Voss Kviek stalled at 1.021. What to do?

[NGD]

Howdy all,

Hope this is the correct place for a Voss Kviek newbie question. With all the praise surrounding this yeast, I figured I must be extra special to hose a brew this much.

11 days ago I made a Imperial Saison with an OG of 1.080. It's projected to drop down to roughly 1.018-1.015. Seems to have stalled at the 1.021 mark.

A couple of things I can think contributed to this.
1. Using a Danby kegorator for a fermentation chamber, I started off the temp at 85 for the first 2 days, and bumped it up to 90 over the course of 6 days. Fermented beautifully during that time but I noticed my temps starting to drop on day 6. The space heater crapped out. Temp has been slowly getting into the mid 70's over the course of the past week.

2. On recommendation, I only pitched 1 vial of the two I bought and gave the other to a brewer friend to play with. Wondering if I should have pitched 2?

At this point I'm wondering if I should let it ride for another week, try to stir up the yeast with a sanitized spoon and see what happens or get another space heater and try to bring the temp back up.


Suggestions?

 

[RPh_Guy]

Heat, rouse yeast, add non-DAP nutrient.

It may also just be finished. ~75% apparent attenuation.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Given its reputation for floccing out, I suspect rousing is all you need to do. But I wouldn't be too hard on the poor things, 1.080 is not your standard wort for measuring attenuation, and as has been said, 75% isn't so bad.

 

[NGD]

Damn, you guys are quick! Thank you for the suggestions. I was hoping to hit the low end of attenuation for this yeast (78-83%) but I can live with 75. I may just give it a stir and see if I can bring the heat back up.

@RPh_Guy I did add this yeast nutrient during the boil. I just started using it in a prior batch. Do you think additional nutrient would be beneficial?

 

[RPh_Guy]

Do you think additional nutrient would be beneficial?

I would try rousing and heating first, but yeah I think it could help.
Running out of nutrients is one reason why fermentations can stall.

Non-DAP nutrients include Fermaid O, or a few grams of any yeast (e.g. bread yeast) that you bring to a boil.
Yeast will only consume DAP early in fermentation and it can cause off-flavors. Non-DAP nutrients are safe in small quantities.

 

[jigtwins]

I dont know what the batch size was. I would have made a proper starter for a 1.08 beer. I have been using the voss strain all year with great resuts. Many different ales are able to be made with this strain.That said, from here I would try to rouse the yeast and give it more time. Best luck. Let us know how it goes.

 

[ccous]

I dont know what the batch size was. I would have made a proper starter for a 1.08 beer. I have been using the voss strain all year with great resuts. Many different ales are able to be made with this strain.That said, from here I would try to rouse the yeast and give it more time. Best luck. Let us know how it goes.

It is actually recommended to severely under pitch this strain to get the orange esters. As others said I think it did pretty well.

 

[NGD]

I dont know what the batch size was. I would have made a proper starter for a 1.08 beer. I have been using the voss strain all year with great resuts. Many different ales are able to be made with this strain.That said, from here I would try to rouse the yeast and give it more time. Best luck. Let us know how it goes.

Normally I would completely agree with using a starter, however the recommendation came from Yeastbay. As @ccous stated, it was recommended to seriously underpitch or get orange esters. To that I can say it absolutely worked! There are noticeable hints of orange in this beer. Its just a touch to malty atm.

 

[Comfort_Zone]

What was your mash temp? I'd guess it just ran out of fermentables. Voss grows like wildfire, pitching rate calculators are basically irrelevant when you use it.

 

[bigdawg86]

My experience with Voss Kviek is 78-81% attenuation. I have used it about 8 times. Just finished a experimental brew using Voss Kviek and glucoamylase and OG was 1.066 and FG was 1.002. Very versatile yeast! I agree it is ORANGE!!! I've kettle soured it 3 times and it tastes like a straight mimosa every time.

 

[Grateful Dan]

I too have been seeing recent hype about this yeast and I am going to try it this weekend. The problem is the temp will be going down. Now I'm thinking the up coming 70° f I will ferment at is too low. Was planing on high 70s.

 

[bigdawg86]

I too have been seeing recent hype about this yeast and I am going to try it this weekend. The problem is the temp will be going down. Now I'm thinking the up coming 70° f I will ferment at is too low. Was planing on high 70s.

Pitch at 90°, it will free rise to about 94°, once it starts to not sustain that temp then increase to 96-100° to finish. Works beautifully.

 

[NGD]

What was your mash temp? I'd guess it just ran out of fermentables. Voss grows like wildfire, pitching rate calculators are basically irrelevant when you use it.

Its an extract batch. The Midwest Drunken Farmer with a modified hop selection and boil schedule

Bummer news. Gave it a stir, ramped the temp to 90 with a heating pad (cant go higher atm) and left it for a few more days. Gravity hasn’t budged from 1.020. So at this point I figure I could do a few things

1. Leave it and throw in a dry hop for a week then bottle
2. Drop the temp and add something clean like US-05 (its what I have on hand) to see if I could drop out a few more points
3. Something I haven’t thought of yet, but its likely to be hair-brained and overly complicated.

One thing about this yeast..it dropped out like a rock. Seriously! I’m a relative newbie but I’ve never seen a yeast pack together so tightly. Pretty awesome!

Any more suggestions?

 

[RPh_Guy]

Any more suggestions?

add non-DAP nutrient.

Did you take my earlier advice?

It may also just be finished. ~75% apparent attenuation.

 

[NGD]

Did you take my earlier advice?

Indeed I did. I put about 2 cups with 1/4tsp bread yeast into an instapot, steamed for 10 minutes before allowing to cool and transferring. Still no luck

 

[RPh_Guy]

Cool, sounds done to me!

 

[Comfort_Zone]

If it's an extract batch you've probably reached the limit. Just wait it'll it's carbed and ready. It'll be just fine.

 

[NGD]

Just wanted to update on this. Getting ready to bottle today. I decided to I batch age this out (i.e. Just left it in the fermenter and covered it..checking star san levels once a month).

I just tested the gravity again..it's dropped to 1.014. If I had bottled this as I originally planned I would have definitely had bottle bombs. Chalk one up for laziness.

Edit: anyone else ever have this happen with Voss?

 

[tellyho]

I've brewed two batches with imperial Loki (supposedly Voss) and had both finish within 3-5 days. Neither were as high OG as yours though.

Is an imperial saison still a saison? Maybe golden strong....

 

[Falstaff]

Howdy all,

Hope this is the correct place for a Voss Kviek newbie question. With all the praise surrounding this yeast, I figured I must be extra special to hose a brew this much.

11 days ago I made a Imperial Saison with an OG of 1.080. It's projected to drop down to roughly 1.018-1.015. Seems to have stalled at the 1.021 mark.

A couple of things I can think contributed to this.
1. Using a Danby kegorator for a fermentation chamber, I started off the temp at 85 for the first 2 days, and bumped it up to 90 over the course of 6 days. Fermented beautifully during that time but I noticed my temps starting to drop on day 6. The space heater crapped out. Temp has been slowly getting into the mid 70's over the course of the past week.

2. On recommendation, I only pitched 1 vial of the two I bought and gave the other to a brewer friend to play with. Wondering if I should have pitched 2?

At this point I'm wondering if I should let it ride for another week, try to stir up the yeast with a sanitized spoon and see what happens or get another space heater and try to bring the temp back up.


Suggestions?

1. Brulosophy did an experiment on mash temps that showed that anything south of 1.02 is imperceptible. So I don't worry about anything at or below 1.02 if it's stable, unless it's a style that should be dry like a saison, like yours. Even then I bottle because all the trickery to lower the FG doesn't seem worth it.

2. I use m12 and Voss dry yeasts. I use the whole packet in 5g, which is probably an overpitch but I've had no off flavors. I might reassess this to at least save money.

I love this yeast because it is perfect for a low budget, low space, low free time brewer.

Keeping something hot takes an aquarium heater, instead of a fridge to keep another yeast cool, which I don't have the room or the money for. I pitch at 104 and keep it held around 90 till I'm ready to bottle, which is about THREE DAYS for 1.05ish. I made a 1.09 that took about six. If I'm lazy I'll take it off the heat after about a week until I'm ready to bottle.

The orange flavor even works great in my stouts. Kind of has a hint of orange chocolate, but nothing extreme.

I'm not sure if you will get the peppery taste you get from a saison yeast, though. I would have used belle or a built up bottle of dupont.

I don't know if I'll ever use another yeast again, unless I want to make a saison, which you did. I bet it'll still be good, but it won't have the flavour you were looking for, I think.

 

[NGD]

1. Brulosophy did an experiment on mash temps that showed that anything south of 1.02 is imperceptible. So I don't worry about anything at or below 1.02 if it's stable, unless it's a style that should be dry like a saison, like yours. Even then I bottle because all the trickery to lower the FG doesn't seem worth it.

2. I use m12 and Voss dry yeasts. I use the whole packet in 5g, which is probably an overpitch but I've had no off flavors. I might reassess this to at least save money.

I love this yeast because it is perfect for a low budget, low space, low free time brewer.

Keeping something hot takes an aquarium heater, instead of a fridge to keep another yeast cool, which I don't have the room or the money for. I pitch at 104 and keep it held around 90 till I'm ready to bottle, which is about THREE DAYS for 1.05ish. I made a 1.09 that took about six. If I'm lazy I'll take it off the heat after about a week until I'm ready to bottle.

The orange flavor even works great in my stouts. Kind of has a hint of orange chocolate, but nothing extreme.

I'm not sure if you will get the peppery taste you get from a saison yeast, though. I would have used belle or a built up bottle of dupont.

I don't know if I'll ever use another yeast again, unless I want to make a saison, which you did. I bet it'll still be good, but it won't have the flavour you were looking for, I think.

While I appreciate the suggestions, the post you quoted was almost 3 years ago. Dry Kviek yeasts were very difficult to get at the time.

That batch ended up dropping down to 1.014 and was great for 2-3 weeks before it became too oxidized and tasted orange flavored cardboard. It

It ended up making a great base for a chicken marinade. I still love kvieks for summertime brews. I just stick the fermentors in my shed when its 100f and come back a few days later to a finished beer.

 

[Falstaff]

While I appreciate the suggestions, the post you quoted was almost 3 years ago. Dry Kviek yeasts were very difficult to get at the time.

That batch ended up dropping down to 1.014 and was great for 2-3 weeks before it became too oxidized and tasted orange flavored cardboard. It

It ended up making a great base for a chicken marinade. I still love kvieks for summertime brews. I just stick the fermentors in my shed when its 100f and come back a few days later to a finished beer.

Sorry, new to the forum, thought I was posting to something more recent. I get that. Dry kveik is a newer thing.

I do the outside thing too, in the summer, especially if I want to speed up bottle carbing.

 

[BreweyMcHops]

I dont think its stalled i think its finished, but sometimes kveik rips through 90% in 36 hours then takes days to get that last bit , even more so when you use it for ginger beer

"Stalling" is mostly a myth, you would have to either put the fermenter in a freezer and truly stall it, put it in the sun and kill it, out bleach in it and kill it, or hit its ABV tolerance and kill it

Yeast dosent really just stall in wort in the same way a lion dosent stall on a fresh carcass

Cherts