Ale yeast for Lager recipe?

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Nebraskan

Nebraskan

Assoc. Winemaker
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Just wondering if it has been done, results, and opinions on using ale yeast, that tolerate higher temps, in a recipe that was made for a Munich Dunkel?

I have ordered some new "interesting" yeast yesterday, a Norwegian Kveik. Has attibutes of both lager and ale yeasts, sort of multi strains, and tolerates higher (70F) ferments very well.

Just thought that using ale yeast may be the way to go for beer fermenting in the house.

Now, if someone could find or design a nice Lager yeast that ferments well, cleanly at 65 - 75 deg F that would be something.
 
From what I've read so far, kveik yeast has high attenuation characteristics similar to saison yeasts and might not be quite the choice for a German-style dark beer. My brew shop carries nothing like it. It's something "new" and different most home brewers haven't picked up on yet as a widely-accepted style.
Since I like dry ales, this might be something new for me to chase down. That said, I plan to use 34/70 for my next brew. We keep the house ambient temp around 60F during winter and some spots get cooler than others. :)
 
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Thanks so much for the replies back. Will have to "experiment" a bit I guess. Contacted the LHBS and they have also had great success with warmer temp lagers with s-189. In fact, they get positive feedback from local commercial micro breweries with this yeast. Temp range is 9 - 22 C (48.2F to 71.6F).
One should try hybridizing the Kveik and S-189 or S-23 yeasts to get a very clean lager fermentation. I still think dropping down to close to 32 would be beneficial for a period of time before bottling.

Also, the last batch of my "Vern's Munich Dunkel II " was started with saved S-23 yeast and made into a starter and pitched on the evening of 11-18, last Saturday. I racked it Wed evening at a gravity of 1.0093 to gassed (CO2) 3 gallon carboy, and just tasted it a few minutes ago. Tastes very malty, no off flavors, no butter or butterscotch (as fermenting at higher temps probably let the yeast clean those up) and has a nice clean malty flavor to it. I also used a bit of Melanoid malt in the recipe, here: https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/569726/vern-s-munich-dunkel-ii
 
For those interested these links are fascinating reads:
http://www.milkthefunk.com/wiki/Kveik
http://www.garshol.priv.no/blog/378.html

Second link talks about how families have passed down Kviek yeast from generation to generation and a guy is fermenting beer with yeast passed down from his Great, Great Grandfather. There is even one evidence of beer fermented and tasted clean as a bell per the quote: "This really sets the kveiks, and the Lithuanian yeast, apart from most other yeasts. I searched the Wyeast catalog and found no yeasts that were recommended for use above 30C. Yet I've had beer made with #1 Sigmund where the fermenter was pinned to 40C with a thermostat, and the resulting beer was clean as a bell" That's 104 F. beer ferment and clean!
 
Of the two brew shops I frequent, one has the Voss liquid kveik strain available. The cost is understandably higher because of scarcity. I've found it can be sourced through White Labs but due to the yeast being a home brewing novelty so far here in the US, it isn't really listed or referenced well enough to be reflected in the Brewers Friend recipe builder I use.
The "Hothead" strain does exist as an OYL variant.
Thanks to this thread, I've been off on a two-day tangent exploring Nordic brews I never knew about .... :)
Getting back to seasonal brewing, doing a clean batch at 104F sounds amazing. Even better, that would extend the hobby into deep summer for those of us who don't own fermentation chambers, and that's awesome.
 
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Nebraskan said:
For those interested these links are fascinating reads:
http://www.milkthefunk.com/wiki/Kveik
http://www.garshol.priv.no/blog/378.html

Second link talks about how families have passed down Kviek yeast from generation to generation and a guy is fermenting beer with yeast passed down from his Great, Great Grandfather. There is even one evidence of beer fermented and tasted clean as a bell per the quote: "This really sets the kveiks, and the Lithuanian yeast, apart from most other yeasts. I searched the Wyeast catalog and found no yeasts that were recommended for use above 30C. Yet I've had beer made with #1 Sigmund where the fermenter was pinned to 40C with a thermostat, and the resulting beer was clean as a bell" That's 104 F. beer ferment and clean!
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The kveiks are fantastic in general. I have it from a VERY reliable source that Voss and Hothead, while robust even by saison standards are actually the most tame of the bunch. Supposedly more might be hitting the market in the future.
 
This Nordic Voss kveik strain is interesting, though.
It's an interesting alternative for brewing at higher temperatures than those recommended for even saison yeasts. If a method for getting a clean, lager-like brew can be generally accepted, whoever gets a reliably consistent, isolated dry version of the Voss strain on the market could find a big demand awaiting them. From what I understand the Nordic Voss strain is very hardy and flocculent.
See the "Mad Fermentationists" blog for his observations - and that was from almost a year ago..
Paired with selected hops, the orange aromas the yeast gives off would be an interesting combo for a nicely clarified hombrewed wheat ale. I'd be on that in a heartbeat given my weakness for Belgians, especially a good witbier.
 
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I've never been a big beer drinker, and those I had were things like Coors, Hamms and the like. I found out later on I enjoy Guiness Stout. And I especailly like the Hoffbrau Munich Dunkel I have found.

There are just a few prerequisites I have to my beer.
1. Low hops. I do not like too much bitterness, and poured Sagatuck Brewing (commercial) Singapore IPA with a IBU of 72 If all beers had to have IBU numbers for India Pale Ales, I would not be even a craft brewer, or drink beer. It reminds me of crushing up a Tylenol and adding it to some drink.
2. Decent alcohol in the range between 4.5 to 6.5 % Not a fan of high gravity beers.
3. Malt! I want my beer to be a malt bomb. I want it to be unmistakable malty. Hence I have included small amounts of Melanoid malt in my recipe.

To each his own, but to me ALL IPA are crap. And it seems like they are the vogue with lots of craft brewers now. My understanding is that ale was made with extra hops to survive the trips to India and in the trade with India.

I like smooth flavors, some richness and it can be off dry, and that is what I'm looking for.

I love to experiment. I'll probably try to add both the Kveik yeast and my saved S-23 or one of S-189 to a starter and pitch than into a Munich Dunkel "style" and see what pops. If it's good, fermenting at elevated temps I'll keep right on saving yeast in a jar in the refrigerator. Pass it on to y'all if you want some :)
 
Well, if you like malt you'll have to try Dunkel weizen and bock beers, too. Another German style and brand I would recommend would be Kostritzer schwarzbier - it definitely rivals a good dry stout.
 
SleepyCreekBrews said:
to the OP, is it NOT lagering season in your location this time of year?
Click to expand...
Well, yes, if you can hope for constant temps. We live on 10 acres, and have a very small Quonset/workshop. It is not heated, but at night temps can drop pretty far here in SW Michigan. More than likely stall it out.
 
Nebraskan said:
Well, yes, if you can hope for constant temps. We live on 10 acres, and have a very small Quonset/workshop. It is not heated, but at night temps can drop pretty far here in SW Michigan. More than likely stall it out.
Click to expand...

It's pretty easy to set up some heat on a thermostat/controller. Much easier and cheaper than refrigeration. An aquarium heater or brew belt should work, depending on how much heat would be needed.
 
FWIW, almost every other batch for me these days is a lager and I've only used 34/70. I do have temp control so those do get fermented at 55F. However, I have used 34/70 for the last three "ales" fermented at 65F and I have been very pleased with the results, super-clean so far. I do maintain two different versions, one that's only seen lager temps and one that has only seen ale temps.

Going to pitch it in a Gose a little later today so we'll see how it handles a low starting pH, ~3.5
 
Nebraskan said:
Well, yes, if you can hope for constant temps. We live on 10 acres, and have a very small Quonset/workshop. It is not heated, but at night temps can drop pretty far here in SW Michigan. More than likely stall it out.
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You can prolly rig up a insulated box, then strap Mama's heating pad to the fermenter (set on low) and plug it into a STC-1000 , and call it good. (Don't let Mama find out tho)
(that's what I did until SWMBO found out, then I had to go buy my own heating pad) :)
 
dmtaylor said:
I've made some great lagers in the garage, one or two of which froze solid and had to be thawed out. It works, for cavemen like me.
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Same here (sans that I've never frozen one), but recently I got a free refrigerator that the church was replacing along with an Inkbird temperature controller, so now I've gone low budget upscale for my lagers.
 
Silver_Is_Money said:
Same here (sans that I've never frozen one), but recently I got a free refrigerator that the church was replacing along with an Inkbird temperature controller, so now I've gone low budget upscale for my lagers.
Click to expand...

Accidentally partially frozen beer, that is how Eis Bock was born :)

Eis Lager, why not?
 
I could take to the winery and put it in our cellar, which stays at 52 degrees in the winter as well. I just want to ferment it in the house, and get a clean fermentation. Correct me if I'm wrong, and I sure can be as my beer "knowledge" grows with each reading and research, but isn't Lager just a beer that has little to no esters, and mainly clean crisp - grains forward- type of beer, where ales are more ester fruity sorts of beers? I love Guiness Stout and REALLY love Munich Dunkel beer. Low bitter, low hops, and rich malty flavors.
 
Lager beer is fermented with bottom fermenting lager yeast at 50-55 degrees , then lagered (aged) at near freezing temp before drinking .

Ales are fermented with top-fermenting ale yeasts at 65-70 degrees.
 
Nebraskan said:
I could take to the winery and put it in our cellar, which stays at 52 degrees in the winter as well. I just want to ferment it in the house, and get a clean fermentation. Correct me if I'm wrong, and I sure can be as my beer "knowledge" grows with each reading and research, but isn't Lager just a beer that has little to no esters, and mainly clean crisp - grains forward- type of beer, where ales are more ester fruity sorts of beers? I love Guiness Stout and REALLY love Munich Dunkel beer. Low bitter, low hops, and rich malty flavors.
Click to expand...

Guiness Stout is an ale. So something like Wyeast 1084 - Irish Ale.

Wyeast 1007 has given me good results for a maibock. Although I kept temps low.

Both get a bit more fruity with higher fermentation temps.
 
Interesting, iam on 5th use of the Voss strain every of them at 40c. Now I want to brew a lager next week and decided to try with the Voss strain but fermented around 14c with a big overpitch.
I saw that a professional brewery managed to use it at 9c which is kind of shocking and would broaden the range from 9c to 40c. I think you could try using it on its own without the S23.
 
I am interested in seeing if I can get them to cross (Vosss Kveik X S-189) Ale x Lager strain that ferments a bit higher than the normal Lager strains. Would be interesting. Lager fermenting at 70-75 F, low esters, and then cold stabilize for about a week at VERY cold temps with a bit of gelatin fining when all done fermenting. THEN save the yeast to keep encouraging more cross breeding.

Years ago I tried breeding Pet Rocks, but found I just didn't have the stones for it.... :)
 
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Last Sunday 12-10-17 I made up some Munich Dunkel https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/572090/ and used 50ml of Voss Kveik, 100ml of S-23 and 100ml of S-189 in a starter jar, and the starter was fermenting when I pitched it Sunday evening at 7:00 pm Monday morning it was going gang busters. Going very well by noon, and in the evening the air lock slowed down considerably. This morning 12-12-17 Tues, the airlock has settled down and no movement nor gas. So it completed in less than 2 days. At lunch today I plan to check to see what the hydrometer reading shows, but for all indication, it is done.
 
Nebraskan said:
Last Sunday 12-10-17 I made up some Munich Dunkel https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/572090/ and used 50ml of Voss Kveik, 100ml of S-23 and 100ml of S-189 in a starter jar, and the starter was fermenting when I pitched it Sunday evening at 7:00 pm Monday morning it was going gang busters. Going very well by noon, and in the evening the air lock slowed down considerably. This morning 12-12-17 Tues, the airlock has settled down and no movement nor gas. So it completed in less than 2 days. At lunch today I plan to check to see what the hydrometer reading shows, but for all indication, it is done.
Click to expand...
That surely is an interesting mix. Please let us know about the outcome and if it somehow changes from generation to generation when harvesting the yeast.
 
Brix was 3.3 or S.G. of 1.0129 Tues evening. Tasted it and was good, no off flavors, but still a little spritzy, so probably will ferment slowly for a couple more days. No diacetyl or other off flavor detected.
 
While this thread seems to be concentrating on 'kveik' yeasts at the moment, I thought I'd go back to the original question (ale yeast for lagers?) and bring up some interesting information about one of the commonly used homebrew lager strains: WLP800.

WLP800 is supposedly a lager yeast, and the Pilsner Urquell strain. Interestingly, this strain was included in a recent genome sequencing study (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4825664/) by an Australian research group, and they found that WLP800 is actually not a lager yeast (Saccharomyces pastorianus (Saccharomyces cerevisiae x Saccharomyces eubayanus)) at all, but rather a 'pure' S. cerevisiae strain. So users of WLP800 have all along been brewing with an ale yeast when they've been making lagers. Whether this is the same strain that is used for Pilsner Urquell or not is unclear and a completely different question.

White Labs and the Verstrepen lab published their own genome sequencing study (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27610566) last year as well, and in it they looked at the geno- and phenotypes of 157 S. cerevisiae strains. Unfortunately, the strain names are encoded and it is unclear what strain numbers correspond to what White Labs strains. I've done some decoding (for more information you can visit my blog; see signature) of a number of the strains in the study using sequence data of White Labs strains from other studies (including the Australian one mentioned above), and WLP800 seems to be included as Beer087. Interestingly, Beer087 seems to be closely related to Beer073, a strain which appears to be WLP320 American Hefe (not confirmed by DNA evidence, but other evidence suggests this; again check the blog). According to the publication, Beer087/WLP800 and Beer073/WLP320 are not only genetically similar, but they also seem phenotypically very similar (e.g. very similar ester profiles and growth temperature ranges). This would suggest that you can make a nice lager with WLP320 as well (especially if you use the lower temperatures that are normally used with WLP800).

Sorry for the long post, but hopefully someone found it interesting.
 

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