Omega Lutra yeast?

[Gusso]

Mine has gone slower than past times using Lutra. High OG (1.088), dropped 40 points the first 24 hours but has slowed. I am fermenting under pressure this time, so maybe that's why. It's currently at 1.026 and still fermenting fairly strongly. Hoping it gets to 1.015 or a bit lower.

It actually dropped to 1.010! Very potent brew but I don't think I would confuse it with a lager. But then again, I don't know if I ever had a 10% + lager outside of a Samiclaus I had 20 years ago to compare it to. I would just say it's a very clean ale that will knock your pants off!

 

[Miraculix]

Little update, the tartness actually faded a bit so that the beer is now quite enjoyable.

It is a nice low abv beer. A little dry hop addition would have been good, but as it is, I like drinking it. It is actually very clean a slight tartness is still there, but not as in your face as it was at the beginning.

So this yeast needs about 4 weeks in the bottle to shine.

 

[BongoYodeler]

Yesterday I pitched a packet of Lutra in a 5 gallon batch of Irish Red Ale. The blow off container is happily bubbling away. I pitched at 75° F and am letting it ferment at room temperature.

 

[Miraculix]

Yesterday I pitched a packet of Lutra in a 5 gallon batch of Irish Red Ale. The blow off container is happily bubbling away. I pitched at 75° F and am letting it ferment at room temperature.

This should actually work quite well. The only thing which might disturb the bigger picture a bit is the tartness, but I don't know if it will show itself in a normal gravity beer.

When I look at my beer now it is really clean. Nothing that makes you think "oh that's an ale!" Or "oh that's a lager". Even the kveik typical flavour which was quite direct at the beginning has vanished almost completely, together with the tartness. Overall, a good yeast to work with. I will try it again in a stronger beer at one point.

 

[Jack of All Trades]

My final thoughts on Lutra...
Meant to post this last week but life got busy. My blond ale turned out beautifully. Clear, clean, and quick. No doubt it could have gone grain to glass in 10 days. Took me 14 as I had to wait for a keg.
I didn’t get any tart taste as others have mentioned; however, my OG was 1.050 and my palate may not be as developed as others.

So...
Is it fast? Heck yeah.
Does it ferment clean? Yep.
Is it lager like? Kinda.
Will I use it again? Absolutely
Would I recommend it? Yep

Cheers !!

 

[OldDogBrewing]

Yeah you are probably on to something- just look at the history of these kveik strains - they are generally 7-12%abv quick farmhouse ales brewed over decades of saving yeast. That’s where they thrive.

I’ve given up on Lutra, it’s cold here and lager yeast is where I’m focusing. Probably won’t buy it again, I’d rather use an expressive kveik in an ipa than try to do something clean, much better yeasts for that.

If you add enough nutrients, including DAP, the kveik ferments whatever you want, I've fully fermented (with a common attenuation for that strain, so no stalling) as lower as 1.040 OG

 

[Miraculix]

If you add enough nutrients, including DAP, the kveik ferments whatever you want, I've fully fermented (with a common attenuation for that strain, so no stalling) as lower as 1.040 OG

It wasn't about the fermentation ability, but about the perceived tartness with a lower og beer. The beer in question was actually even below 1.04, full attenuation without additional nutrients.

 

[OldDogBrewing]

My final thoughts on Lutra...
Meant to post this last week but life got busy. My blond ale turned out beautifully. Clear, clean, and quick. No doubt it could have gone grain to glass in 10 days. Took me 14 as I had to wait for a keg.
I didn’t get any tart taste as others have mentioned; however, my OG was 1.050 and my palate may not be as developed as others.

So...
Is it fast? Heck yeah.
Does it ferment clean? Yep.
Is it lager like? Kinda.
Will I use it again? Absolutely
Would I recommend it? Yep

Cheers !!

View attachment 715285

How tart it goes is something that isn't fully studied

It wasn't about the fermentation ability, but about the perceived tartness with a lower og beer. The beer in question was actually even below 1.04, full attenuation without additional nutrients.

In my experience it has nothing to do as I have different beers with the same yeast and some are more tart than others, I add the same amount if nutrients. It's probably more related to yeast health, the grist, initial pH and so on. The only thing that nutrients seem to avoid is stalling and sulphur production in high nutrient demanding strains, for example WLP521 seems to need more nutrients than other kveik strains and cultures

 

[BongoYodeler]

Yesterday I pitched a packet of Lutra in a 5 gallon batch of Irish Red Ale. The blow off container is happily bubbling away. I pitched at 75° F and am letting it ferment at room temperature.

Update - I've kept this fermenting at room temperature since pitching Lutra on Monday. This time of year room temperature is around 63° at night and 67° during the day. Definitely a longer, slower fermentation than the first time I used Lutra, (that one fully fermented in 36-48 hrs at 85°). When fermentation bubbling slowed to crawl last night I put the fermenter on a heat mat in an attempt to coax out the last couple gravity points. There was no bubbling in the blow off pitcher this morning when I checked it, so I pulled a sample to check gravity - 1.016 (Beersmith estimated 1.012). Sample tasted quite good, the Mrs. really liked it. But I decided to rouse the yeast and put it back on the heat mat, wrapped it tight with a heating pad and moving blanket. It's now bubbling away again so we'll see how much further I can get it to drop. I'll probably keg it tomorrow regardless.

 

[Miraculix]

Update - I've kept this fermenting at room temperature since pitching Lutra on Monday. This time of year room temperature is around 63° at night and 67° during the day. Definitely a longer, slower fermentation than the first time I used Lutra, (that one fully fermented in 36-48 hrs at 85°). When fermentation bubbling slowed to crawl last night I put the fermenter on a heat mat in an attempt to coax out the last couple gravity points. There was no bubbling in the blow off pitcher this morning when I checked it, so I pulled a sample to check gravity - 1.016 (Beersmith estimated 1.012). Sample tasted quite good, the Mrs. really liked it. But I decided to rouse the yeast and put it back on the heat mat, wrapped it tight with a heating pad and moving blanket. It's now bubbling away again so we'll see how much further I can get it to drop. I'll probably keg it tomorrow regardless.

Why didn't you put it on the heating mat from start of fermentation?

 

[BongoYodeler]

Why didn't you put it on the heating mat from start of fermentation?

I wanted to see how cool I could push this yeast and still ferment with it. Since I pitched at 75° (24C) I'm guessing a bulk of fermentation occurred in the mid-upper 70's as I had visible signs within a couple hours. (I can see a Tilt Hydrometer in my future to better track this). With no temperature control it fell to the mid-upper 60's through the week, with slow and steady blow off activity. At the cooler temperature it never seemed anywhere near as vigorous a fermentation as when I first used Lutra to ferment a Schwarzbier. Even so for this one the krausen ring was still a good 3 inches above the beer. Tasting the hydro sample yesterday I got absolutely no hint of tartness. I asked my wife to describe the flavor and she didn't mention tartness either, even when I asked her about it specifically she said, "nope," just that it was delicious. I'm going to take one last gravity reading and keg it today.

 

[Merleti]

Didn't have the same results as others reported. I didn't do the same recipe(Friend request. Oh yeah lets try it.) or expect it to be.
Octoberfest beer with 24oz of Whopper per 5 gals. True candy Whoppers with wax slick at boil and after fermentation. Ferment at 86 with a spike of 92 the next day. (probes need to be secured).
End result cloudy green apple at 1 month. Green apple dropped 6 weeks later. Cloudy still appears almost 2 months later and has good head even with the true chocolate added.

Next time I will try the lower temps to see if I get a better result.

 

[shoreman]

Assuming you had a clean process and good brew day, the Whoppers are probably your issue in that beer, not the yeast. There’s probably a few chemicals or interactions going on that had effects on your beer.

 

[BongoYodeler]

I absolutely love Whoppers but I never thought of adding them to a beer. I have thought about using malted milk powder in a milk stout though.

 

[Miraculix]

Sorry guys, but being German, I feel a little bit disgusted. Poor beer.

 

[Gusso]

I absolutely love Whoppers but I never thought of adding them to a beer. I have thought about using malted milk powder in a milk stout though.

Isn't malted milk powder just DME?

 

[BongoYodeler]

From the Carnation Malted Milk Powder container...


Ingredients
WHEAT FLOUR AND MALTED BARLEY EXTRACTS, DRY WHOLE MILK, SALT, SODIUM BICARBONATE. MADE ON EQUIPMENT THAT ALSO PROCESSES SOY.

 

[Broothru]

Been following this thread and I'm finally ready to experiment with Lutra. BUT....There are so many things this "Swiss Army Knife" yeast supposedly can do, I can't decide which one to do.

Prolly won't do a lager, but I might try Lutra in an Alt or maybe a Kolsch. A Blonde or a 'fruited' Blood Orange Pale Ale both show promise as well. Maybe a simple SMASH with 2-row and the new Trident hop I've been wanting to try.

My question to the Forum is what temperature, and pressure or no pressure? The Alt/Kolsch would be no pressure and ferment around 65-70F. The ales would be 'some' pressure and 75-80F. Curious to see how this works under different circumstances with a goal of reduced esters, brilliant clarity, quick turnaround, and fidelity to style.

Any suggestions or anecdotal experiences are welcome!

Brooo Brother

 

[Miraculix]

I just had a direct comparison, one blonde fermented with S04 at about 16 degrees and one blonde fermented with Lutra. Both similar Ibus. The Lutra definitely is a bit tart, compared to the S04. It would be too good if there wouldn't be a catch.

 

[Miraculix]

Been following this thread and I'm finally ready to experiment with Lutra. BUT....There are so many things this "Swiss Army Knife" yeast supposedly can do, I can't decide which one to do.

Prolly won't do a lager, but I might try Lutra in an Alt or maybe a Kolsch. A Blonde or a 'fruited' Blood Orange Pale Ale both show promise as well. Maybe a simple SMASH with 2-row and the new Trident hop I've been wanting to try.

My question to the Forum is what temperature, and pressure or no pressure? The Alt/Kolsch would be no pressure and ferment around 65-70F. The ales would be 'some' pressure and 75-80F. Curious to see how this works under different circumstances with a goal of reduced esters, brilliant clarity, quick turnaround, and fidelity to style.

Any suggestions or anecdotal experiences are welcome!

Brooo Brother

Kveiks are traditionally fermented without pressure nd have evolved under these circumstances. I read about nothing but trouble when somebody tries to do a pressurized fermentation with them.

There are nearly no esters without pressure, so nothing to reduce. Fruited blood orange pale should work fine, as this one would be a bit tart anyway.

 

[JM-brew]

Been following this thread and I'm finally ready to experiment with Lutra. BUT....There are so many things this "Swiss Army Knife" yeast supposedly can do, I can't decide which one to do.

Prolly won't do a lager, but I might try Lutra in an Alt or maybe a Kolsch. A Blonde or a 'fruited' Blood Orange Pale Ale both show promise as well. Maybe a simple SMASH with 2-row and the new Trident hop I've been wanting to try.

My question to the Forum is what temperature, and pressure or no pressure? The Alt/Kolsch would be no pressure and ferment around 65-70F. The ales would be 'some' pressure and 75-80F. Curious to see how this works under different circumstances with a goal of reduced esters, brilliant clarity, quick turnaround, and fidelity to style.

Any suggestions or anecdotal experiences are welcome!

Brooo Brother

Used lutra with my mexican lager recipe recently. It wasn't the same (clean and light) as my mexican lager is, but actually was a pretty good kolsch style beer. I repitched the yeast into a baltic porter that came out pretty good too.

 

[Broothru]

Great. Just the type of info I was looking for. Your answer explains why there's not much info out there about fermenting keivks under pressure. My normal process would be to spund the final 5 points of gravity as opposed to a 1 BAR pressure to suppress esters at a higher fermentation temperature. Have there been issues fermenting under pressure late in the process? I've gathered from some of the comments on this thread that priming to carbonate with Lutra has been less than satisfactory. As fast as this yeast works, it might be difficult to actually get a spunding valve set before (but not after) 5 points of Final Gravity .

Brooo Brother

 

[Miraculix]

You can certainly try for the experiments sake, but given the chance of experiencing problems, I personally wouldn't.

 

[Broothru]

So you would suggest not to spund but rather dose with a dry yeast, or force pressure carb?

 

[stealthfixr]

I've got an Oktoberfest in the Spike conical, fermented with Lutra @ 10PSI & 71F, and it ought to go into a keg within a week. OG 1.067, FG 1.013 (mashed at 152F).

Samples sure seem clean, but I would not call it a lager (so far--it's cold conditioning and will improve with some time). More like a Kolsch yeast is how I would describe it right now. Whether it was the pressure or the lower end of the temp range, fermentation took over a week to reach a stable FG--not Kveik-like in speed. It still got to the predicted FG, even if it took a while.

 

[Gusso]

Btw, this one is a pseudo Imperial lager. OG was 1.088, it's down to 1.044 after 24 hours. Not as fast as my Baltic Porter but I'm doing this in a 10 G Torpedo keg with the SPUNDit set on 22psi right now. Fermenting at 90.

Finished at 1.010. Pressurized Fermentation, took longer than I thought. After a week in the keg, I thought nice ale that wouldn't be confused with a lager. A couple of weeks later? Maybe I could be confused. Very nice pseudo lager. Big Pseudo lager. 10%abv

 

[stealthfixr]

I've got an Oktoberfest in the Spike conical, fermented with Lutra @ 10PSI & 71F, and it ought to go into a keg within a week. OG 1.067, FG 1.013 (mashed at 152F).

Samples sure seem clean, but I would not call it a lager (so far--it's cold conditioning and will improve with some time). More like a Kolsch yeast is how I would describe it right now. Whether it was the pressure or the lower end of the temp range, fermentation took over a week to reach a stable FG--not Kveik-like in speed. It still got to the predicted FG, even if it took a while.

Follow-up: Kegged the "LutraFest" last weekend and is already crystal clear. The longer this beer cold conditions, the more like a lager it seems. Even has this lager 'signature' that no other ale has had in my experience. Still, so far not as 'clean' as a commercial lager, but getting better and closer with conditioning for sure.

My wife, who normally dislikes most ales, or anything hoppy, had a glass of it last night--huge compliment. Her comment was "Just like being in the Hofbrauhaus!"

 

[jcav]

Just want to report back on the perry cider my wife and I made with the Lutra yeast. The cider is very good. We did back sweeten with pear juice and we let it age for quite awhile and then started sampling it. It is very good and it still is tart and cider like, but it is also cleaner than when we used other yeasts. It is crisp and refreshing and she gets a lot of compliments from her friends who love cider. So all in all this was a great experiment. So when my fermentation chamber (upright freezer) is occupied fermenting my beer, I will order Lutra yeast again, and she can make her cider and keep it in a spare room to ferment. Great thread by the way, thanks for all the info from everyone about this yeast for the different beers.

John

 

[Gusso]

Finished at 1.010. Pressurized Fermentation, took longer than I thought. After a week in the keg, I thought nice ale that wouldn't be confused with a lager. A couple of weeks later? Maybe I could be confused. Very nice pseudo lager. Big Pseudo lager. 10%abv

Getting better by the day! Looking and tasting like the real deal.

 

[Gusso]

Couldn't delete the above video!

Doh!

Figured it out.