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Voss kviek yeast thoughts

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I recently brewed a simple pilsner-based beer (not really a lager) using Kveik as an experiment. It fermented in three days in my garage at 95F in the daytime and 75F at night. I was amazed, it was very clear when bottled and the taste was totally clean (no off-flavors or smells), even my wife really enjoyed it.
The one watch-out for me, was that as it had fermented so quickly, there was not enough active yeast left to carbonate the bottles and my beer was quite flat. Not sure what to do about that next time, maybe add a small amount of a dry yeast pack to my bottling bucket....but how much ?
I've had luck sprinkling in some wine yeast into the bottles after filling right before capping.
 
Depending on how low the mineral content of the ro water is, this will likely kill a portion of the yeast cells due to osmotic pressure. The cells just burst. Luckily, kveik needs only a very small cell count. But in general, it is a bad idea to rehydrate in ro or distilled water without the addition of salts and/or nutrients.

the RO system I use for this process has an alkalinity buffer (actual content unknown) on the output. Do you think this is adding enough stuffs to make it successful for me? I used to not do this, but the yeast visibly get going faster. I’ve been doing it with all my yeasts now.

Edit: the product page for this cartridge says it’s calcium carbonate.
 
Depending on how low the mineral content of the ro water is, this will likely kill a portion of the yeast cells due to osmotic pressure. The cells just burst. Luckily, kveik needs only a very small cell count. But in general, it is a bad idea to rehydrate in ro or distilled water without the addition of salts and/or nutrients.

Hmmmm...I recently made an IPA where I rehydrated my Cellar Science Cali Ale in distilled water. I had a rather slow start and it was about 48 hours before I had a solid krausen. I usually just direct pitch, but will avoid distilled in the future if I do rehydrate.
 
the RO system I use for this process has an alkalinity buffer (actual content unknown) on the output. Do you think this is adding enough stuffs to make it successful for me? I used to not do this, but the yeast visibly get going faster. I’ve been doing it with all my yeasts now.

Edit: the product page for this cartridge says it’s calcium carbonate.
It definitely helps! I cannot say if that's enough or not, but it's something that lowers the osmotic pressure.
 
Hmmmm...I recently made an IPA where I rehydrated my Cellar Science Cali Ale in distilled water. I had a rather slow start and it was about 48 hours before I had a solid krausen. I usually just direct pitch, but will avoid distilled in the future if I do rehydrate.
The good thing is, once enough yeast cells have burst, the osmotic pressure is low again, as the inside of the yeast cells now provided ions etc. Which lower the pressure for the remaining cells.

There's an easy experiment which we did back in the days in school.

Two glasses, one filled with distilled water, one with tap water. Place a peace of potatoe in each and let it sit over night. See the next day what the osmotic pressure did to the potato cells in the distilled water glass. The potato desintegated completely in our case.
 
I have used Voss Kveik three times so far (Lallemand and M12), twice at temperatures around 22'C, and once at 35'C. Each time the beer was pretty citrusy regardless of the hops. I have noticed that it is best, as Miraculix has already mentioned, to use only stronger hops for bitterness (Galena) to reduce that citrus flavor from the hops.
 
I used Lallemand Voss dry yeast in an IPA I split between two fermenters and dryhopped with different hops (Centennial and HBC 586). The two beers were completely different, the Centennial was bright and lemon citrusy and the 586 was mango and tropical fruits and I didn't notice much yeast character. I saved some yeast and pitched it into a black ale that was supposed to get dry-hopped but didn't and again I got a pretty clean yeast character. I pitched the Voss 3rd generation into a pale ale with Amarillo dry hops and the flavor is pure orange peel. Some of that orange may be the hops but I think the yeast is contributing a lot. The aroma is kind of sharp and unpleasant too, it reminds me of a saison I had recently. The Voss yeast doesn't seem to flocc out either, the beer is still very hazy even after a month in the bottle in the fridge.

At this point I'm torn on this yeast, I haven't been fermenting it warm, it's mid-60s down in my basement. All the beers I've made with it have been good but they haven't been what I expected except for the first, fresh pitch.
 
My latest batch I pitched with Lalemand's voss kveik rehydrated in a pint of water. It took off pretty quickly, got a bit sulfurous on the second day, but was essentially done on the third. Checked gravity on day 7 and it hit the attenuation target, so I let it sit two more weeks and bottled it last week. A test bottle revealed mild carbonation, slight bitterness from the hops and dark malts, and no apparent fruit character despite being fermented at room temperature (max fermenter temp was about 85F).
 
I’m fermenting a dry Irish stout now. SG was 1.050. I pitched half a sachet of Lallemand’s dry Voss without rehydrating into my wort at 95F. It was fermenting within 2 hours. I hold at 95F during active fermentation. After 24 hours I was at my target FG. This is my 3rd batch of a dry Irish stout (Guinness clone) I’ve done with Voss. I like the subtle ester flavor that yeast contributes when fermented hot. I’ll transfer to my keg in 3 days, force carb, and be serving 7 days post brew day :).
 
I brewed with lallemend kviek Voss yeast it was a total beast grain to glass in 6 days. I made an IPA with citra and Amarillo which both should taste like citrus but it has a distinctly orange kinda fake flavor. Did anyone else experience this I don’t think the flavor is the hops I’m not sure I’d use this yeast again.


Its hit and miss not each pack is the same, i had exactky what you are describing. Now i pitch at 39 and insulate with a wool jumper and an thick old judo jacket , together with the heat from fermentation i let that ride for 72 hours then "strip it naked" for about 24 hours to cool, and dry hop 4 days . I find that orangey flavour was from higher OG/abv brews. If you are going for about 4.7% XPA beer ...then your in the clear👍🍻
 
I use the Omega liquid and make overbuild starters. I control the orange flavor with yeast pitch rates. When i pitch a 1L starter and ferment at 76-86 the hops and malt tend to come thru more then the orange.
I did an 11 gal batch for the 4TH and only pitched 1L at 86* and it complimented the Galaxy hops.Gonna try it as soon as it warms up with my fav "C" hops.
 
Roughly seven months after brew day, a batch of Voss pale ale has finally dropped its unpalatable twang. Same with a contemporaneous batch of Bartleby (Hornindal). They're fairly enjoyable now, but I have no plans to brew with kveik again.
 
Interesting, im using Lal' Voss and i " build a starter" by just putting a little slurry from my stash into a sanitized pint glass half full of warm water with a pinch of shugar for a few hours with glad wrap on top and i find that is optimal. Sounds like your pitching down around 30 celcius...i really have to do a double batch one at 30 and one at 39 ( so 86 and 102 in your farenheight) to compare the difference side by side

So far tho the biggest factors to reduce the weird flavour and get clean beer have been to NOT do the drastic underpitch , to NOT do a 7% screamer, and and DONT dry hop for 7 days drop that to only 4 and get it off the yeast before it sours

Definately doing a split batch to compare temps , thanks for the tip , Cheers from Western Australia 👍🍺
 
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