With fermentation finally underway I wanted to have a go at top-cropping some yeast for the first time, and also start to apply a little pressure, just in case whatever’s caused my yeast to have such a delayed start might have further impact on the brew by producing off flavours. This is however supposed to be a malt-forward brew and I therefore don’t want to kill those esters altogether, so I’m going to leave it at 5 PSI for now.

On the cropping front I only managed to get a very small amount of yeast. David Heath reckons you’re supposed to steer clear of the FV sides and avoid any foam that’s turning dark brown, so all I managed to do is grab a very small amount from the middle of the Fermzilla’s foam hat. There isn’t enough to even think about using it for a serious brew, but I think I’ll play around a little bit and see how much I can grow it using a starter, maybe then add it to a kit brew instead of the included yeast.

As a parting note for tonight; I hope I haven’t killed fermentation by temporarily adding 10 PSI from the CO2 tank so that I could check the spunding valve was correctly set. Kveik is supposed to be as resistant to pressure as it is to temperature, but as soon as I swapped the airlock for a spunding valve the turbulence below the surface all but stopped. I’m sure it’ll be off again by morning …