Trying cider with Voss kveik (but I haven't pitched yet, you can talk me off the ledge)

[Horseflesh]

Here's what I am about to try; I welcome any feedback. I am not 100% committed yet if this is a terrible idea.

• 5.5 gallons of Trader Joe's pressed apple juice, not from concentrate (OG 1.048, $5/gal, tastes pretty good!)
• Yeast: Voss Kviek (Imperial Loki) and the plan is to oxygenate, and pitch an insane-sounding 1 tablespoon or so at about 90F, which should let the yeast express some fruity notes
  
• Nutrient schedule: Fermaid-O TONSA 2.0 profile, set to "low" nitrogen requirement (it comes to 4 doses of 2.5 g). Because kveik yeast is so fast, I am planning on doing the doses 12 hours apart instead of 24 hours.
• Assuming it doesn't taste like a sack of rhino butts, I will knock out the yeast and backsweeten in the keg with FAJC. (I assume it will ferment to dryness... I am kind of worried the Voss kviek will eat my house.)

I spent half the day reading about cider and yeast nutrients and ended up more confused than when I started, but it seems like a low dose of Fermaid-O can't hurt, and might help.

The first time I made cider was kind of a disaster; despite knowing my way around a fermentation, my Nottingham-fermented cider had a solvent off-flavor. Temperature was well-controlled, and the juice was pasteurized, so my best guess is it was a yeast nutrient problem, hence my use of a mead-style nutrient schedule on this run. That was $80 of foofy farm cider down the drain, so I will be using grocery store juice until I get things figured out.

My fermenter is heating up right now and I will pitch in the morning unless y'all talk me out of it!

 

[Miraculix]

Go for it! But drop all the fermaid o upfront, with lower abv brews, it is better not to stagger it.

 

[Horseflesh]

What is the reasoning for adding all the nutrients up front? Though, with kviek being so fast, it might be a good just because it would be really hard to time the additions right anyway.

I found some more information on yeast nutrient in cider, let me think this through...

This document states that Yeast Available Nitrogen in cider should be 150-200 ppm. Fermaid-O gives 65 ppm per g, per L so the 10.1 g in my 20.82 gal batch would yield 31 ppm if I did it all at once. (Looks like apple juice has a YAN around 50 ppm to start with.)

Scott Labs recommends 0.1 - 0.2 g/L Fermaid-O at the start and then again at 1/3 completion (with the usual caveats about the starting YAN). So, on the high side that is 0.4 g Fermaid-O per liter total, or 8.32 g. So under that regimen, we are in the same ballpark as the 10.1 g total TONSA additions I calculated.

SO, I will stick with the amount I calculated, and I will try adding it all up front as you suggested. Whew. Booze is complicated.

I still have a few more degrees before I hit pitching temp so I have time to think about it.

 

[Blacksmith1]

I'm going to be the guy down here yelling "Jump, jump, jump"!

The worst that will happen, unless something goes horribly wrong, is it will be mediocre.

 

[Horseflesh]

I am gonna do it!

The last variable I am scratching my head on is the pitch rate. For this kind of gravity lots of folks including the man Lars say you can use a *teaspoon* of slurry. Well, in for a penny, in for a pound...

 

[Horseflesh]

I have an update!

After some more reading I figured that the "teaspoon" referenced for kviek pitching was likely a teaspoon of a yeast cake, not a liquid like in an Imperial pouch. I did some math, decided to pitch more than the bare minimum, and ended up using 30 mL from the 155 mL pack.

I heard some signs of fermentation after about 5 hours. Now at 30 hours it is bubbling steadily. I just took a sample and it is already 3% ABV, with about 6.5% expected if it ferments to dryness. It also tastes really good! There is an obvious orange aroma and some orange flavor, too.

So far, so good. This is neat yeast. I am looking forward to making an ale with it.

 

[Miraculix]

I have an update!

After some more reading I figured that the "teaspoon" referenced for kviek pitching was likely a teaspoon of a yeast cake, not a liquid like in an Imperial pouch. I did some math, decided to pitch more than the bare minimum, and ended up using 30 mL from the 155 mL pack.

I heard some signs of fermentation after about 5 hours. Now at 30 hours it is bubbling steadily. I just took a sample and it is already 3% ABV, with about 6.5% expected if it ferments to dryness. It also tastes really good! There is an obvious orange aroma and some orange flavor, too.

So far, so good. This is neat yeast. I am looking forward to making an ale with it.

The teaspoon is refering to the yeast slurry on the bottom of a fermenter, also called yeast cake. The yeast slurry in your pouch is very likely comparable to this.

The reason for everything of the nutes upfront is trial and error experiments by multiple people in the mead forum. When using tosna below a certain expected abv(I think it was 10 or 11), it yields the best result just to dump in everything at the beginning. Above that abv, staggering becomes more important.

 

[Horseflesh]

Another update on this quick and lazy cider...

After about 4-5 days the kveik stopped working. The cider has been stable at 1.004, which makes for 6.1% ABV, so it did not ferment to total dryness. I let it sit around for a few more days at 92F, and just now turned off the heater so it will drop to room temp.

Samples taste pretty OK and the Voss orange aroma is nice. I guess I will cold crash, keg it, treat to kill the yeast, and backsweeten. Maybe I am rushing it and should let it sit around for a month or six but based on the last cider I made I am skeptical that this will actually make it taste any better. When sweetened in a test glass, this is pretty decent. I have some tart cherry juice that is also a nice addition.

I do think there is just the faintest note of solvent off-flavor, similar to the pronounced off-flavor I got the first time I tried a cider with Nottingham. Sweetening completely masks it in this Voss cider. But there was something about this fermentation that was not optimum. I guess the next time I do this I will double the Fermaid-O to about 20 grams.

 

[Horseflesh]

Another update!

After tasting a de-yeasted, chilled, carbed, AND appropriately sweetened sample... This ain't bad! I thought I might have tasted something off when it was hot, flat, dry, and yeasty... but when I prepared something more like the final product, I could not taste anything wrong. This is not the best cider I have ever had, but it's good and I would serve it without reservation. More importantly, the wife likes it!

Thanks for the help!

I may still boost nutrients next time, since my research produced a wide range of opinions on that topic.

OK, where do I sign up for the kveik fan club? Do I get a sticker or something? Secret handshake?

 

[TandemTails]

Thanks for posting this! I have two different kveik strains that i'm planning on using for both ciders and meads at some point in the future. Glad to hear it turned out well for you.

 

[Horseflesh]

I have to admit it was nice making a beverage without the work of a brew day. This could be dangerous.

Good luck with your kveik projects!

 

[motherofgallons]

I just started a 19L batch of mixed locally pressed apple cider (3L of which is actually fresh rhubarb drink in lieu of bitter apples). OG without any other sugar was 1.053. I pitched a little less than a teaspoon (~4.5mL) of TYB Sigmund Voss Kriek along with Go-Ferm, Fermaid K and DAP according to amounts I got from Batchbuildr for a similar OG for mead.

I warmed the cider up to 38C because I wanted to see what the orange peel/baking spice from the kviek was like. I pitched about 24 hours ago, wrapped it in a black sheet and it's currently sitting on the very warm balcony. It took a few hours to get going but around 10 this morning the airlock was full of yeast so I changed to a blowoff tube. It's already left skidmarks halfway down the tube and is bubbling like crazy. Looking forward to tasting it, I plan to split into a few smaller secondary batches for various flavors: unflavored to let the yeast shine, gruit/local handpicked herbs, and maybe one with PB2 powdered peanut butter and sea salt. I'll update later.