fermenting with homemade dried kveik

[Julian Høstan Urrea]

God, I feel ignorant. What exactly is an "Fv bucket," and how does the yeast dry in such a thing if it is sealed?

Whatever it is that you're doing, I'd like to try it. After all, you're Norwegian. That gives you have instant credibility.

Haha credibility? I don't know about that. I just told you what I have done and what has worked for me. I am by no means a kveik expert! I've only used it 3 times. Last time Iade an summit mandarina Bavaria pale ale with sweet orange from the HB store, some orange zest and some orange peel in the "fermentation vessel" the last 3 days of fermentation. I didn't have any means of keeping it at 38 Celsius so I pitched it and packed the fv in some sleepingbags. It was done in 4 days. It's carbonating Now but the sample was really promising. I kept some of the yeast in liquid form and dried some of it like I've done before. Pics below

 

[Julian Høstan Urrea]

I should mention that I misspoke before. I don't fully seal the bucket, I just place the lid on top. Let's a small portion of air in but (hopefully) nothing else

 

[Miraculix]

I should mention that I misspoke before. I don't fully seal the bucket, I just place the lid on top. Let's a small portion of air in but (hopefully) nothing else

Does your dried kveik also develop done dark/blackish spots when dried? Nothing fuzzy or hairy like mold, just dark spots..

 

[Julian Høstan Urrea]

Does your dried kveik also develop done dark/blackish spots when dried? Nothing fuzzy or hairy like mold, just dark spots..

Not that I've seen, no. I've been using voss kveik. Picture?

 

[Maylar]

I've been saving liquid yeast slurry in jars for years. You don't need to dry it out, re-hydrate or if its relatively fresh, even make a starter. Just chuck it in.
I'm thinking that drying out yeast on a piece of wood was a traditional method because they didn't have mason jars and a refrigerator to keep it in?
If you want to use old methods that's cool, the new microbes that are introduced may provide some different and interesting flavors.

I think that this is the most profound post in this thread.

 

[NeverDie]

I think that this is the most profound post in this thread.

Well, how long does it keep for without resorting to a starter? 3 months?

Also, if you're chucking the whole thing in, aren't there generational issues to consider? i.e. you're better off using generation 0 instead of generation n>0, since contaminants accumulate with each generation.

On the other hand, I suppose the slurry could be divvied up by pipette so that the generational issue is equivalent.

----------------

I have a Hothead test batch fermenting now using Bray's formulation. It wouldn't start at 70F, so I raised the temp a bit and now it's rolling. Bray uses 72F, but I'm raising it up to 85F, which is still well below its upper-bound. I have an outside insulated shed which maintains a nearly constant 85F inside at this time of year, so if the test batch works I'll try a large batch of Hothead there sometime soon.

BTW, I found out the answer to something that had always puzzled me: it turns out that the manufacturer's stated temperature range for a yeast is strictly the range at which the yeast best reproduces. It says nothing about the best range for converting honey into alcohol, let alone what the consequences are for fermenting at particular temperatures. That's a topic that the yeast manufacturers are unfortunately almost always totally silent on.

 

[Julian Høstan Urrea]

Well, how long does it keep for without resorting to a starter? 3 months?

Also, if you're chucking the whole thing in, aren't there generational issues to consider? i.e. you're better off using generation 0 instead of generation n>0, since contaminants accumulate with each generation.

On the other hand, I suppose the slurry could be divvied up by pipette so that the generational issue is equivalent.

----------------

I have a Hothead test batch fermenting now using Bray's formulation. It wouldn't start at 70F, so I raised the temp a bit and now it's rolling. Bray uses 72F, but I'm raising it up to 85F, which is still well below its upper-bound. I have an outside insulated shed which maintains a nearly constant 85F inside at this time of year, so if the test batch works I'll try a large batch of Hothead there sometime soon.

BTW, I found out the answer to something that had always puzzled me: it turns out that the manufacturer's stated temperature range for a yeast is strictly the range at which the yeast best reproduces. It says nothing about the best range for converting honey into alcohol, let alone what the consequences are for fermenting at particular temperatures. That's a topic that the yeast manufacturers are unfortunately almost always totally silent on.

To answer you first question. I had a bit of yeast in the fridge for a year. The only thing I did was take a bit of the malt from the mash in a bottle and shucked a small portion of the yeast in when I started the boil. By the time I had cooked the hops that plastic bottle was rock hard. Amazing stuff!

 

[NeverDie]

To answer you first question. I had a bit of yeast in the fridge for a year. The only thing I did was take a bit of the malt from the mash in a bottle and shucked a small portion of the yeast in when I started the boil. By the time I had cooked the hops that plastic bottle was rock hard. Amazing stuff!

Your yeast has a strange color it. It's not the light beige cream color I'm used to seeing.

 

[NeverDie]

Got it. I'll try sealing up fresh yeast in a big box with desiccants then. If his worked, then this should work even better.

I'm about to start this experiment. I have a roughly 60 quart airtight box that I've sprayed with star san and let air dry. I plan to put the parchment paper and a porcelain plate in the oven for about an hour at 400F (the parchment paper is rated to 420F), which should (I hope) kill anything on it. I'm presently separating the yeast cream from the "beer" from a fresh Omega Hothead packet, which I've poured into a star san sanitized beaker, and that separation is happening in the refrigerator. I have two fresh desiccant canisters that I'll be putting in the box before sealing it up. They haven't been sanitized per se, but I don't plan for there to be a breeze inside the box. I'll also put a non-sanitized humidity sensor in the box to report on humidity levels. It can't measure below 10% humidity, but it's what I currently have available.

Once the cream separates from the beer, I'll spread some of it on the sanitized parchment paper supported by the plate, move it to the box, and seal it all up for the yeast to dry at room temperature.

Sound good?

Once I'm sure the yeast is dry, I'll test it for re-animation using GoFerm to see if it behaves as good and ferments as well as the liquid yeast that made it.

I hope the above will be good enough to avoid contamination. If this fails, then the next step might be to sanitize the desiccant pellets in the oven at 220F (maybe I could go a little higher, but it melts at 325F) before adding them directly to the box with no canister, and perhaps using a smaller sealed box but keeping the whole thing refrigerated to 35F during the drying process. Doing that might help reduce bacteria multiplying on the cream during the drying process. And, if that doesn't work, then I don't know what will. The only contamination source I can think of would be airborne particles, which hopefully will be small in number compared to the yeast population that's being dried. I suppose the big vulnerability is multiplying wild organisms on the yeast cream while it dries. So, to close that window of vulnerability, finding a faster way to dry might be worth looking into if this first attempt fails. Perhaps a cylinder of dry, food grade CO2 blown over it would considerably speed up the rate of drying without costing much. I'd prefer something cheaper though: maybe an aquarium pump, which first pumps its air through desiccant and then through a sanitary filter before being blown over the yeast cream would work as well. All this requires additional work to set up though, which is why I'm leaving it out of this first test. With luck, I won't need to take these extra "Plan B" steps.

 

[NeverDie]

A bit of trivia: out of 100ml of Omega Hothead yeast solution from the packet, after allowing it to settle, only about 10ml is yeast cream plus whatever other solid ditritus was either packaged with it or developed afterward.

 

[Julian Høstan Urrea]

Your yeast has a strange color it. It's not the light beige cream color I'm used to seeing.

I just skimmed the top layer of the barrel with a spoon. Easy bottom harvesting.
That pic is from minutes after.

 

[Julian Høstan Urrea]

I'm about to start this experiment. I have a roughly 60 quart airtight box that I've sprayed with star san and let air dry. I plan to put the parchment paper and a porcelain plate in the oven for about an hour at 400F (the parchment paper is rated to 420F), which should (I hope) kill anything on it. I'm presently separating the yeast cream from the "beer" from a fresh Omega Hothead packet, which I've poured into a star san sanitized beaker, and that separation is happening in the refrigerator. I have two fresh desiccant canisters that I'll be putting in the box before sealing it up. They haven't been sanitized per se, but I don't plan for there to be a breeze inside the box. I'll also put a non-sanitized humidity sensor in the box to report on humidity levels. It can't measure below 10% humidity, but it's what I currently have available.

Once the cream separates from the beer, I'll spread some of it on the sanitized parchment paper supported by the plate, move it to the box, and seal it all up for the yeast to dry at room temperature.

Sound good?

Once I'm sure the yeast is dry, I'll test it for re-animation using GoFerm to see if it behaves as good and ferments as well as the liquid yeast that made it.

I hope the above will be good enough to avoid contamination. If this fails, then the next step might be to sanitize the desiccant pellets in the oven at 220F (maybe I could go a little higher, but it melts at 325F) before adding them directly to the box with no canister, and perhaps using a smaller sealed box but keeping the whole thing refrigerated to 35F during the drying process. Doing that might help reduce bacteria multiplying on the cream during the drying process. And, if that doesn't work, then I don't know what will. The only contamination source I can think of would be airborne particles, which hopefully will be small in number compared to the yeast population that's being dried. I suppose the big vulnerability is multiplying wild organisms on the yeast cream while it dries. So, to close that window of vulnerability, finding a faster way to dry might be worth looking into if this first attempt fails. Perhaps a cylinder of dry, food grade CO2 blown over it would considerably speed up the rate of drying without costing much. I'd prefer something cheaper though: maybe an aquarium pump, which first pumps its air through desiccant and then through a sanitary filter before being blown over the yeast cream would work as well. All this requires additional work to set up though, which is why I'm leaving it out of this first test. With luck, I won't need to take these extra "Plan B" steps.

Sounds great. I'm thinking it's a big step up from the original way to dry kveik yeast where they used a wooden stick with holes or a ring of wood, dipped it in the slurry and then left it to dry until needed in a barn somewhere
But really... That method worked for many many years so...

 

[Julian Høstan Urrea]

Well, how long does it keep for without resorting to a starter? 3 months?

Also, if you're chucking the whole thing in, aren't there generational issues to consider? i.e. you're better off using generation 0 instead of generation n>0, since contaminants accumulate with each generation.

On the other hand, I suppose the slurry could be divvied up by pipette so that the generational issue is equivalent.

----------------

I have a Hothead test batch fermenting now using Bray's formulation. It wouldn't start at 70F, so I raised the temp a bit and now it's rolling. Bray uses 72F, but I'm raising it up to 85F, which is still well below its upper-bound. I have an outside insulated shed which maintains a nearly constant 85F inside at this time of year, so if the test batch works I'll try a large batch of Hothead there sometime soon.

BTW, I found out the answer to something that had always puzzled me: it turns out that the manufacturer's stated temperature range for a yeast is strictly the range at which the yeast best reproduces. It says nothing about the best range for converting honey into alcohol, let alone what the consequences are for fermenting at particular temperatures. That's a topic that the yeast manufacturers are unfortunately almost always totally silent on.

Also! I used like a small spoons worth. Extreme underpitching. Had agressive activity after about 4 hours. I used a blow off tube.

 

[NeverDie]

Update: I grabbed 5ml of the 10ml Hothead yeast cream. 5ml is so little that I simply spread it out very thinly on the parchment paper, and therefore I expect it will dry quickly. I can only hope that later releasing such a thin layer of dried yeast from the parchment paper won't be difficult. If it is, though, maybe I'll just cut up the parchment paper into squares and then simply dip a square into GoFerm to add the yeast when needed.

 

[NeverDie]

Reporting back: well, putting it right away into a sealed box is probably a bad strategy. Even with the desiccant, the humidity sensor showed that the humidity kept going up until finally, at 68% RH, significantly above ambient RH, I pulled the lid off to release the trapped moisture.

 

[madscientist451]

Well, how long does it keep for without resorting to a starter? 3 months?

Also, if you're chucking the whole thing in, aren't there generational issues to consider? i.e. you're better off using generation 0 instead of generation n>0, since contaminants accumulate with each generation.

On the other hand, I suppose the slurry could be divvied up by pipette so that the generational issue is equivalent.

How long before you need to make a starter?
I'd say a month or two. Beyond that, I'd probably make a starter.
If its a high gravity beer, I always make a starter.
With the slurry/jar method, you can make a starter, pitch half of it and then return the rest to the jar for storage. So the slurry is only saved from the first brew. After 5-6 runs I usually start over with new yeast, but not always, I have lager and saison yeasts I've been running for a few years.

 

[NeverDie]

The RH is now 34%, and so there may be residual moisture, but there's no liquid left per se. The yeast looks dry, and due to shrinkage most of the yeast has already detached itself from the parchment paper. The longer I wait, the dryer it will become. Not sure what level of dryness I should wait for though before pitching it into GoFerm to test whether it re-animates to "as good as new" yeast.

 

[NeverDie]

Answering my own question, it appears that 8% moisture content is what I should be aiming for:

Dry yeast is fresh compressed yeast that has been pressed and dried until the moisture content is only about 8% which makes the yeast dormant. The granules only become active again when mixed with a warm liquid. The advantage of dry yeast is it has a much longer shelf life than fresh yeast and does not need to be refrigerated.

Read more: https://www.joyofbaking.com/Yeast.html#ixzz5qZLRWL52
​

Furthermore, commercial vendors dry yeast to a moisture content of 8% using a temperature of 42-50F with air at a dewpoint of 12-18F (cf. https://www.bryair.com/technical-articles/drying-yeast-using-desiccant-dehumidification/ )

 

[NeverDie]

Surprisingly, I couldn't get lower than 16% RH at 70F within the current sealed setup. However, I have 7.5 pounds of additional desiccant on order and arriving late today. I expect the extra desiccant will help drive the RH lower so that I can finish drying the Hothead yeast enough to finally reach commercial dry yeast specs.

 

[Maylar]

And this is easier than using liquid yeast?

 

[NeverDie]

And this is easier than using liquid yeast?

I hear you. The answer would be no, not if I already have liquid yeast on hand. Right now it may sound hard just because right now I'm blazing my own trail on how to dry it. However, if this drying method works, I do think drying it will be easier than the overhead of freezing it and then later doing a starter.

That said, drying yeast might be harder than storing it in a refrigerated low ph saline solution, though that too would require a starter....

Once dried, I'm guessing it should last a long time. Also, my local homebrew store doesn't always keep liquid Hothead in stock (and it may be old in a massively puffed packet even if the store does have it). Plus it's an hour roundtrip to the store in drive time alone, so in my case that potentially figures into a comparison.

 

[Maylar]

Order it online with ice packs. Just not in the dead of Summer.
Once harvested, keeping liquid in mason jars in the fridge seems far more reliable and less prone to contamination than what you're doing. It seems to me you've reached a point of diminishing returns on your investment in time.

 

[Miraculix]

I think we should drop this idea of having to do a starter with kveik, it is simply not necessary.

 

[NeverDie]

I think we should drop this idea of having to do a starter with kveik, it is simply not necessary.

That would be great. I'll give it a try. I have some leftover Voss that's been sitting in a few small jars in the refrigerator for the last 5 months. I'll try pitching one of them without a starter into a test batch and see how it fares. Afterward I'll report back.

 

[NeverDie]

Reporting back:

1. The 5 month old liquid Voss I had stored in the refrigerator came roaring back to life even with no starter.

2. The dried hothead has re-animated, but it's fermenting much slower pace than if I had pitched the same amount of yeast in liquid form. I hypothesize the reason is that not a lot of it survived the drying/re-animation process. I rehydrated it with GoFerm, and I'm using the TOSNA protocol. Presently, it has only one sugar break remaining. The aroma smells correct, so it's likely I avoided contamination this time around.

I think the cheap humidity sensor I was using is way out of calibration. I was never able to get it below a 15% RH reading, even in an empty sealed box with an ocean of desiccant around it. So, maybe I actually over-dried the yeast? Is such a thing even possible? I need to find a more accurate humidity sensor....

 

[Julian Høstan Urrea]

Like i said before. Just put it in a bucket smeared on sone baking paper and put the lid loose on. Wait a week. Tada! Dried kveik

 

[NeverDie]

Like i said before. Just put it in a bucket smeared on sone baking paper and put the lid loose on. Wait a week. Tada! Dried kveik

At what temperature?

 

[NeverDie]

This is a good overview:



I can see how getting one of those ultra-fine sieves or meshes would help a lot for removing excess water at the get-go.

 

[Julian Høstan Urrea]

At what temperature?

I've put it at about 20 celcius.

 

[NeverDie]

From what I've been reading lately, it's actually normal for a large percentage of the yeast in the slurry to die during the drying process. I just hadn't known that.

 

[NeverDie]

What would be the best wire mesh aperture for straining water out of yeast slurry?

My wild guess is that mesh#120 might do it: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07SCP8S2N/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=AFMVA0H9B2EQE&psc=1

 

[RPh_Guy]

Why not just get a centrifuge?

 

[NeverDie]

Why not just get a centrifuge?

Cost.

However, I'm willing to be open minded. How many RPM would be needed?

 

[RPh_Guy]

Cost.

However, I'm willing to be open minded. How many RPM would be needed?

No idea, sorry.

Cost? Lay a bicycle on its side: instant centrifuge!

 

[NeverDie]

I'm not sure a bicycle wheel would get to a high enough RPM....

Perhaps make a variant of th 3D-fuge: http://www.labonthecheap.com/index.php/2019/04/26/3d-fuge-a-new-hand-powered-centrifuge/

or perhaps a dremelfuge:

 

[AzOr]

Is anyone else concerned with introducing a highly aggressive super attenuating yeast to their brew area that can thrive in just about any condition?

I've been following kveik threads pertaining to beer for a while now. I'm definitely interested. If it's as great as people talk about and tastes good in my; pilsners, British ales, meads and ciders. Then I'm in. Imagine only using one strain for everything.

I'm sure the traditional dudes making beer in their farmhouse aren't using multiple strains ranging from wine to lager yeast. Hell, some of the lager yeast I use don't show activity for up to 48 hours by then Mr. Kveik sneaks in through the back door and gets busy with my poor wort.

Mr. Kveik goes in and eats all the food, reproduces like a rabbit all before Mr. Lager has gotten off the couch. Damn him.

 

[Miraculix]

Is anyone else concerned with introducing a highly aggressive super attenuating yeast to their brew area that can thrive in just about any condition?

I've been following kveik threads pertaining to beer for a while now. I'm definitely interested. If it's as great as people talk about and tastes good in my; pilsners, British ales, meads and ciders. Then I'm in. Imagine only using one strain for everything.

I'm sure the traditional dudes making beer in their farmhouse aren't using multiple strains ranging from wine to lager yeast. Hell, some of the lager yeast I use don't show activity for up to 48 hours by then Mr. Kveik sneaks in through the back door and gets busy with my poor wort.

Mr. Kveik goes in and eats all the food, reproduces like a rabbit all before Mr. Lager has gotten off the couch. Damn him.

Only had kveik infections with non commercial kveik from Norway. The lab versions behaved and stayed within their designated brews.

 

[RPh_Guy]

I'm not sure a bicycle wheel would get to a high enough RPM....

I'm not sure either, but a larger diameter means it doesn't need as high RPM to generate the same force.

 

[NeverDie]

Is anyone else concerned with introducing a highly aggressive super attenuating yeast to their brew area that can thrive in just about any condition?

I've been following kveik threads pertaining to beer for a while now. I'm definitely interested. If it's as great as people talk about and tastes good in my; pilsners, British ales, meads and ciders. Then I'm in. Imagine only using one strain for everything.

I'm sure the traditional dudes making beer in their farmhouse aren't using multiple strains ranging from wine to lager yeast. Hell, some of the lager yeast I use don't show activity for up to 48 hours by then Mr. Kveik sneaks in through the back door and gets busy with my poor wort.

Mr. Kveik goes in and eats all the food, reproduces like a rabbit all before Mr. Lager has gotten off the couch. Damn him.

It won't happen. Lagers reproduce at temperatures well below what Kveik reproduces at.