts I've used).
Again poured of the excess starter, swirled it up and pitched it all except for a couple of teaspoons, which I jarred and put in the fridge.
Wasn't too worried as I heard under pitching is good, and it appears to have worked well in my 1.070 stout.

 

[BeerCat]

@BeerCat I'd probably lean on the lower side of the dark malts but that's because I'm not such a fan of the bitterness you get from lots of roasted malts. I recently noticed that Greg Hughes' RIS has the exact same weight of crystal and roasted grains as his milk stout (which I've brewed), kinda makes sense, unless you want more intense roast you don't need to increase the grams/litre of the malts even though they higher OG means they will be less percentage of the grain bill.

Decisions. I am going to mash it this time so perhaps halve the amount. I have loads of lactose but wary to add any to something this big. Amalayse could be the answer and back sweeten. Will sort you out a RIS if you want to do a swap.

 

[Zephyr259]

Decisions. I am going to mash it this time so perhaps halve the amount. I have loads of lactose but wary to add any to something this big. Amalayse could be the answer and back sweeten. Will sort you out a RIS if you want to do a swap.

Yeah, I wouldn't add lactose to an RIS, this yeast only attenuates to the mid 70s for me so too much risk of it being overly sweet. Why would you use amylase then back sweeten? What are you hoping to get from this beer?

I'm thinking of doing an RIS between Christmas and New Year as my big beer for next year (accidental rhyme) but not got around to doing recipe research yet.

Swap sounds good. My old ale is the most recent kveik brew, rats_eyes thought it was "a belter" I thought it needed some more aging. :-) I also have a bunch going as per my signature.

 

[BeerCat]

Yeah, I wouldn't add lactose to an RIS, this yeast only attenuates to the mid 70s for me so too much risk of it being overly sweet. Why would you use amylase then back sweeten? What are you hoping to get from this beer?

Basically more alcohol but there is the possibility it over attenuates and i would have to sweeten it back up. Only used the stuff once for a low ABV raw lager but i have heard it is uses by commercial RIS brewers. My last one got 77% attenuation. Would like to up the ABV and finish a bit lower.

 

[Zephyr259]

Just did a trawl through the thread to check on your RIS v3, 1.105 - 1.024, 10.8% and you want bigger... :-)

I threw those figures into my calculator and I get the same figures mashing at 66c with my strain's average attenuation. From memory the strain is good for 13% abv. Mashing at 63c gets 11.6% from 1.105, bumping the OG to 1.118 should let it hit 13% providing it attenuates properly and gets down to 1.019. Might be better plan to use some sugar to boost the OG a bit and keep it from ending up too sweet, although 1.019 is fairly dry for such a big RIS.

Can always add lactose at bottling if it ends up too dry. I've no experience with amylase except in a barley wine (as in wine made from barley) which used it to convert raw grain added to grape concentrate, the stuff turned out beyond horrendous... I'd assume the enzyme would cause it to end up like a "brut RIS" which doesn't sound like a good thing.

Am I on the right track for suggestions?

 

[BeerCat]

@IainM Hi, i found a bottle of the stout in my fridge and i totally get what you are saying about DMS. I was having trouble recirculating and holding temps so i presume i must of gone over 80c. I bought some hazelnut essence from MM and it reminded a bit of that. Thanks again will know what to look out for in future. :)

 

[BeerCat]

Just did a trawl through the thread to check on your RIS v3, 1.105 - 1.024, 10.8% and you want bigger... :-)

I threw those figures into my calculator and I get the same figures mashing at 66c with my strain's average attenuation. From memory the strain is good for 13% abv. Mashing at 63c gets 11.6% from 1.105, bumping the OG to 1.118 should let it hit 13% providing it attenuates properly and gets down to 1.019. Might be better plan to use some sugar to boost the OG a bit and keep it from ending up too sweet, although 1.019 is fairly dry for such a big RIS.

Can always add lactose at bottling if it ends up too dry. I've no experience with amylase except in a barley wine (as in wine made from barley) which used it to convert raw grain added to grape concentrate, the stuff turned out beyond horrendous... I'd assume the enzyme would cause it to end up like a "brut RIS" which doesn't sound like a good thing.

Am I on the right track for suggestions?

I thought it would be fun to try and get something around 14%. Just for a crack really. I will definitely do a weaker one after that. The brut RIS does sound a bit horrible. I would hope it would not be able to eat all the sugars but you never know. I only used 5ml last time. Was hoping to reduce it by 5 points but went down to 1000. Would of been good to try on the one that got stuck at 1044.

 

[AdeDunn]

Sorry to drag the thread down to boring level, but did any of you chaps ever try the Yeast Bay Sigmund's Voss strain at the 40 degrees C mark at all? I have some in the fridge that I'm planning to use for my next brew as my first venture into liquid yeasts, so just wondering really. Seemed a good yeast to uhm, pop my proverbial on, if you know what I mean? lol

Planning a, hopefully delicious, chocolate orange robust porter with it, for my Mrs naturally. She loves chocolate orange.

 

[Zephyr259]

@BeerCat the amount of amylase added shouldn't affect the outcome since enzymes aren't used up in the process. Concentration will only affect the speed of the reaction but since fermentation takes a while there's no rush. I'd assume that anything with amylase would end up essentially bone dry. I have a similar urge to try something huge just because I can, good luck.

@AdeDunn Most of us are using that strain on here but it's the non-commercial strain got from other brewers so is a mixed strain. I've had my 3 brews 35 - 39c and it's great, not had the orange yet but I've not underpitched to the degree the Norwegians do.