Kveik drying

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tellyho

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Just to horrify the sanitizers out there....
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Looks good! I've tried this on a low gravity kettle sour recently. Took 1 gram of dried Omega Hornindal kveik, unknown volume, made a cup starter that I unintentionally left for several days and pitched that into 3 gallons of wort at pH 3.3. The starter had already dropped clear and there was about 12-24h lag time in wort but it finished within a week. 2x nutrients in both starter and wort and fermented at 60F. If this kind of performance holds true for future batches of any type of beer, the dried flakes should last me quite a while. They are stored in the freezer with this batch having used 2 month old kveik.
 
Next batch, I will probably split the cake between two jelly roll pans instead of one. More surface area. I got some mold on the bottom this time, so I binned it.
 
Sounds great, my saison belle test will probably be split with a Voss kveik which I intend to dry in a similar way, but as you already suggested, in a bit thinner layer.
 
Some [emoji16]

I've pitched as little as a few flakes.

I have also moved to much smaller volume of trub to dry; struggled to get that large amount dry.
 
Some [emoji16]

I've pitched as little as a few flakes.

I have also moved to much smaller volume of trub to dry; struggled to get that large amount dry.
Thanks. I already had dried some, but this is the first time I'll use it to brew. Should be fun.
 
my question is why didn't you add heat? drying it in the oven has yielded fantastic results for me, 10+ generations of drying different cultures and i haven't had an infected beer yet. although i do have a rather nice convection gas oven that allows me to dehydrate at 100 degrees. it usualy takes about 32 hours to full dry the yeast and dregs from a 5 gallon batch.
 
Closest I can get is 170 in my oven - think that would work? I know kveik is hardy stuff!
 
Closest I can get is 170 in my oven - think that would work? I know kveik is hardy stuff!
you could try it, i think 170 would be too high but its worth a shot. if u want i can test it myself i have some slurry sitting in a fermenter ready to dry this week and i can try out. another option would be to get one of those food dehydraters for cheap and use that. you will still be exposing it to ambient air and whatever bacteria is in it though.
 
you could try it, i think 170 would be too high but its worth a shot. if u want i can test it myself i have some slurry sitting in a fermenter ready to dry this week and i can try out. another option would be to get one of those food dehydraters for cheap and use that. you will still be exposing it to ambient air and whatever bacteria is in it though.
Wouldn't use those, they are literally blowing air over it all the time. This is asking for infections.
 
Air drying on parchment is how I save a bit of sourdough starter .. but admittedly, with SD you sort of want some wild yeast to settle on it.

I read a story once about a guy who wanted to emulate the Norwegian method of drying kveik so he dunked a dowel rod in a yeast cake and let that air dry. When it was time to pitch in the next beer he just swished the dowel rod in to rinse the yeast off. Said it worked fine.
 
170°F is way too hot. Pasteurization occurs over 140°F.

You can possibly use the oven light as a heat source to maintain lower temperature.
See here:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/drying-kveik-fast-and-easy-method.669196/
I baked mine accidentally with just the oven light. I didn't realize the oven light could produce so much heat but live & learn I guess. I even chiseled off some of the yeast to do a starter just for fun and to see how robust this stuff really is but it was a goner
 
I baked mine accidentally with just the oven light. I didn't realize the oven light could produce so much heat but live & learn I guess. I even chiseled off some of the yeast to do a starter just for fun and to see how robust this stuff really is but it was a goner
You mean, you made a baking tray of homemade yeast nutrients!
 
my question is why didn't you add heat? drying it in the oven has yielded fantastic results for me, 10+ generations of drying different cultures and i haven't had an infected beer yet. although i do have a rather nice convection gas oven that allows me to dehydrate at 100 degrees. it usualy takes about 32 hours to full dry the yeast and dregs from a 5 gallon batch.
I know this is resurrecting an old thread (if not a full zombie, than at least mostly dead...)
but what do you mean by drying different cultures? Different batches of Kveik, or different yeast strains in general?
Aside from Kveik, what strains do you have best results with?
 
Kveik is the only yeast slurry that I have ever dried. Everything else - if I am even going to try reusing - is saved as wet slurry in a sanitized mason jar.
 
By the way, if anyone is interested (and I guess you need to be stateside for just a 50 cent stamp), I have about 30 grams of Hothead Kveik, and I would be happy to mail you half of it (15g). Send me a private note with mailing address. I have to admit, I was not overjoyed with this yeast. Probably my bad for running it too cool. I pitched about 80 degrees (f) and it never really rose from there based on house temp. It was slow to start and slow to finish. In rethinking, I would add some dextrine malt to the grist, pitch at 85 degrees with some yeast nutrient, and set it on a seed starter pad.
 
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Closest I can get is 170 in my oven - think that would work? I know kveik is hardy stuff!

Did you end up trying this? I harvested a bunch of Voss, but with the sludge left over, I put it in my convection oven on the "dehydrate" setting.. 150 degrees, but I figured why not try. I expect it's toast, but wondering if you ended up trying it.
 
I'll just stick to slurry in Mason jars. I've seen the dried technique done but...I don't trust myself or the process.
 
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