Drying Kveik. Fast and Easy method

[RPh_Guy]

Lots of posts on this topic seem to involve drying over a period of 4-7 days and questionable sanitation.

Here's my experience:

Skim off some kräusen with a sanitized spoon. For when to do this, refer to recommendations for your specific culture.

Put it on some waxed paper.
Spread it thin.

Put it in the oven.
Turn on the oven light and close the door. The inside of the oven is probably the most sanitary part of your home. No specialized equipment required. Use a cookie drying rack if your oven doesn't have its own rack.
The oven is not hot, just slightly warm, around 80°F. ALERT: Some ovens have more powerful lights than others. Monitor with a thermometer if you aren't sure how hot it may get, and/or leave it slightly propped open.
Here it is after a few hours:

Open the oven maybe once or twice to equalize the humidity and for exciting photo ops.

After only 12 hours:

It already looks done, but leave it a full 24 hours to be sure it's fully dry. When it no longer smells yeasty the flakes should be fully dehydrated.

Flake the yeast into a plastic bag. Label. Store in the fridge or freezer. Supposedly they'll be viable up to 20 years.

 

[OpenSights]

Subscribed

 

[deadwolfbones]

Definitely easier than the food dehydrator I've been using.

 

[khannon]

Does the dehydrator work though? Have you tried a few generations? Because that would be simpler for me.. SWMBO is running it pretty frequently.

 

[Miraculix]

Lots of posts on this topic seem to involve drying over a period of 4-7 days and questionable sanitation.

Here's my experience:

Skim off some kräusen with a sanitized spoon. For when to do this, refer to recommendations for your specific culture.

Put it on some waxed paper.
Spread it thin.
View attachment 639884

Put it in the oven.
Turn on the oven light and close the door. The inside of the oven is probably the most sanitary part of your home. No specialized equipment required. Use a cookie drying rack if your oven doesn't have its own rack.
The oven is not hot, just slightly warm, around 80°F
Here it is after a few hours:
View attachment 639883

Open the oven maybe once or twice to equalize the humidity and for exciting photo ops.

After only 12 hours:
View attachment 639885
It already looks done, but leave it a full 24 hours to be sure it's fully dry. When it no longer smells yeasty the flakes should be fully dehydrated.

Flake the yeast into a plastic bag. Label. Store in the fridge or freezer. Supposedly they'll be viable up to 20 years.

Good job, thanks for sharing!

 

[Dland]

Does one open fermentor to skim krausen off top? Not sure I'd want to do that.

Would this work with slurry from bottom dump?

 

[Brew_Dude41]

I see at least one challenge using slurry vs top cropping: yeast gathered by top cropping is almost 99% yeast harvested at it's peak health vs slurry which will be a very wet mixture of yeast, trub, and beer. It will take significantly long to dry the slurry and unless you wash it extremely well, you are not going to be able to separate out that trub.
Also the extended drying time increases the opportunity for other bugs to get a foothold in the beer that the yeast is mixed with.
(No imperial evidence to support the above statement-just my observation and opinion)

 

[dmtaylor]

Anybody dare me to try this on non-kveik yeast!? Challenge accepted!

Sincerely, I think this is a stellar idea! Thanks for sharing!!

 

[Jayjay1976]

The oven definitely seems more sanitary than a dehydrator. Would this work with other yeast strains as well?

 

[Soulshine2]

Anybody besides me thought of what should be the easy way idea to get the kraeusen crop out ...blow off tube to a sanitized jar. I could be wrong but seems to me it should be almost a pure yeast strain at that point. Seems way easier and most likely less risk of contamination than washing yeast methods.
I like this post. Thanks for sharing.

 

[deadwolfbones]

Does the dehydrator work though? Have you tried a few generations? Because that would be simpler for me.. SWMBO is running it pretty frequently.

Yes it does, at least through one generation of starter -> drying.

 

[deadwolfbones]

Does one open fermentor to skim krausen off top? Not sure I'd want to do that.

Why not? Opening during active fermentation should be fine since any O2 you let in will be pushed out by CO2 being produced.

 

[Bigdaddyale]

 

[Dland]

Why not? Opening during active fermentation should be fine since any O2 you let in will be pushed out by CO2 being produced.

Opening up sealed and sanitized conical seems like an infection risk to me.

 

[deadwolfbones]

Opening up sealed and sanitized conical seems like an infection risk to me.

Anything that gets in is gonna be seriously out-competed by that raging kveik. I wouldn't worry too much about it. But hey, your call.

 

[bleme]

I wonder all the time why nobody is selling dry kveik yeast...

 

[deadwolfbones]

I wonder all the time why nobody is selling dry kveik yeast...

https://www.etsy.com/shop/KveikSupply

 

[Dgallo]

Lots of posts on this topic seem to involve drying over a period of 4-7 days and questionable sanitation.

Here's my experience:

Skim off some kräusen with a sanitized spoon. For when to do this, refer to recommendations for your specific culture.

Put it on some waxed paper.
Spread it thin.
View attachment 639884

Put it in the oven.
Turn on the oven light and close the door. The inside of the oven is probably the most sanitary part of your home. No specialized equipment required. Use a cookie drying rack if your oven doesn't have its own rack.
The oven is not hot, just slightly warm, around 80°F
Here it is after a few hours:
View attachment 639883

Open the oven maybe once or twice to equalize the humidity and for exciting photo ops.

After only 12 hours:
View attachment 639885
It already looks done, but leave it a full 24 hours to be sure it's fully dry. When it no longer smells yeasty the flakes should be fully dehydrated.

Flake the yeast into a plastic bag. Label. Store in the fridge or freezer. Supposedly they'll be viable up to 20 years.

Have you done this with any over built starters or just top cropping?

 

[bleme]

https://www.etsy.com/shop/KveikSupply

I was thinking more along the lines of Morebeer, but this works too!
1 gram one the way...

• 
  
  
  AURLAND #38 Dried Kveik

 

[deadwolfbones]

Nice thing about the KveikSupply kveiks is that they all appear to be original cultures, not single-strain isolates.

 

[deadwolfbones]

Have you done this with any over built starters or just top cropping?

I'm doing it right now with a starter I made from KveikSupply's Tormodgarden. I'll let you know how it goes.

 

[VirginiaHops1]

What I've been doing with it is make a starter and separate it out into some mason jars, and when I get to the last jar do another starter and repeat. I do want to try to dry some out at some point. This stuff seems so insanely robust, I doubt you even have to handle it with kid gloves. I could probably empty the used cake on my back patio and retrieve it a few days later. Wouldn't be surprised if it brewed/bottled a batch of beer for me while it was back there.

 

[RPh_Guy]

I wonder all the time why nobody is selling dry kveik yeast...

Sold out (right now) but Mainiacal does sell a variety of interesting stuff including dried Kveik, mostly the original cultures.
https://www.mainiacalyeast.com/online-shop/

This culture I have is a mix of Midtbust and Simonaitis original cultures I got from a yeast exchange on Facebook.

Does one open fermentor to skim krausen off top? Not sure I'd want to do that.

Would this work with slurry from bottom dump?

Top harvesting (1) contains much healthier and (2) more pure yeast, (3) it's more readily prepared for storage, and (4) it maintains the integrity of a mixed culture that was traditionally top-cropped (most of the kveik cultures).
Maintaining the correct microbial ratio in a mixed culture is the main reason for using this technique, in my opinion. Longer shelf life is certainly an advantage as well.

The yeast won't need to be harvested every batch; you'll get plenty of dried yeast to use for several batches.

If you don't want to open the fermenter, that's your call, and you're welcome to dry the slurry instead. YMMV.

Would this work with other yeast strains as well?

I have no idea. Experiment away! Post results here please

Cheers

 

[Jayjay1976]

I like the idea of saving the blow-off via an inline collection jar. Can't imagine a cleaner/less risky way to top crop.

 

[Bigdaddyale]

Does anybody want to barter for some dry yeast?

 

[TandemTails]

I've got some Oslo in the oven right now using this method. I made a starter the other day, let it run its course, decanted and kept some of the slurry in jars and put the rest in the oven. I'm hoping this works since my dehydrator gets too warm and killed my last batch that i tried drying in there.

 

[RPh_Guy]

Does anybody want to barter a fermentation controller PCB for some dry yeast?

PM sent

 

[RPh_Guy]

I packaged 11g of yeast, enough for 11x 5 gal batches!

 

[TandemTails]

Slurry from a 1.5L Oslo starter on wax paper. I had the wax paper in a little baking sheet when i poured the slurry to help keep it in check.

15 hours in the oven with the light on. I had an oven thermometer in there and it looked like it was sitting comfortably around 90'F. Not sure if oven rack position makes any difference.

 

[Soulshine2]

Does anybody want to barter for some dry yeast?

seriously...is there a yeast bank & barter we could do ?

 

[deadwolfbones]

There's active trading on the Milk the Funk Facebook group and also the homebrewing subreddit. But yeah, I'd be happy to trade with people here, as well.

 

[cactusgarrett]

There's active trading on the Milk the Funk Facebook group and also the homebrewing subreddit. But yeah, I'd be happy to trade with people here, as well.

I'd be interested, too, but I don't know how I'd get started since i've only got two widely available Omega cultures banked.

 

[RPh_Guy]

This beer ended up tasting like a hefeweizen, with a little more clove than banana. Not really what I was expecting, but it's decent.

...
I am willing to [try to] organize a yeast exchange during the cooler months.

 

[deadwolfbones]

I don't think you really have to worry about temperatures with the dried yeast.

@RPh_Guy I'd trade you some White Labs Opshaug for the blend you've got.

 

[RPh_Guy]

I don't think you really have to worry about temperatures with the dried yeast.

@RPh_Guy I'd trade you some White Labs Opshaug for the blend you've got.

PM sent

 

[blasterooni]

I like the idea of saving the blow-off via an inline collection jar. Can't imagine a cleaner/less risky way to top crop.

I do it that way as well

 

[eddie]

Does one open fermentor to skim krausen off top? Not sure I'd want to do that.

Would this work with slurry from bottom dump?

I don't see why not. Their's a lot of sediment mixed in with the yeast in trub (dead yeast, hops, protein break,) though. The krausen is mostly just yeast. Trub yeast tends to have been stressed more, as well.

 

[Dland]

Yeah I saved the yeast & dried the way the our yeast pros said, but since the beer was a dumper, I did not save the end product.

 

[Nixta]

Hi

Do you make a starter with the dried yeast or just throw in some dried flakes in 5 gal, how much dried flakes?

Niklas

 

[RPh_Guy]

Do you make a starter with the dried yeast or just throw in some dried flakes in 5 gal, how much dried flakes?

A starter isn't a bad idea. 1-2 grams of yeast should be ok for 5 gal.