fermenting with homemade dried kveik

[NeverDie]

I dried out the yeast cake (including trub and all) on parchment paper just by spreading it out and letting it air dry, mainly as an experiment to see whether I could later re-animate it and use it to ferment.

The answer to that seems to be a resounding "Yes!". I didn't have a clue as to how much I should use, so I measured out 2.4g of the dried cake, rehydrating it with 3g of GoFerm in 60ml of spring water, starting at 104F for the usual 20 minutes. Rather than maintain the temp, I let it freefall during the 20 minutes, as is customarily reported by members of this forum.

I pitched it into a 5 cup 1.105OG traditional mead solution, supplemented with potassium bicarbonate and calcium chloride (as discussed in other threads). No thermal shock, because the must and the GoFerm solution were within 10F of one another by the end of the 20 minutes. I then slowly raised the must temperature from room temp (about 70F) to 95F using a waterbath around the fermenting vessel.

2 hours later I came back, and it was very obviously fermenting, and at a good rate too.

So, in a positive sense, the experiment was a success: it re-animated.

But not perfectly.

Compared to virgin Omage Hornindal yeast, the aroma smells off. Not as sweet honey smelling. So far, it tastes OK though. I wouldn't be at all surprised if during the drying process it had picked up wild yeast and bacteria. Assuming this is so, would nuking the starting must with a pro-rated camden tablet achieve the desired "ethnic cleansing"? Or, would I have to do a more elaborate yeast washing, using a strong acid or something?

Anyone else doing or done this? There are no commercial sources for dry kveik yeast, but dry kveik would be very nice to have. The Norwegians have their big wooden rings that they use to collect and dry their yeast, so there does exist at least some precedent.

 

[NeverDie]

The kveik has fermented at a pretty fast pace: after about 16 hours it's nearly at the 1/3 sugar break: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1wwI5_henyjNrjLfzU75NLcZDZEildyiwRwZcArNOAII/edit?usp=sharing

It may be late in the game, but a half hour ago I pitched in 50ppm potassium metabisulfite. I say late in the game because the wild invaders are probably stronger now than if I had done it at the beginning. On the other had, so is the Kveik yeast. I'm hesitant to pitch at a higher sulfite ppm, though, because that might create off flavors of its own. Not sure what the flavor threshhold is for sulfite, but I know for sure that 150ppm sulfite can be easily tasted.

 

[NeverDie]

I forgot to mention that I also oxygenated the must using pure oxygen and an air stone prior to pitching the yeast.

Fortunately, this yeast cake was taken from a mead, there was hardly any trub to speak of. At least not that I could identify. It looked like a very pure yeast cream.

I just now started a new test batch. This time I pitched just 1 gram of the homemade dried kveik yeast, and this time I pre-treated the must with 50ppm of Potassium Metabisulfite before pitching. If this doesn't clear out the wild invaders, then I'll have to invoke stronger measures, though I'm not sure what. Suggestions are welcome. I suppose pitching even less kveik yeast the next might be a strategy. There would be less kveik, which tolerates underpitching quite well, as well as fewer of the bad guys.

 

[Seamonkey84]

You don’t need to Sulfites your must. if it’s just honey and water, honey really doesn’t have any wild stuff that you have to worry about. Any wild fermentation would take a few days to get started. Why are you warming your fermenter? From everything I’ve read, The off smell is likely coming from the yeast being stressed at higher temps. your room temp should be fine for most yeasts, lower may be better even. Fermenting at higher temps will also lose more honey aroma.

 

[NeverDie]

You don’t need to Sulfites your must. if it’s just honey and water, honey really doesn’t have any wild stuff that you have to worry about. Any wild fermentation would take a few days to get started. Why are you warming your fermenter? From everything I’ve read, The off smell is likely coming from the yeast being stressed at higher temps. your room temp should be fine for most yeasts, lower may be better even. Fermenting at higher temps will also lose more honey aroma.

The kveik yeasts are meant to ferment at higher temperatures. They are unique in that respect.

I'm not concerned about the honey as a source of invaders. Rather, the dried yeast cake.

 

[Miraculix]

Especially hornindal is known to need lots and lots of additional nutrients to ferment a mead in a clean way. I bet you just didn't add enough of those and what you are smelling is not the result of invaders but the result of inappropriate yeast treatment.

 

[RPh_Guy]

To avoid contamination I would suggest to pasteurize the honey for the first batch (with a fresh pitch) from which you harvest the cake to dry it. Also maintain as much sanitation as possible with that batch (e.g. airlock immediately rather than leaving it open).

Otherwise your kviek is contaminated with wild organisms from that batch... And wild organisms in the air while drying. And wild organisms in subsequent batches.

Hope this makes sense.

P.S. sulfite flavor threshold depends on the pH.

 

[NeverDie]

To avoid contamination I would suggest to pasteurize the honey for the first batch (with a fresh pitch) from which you harvest the cake to dry it. Also maintain as much sanitation as possible with that batch (e.g. airlock immediately rather than leaving it open).

Otherwise your kviek is contaminated with wild organisms from that batch... And wild organisms in the air while drying. And wild organisms in subsequent batches.

Hope this makes sense.

P.S. sulfite flavor threshold depends on the pH.

The challenge is how to dry it but avoid contamination while doing so? Just leaving it in the open air to dry is probably not going to sanitary enough.

 

[Maylar]

What is your aversion to using it in liquid form?

 

[Miraculix]

Mead is a bit different then beer, espacially with kveik. The abv rises within hours so much that only yeast survives. You do not have to be as worried about contaminating a mead as you would with beer, two different worlds.

As I said before, there have been similar results with hornindal smelling ugly in a mead with hornindal directly from the manufactorer. He solved it by multiplying the fermaid O aadditions, I think by 3, if I remember correctly, coimpared to the "normal" TOSNA recommendations.

He went into detail, he really wanted to know how much nutes are needed to make this yeast work in a mead. Don't ask me where but it is somewhere here in the forum within the last few months.

 

[RPh_Guy]

You do not have to be as worried about contaminating a mead as you would with beer, two different worlds.

You're correct, but for the wrong reason. Many wild microbes will live happily in alcohol.

• Mead doesn't have dextrins like beer, so high-attenuating slow-growing yeast causing over-attenuation are not a problem (assuming you stabilize or ferment dry).
• Mead doesn't have phenolic precursors like beer, so wild off-flavors are far less likely, and are less likely to be flaws if/when they are present.
• Mead doesn't have malic acid like cider or many fruit wines, so there's less food source for wild microbes that metabolize it in the long run.
• The dominant yeast drops pH of mead much lower than it does in beer, which inhibits a lot (but not all) of other wild microbes that can cause off-flavors.
• Sulfite is effective at controlling wild microbes in mead, unlike "clean" beers because of the lower pH.
• Higher alcohol is inhibitory to some degree, especially above 8%.

However, despite all that, there are plenty of wild yeast and bacteria that can cause off-flavors, and raw honey and even processed honey has lots of wild microbes in it. The only way to get rid of them is heat pasteurization.
If you're pitching a contaminated yeast culture it's a losing battle. The culture obviously needs to be pure for best results. The high temp fermentation for kveik further encourages growth of contaminants.

As I mentioned, for drying, collect it from as sanitary a source as possible (starting with pasteurized ingredients), and dry it in an environment as clean as reasonably possible.

As I said before, there have been similar results with hornindal smelling ugly in a mead with hornindal directly from the manufactorer. He solved it by multiplying the fermaid O aadditions, I think by 3, if I remember correctly, coimpared to the "normal" TOSNA recommendations.

Justin Amaral from Mainiacal Yeast (which supplies the most diverse catalog of kviek of all the major yeast labs) suggests increasing TOSNA nutrients by 1/3.

 

[NeverDie]

Mead is a bit different then beer, espacially with kveik. The abv rises within hours so much that only yeast survives. You do not have to be as worried about contaminating a mead as you would with beer, two different worlds.

As I said before, there have been similar results with hornindal smelling ugly in a mead with hornindal directly from the manufactorer. He solved it by multiplying the fermaid O aadditions, I think by 3, if I remember correctly, coimpared to the "normal" TOSNA recommendations.

He went into detail, he really wanted to know how much nutes are needed to make this yeast work in a mead. Don't ask me where but it is somewhere here in the forum within the last few months.

You're right. I had some good results with liquid Hornindal at very high nutrient levels. However, the dried Hornindal is, at the very least, behaving differently than the liquid Hornindal, and I'd wager it is contaminated.

 

[NeverDie]

What is your aversion to using it in liquid form?

It's more work than dried yeast.

 

[Maylar]

It's more work than dried yeast.

Is it? Rehydrating in GoFerm v.s. watching a stir plate whiz. Seems like a wash.

 

[madscientist451]

I've been saving liquid yeast slurry in jars for years. You don't need to dry it out, re-hydrate or if its relatively fresh, even make a starter. Just chuck it in.
I'm thinking that drying out yeast on a piece of wood was a traditional method because they didn't have mason jars and a refrigerator to keep it in?
If you want to use old methods thats cool, the new microbes that are introduced may provide some different and interesting flavors.
I do wild ferment ciders every season. They usually come out pretty good.

 

[RPh_Guy]

Fermenting wild microbes over 90°F is a lot different than fermenting wild microbes under 60°F, so contamination probably isn't acceptable for a kveik culture.

 

[NeverDie]

It might be worthwhile trying to dry out fresh yeast (straight from the Omega packet). If that fails to re-animate without contamination, then there's no hope.

The challenge may be creating a sterile environment that nonetheless supports evaporation. Not sure how to do that, except maybe by massive amounts of desiccant? I have dessicant I use to keep spools of 3D printer plastic dry. I suppose I could try borrowing it for an experiment....

Or maybe drying it in a vacuum chamber? I have one of those.

 

[RPh_Guy]

A fan/air pump with a HEPA filter might work, but that shouldn't be necessary. I'd just try to keep it in a relatively clean area and make sure you use sterile/sanitized growth media before drying (no unpasteurized honey). ... Or use liquid in jars as described above. Nowadays the folks in Norway using kveik do exactly that.

Cheers

 

[Miraculix]

Fermenting wild microbes over 90°F is a lot different than fermenting wild microbes under 60°F, so contamination probably isn't acceptable for a kveik culture.

Well, this yeast is used like this for hundreds of years, so couldn't be such a big of an issue I guess.

 

[RPh_Guy]

Well, this yeast is used like this for hundreds of years, so couldn't be such a big of an issue I guess.

They refresh the culture when it gets contaminated.
.. By getting it from a family member, neighbor, and/or keeping multiple separate cultures on hand.

 

[Miraculix]

They refresh the culture when it gets contaminated.
.. By getting it from a family member, neighbor, and/or keeping multiple separate cultures on hand.

I know, but they don't have to do this that often, so it seems to be pretty sturdy.

 

[RPh_Guy]

I guess you could say the same for all the yeast used by commercial brewers. They've all been used for hundreds of years, right?

 

[Miraculix]

I guess you could say the same for all the yeast used by commercial brewers. They've all been used for hundreds of years, right?

Not the point. They haven't been dried and reused and dried and reused and.....

 

[Maylar]

I have an idea...

Buy fresh yeast. Keep it in the fridge until needed. Control temp to 72°F. Ferment using the BOMM protocol. Make good mead.
The honey in mead is 10X more expensive than the yeast.

 

[NeverDie]

I know, but they don't have to do this that often, so it seems to be pretty sturdy.

I think they dip their rings into it, but not into the trub at the bottom? i.e. maybe they harvest from the top or the Krausen?

 

[RPh_Guy]

Not the point. They haven't been dried and reused and dried and reused and.....

I'm sorry, I think I'm still missing your point?

 

[Miraculix]

I think they dip their rings into it, but not into the trub at the bottom? i.e. maybe they harvest from the top or the Krausen?

Rings are prone to mold, not used much anymore. Nowadays it's pretty much parchment paper or mostly plastic bottle in a fridge.

 

[NeverDie]

I'm sorry, I think I'm still missing your point?

I think he means that the commercial producers probably start with a single colony on a slant tube and multiply it from there. Or, something like that.

Edit: oops. missed his follow-up post.

 

[Miraculix]

My point was that kveik has been historically dried and used again and again and fermented very hot, and that there wasn't much problems with contamination, so it's very likely that the yeast got used to such treatment.

The comparison to modern commercial yeast is not valid as this yeast did not go through this type of treatment for centuries.

 

[Julian Høstan Urrea]

You don’t need to Sulfites your must. if it’s just honey and water, honey really doesn’t have any wild stuff that you have to worry about. Any wild fermentation would take a few days to get started. Why are you warming your fermenter? From everything I’ve read, The off smell is likely coming from the yeast being stressed at higher temps. your room temp should be fine for most yeasts, lower may be better even. Fermenting at higher temps will also lose more honey aroma.

You've obviously not read about kveik! This stuff is awesome. Ferments at a hilariously fast rate and prefer extreme temps. It can be used as a lager yeast at at lower temperatures (20-25 Celsius) and there is next to no lagering period. It can be dried in the oven. It loves to be under pitched. Read up and try it.

 

[NeverDie]

You've obviously not read about kveik! This stuff is awesome. Ferments at a hilariously fast rate and prefer extreme temps. It can be used as a lager yeast at at lower temperatures (20-25 Celsius) and there is next to no lagering period. It can be dried in the oven. It loves to be under pitched. Read up and try it.

What temperature do you set the oven at?

 

[Seamonkey84]

No I didn’t read about this yeast until after my post, it is fairly impressive with its resistance. So far, for the past four batches I’ve made, I’ve been happy culturing the 1388 yeast by splitting my mini BOMMs.

 

[NeverDie]

You've obviously not read about kveik! This stuff is awesome. Ferments at a hilariously fast rate and prefer extreme temps. It can be used as a lager yeast at at lower temperatures (20-25 Celsius) and there is next to no lagering period. It can be dried in the oven. It loves to be under pitched. Read up and try it.

The lowest temperatu my oven will do is 125F. Is that too hot for drying purposes? I'm guessing maybe so.

 

[RPh_Guy]

My point was that kveik has been historically dried and used again and again and fermented very hot, and that there wasn't much problems with contamination, so it's very likely that the yeast got used to such treatment.

The comparison to modern commercial yeast is not valid as this yeast did not go through this type of treatment for centuries.

You're trying to infer that kveik is somehow intrinsically resistant to contamination? I think there's some truth to that, but not enough to forego sanitary practices when propagating a culture.

From my understanding, kveik was traditionally harvested from kräusen of beer that went through the normal process of being boiled (reducing or eliminating wild microbes). That's exactly what I suggested that the OP do -- harvest from a fermentation with sanitized ingredients, rather than harvest from a fermentation with wild microbes (in this case unpasteurized honey and/or unpasteurized water).

IMO, both the aggressive nature of the kveik strains and the top-cropping harvesting method are the factors that help avoid (but not fully eliminate) contamination.
For example if you pitch a mildly contaminated culture and then harvest at high kräusen (in what, like an hour?), you'll quite possibly not harvest any of the contaminants. However, if you use the cake from a contaminated batch, you're harvesting all of the contaminants, and those microbes have had a much greater opportunity to multiply.

Hope we're on the same page.

 

[Julian Høstan Urrea]

The lowest temperatu my oven will do is 125F. Is that too hot for drying purposes? I'm guessing maybe so.

Just do the lowest setting and keep the door a little open. That should do it. Honestly I just put it on some baking paper, put the baking paper into an empty clean Fv bucket. Seal it and wait a week. Works like a charm.

 

[NeverDie]

Fv bucket.

God, I feel ignorant. What exactly is an "Fv bucket," and how does the yeast dry in such a thing if it is sealed?

Whatever it is that you're doing, I'd like to try it. After all, you're Norwegian. That gives you have instant credibility.

 

[Blacksmith1]

You could also get a dehydrator like is used for jerky and use that.

 

[NeverDie]

You could also get a dehydrator like is used for jerky and use that.

It seems they go to 130F, or higher: https://www.google.com/search?q=how.....69i57j0l4.5483j1j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

 

[RPh_Guy]

FV usually means Fermentation Vessel

 

[NeverDie]

Got it. I'll try sealing up fresh yeast in a big box with desiccants then. If his worked, then this should work even better.