Bootleg Biology Aurora Kveik

[blackelbow]

Anyone else brewing with Bootleg Biology's new 'Aurora' strain?

I bought a pack in their first pre-order for the strain and picked it up the other day. Today, I pitched it--at 95F--into a 1.055 wheat beer wort (made from DME, to skip the trouble of an all-grain brew when testing an unknown yeast). No starter, but had visible signs of fermentation after only 4 hours.

I'll ferment it out, bottle condition, and harvest the yeast. Anyone else have some results? Or suggestions on what to brew with it next?

 

[HomemadeSauce]

Haven't used this one yet but it's isolated from a Hornindal culture so I assume you can use it similarly.

Other than your typical IPAs that are being brewed with kveik, I've had enjoyable results brewing darker beers with these strains. I also have a grisette-y beer hopped with Amarillo and Hallertau Blanc carbonating now that should be delicious. I may brew something in the style of a BDSA in the coming months.

 

[jnxbrews]

I co-pitched a 500ml starter of Aurora + Sour Weapon L (no starter) into a no hops/no boil 1.048 wort at 90F. 50/50 pils/red wheat, step mash.

4.8 - 1.048
4.11 - 1.010 / PH 3.5
5%, @80%AA

It's about to get a truckload of tropical hops and fruit.

 

[Spikybits]

porter rocks with Kveik - Sig Voss is my house strain - do about 80% of my beers w/ Voss K

 

[jpb2716]

I just opened my pack of Bootleg Aurora to make a starter and it smells phenolic. Good amount of clove. This yeast isn’t supposed to be phenolic. Anyone else experience this?

 

[Andrew Hodgson]

I have my pouch sitting in the yeast fridge still. Hoping to use it a couple times before the heat of the summer to test how it is, I am hoping to use it many times during the warm season but haven't found the opportunity to use it yet.

 

[blackelbow]

A quick update after popping the first bottle today. I don't get any clove phenols the way jpb2716 was lead to expect. Just a general tart tropical fruit impression. My wife said "this tastes like overripe fruit." Some of this could be coming from the mosaic cryo hops I used, but it's hard to envision this being good in a dark beer the way HomemadeSauce and Spikybits suggested. Overall, I'm not too impressed. I've used the Voss Kveik before and it was much more interesting.

 

[cefiro355]

I just opened my pack of Bootleg Aurora to make a starter and it smells phenolic. Good amount of clove. This yeast isn’t supposed to be phenolic. Anyone else experience this?

Yes, I opened around 4 days ago so I can make a starter/ to save some and the package smelled/looked like a belgian style/funk yeast. After around 3 days in the starter it's "brightened" up and smells like my favorite house funk strain (harvested from Jester King dregs) so I'm unsure how I feel at this point... that yeast it smells like is -phenomenal- but wouldn't use in an IPA, which is my plan for this weekend. Hopefully I'm just worried for nothing Did you end up making a beer with your starter? Did it turn out ok?

 

[Andrew Hodgson]

I am also going to finally use my Aurora this weekend, in a Pale Ale. I am hoping this will become my in-house for hotter weather and quick turn-around. Will report back the results.

 

[Andrew Hodgson]

Has anyone who bottles used this yet? I am wondering if the carbing time is also much shorter, like the primary time? Seems to make sense to me but wondering if anyone has used this and bottle carbed.

 

[cefiro355]

Has anyone who bottles used this yet? I am wondering if the carbing time is also much shorter, like the primary time? Seems to make sense to me but wondering if anyone has used this and bottle carbed.

I haven't bottled yet but from overbuilding starters and attempting to cold crash to save yeast this strain doesn't like to clear out, so if yeast stays in suspension I would get bottles in fridge at 12-14 day mark and not any longer.

 

[blackelbow]

Has anyone who bottles used this yet? I am wondering if the carbing time is also much shorter, like the primary time? Seems to make sense to me but wondering if anyone has used this and bottle carbed.

I bottled my Aurora batch. I checked the carb after ~10 days and it was no more or less carbonated than I've seen with other yeasts. It might only carb faster than other yeasts if you store the bottles at 90+ degrees, since the temp (not just the strain) is part of why the primary is so fast. My bottles were stored at normal room temp.

 

[cefiro355]

Just a heads up for anyone that's planning on drying, I've successfully dried this and Oslo and tested both dried fantastically (made lots).

 

[Andrew Hodgson]

So my first beer with this was also my first NEEPAH. Chilled and tried the first one yesterday one week and one day from brew-day. It will need a couple more days to fully carb up but I must say I wanted to see if the speed with which the kveiks ferment also leads them to condition beer faster and I would say this beer is very drinkable, doesn't have hop astringency, diacetyl, harsh hop bite, any of that.

It did attenuate to 90%, a little high for the range they list. But I pitched it as if it was normal ale yeast, next time I'll experiment with a tablespoon pitch or something similar.

Also did not push temps too high and got a hint of orange during ferment but I can say now that that hop character has overtaken any yeast character there was initially. Overall very happy and ready to try this yeast all sorts of ways this summer.

 

[cefiro355]

So my first beer with this was also my first NEEPAH. Chilled and tried the first one yesterday one week and one day from brew-day. It will need a couple more days to fully carb up but I must say I wanted to see if the speed with which the kveiks ferment also leads them to condition beer faster and I would say this beer is very drinkable, doesn't have hop astringency, diacetyl, harsh hop bite, any of that.

It did attenuate to 90%, a little high for the range they list. But I pitched it as if it was normal ale yeast, next time I'll experiment with a tablespoon pitch or something similar.

Also did not push temps too high and got a hint of orange during ferment but I can say now that that hop character has overtaken any yeast character there was initially. Overall very happy and ready to try this yeast all sorts of ways this summer.

How did you like NEEPAH? The only time I brewed with it last year I wasn't happy with the resulting beer. It's literally the only beer I've brewed in over 30+ brews that I was kinda "meh" about. Wasn't a drain pour or anything just came out sorta like a run of the mill pale when the recipe was filled with hops and neipa practices. I'd like to brew with it again because I saved a bunch in my bank but curious if anyone got an "amazing" beer out of it.

 

[Andrew Hodgson]

Without knowing your set-up and having only done this one attempt I would be wary of advocating for anything based on this first use. All I can say is that 24 hours after the beginning of carbing/conditioning I enjoyed the beer. I'll have another today as I think the kveik will have it in it's best condition quickly, hopefully in the next couple days.

First a disclaimer on me and NEEPAH's: my system sucks for making them. I can't keg, my best FV practice for scrubbing O2 is adding sugar with the dry hops, and I cannot purge my bottles before filling etc. I don't have fermentation control and I cannot cold crash without massive O2 exposure, so I omit it altogether. Many of things things seem to be NEEPAH best practices. This is why I was interested in using a yeast that can condition and ferment fast.

If you have successfully brewed NEEPAH's with other yeast I don't know that I would switch. Although to be fair I didn't push the yeast toward 100 which likely would have given more orange flavors to compliment the hops. But basically I made this beer because I had not tried to make a NEEPAH and I had so many hops on hand I had to get rid of some.

TL;DR I wouldn't call it amazing, and I only am interested in the kveiks at this time because I have no consistent temperature control.

 

[cefiro355]

Without knowing your set-up and having only done this one attempt I would be wary of advocating for anything based on this first use. All I can say is that 24 hours after the beginning of carbing/conditioning I enjoyed the beer. I'll have another today as I think the kveik will have it in it's best condition quickly, hopefully in the next couple days.

First a disclaimer on me and NEEPAH's: my system sucks for making them. I can't keg, my best FV practice for scrubbing O2 is adding sugar with the dry hops, and I cannot purge my bottles before filling etc. I don't have fermentation control and I cannot cold crash without massive O2 exposure, so I omit it altogether. Many of things things seem to be NEEPAH best practices. This is why I was interested in using a yeast that can condition and ferment fast.

If you have successfully brewed NEEPAH's with other yeast I don't know that I would switch. Although to be fair I didn't push the yeast toward 100 which likely would have given more orange flavors to compliment the hops. But basically I made this beer because I had not tried to make a NEEPAH and I had so many hops on hand I had to get rid of some.

TL;DR I wouldn't call it amazing, and I only am interested in the kveiks at this time because I have no consistent temperature control.

I think I misunderstood you I was referring to Bootleg Biology's NEEPAH yeast.

 

[Andrew Hodgson]

Ah yeah, that's my fault, I like to use NEEPAH instead of NEIPA in reference to the style.. Haven't use that yeast before.

 

[TandemTails]

Throwing convention to the wind, what are your thoughts on using this yeast in an Irish Red or american amber? While I enjoy drinking NE-style IPAs, i don't like spending that much money on hops and my wife and I don't drink enough to kill a keg before the hop aromas and flavors fade.

I was trying to think what else to brew with this and thought I might give an amber/red a go. I feel like the yeast might be more geared towards an american amber, but who knows lol

 

[cefiro355]

Throwing convention to the wind, what are your thoughts on using this yeast in an Irish Red or american amber? While I enjoy drinking NE-style IPAs, i don't like spending that much money on hops and my wife and I don't drink enough to kill a keg before the hop aromas and flavors fade.

I was trying to think what else to brew with this and thought I might give an amber/red a go. I feel like the yeast might be more geared towards an american amber, but who knows lol

Like London Ale 3, Aurora doesn't like to drop out so it's extremely eazy to make Hazy, so if you are trying to make a clear amber I'd go with something else or Oslo.

 

[sethBSU]

Just a heads up for anyone that's planning on drying, I've successfully dried this and Oslo and tested both dried fantastically (made lots).

How did you go about drying these? My Oslo & Aurora just came in today, and I'm excited to use them, but I really wanted to make sure I can dry and repitch. Any tips for a noob?

 

[cefiro355]

How did you go about drying these? My Oslo & Aurora just came in today, and I'm excited to use them, but I really wanted to make sure I can dry and repitch. Any tips for a noob?

I use parchment in a dehydrator @ 100f for 6-8 hours depending on strain.

 

[Andrew Hodgson]

Pitched a very small amount of this into a Limeaide brew, had an issue with the vial and lost like 95% of the yeast, still started kicking in two days and is ripping strong now. Rotten orange smell overtaking the entire house.

 

[TandemTails]

I've got a 3L starter of aurora going now. I'm going to have a double brew day on Tuesday and I'll use Aurora in both. One is a barleywine and the other is a tropical stout. I made a huge starter so I can also dry some of the aurora for later use.

Anyone have any idea how much of a decanted starter I should pitch into each of those beers? The barleywine will be 4 gallons with an OG around 1.100 and the tropical stout will be 3 gallons with an OG around 1.065

 

[TandemTails]

I just pitched some aurora into 4 gallons of barleywine (1.086 OG) and 3 gallons of tropical stout (1.060 OG). I used about 1 tbsp of thick starter in each beer. Trying to keep it as hot as possible but it looks like i'm holding around 89'F. Will see if the heat wrap gets the beers up much higher.