So! #Brewday
1/
Juniper infusion! The water got a bit hot while I was away picking the juniper branches, so I'm steeping them at around 90°C. Normally I would add them at around 75°C. Oh well, I'll leave it for about an hour.
(In an attempt to remove as many bugs, twigs and other stuff I don't want in my infusion, I shook each branch quite hard, and now my hand is paying the price. Yowch.)
2/ No malts, no ale.
I'm emptying the various bags and boxes in my basement, so these malts are old - I have no idea how much sugar they'll give me, or if the beer will turn out drinkable at all. The grains taste okay though, so I'm hopeful.
I'll mash in about 9 kgs of malt with approx 24 L of juniper infusion in about 30 minutes.
3/ The Juniper Infusion
So just checking in on the juniper infusion. Nice greenish-yellowy colour, and the smell is sooo good.
I'll give it a few more minutes still though. Getting ready to mash in..
4/ Time for some #coffee. Shoutout to the magnificent https://dritidet.myspreadshop.no/ for their excellent cups, mugs, tshirts, stickers for those of us who just can't be bothered.
5/ Mash in.
Well, fuck. I somehow missed my mash in temperature, so now I'm starting out at 68-69°C instead of 74°C. This means more fermentable sugars, which means more alcohol and less sweetness in the beer - and not just a little, at that. Oh well. I guess I need to be more aggressive when mashing in using this setup.
Time for some cleaning and tidying up around here.
6/ Transferring mash to lauter tun.
The used juniper is put in the bottom of the lauter tun to act as a filter. I threw in some hops, and then moved the mash over. I also added some more juniper infusion, and sirculated the wort a few times to make the mash set. In the beginning I got lots of juniper needles and grain fragments, but after a while the wort came out pure. Now we wait.
7/ Preparing the kveik
While transferring the mash, I also took some wort, cooled it down to ~35°C and added a pinch of Otterdal kveik, so that the yeast is awake and ready to go as soon as I pitch it to the main wort in a little while.
(Also a few pics from the sirculation from post 6)
8/ Sugar, baby. And company!
So it seems there is some sugar present. The wort is very sweet at the moment.
And while boiling my cooler (because I forgot earlier), I suddenly got some company. I'm not complaining!
9/ Runoff
Transferring the wort from the lauter tun to my fermentor. A slow drizzle is needed for cooling the wort and providing enough oxygen for the yeast.
The hops I'm running the wort through, and the two fistfuls of hops I added to the lauter tun, is the only hops added to this beer.
10/ Runoff, chill out
While approaching the 15 litre mark, we can take a look at how the kveik is doing (alive and kicking, baby!) and the really magical colour of the juniper infusion.
11/ Kveik pitched, some fun
So with an OG of ca 1060 (a bit lower than I wanted, possibly due to old malts), the kveik was pitched and fermentor put into the fermentation cabinet.
There was still some water and sugars left in the lauter tun, so I sparged some more and ran off another 10 L thin wort. I'm currently boiling it down to increase gravity. Lets see how it turns out..
12/ #Brewday done!
So I boiled the second runoff down to 6 L, which should give an OG of ~1050.
Pitched some Stalljen kveik straight from the freezer.
Now both worts are placed safely in the basement.
Next up: Lag phase the next couple of hours, where nothing very interesting happens. Tomorrow I expect full krausen by late afternoon, and finished fermentation by Tuesday or Wednesday.
13/ Harvesting kveik, ~20 h in
About 20-21 hours in, I was able to top crop 1 L or 500 grams of fresh kveik. Insane amount! The kveik was still going strong when I harvested it, and a new layer quickly formed on top. I'll take another look in the evening or tomorrow morning, to see if I can get another batch of yeast. This first batch is put in the oven to dry.
14/ Harvesting kveik, round 2 ~40 hrs in
A bit less yeast this time, but still an awful lot, ca 300 g. So in less than 48 hours, my original pitch of ca 10 g dried kveik, has produced more yeast than I'll ever need. This yeast can be used for beer, cider and baking. Anybody want some? I've been drying yesterday's catch in the oven at ~30°C, and it's almost done now. Just a few hours more..
15/ The funsized batch
The second, small batch I made just for fun, is also alive and kicking. I didn't bother to harvest the kveik from it yesterday, since I already have a lot of that strain in the freezer, but today I pulled ca 100 grams of yeast from that bucket as well. This is the kveik Stalljen from Stig Seljeseth. If anybody wants some, let me know.
16/ Dried kveik.
So I pitched just a pinch (10-20 g) of kveik on Sunday. In less than 48 hours, the yeast had multiplied 10-20x, giving me 215(!) grams of dried yeast to use for baking and brewing.
17/ Keg it like you mean it
So after ~75 hours of fermentation, it's time to keg this bad boy. Fermentation is probably not 100% done, but the rest will make sure there's some carbonation in the keg. Trad beers are supposed to be flat (think of cask ales), so that's not a big problem. Gravity is approx 1015, so it might drop a bit more. It should ideally stop at ~1020, but I mashed too cold.
18/ Even moar kveik
So remember that yeast from post 17? I didn't want to throw it away, so I transferred it along with a clunk of what beer was left in the fermentor to a one litre jar. Within ten minutes it was already making it's escape (so much activity it overflowed the jar), so I had to transfer it to a larger jar and put it in the fridge. Tomorrow I'll drain the beer, and simply freeze it
@cmyrland Æ skjønne bare cirka to prosent av ka du snakke om (og like heller ikke øl), men æ tror det her e min favorittråd på masto?
@gaski
Så hyggelig å høre! Det er gøy å brygge øl, og det er enda gøyere når man gjør det på gamlemåten... Dette er et råøl, altså at vørteret ikke blir kokt. Dette er måten man tradisjonelt brygger/brygget på i Hornindal/Nordfjord/deler av Sunnmøre, og det er blitt mitt favorittøl etter at jeg ble kjent med stilen!
@cmyrland Det virke som den typen omstendelig prosess æ gjerne hadde blitt med på bare for gøy, helt uten tanke for resultatet (sjøl om æ sikkert hadde sjekka om egenbrygga øl smake like godt som egenfanga fisk)
@cmyrland
Nice!
I've been inspired to try drying some yeast.
Normally I just jar up the trub at the end, but I'm going to try your method out.
How long are you drying in the oven?
I have a fruit dehydrator I use for my hops, might be better in there.
@turley
Most yeasts can not be dried like this. Kveik (a yeast family unique to Norway) has some properties that allows drying and freezing. Most modern yeasts will simply die if you try drying it like this.
The kveik is in the oven until it's dry.. Normally somewhere around 24-30 hrs at ca 30°C.
@cmyrland
I bought a pack of lallemand dried kveik with my last batch of malt.
I've been looking to try it for a while.
I'll give it a go, thanks!
@turley
Cool! Which strain is it? I think @AmonRa can set you up with some commercial grade multi-strain kveik if you're interested.
Anyways, I recommend fermenting with an open fermentation vessel and preferably with temperature control set to 30-35°C the first 48 hours or so. The kveik ferments so vigorously there's no need for a lid, just put a clean towel or something over it. In my experience it yields better top cropped yeast that way.
@cmyrland
It's Voss strain.
I'll plan out a new recipe today and see if I can get started this evening.
I'll need to dig out some heating gear, I'm normally brewing ales at ambient temperature where I need to cool rather than heat.
@turley
Cool! Good luck! Thread?
@cmyrland
There will be. Still in planning. Drinking a beer now beer
I think I'll need to ferment in my brew kettle, after I wire it up to a temp controller, and ferment open in there for a day or 2 (and skim some yeast). I'm not sure I can hold 30+ degrees in plastic conical with band heater.
Then I can transfer into a standard corny keg with a spunding valve, which I can wrap with heater band to finish off.
Or I could split into 2 little corny kegs and dry hop 1 for a bit of variety
@turley
You can pitch Voss at 40°C, no stress. The kveik will raise the temp 2-3°C by itself at the very least at full krausen, so a heater band will probably be enough.
Make a mariaue when running off the wort, (just 4-5 dl raw wort in a jug cooled down to 30-40°C, pitch the kveik and let it get a head start), and you'll have full krausen within 20 hrs, and fermentation will be 100% done within 3-4 days. I would normally pop the lid on the fermentor after my second harvest, 40-48 hrs in..