Dried Voss (kveik in general) is amazing

[Panderson1]

Pitched one pack (rehydrated) into 1.089 wort (x2IPA) 2 hours ago and it's already partying.
Long gone are the days of shipping liquid yeast. Worrying about health. Making a starter. Temperature control..... have fun with that

I probably could have pitched half this pack. $3 bucks.

Clean as a whistle. My last 10 batches have been flawless.

Dry yeast all day. Especially kveik.

I wish this stuff was available 10 years ago when i 1st started brewing. Would have saved lots of headaches

 

[DonT]

Yeah, I like dried Voss. Just kegged an 8.7% hazy that I had done in about 8 days. Pitched a whole pack @ 82F. It overshot a bit, got all the way down to 1.010 from 1.075.

 

[kadozen]

Sitting on an experimental recipe I plan to do in the next 3 batches. Guys at the LHBS have a door sour raspberry they did with Sourvisae. They said when they go back to it they're co-pitching with Voss, so figured I'd give it a shot. They had to dilute the batch because Sourvisae on its own can get enamel melting levels of sour.

Will be my first go with any kviek station strain

 

[niconizer]

On Saturday I tried dry Voss for the first time. I brewed centennial blonde.

Same here, after 2h fermentation was fully going on. It already slowed down that much, I am going to take a reading tomorrow.

Can’t wait to taste.

 

[Indian_villager]

I love that these kveik yeasts can rip through a beer without any fussing. However, have y'all found these beers to come out on the thin side. Especially if your OG is below 1.070?

 

[hottpeper13]

Lutra seems to finish around 1.010 no matter the mash temp or ferment temp.

 

[DonT]

I love that these kveik yeasts can rip through a beer without any fussing. However, have y'all found these beers to come out on the thin side. Especially if your OG is below 1.070?

I think the thin mouthfeel is due to the fact that it attenuates quite well. I let my 1.075OG go all the way down to 1.010 and it's a bit thinner than I wanted. My intention was to soft crash when it got to where I wanted ~1.015... I waited a day too long... that's all it took.

 

[OssianOtt]

I love voss kveik. My beer with any other yeas (albeit not that many, maybe 8-10 others) I've tried never tasted as good. The more you learn about it the more amazing it gets, like pitching 5 ml of slurry in a 20-25 liter batch and it just loves under pitching, or the fact that you can dry freeze it and keep it for 20 years, pitching a teaspoon dry frozen flakes (yet to try, i'm pitching slurry ATM).

 

[Panderson1]

^ i don't even worry about slurry cause a 1/4 pack isn't even $2 bucks.

I pitched half pack in a 12 gal batch last time.

 

[Jaurez]

I love Kveik Voss. Where I live has really hot summers, so it's become my summer yeast, but I'll use it all year round.

I guess it was bred with such extreme conditions that it can handle whatever we subject it to without much hassle - true viking yeast.

I mainly use it for IPAs and pale ales, but I want to try the other kveik to see whether they'll suit my maltier ales.

 

[Ninoid]

Tried with dry Voss Kveik yeast a few times and every time my beer was sour as if I squeezed a lot of lemon juice into it. True, the wort had less than 1,050 OG and I did not use nutrients.

 

[DonT]

Tried with dry Voss Kveik yeast a few times and every time my beer was sour as if I squeezed a lot of lemon juice into it. True, the wort had less than 1,050 OG and I did not use nutrients.

I think you mean tart.... which it can definitely be. What temp did you ferment at?

 

[Ninoid]

I think you mean tart.... which it can definitely be. What temp did you ferment at?

I agree, tart. I tried five or six times, from 18'C to over 35'C and every time the same.

 

[Protos]

Historically, Kveik yeasts, with all their praiseworthy qualities, have been selected to work at no less than 1.070 gravity. They just didn't brew lighter farmhouse ales there in Norway.
Fermenting thinner worts isn't its intended use, that's why so many complaints on using Kveik in lighter styles. Frankly, I found all my Kveik-fermented beers of the styles other than classic Norwegian Farmhouse Ales fairly yucky. Excessive tartness, peculiar and not-so-pleasant orangey twang, etc. But, when I go for an authentic strong Norwegian Farmhouse Ale from Garshol's book, juniper twigs including, I always get excellent results.

 

[hottpeper13]

Maybe that's why my 9% DIPA is so tasty.

 

[DonT]

Historically, Kveik yeasts, with all their praiseworthy qualities, have been selected to work at no less than 1.070 gravity. They just didn't brew lighter farmhouse ales there in Norway.
Fermenting thinner worts isn't its intended use, that's why so many complaints on using Kveik in lighter styles. Frankly, I found all my Kveik-fermented beers of the styles other than classic Norwegian Farmhouse Ales fairly yucky. Excessive tartness, peculiar and not-so-pleasant orangey twang, etc. But, when I go for an authentic strong Norwegian Farmhouse Ale from Garshol's book, juniper twigs including, I always get excellent results.

It might not be the intended use, but my NZ Pils made with Lutra @ 5.1ABV came out fine with none of the tartness or orangey stuff, that's Voss. And I have to agree, at least with Voss, I do think it works better at higher gravities. And I think the degree of tartness is temp dependent (this is my own working theory, would need more testing}, and maybe gravity has an influence as well.

 

[Protos]

The Hornindal strain (=Lutra) has no orangey twang, which is specifically Voss' thing. Hornindal is much more forgiving, in my experience, because its peculiar twang is of a "creamy" or "milky" character rather than fruity, it's also much less intrusive and noticeable even when pushed forward a bit. Probably, that's why Lutra seems to be much more popular in "foreign" styles than Voss.

On whether tartness and temperature are interrelated in some way, I can't judge. Although I've brewed Kveik-fermented beers of various gravities, I never tried fermenting them at various temperatures, all have been warm-fermented. The lower the gravity, the higher the tartness, that was my takeaway. I used mostly Voss, I rarely put my hands on Hornindal.

 

[Ninoid]

I can confirm that the temperature is not crucial because I fermented several batches at temperatures from 18'C to 35'C and the taste was always the same, and tartness was the predominant taste. I think you're right about the OG as my beers are never over 1.050, which is obviously quite low for Kveik.

 

[Cheshire Cat]

I use Voss and Horn for my American Amber and it’s always turned out great. Watch David Heath’s channel on YouTube he’s a great advocate of Kveik.

 

[Ninoid]

I use Voss and Horn for my American Amber and it’s always turned out great. Watch David Heath’s channel on YouTube he’s a great advocate of Kveik.

What is the OG of your Kveik Amber and what is the fermentation temperature?

 

[Cheshire Cat]

OG 1051, fermentation at 30C in 5 days down to 1010.

 

[Ninoid]

OG 1051, fermentation at 30C in 5 days down to 1010.

Dry Voss Kveik yeast?

 

[Cheshire Cat]

I’ve used both Voss and Horn.

 

[Ninoid]

I'm thinking, is it a good idea to ferment a high OG with Voss Kveik and then dilute it with water when bottling to get an ABV around 5%? Maybe that way I would avoid the tartness.

 

[Protos]

Technically, that's possible. It's called High Gravity Brewing. It's widely employed in the big industry to produce those watery and tasteless mass beers. At the homebrew level you may dilute a 1.080-1.100 beer up to 25% before the dilution starts to ruin the flavour balance.

But, do you really must to produce weird kveiky-like pseudo-kveikies by the dilution of the real Farmhouse-style beers? Be ready that any dilution makes your beer a bit watery even if it's below 25%, and Voss Kveik is already too much of a peculiar yeast to fiddle with its flavour any further. In my view, there's just no point to go such lengths to get an Ersatz-kveik, when you have thousands of beer recipes to brew properly in the 1.050 range using dozens of properly chosen yeasts.

Or just switch to Hornindal (Lutra etc.) which is not as tang. With Voss, you won't get luck under 1.070, I promise. I didn't.
Each yeast has its range of applications, and that of the Kveik yeast (Voss Kveik strain in particular) is suprisingly narrower than with most other yeasts. Which really shouldn't be much surpising as the strain has been selected for hundreds of years for producing, actually, the single sort of beer.

If the "light Kveik" tastes sour/tangy, just throw in some Soda. It gonna taste even more schitty but it won't be tart anymore. I did that.

 

[Ninoid]

Technically, that's possible. It's called High Gravity Brewing. It's widely employed in the big industry to produce those watery and tasteless mass beers. At the homebrew level you may dilute a 1.080-1.100 beer up to 25% before the dilution starts to ruin the flavour balance.

But, do you really must to produce weird kveiky-like pseudo-kveikies by the dilution of the real Farmhouse-style beers? Be ready that any dilution makes your beer a bit watery even if it's below 25%, and Voss Kveik is already too much of a peculiar yeast to fiddle with its flavour any further. In my view, there's just no point to go such lengths to get an Ersatz-kveik, when you have thousands of beer recipes to brew properly in the 1.050 range using dozens of properly chosen yeasts.

Or just switch to Hornindal (Lutra etc.) which is not as tang. With Voss, you won't get luck under 1.070, I promise. I didn't.

If the "light Kveik" tastes sour/tangy, just throw in some Soda. It gonna taste even more schitty but it won't be tart anymore. I did that.

I imagine that such a beer would taste like those beers that are made from factory cans and 1 kg of table sugar like I made at the beginning.
I quickly abandoned it.

 

[Protos]

Exactly. I's a personal taste thing, which probably involves body chemistry: you whether like Kveik-based fancy beers or hate them.
However I tried to come to love all those ultramodern kveiky recipes where every style is brewed with the trendy Norwegian strain, I couldn't get over it.
The majority of people probably won't agree that those beery Kveikensteins are excessively tart or otherwise unplesant. But if you (and I) do feel like that, why do we have to force ourselves to like, to brew, and to drink them? They aren't even as trendy as they used to be, so little gain from posting glasses of Kveik-fermented IPAs and Pastry Stouts on Instagram (lol ). I dropped those attempts for good and brew now only the real Nordic Farmhouse Ale recipes, which I like (although not as much as I like, f. ex. Bocks, English Strong Ales and Dubbels of equal strengths).

 

[Yesfan]

I read about the sour/tartyness of kviek in lighter beers, but what if you're pitching in bigger volumes vs larger gravities? Are you still going to get that sour twang when you pitch one pack of Lutra into a 10 gallon batch vs pitching 2 packs of US-05?

Another thing. One of the Apartment Brewer's episodes covered a comparison using Lutra in a pseudo-lager vs the real thing. IIRC, he adjusted his mash pH a little higher than norm to account for the tart factor. Any of you all tried that?

 

[sibelman]

Following up on @Yesfan I have to say that I'm intrigued by Kveik but I'm not looking for tart/sour in most of the beers I brew. Some of the above posts seem to claim that won't happen with higher-gravity beers. Also, that Kveik will attenuate strongly even with higher-gravity beers. Hmmm. High original gravity, I guess.

So: if I want to avoid even more subtle tartness, should I just stay away from all Kveiks? Are there particular Kveiks that don't do this? @Protos seems to say hornindal is "creamy or milky" -- maybe other words would help me understand that better?

Thanks in advance for any Kveik wisdom.

And, to @Yesfan -- I too was a Yes fan back in the day:
"Introduce me to that big blonde -- she's got a touch of Tuesday Weld."

 

[Yesfan]

Following up on @Yesfan I have to say that I'm intrigued by Kveik but I'm not looking for tart/sour in most of the beers I brew. Some of the above posts seem to claim that won't happen with higher-gravity beers. Also, that Kveik will attenuate strongly even with higher-gravity beers. Hmmm. High original gravity, I guess.

So: if I want to avoid even more subtle tartness, should I just stay away from all Kveiks? Are there particular Kveiks that don't do this? @Protos seems to say hornindal is "creamy or milky" -- maybe other words would help me understand that better?

Thanks in advance for any Kveik wisdom.

And, to @Yesfan -- I too was a Yes fan back in the day:
"Introduce me to that big blonde -- she's got a touch of Tuesday Weld."

You get two thumbs up from me friend. One for the obvious, my username. The other for the Donald Fagen lyric.

Cheers!

 

[Protos]

if I want to avoid even more subtle tartness, should I just stay away from all Kveiks?

Strictly speaking, yes you should. There's no Kveik yeast that doesn't impart any tartness at all, the question is in the level of tartness acceptable to you. You may know your preference only from your own experience with Kveiks. Most people don't have problems with Kveik tartness. Some have (me too). One of the ways to mitigate tartness is to brew higher original gravity beers, which is the intended use of the Norwegian Farmhouse yeast. Another is to employ less tart strains like Hornindal. Describing its estery profile as "milky or creamy" I mean that the esters in Hornindal are very peculiar, devoid of any fruity of flowery notes, another description other than "milky" may be "distantly toffee-like". That taste is not much more pleasant than the "rotten oranges" of Voss, but Hornindal is less tart than Voss, although not significantly.
Try both and judge yourself. Preferably, start with a traditional strong Norwegian Farmhouse recipe. If you feel you like that twang really much, you may try it in other lighter styles (be ready though they may be tarter than the strong brew).What if you like them. Many do.

 

[ShaneB]

my favorite part of dry yeast is how you can order it on amazon, verdant and voss are good

 

[Miraculix]

In my experience, kweik twang or tartness does not depend on temperature. I've had this fermented and cool at room temperature, north same tartness. Lutra is the one stain that has the lowest tartness but it still has it. I've brewed a normal strength red American with it and it developed the tartness over time. Wasn't a bad beer but a tart one.

I strongly disagree with the diluting high og beer after fermentation equals watery beer though. That is simply not true. Us holy Germans (ask the beer goddess!) Are doing this solution thing since ages to squeeze out more (!!!!) Flavour from Hefeweizen. In this case because of enhanced ester production, which is not of interest in this specific case, but nevertheless, the malt and hop aspect of the flavour also stays as expected.

Basically if you dilute after fermentation a 1.1 og beer with 80 ibus by 50%, you'll end up with two "normal" beers 1.05 og and 40 ibus. I've tried that, it works. No watery thing, except if you dilute it further into the range where every beer would get watery.

 

[Protos]

Basically if you dilute after fermentation a 1.1 og beer with 80 ibus by 50%, you'll end up with two "normal" beers 1.05 og and 40 ibus. I've tried that, it works.

Probably, again a question of personal tastes...
In the same sutuation (a 1.094 OG) I felt I wrecked the flavour profile at just 25% of water dilution (which was recommended as the maximum in a BYO article on High Gravity Brew). To my surprise, I found that diluting a weaker beer (like 1.055 to 1.044) had less detrimental effect on the flavour.

Remind me please, at which stage of the process Weissbier is diluted? I'm remembering I've read something in this vein, but can't remember exactly.

 

[Miraculix]

Probably, again a question of personal tastes...
In the same sutuation (a 1.094 OG) I felt I wrecked the flavour profile at just 25% of water dilution (which was recommended as the maximum in a BYO article on High Gravity Brew). To my surprise, I found that diluting a weaker beer (like 1.055 to 1.044) had less detrimental effect on the flavour.

Remind me please, at which stage of the process Weissbier is diluted? I'm remembering I've read something in this vein, but can't remember exactly.

I'm not 100% sure but I think it's just after fermentation finished.

 

[Ninoid]

I'm not 100% sure but I think it's just after fermentation finished.

In bottling (keg) time?

 

[Protos]

Well I've found where I read of Weissbier dilution. The holy Germans suggest to brew the beer at a much higher gravity to coax more clovey-bananesque esters (they say ester/gravity equation isn't simply arythmetical, which I may confirm, as a 1.100 wort produces more esters than a double volume of 1.050 wort). Then the super-estery strong beer is diluted at bottling down to the gravity normal for the style and you have a slightly more estery Weissbier.

Returning to the Kveik subject, I don't think the method is appliable for producing less tart lighter Kveik-based beers. One hardly wants a more estery Kveik as kveiky esters are far not as nice as those of Weissbier.

 

[Protos]

Lutra is the one stain that has the lowest tartness but it still has it. I've brewed a normal strength red American with it and it developed the tartness over time. Wasn't a bad beer but a tart one.

That was exactly my experience with Hornindal too (not in its Lutra avatar but as OYL-091): I made a nice Norwegian Farmhouse with it. No tartness, pleasant creaminess-toffyness. In half a year - bang, it's tart, no better than Voss.
Keeping strong traditional Kveiks for longer than a couple weeks is also isn't its intended way of use. The "vikings" brewed them strong and drank them fast (given that the real farmhouse yeast stored on logs in barns contained an entire microbial zoo, Lactobacillus and Escherichia included).

 

[DVCNick]

My experience:
Batch #1: Azacca pale ale at 1.061 OG. Dry Voss packet pitched at 85f, let it run/possibly had to drive it to 100F and held there for 5 days. It looked done in 3. Kegged at 10 days. There was some sort of bad off flavor that stuck around for weeks until it finally mostly dissipated. It might have been "tart".

Batch #2: Fermenting now. Same recipe, same 1.061 OG. Pitched at 68F and just didn't temp control, it ran up into the low 80's on its own in this summer environment with the house in the mid 70's ambient. It's on the way back down now. Total schedule looks like it is going to be very similar to the US05 I would normally use in a beer like this. I haven't tasted it yet, but I think I'm getting the same smells off it that I did the first time. Will have to keg, carb, and taste before making a final judgement.

But... 1) "not having to temp control it" isn't a selling point for me since it is sitting in my temp chamber anyway and all I have to do is hit a button to set it to any temp I want. 2) IF (still TBD) I have to run it cooler to get it clean, and it takes just as long then as other yeast I know I like, speed is then not a selling point.

We'll see how this batch comes out, but if there is even a hint of the off flavor that takes a while to go away, it isn't going to make sense for me to save even 5 days on the front end if it needs more conditioning on the back end.
I'm guessing this will be my last rodeo with it, but time will tell.

 

[Miraculix]

That was exactly my experience with Hornindal too (not in its Lutra avatar but as OYL-091): I made a nice Norwegian Farmhouse with it. No tartness, pleasant creaminess-toffyness. In half a year - bang, it's tart, no better than Voss.
Keeping strong traditional Kveiks for longer than a couple weeks is also isn't its intended way of use. The "vikings" brewed them strong and drank them fast (given that the real farmhouse yeast stored on logs in barns contained an entire microbial zoo, Lactobacillus and Escherichia included).

I'd like to add that the one stronger traditional Rye kveik that I brewed after your recommendation, which was the best Kveik for me so far, totally nice beer, was still very good even after a few months in the bottle. That one was brewed with Voss. The twang was there but it complemented the lower ibu strong beer very well. It was around 20 ibus and with an og of about 1.07, if I remember correctly. Would brew this one again any time and recommend something like this with Kveik in general. Was a very good recomendation.

My experience:
Batch #1: Azacca pale ale at 1.061 OG. Dry Voss packet pitched at 85f, let it run/possibly had to drive it to 100F and held there for 5 days. It looked done in 3. Kegged at 10 days. There was some sort of bad off flavor that stuck around for weeks until it finally mostly dissipated. It might have been "tart".

Batch #2: Fermenting now. Same recipe, same 1.061 OG. Pitched at 68F and just didn't temp control, it ran up into the low 80's on its own in this summer environment with the house in the mid 70's ambient. It's on the way back down now. Total schedule looks like it is going to be very similar to the US05 I would normally use in a beer like this. I haven't tasted it yet, but I think I'm getting the same smells off it that I did the first time. Will have to keg, carb, and taste before making a final judgement.

But... 1) "not having to temp control it" isn't a selling point for me since it is sitting in my temp chamber anyway and all I have to do is hit a button to set it to any temp I want. 2) IF (still TBD) I have to run it cooler to get it clean, and it takes just as long then as other yeast I know I like, speed is then not a selling point.

We'll see how this batch comes out, but if there is even a hint of the off flavor that takes a while to go away, it isn't going to make sense for me to save even 5 days on the front end if it needs more conditioning on the back end.
I'm guessing this will be my last rodeo with it, but time will tell.

Tartness is not a real flavour. Tartness is mildly sour. What you are describing might be the particular Voss flavour which some describe as "orange", which I do not agree with. But every palate is certainly different.