(NEIPA) Imperial Yeast - Kveiking

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

brewpharm Hill

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 28, 2018
Messages
180
Reaction score
89
Location
Brooklyn, NY
I'm planning first brew with Kveik and decided to go with Imperial yeast's seasonal kveik blend called Kveiking. I'm brewing it in my NEIPA recipe.

Other than fermenting warm, not pitching the whole pouch, and this finishing out in a few days does anyone have advice for a first time kveik brewer? I plan on dry hopping a point or two before FG and throwing 1 oz of keg hops in if needed.

Imperial yeast also lists it as having low flocculation so any advice on getting this to clear quickly is a huge help! My goal is to turn this beer around in 5-6 days for family that will be in town.
 
Make sure to give double yeast nutrients if OG is <1.060. Keep temps high (80-100). Fermentation will likely be done very fast! My last NEIPA was fermented between 87-92, double dry hopped at 13 hrs and 21 hrs post pitch, kegged at 72 hrs.
 
Not sure what you are referring to by "drop the yeast out". This is a NE style beer so it is naturally cloudy and therefore hard to tell if low flocculation is contributing to the haze or if it is just the polyphenols. The beers don't taste yeasty. As long as you keep it cold for a day or two before serving you shouldn't get any yeasty flavor.

If you are trying to make a clear beer, I would simply advise dry hopping AFTER fermentation is complete. However, this is counter intuitive to what you would typically do for a NEIPA. NEIPAs aren't always cloudy but usually they are (hence their "hazy IPA" alternative name). Additionally, I think it would be near impossible get a clear beer in 5-6 days without a filtration system.
 
I brewed with this yeast yesterday for the first time. It was nearly two months old so I made a starter. It was bubbling like a motorboat this morning at 78f. The reason for it being so low is a local brewer noted it produced some caramel flavors at the upper end of the range, and I'm shooting for a fruity milkshake style IPA so caramel was not what I wanted.

Personally I was depending on its low flocculation to enhance its turbidity.
 
Yeah I just don't want a yeast bomb. I don't mind if it's like hefe levels of yeast.

Caramel flavors huh? Interesting. Imperial's website says pineapple and guava for higher temps. What was his pitching rate?
 
I brewed with this yeast yesterday for the first time. It was nearly two months old so I made a starter. It was bubbling like a motorboat this morning at 78f. The reason for it being so low is a local brewer noted it produced some caramel flavors at the upper end of the range, and I'm shooting for a fruity milkshake style IPA so caramel was not what I wanted.

Personally I was depending on its low flocculation to enhance its turbidity.

Also, please let me know how this turns out for flavor!
 
I checked it at 1.020 (this was after the 3lbs of blueberry puree was added) and wasn't getting much aroma. I pitched at just under 80, and my top temp was 84 that I noticed. Some family members tried my early pull and didn't note any tropical flavors. I think fermenting it "low" suppressed much of the yeast character, which actually works out quite well in my attempt to make a blueberry milkshake IPA with it. I'm pretty sure it was done fermenting by this morning, but I had to add some mosaic for the dry hop as it was missing way too much nose.
 
Looks like mine stopped at 1.020, which is probably the pound of lactose.

Screenshot_20190801-181340~2.png
 
Looks like mine stopped at 1.020, which is probably the pound of lactose.

View attachment 638364
1lb of lacto is .008 gravity points so theoretically the yeast brought you to 1.012.

I’ve used Voss and Horn. Kviek so far and they are excessively ester forward when pitched in the upper 90s. I’ve gone from 1.081-1.014 which was FG in 56 hours which is crazy. I think I preferred the horn. (Omega-091) for my NEIPA. Def not my favorite yeast for the style but really does a nice job in the summer months when temps are up and municipal water is above pitching temps
 
Beersmith is showing me at 1.016 with a pound. Variability is probably in the blueberries.
That could certainly be it. But also BeerSmith is only projections based on optimum outcomes. Yeast does what it wants and sometimes over or under attenuates from its typical. That being said, I’ve yet to see a kviek strain not attenuate more than its projected so you’re most likely correct with the blueberry
 
not pitching the whole pouch
so if i want a fruit bomb, how much of the pouch should i pitch? half? a quarter? a few drops?

my date stamp is from tuesday, so it's 3 days old so plenty of cells in there (for once i get a yeast that i don't care about cell count as much, and it's by far the freshest yeast i've ever bought!).

edit: per folks over at reddit, half a pouch is a lot... so i'm thinking maybe a quarter, or less. i'll reseal the pouch and add more if nothing happen after a few hours.
 
Last edited:
edit: per folks over at reddit, half a pouch is a lot... so i'm thinking maybe a quarter, or less.
due to some clumsiness on my part i ended up pitching about a third of the pack, which was more than i wanted to. pitched at 94*F. came back 2 hours later to a full-on fermentation: thick krausen on top, air lock going crazy, etc. insane.

fermentation smells a little weird, can't ID the smell tho... maybe a little sulfur? i added extra yeast nutrient, but maybe it wasn't enough.
 
due to some clumsiness on my part i ended up pitching about a third of the pack, which was more than i wanted to. pitched at 94*F. came back 2 hours later to a full-on fermentation: thick krausen on top, air lock going crazy, etc. insane.

fermentation smells a little weird, can't ID the smell tho... maybe a little sulfur? i added extra yeast nutrient, but maybe it wasn't enough.
I think you’re over thinking it. I use half the pack and get unreal esters.

yeast can throw sulfur from time to time, some strains do it all the time. You’ll have plenty of nutrients for the yeast from your grains. No need to use nutrients unless it’s a very big beer
 
I recently did some batches with hornindal. What I did was make a starter and then separate into 5 mason jars, and pitched one for each batch and fermented in my garage in the 75-95 ambient temp range. I still have one left and will probably do another starter with it and again separate into 5 jars. I didn't try to turn them around any faster than my other NEIPA batches with 1318 and conan.

I'm drinking the first one right now and it's good. Not quite as big a fruit bomb as I thought I'd get but definitely a good amount of fruitiness, particularly an orangey flavor. My wife likes it which means it is definitely fruit forward. The hops were amarillo, calypso and galaxy.
 
I think you’re over thinking it.
that is always a safe assumption :D

You’ll have plenty of nutrients for the yeast from your grains. No need to use nutrients unless it’s a very big beer
i've read (and recently heard on the MtF podcast) that kveik has higher nutrient needs that "regular" sacch. per larsblog's "kveik 101" post:

"Kveik has very high alcohol tolerance (typically 13-16%), probably because it's used to fermenting very high gravity beers. That also means kveik seems to have lost the ability to produce some of the nutrients it needs on its own. It's used to having lots of it available at all times. So fermentation on low-gravity worts can be quite slow and give low attenuation. The same goes for fermenting cider and mead. Putting in lots of yeast nutrient helps."
 
i've read (and recently heard on the MtF podcast) that kveik has higher nutrient needs that "regular" sacch. per larsblog's "kveik 101" post:

"Kveik has very high alcohol tolerance (typically 13-16%), probably because it's used to fermenting very high gravity beers. That also means kveik seems to have lost the ability to produce some of the nutrients it needs on its own. It's used to having lots of it available at all times. So fermentation on low-gravity worts can be quite slow and give low attenuation. The same goes for fermenting cider and mead. Putting in lots of yeast nutrient helps."
I have a very difficult time believing this personally. I have now used kviek 4 times in worts ranging from 1.052-1.081 all of which were mashed at 154 The 1.052 hit final gravity in 36 hours down to a 1.011(projected 1.015). The 1.081 hit 1.012 (1.017 projected) in 56 hours No nutrients were added for the yeast. Not saying the info is flat out wrong but it does jive with my experience.
 
I have a very difficult time believing this personally.
i think that should be the tagline for kveik :) pitch next to nothing, crank it up to 100*F, and it finishes out in 3 days or less? when i first read about kveik, i kept telling myself "i can't believe this, this can't be true"...

if you do a search for "kveik nutrients", you'll see there is a lot of mention of the higher nutritional needs of this family of yeast.

No need to use nutrients unless it’s a very big beer
strangely enough, many folks state that it's smaller beers that need extra nutrients because the concentration of nutrients isn't high enough (an example)
 
last night, ~24 hours after pitching, blowoff smelled really fruity. any weirdness, sulfur or otherwise, was gone.

this morning, @ ~36 hours, fermentation was still active but starting slowing down. i opened up the fermentor hoping to top-crop some yeast, and there was nothing left - surface of the beer was practically clear. i wouldn't be surprised if primary was done by the time i got home tonight, ~48 hours. fermentor holding at 95*F.

i'm going to skip dry-hoping this beer and drink as-is. i don't want anything more clouding the yeast's impact.
 
I pitched a whole pouch of kveiking into a 4.5% beer, it was finished literally overnight and was incredibly clean at a 90F ferment. This blend floccs really well actually, at least for me it did, and was clear in a couple days in the keg.

Next round I used 1oz of slurry...took a little longer to take off but the yeast esters are much more pronounced; strong tangerine/citrus with a hint of vanilla. Finished fermenting in a couple of days...haven't kegged it yet.
 
i'm going to skip dry-hoping this beer and drink as-is. i don't want anything more clouding the yeast's impact.
beer went from 1.065 to 1.012. i got A LOT of yeast character - i'd say even too much. very fruity, i'm getting a lot of tropical-type notes with a little citrus. i could do with fewer esters, but two other folks here are loving it as-is. i'm excited to re-use this yeast, but i will run it cooler than 95*F and go heavier on the late hops.

i didn't use whirlfloc or any other finings and this beer has a serious haze going on. i wonder if it'll clear with cold, time and lack of movement...
 
Any updates on pitch rates or amount of pouch used for batches? I have a pouch from April and I brew 15 Gallon batches. Should I just use the entire pouch?
 
after my august batches, i put a small mason jar of slurry + beer in the fridge, and left it there. a few weeks ago, i needed a third yeast for the last third of my 15 gallon batch, so i decided to resurrect the kveiking. i made a 1 liter simple starter (un-stirred). starter finished overnight, less than 7 hours. put maybe a third of it into the beer, put the rest back into a mason jar in the fridge for future use.

pitched at 69*F, inched my way up to 81*F over a few days. went from 1.054 to 1.009. hydro sample was relatively clean, certainly less ester-y than my last hot-fermented batch. it's cold-crashing now, haven't tasted the final product yet.

the kveiking fermented the starter and the beer with zero issues. amazing how a 9-month-old dormant yeast woke up and got to work with no problems (that i have detected so far, need to taste the carbonated beer before passing final judgement). i doubt that any other sacch could have survived such abuse.

Any updates on pitch rates or amount of pouch used for batches? I have a pouch from April and I brew 15 Gallon batches. Should I just use the entire pouch?
yes, i'd go with that. seems like you can't underpitch kveik. (i mean, sure, one cell won't ferment a batch, but there should be enough in there for 15 gals).
 
Last edited:
SweetCell,

Thanks for the input, I think I will make a starter and keep some aside for another brew. I'm very excited to finally try the Kviek yeast. My fermentation chamber refrigeration unit it out for repair and I don't have temp control, so it's a good time of year to have some kviek on hand. I'll keep you in the loop. I think I'm going to do a SMaSH with Munich and Sabro for my first Kviek beer. Cheers.
 
I'm on the tail end of an Omega Kveik Horn fermentation (95 degrees), and it stinks. Like dirty socks. I made a starter, but underpitched. I'm going to soft crash to 58 and DH for 48 hours. Hoping the smell disappears...
 
Back
Top