Tag Archives: kveik

Feb 202409Fri

Two days ago the krausen started to subside, opening up several holes in the surface with fermentation slowing right down as tracked by Tilt. We’re still ostensibly short of target and I’m used to seeing the yeast disappear completely at this point, but it’s still hanging around at the edge of the vessel and there are still some meatballs floating around which haven’t (and probably won’t) broken down to smooth waste. Not sure wether to add some fresh yeast for a secondary fermentation, but as I’ve been at 8 PSI now for about a week it’s not going to make any racking or re-pitching too much fun. Maybe just cold-crash and keg, hope for the best.

Feb 202403Sat

There was some doubt at the back of my mind as to whether or not half an 18 month out-of-date sachet of Kveik would be viable, but this morning around 08:00 there was enough Krausen to cover almost 50% of the brew’s surface. An hour later the cover was complete, we’re up to 8 PSI on the spunding valve, and all vital signs are good. Go do your thing, you mad Norwegian bastard.

Feb 202402Fri

Pretty good brew day today, must be my second or third run with the new manifold? I wasn’t anticipating any problems but wanted to throw in some rice hulls all the same, this being my first ‘light’ beer seemed like an ideal opportunity to try and get by without stirring. Might have been a tad too much (or not?) but regardless, the mash went well and I was looking at over 90% efficiency. No issues today, solid brew.

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Mar 202309Thu

Quite a good brew day today. Only one small error (heaters on Auto rather than Auto Mash, no scorching though) and I’m very very close to all my numbers, both in terms of volumes and gravity. The only exception there is the amount of trub loss when using the Trubinator, and going forward I may think about creating a dedicated equipment profile for when I’m using this piece of kit. Unfortunately doing so would effectively fork any subsequent tweaks as I’ll be tuning two profiles, so we’ll have to think about this some more.

Under-Pitched Voss

One thing which did give me slight concern today was my desperate under-pitching of Voss Kveik. If memory serves correctly I used half a sachet of slurry on a previous incarnation of Geronimo and then a quarter on Jackknife Barber, leaving me with one quarter sachet and the hope that my previous doses hadn’t been too greedy.

I warmed the alarmingly light bag during boil using my laptop, weighed it at 51.93g, and pitched it at around 24℃ with the empty bag weighing 10.71g – so 41.22g of yeast for 21 litres of 1.064. Nothing happened in the following hours and nothing continued to happen when I turned in for the night, but at around 05:00 the next day it took off in typical Kveik fashion. The following morning I was relieved to see I’d remembered to fit the spunding valve, but disappointed to find I’d adjusted it too high, because it was hissing merrily at around 17 PSI. Voss is one hard, mad bastard. Reduced pressure gradually to 5 PSI as I don’t want to suppress too many Esthers or release too much hoppy goodness via CO2 when it’s time to dry-hop. All good for now.

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Jan 202324Tue

Kicked off a Maris and Citra SMASH with Gregg this morning, no incidents and very much bang-on the numbers. We’re under-pitching Voss on this one, using just ¼ pack instead of the ½ that went into my last brew, Geronimo III, with the idea being that if it won’t kick off in the same timeframe we can always throw in the rest of the bag. Nothing else to report for now …

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Dec 202206Tue

A good brew day without incident, the only unexpected factor being that I was supposed to be doing a SMaSH with a friend today but that was cancelled, so Geronimo it was. Not having time to make a starter and with a whole bag of OYL-061 Voss in the fridge I decided to try under-pitching and a warm ferment in order to get some of the supposedly fantastic citrus flavours creeping out.

We’ll see how that goes, but for now I’m pleased to report that despite a slow start I’m seeing strong fermentation since the small hours of this morning (approx 14 hours after pitching) and I see that the spunding valve was set way too high at 15 PSI. I’m dialling that back to 7 PSI because I want the esters to have a chance, at least until I dry-hop at which point I’ll increase back to 15 PSI to give me a safety net for cold-crashing.

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Oct 202226Wed

I believe I was right to attribute yesterday’s initial bubbling of the blow-tube to temperature expansion since there was no sign of foam, but this morning’s a different story, with a nice cake of healthy krausen sitting on the FV’s surface just 18 hours after pitching.

Geronimo II performing into the blow-off tube

The blow-off tube is popping constantly and the spunding valve has settled on exactly 5 PSI and is hissing quietly. I’m wondering if 5 PSI is enough to suppress some of the yeast’s desired character so maybe we’ll try one without pressure at some point, but for now I like the head start on carbonisation and prevention of O2 ingress during cold-crashing.

We’ll see where it goes. Looking good for now.

Apr 202204Mon

It’s 21:15, about eight or nine hours since pitching, and this Kveik has just taken off in the last hour or so. I’m seeing a growing carpet of foam on top of the wort and have fitted a blow-off bottle, moving the spunding valve away from the likely erupting Krausen.

I’ve set the spunding valve to 10 PSI by dialling it high and filling the blow-off bottle from my CO2 tank, then reconnecting the valve and opening it until the pressure dropped back down to 10. Unfortunately I didn’t de-pressurise the bottle further, and when I reconnected it to the FV a small amount of sanitiser rushed up the dip tube as the vessels equalised. Hopefully that won’t trouble the wort or the yeast too much in this important early stage – oops!!

Mar 202217Thu

It’s 18:00 and there’s a good amount of Krausen atop this brew now, so I thought I’d capture some for future use before it gets too far into development. Cleaned a big jar and a ladle, gradually de-pressurised the Fermzilla, and filled that jar with glorious foam. Once that was done I fitted the jar’s lid and swung it about in order to compress the foam through G-force, allowing me to get another couple of spoonfuls in there. On refitting the Fermzilla’s lid I saw the pressure climbing up again, hitting 10 PSI 15 – 20 minutes later. The jar’s in the fridge and the contents will be decanted onto parchment and dried then frozen at some stage.

Mar 202217Thu

According to the Tilt, things started happening around 04:00, and when I checked in this morning there was a good covering of foam on my brew. I didn’t bother calibrating the spunding valve yesterday because I’m short of gas (in fact I’d almost forgotten to refit the valve after swapping out the first Tilt) so I just guessed the number of turns needed for my target of 10 PSI, and that transpired to be closer to 20 PSI. Sorry Fermzilla, sorry Tilt! I backed the valve off gradually over the next couple of hours and she’s now sitting pretty at 10, will leave it to build a bit longer before harvesting some yeast.