Rare yeast, and I'm getting ahold of some!

[Biobrewer]

The Voss Kveik strain is ultra floccant, and creates massive flocs especially during propagation. We actually banked the strain (thanks Lars!) with White Labs recently for The Yeast Bay, and should have some White Labs propagated product for homebrewers and craft brewers soon. In the mean time, we actually have some beta propagated vials currently up on The Yeast Bay website:

http://www.theyeastbay.com/brewers-yeast-products/sigmunds-voss-kveik

If you think yours was infected, try a vial we currently have up! The strain is really great. Orange zest ester, drier, massively large temperature range. Definitely a unique yeast!

 

[senegalego]

@Biobrewer: Do you have any idea if it is available in Europe?

The Voss Kveik strain is ultra floccant, and creates massive flocs especially during propagation. We actually banked the strain (thanks Lars!) with White Labs recently for The Yeast Bay, and should have some White Labs propagated product for homebrewers and craft brewers soon. In the mean time, we actually have some beta propagated vials currently up on The Yeast Bay website:

http://www.theyeastbay.com/brewers-yeast-products/sigmunds-voss-kveik

If you think yours was infected, try a vial we currently have up! The strain is really great. Orange zest ester, drier, massively large temperature range. Definitely a unique yeast!

 

[Biobrewer]

The Yeast Bay strain will be available to anyone who buys wholesale vials from us in Europe. I just spoke with White Labs about it and the banking is going very well, so I'm guessing no more than a couple weeks before White Labs produced culture is available to both homebrewers and craft brewers.

 

[Biobrewer]

@Biobrewer: Do you have any idea if it is available in Europe?

White labs just finished the banking. Any stores that carry our products can get it wholesale now with their Yeast Bay order. It is also on the Yeast Bay website for purchase by US homebrewers.

Cheers!

 

[RedIvan16]

Late to the party, but definitely thinking of trying out a farmhouse style beer with the kveik yeast. Do I need to get another fermentor or bucket like I would an American sour? I know those yeast strains are tough to clean out and often will contaminate clean beers fermented in the same vessels

 

[Biobrewer]

Nick from The Yeast Bay here. Our strain is a strain of Saccharomyces cerevisiae that is as easy to clean away as most other strains. Go ahead and use your normal equipment!

 

[RedIvan16]

Nick from The Yeast Bay here. Our strain is a strain of Saccharomyces cerevisiae that is as easy to clean away as most other strains. Go ahead and use your normal equipment!

Thanks for the reply! That puts my mind at ease. I'll be ordering some in the next few weeks!

 

[anotherbeerplease]

Man this is awesome! You should make your own stirplate - I did and it's super great. Hope the yeast works out for you.

 

[Biobrewer]

Reviving this to let folks know in the coming weeks we'll be releasing this Sigmund's Voss Kveik blended with our new Metchnikowia reukaufii isolate, a new "rare" yeast that was isolated from raspberry bushes in the Berkeley, CA hills. You can click on the link above for more info on M. reukaufii and it's properties in co-fermentation, but here's some info on the blend:

Kveik’n Hills - Since we received data a couple of months back from Oozlefinch Brewing, we’ve been working on our own in-house M.reukaufii blends with a number of other strains we market for use in hop-forward beers. This culture will be the first blend to be released, and is the marriage of our M. reukaufii isolate from the Berkeley Hills of California with Sigmund’s Voss Kveik.

 

[Coffeeturnal]

Reviving this to let folks know in the coming weeks we'll be releasing this Sigmund's Voss Kveik blended with our new Metchnikowia reukaufii isolate, a new "rare" yeast that was isolated from raspberry bushes in the Berkeley, CA hills. You can click on the link above for more info on M. reukaufii and it's properties in co-fermentation, but here's some info on the blend:

Kveik’n Hills - Since we received data a couple of months back from Oozlefinch Brewing, we’ve been working on our own in-house M.reukaufii blends with a number of other strains we market for use in hop-forward beers. This culture will be the first blend to be released, and is the marriage of our M. reukaufii isolate from the Berkeley Hills of California with Sigmund’s Voss Kveik.

Am I understanding correctly that this is sort of marketed towards NEIPA brewing as a catalyst for "biotransformation"? I don't have a strong understanding of a lot of the terms used in the description of M. reukaufii. What sort of characteristics would be noticed from using it in worts that are less hoppy?

I live ~20 min away from Oozlefinch and love their beers... So when they get name dropped I get excited Are you at all at liberty to talk about anything related to their use of this yeast? (Totally understand if you're not)

 

[Biobrewer]

Am I understanding correctly that this is sort of marketed towards NEIPA brewing as a catalyst for "biotransformation"? I don't have a strong understanding of a lot of the terms used in the description of M. reukaufii. What sort of characteristics would be noticed from using it in worts that are less hoppy?

I live ~20 min away from Oozlefinch and love their beers... So when they get name dropped I get excited Are you at all at liberty to talk about anything related to their use of this yeast? (Totally understand if you're not)

I can definitely share, they are really great guys, and the side-by-side comparison they did is something we posted about in a newsletter we put out a couple months back. Here's what was in the newsletter:

"Metschnikowia reukaufii - Since late 2018, we've worked with Oozlefinch Brewing in Fort Monroe, VA to assess the utility of the Metschnikowia reukaufii isolates we isolated almost a year ago in the Berkeley Hills of California. Long story short, we know that M. reukaufii poorly utilizes maltose and longer chain maltose derivatives like maltotriose, though the genus in general is thought to have fairly strong expression of glucosidases, or enzymes that can transform and modulate the character of the beer by altering glycoside substrates. So, the Oozlefinch brewers took wort for their Nuggle Time Hazy IPA and fermented it using their usual house culture, as well as their house culture dosed with M. reukaufii.

They found that in a co-fermentation with their house culture the gravity and pH dropped significantly faster than their house culture alone. Additionally, their tasting trials noted the aroma was accentuated and moce complex in the beer co-fermented with M. reukaufii, in addition to the perceived bitterness of the beer being a little softer. They were kind enough to release some cans of each beer to us for our own tasting, and we were pleased to find the strain modulated and brought to the foreground the aroma profile of the beer and moderated the hop bitterness on the back end.

This accentuation of the aroma profile is likely due to not only the complex though rather subdued fruit cocktail ester profile of M. reukaufii, but is also likely owed to the production of glucosidases that utilize hop glycosides as substrate to free flavor active molecules from the sugars to which they are bound. M. reukaufii definitely has some very promising utility in co-fermentation, especially in beers that contain a significant proportion of glycosides."

Cheers!

 

[Miraculix]

i just read his blog for like 5 hours solid. i did see that you can buy the kveik strain from NCYC for like 140 ish US Dollars with a 70 ish dollars for shipping and handling. So you getting this for free is an awesome awesome thing.

any chance you would be willing to pass some of it down to the rest of us. would love to get my hands on this without spending $200.

Wtf

What a ripoff. I also got some real deal kveik from Norway, a gift from a friend who visited brewers there.
There are groups on Facebook with people willing to send some of their yeast as a nice gesture.

 

[kingmatt]

I can definitely share, they are really great guys, and the side-by-side comparison they did is something we posted about in a newsletter we put out a couple months back. Here's what was in the newsletter:

"Metschnikowia reukaufii - Since late 2018, we've worked with Oozlefinch Brewing in Fort Monroe, VA to assess the utility of the Metschnikowia reukaufii isolates we isolated almost a year ago in the Berkeley Hills of California. Long story short, we know that M. reukaufii poorly utilizes maltose and longer chain maltose derivatives like maltotriose, though the genus in general is thought to have fairly strong expression of glucosidases, or enzymes that can transform and modulate the character of the beer by altering glycoside substrates. So, the Oozlefinch brewers took wort for their Nuggle Time Hazy IPA and fermented it using their usual house culture, as well as their house culture dosed with M. reukaufii.

They found that in a co-fermentation with their house culture the gravity and pH dropped significantly faster than their house culture alone. Additionally, their tasting trials noted the aroma was accentuated and moce complex in the beer co-fermented with M. reukaufii, in addition to the perceived bitterness of the beer being a little softer. They were kind enough to release some cans of each beer to us for our own tasting, and we were pleased to find the strain modulated and brought to the foreground the aroma profile of the beer and moderated the hop bitterness on the back end.

This accentuation of the aroma profile is likely due to not only the complex though rather subdued fruit cocktail ester profile of M. reukaufii, but is also likely owed to the production of glucosidases that utilize hop glycosides as substrate to free flavor active molecules from the sugars to which they are bound. M. reukaufii definitely has some very promising utility in co-fermentation, especially in beers that contain a significant proportion of glycosides."

Cheers!

Interesting! So you would recommend pitching the M. refukaufii with another sacc strain? Would you pitch in equal cell counts and at the same time? Do you recommend sticking with the Kveik strains?

 

[Biobrewer]

Interesting! So you would recommend pitching the M. refukaufii with another sacc strain? Would you pitch in equal cell counts and at the same time? Do you recommend sticking with the Kveik strains?

You pretty much have to co-pitch with a stronger fermenter of maltose, M. reukaufii either doesn't utilize or very poorly utilizes maltose. The Kveiks are great, but I'm currently playing around with my Hazy Daze and Hazy Daze II blends as well.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

"Metschnikowia reukaufii - Since late 2018, we've worked with Oozlefinch Brewing in Fort Monroe, VA to assess the utility of the Metschnikowia reukaufii isolates we isolated almost a year ago in the Berkeley Hills of California. Long story short, we know that M. reukaufii poorly utilizes maltose and longer chain maltose derivatives like maltotriose, though the genus in general is thought to have fairly strong expression of glucosidases, or enzymes that can transform and modulate the character of the beer by altering glycoside substrates. So, the Oozlefinch brewers took wort for their Nuggle Time Hazy IPA and fermented it using their usual house culture, as well as their house culture dosed with M. reukaufii.

They found that in a co-fermentation with their house culture the gravity and pH dropped significantly faster than their house culture alone. Additionally, their tasting trials noted the aroma was accentuated and moce complex in the beer co-fermented with M. reukaufii, in addition to the perceived bitterness of the beer being a little softer.

This is very cool - I was wondering when someone would bring out a glucosidase-rich organism, the benefits of better utilisation from hops would be compelling from a commercial brewery POV if nothing else.

Can those of us outside the US get beta releases somehow?

 

[Biobrewer]

This is very cool - I was wondering when someone would bring out a glucosidase-rich organism, the benefits of better utilisation from hops would be compelling from a commercial brewery POV if nothing else.

Can those of us outside the US get beta releases somehow?

Unfortunately I currently do not have a good mechanism to ship international for our Beta Cultures, but I am working on it!

 

[Northern_Brewer]

It doesn't have to be direct - if I asked eg BrewUK or the Malt Miller to order me one as part of their next order from you guys, could that work?

 

[Biobrewer]

It doesn't have to be direct - if I asked eg BrewUK or the Malt Miller to order me one as part of their next order from you guys, could that work?

Unfortunately not. The Beta Cultures do not go out of WL San Diego where all of our wholesale vial and commercial pitch catalog products ship from, they are produced at small scale at my lab space in Portland, OR. I know a lot of international folks have used mail forwarding services to order these cultures, seems pretty simple. Basically ships to a forwarder in the US, that then gets it internationally routed.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Are the beta releases shipped in WL-type vials? Having put the equivalent of a vial in a padded envelope into the mail forwarders, I was kinda hoping to find a way that got the shipping costs below ~3x the cost of the yeast. I've got a couple of other options that might work, but any chance of an Eppendorf or streak on filter paper or something that might fit in letter post?

Metschnikowia are something I've been interested in ever since I came across this article in 2015 where a Swiss brewer co-fermented a Belgiany beer with Lallemand's Flavia MP346, an M. pulcherrima from Chile intended for wine use. This datasheet has aroma/flavour wheels for MP346 co-ferments in white wine. Unfortunately I couldn't easily get hold of any at the time and it just got bumped down the to-do list.

As for M. reukaufii, do you see the killer activity against non-Sacc yeasts that is reported for M. pulcherrima? Is it POF+? You say the acidity drops more quickly, but does it end up at the same level as the Sacc ferment or lower?

Sorry for all the questions, I just enjoy geeking out over this stuff!

 

[Biobrewer]

Are the beta releases shipped in WL-type vials? Having put the equivalent of a vial in a padded envelope into the mail forwarders, I was kinda hoping to find a way that got the shipping costs below ~3x the cost of the yeast. I've got a couple of other options that might work, but any chance of an Eppendorf or streak on filter paper or something that might fit in letter post?

Metschnikowia are something I've been interested in ever since I came across this article in 2015 where a Swiss brewer co-fermented a Belgiany beer with Lallemand's Flavia MP346, an M. pulcherrima from Chile intended for wine use. This datasheet has aroma/flavour wheels for MP346 co-ferments in white wine. Unfortunately I couldn't easily get hold of any at the time and it just got bumped down the to-do list.

As for M. reukaufii, do you see the killer activity against non-Sacc yeasts that is reported for M. pulcherrima? Is it POF+? You say the acidity drops more quickly, but does it end up at the same level as the Sacc ferment or lower?

Sorry for all the questions, I just enjoy geeking out over this stuff!

Haven't co-fermented with anything aside from S. cerevisiae strains, so unsure if it has any inhibitory effect outside of that combination. My supposition would be that it is not POF+ from my own experiences and the fact that some commercial folks have used it in conjunction with kveik strains/blends at elevated temperatures of 90-100 F with no phenolic character popping up.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Metschnikowia are something I've been interested in ever since I came across this article in 2015 where a Swiss brewer co-fermented a Belgiany beer with Lallemand's Flavia MP346, an M. pulcherrima from Chile intended for wine use. This datasheet has aroma/flavour wheels for MP346 co-ferments in white wine. Unfortunately I couldn't easily get hold of any at the time and it just got bumped down the to-do list.

Random sighting of M. pulcherrima in the news, being used to produce a substitute for palm oil :
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64234577
www.c16bio.com