Owly055
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Today, I'm doing the 12'th brew in my continuous brewing system.
For those who are unfamiliar with the program, I'm using a Fast Ferment, and maintaining it at the 6 gallon mark. Each week, I draw off 2 gallons of beer into secondary, and add 2 gallons of wort. The brew is a pale ale, and the wort changes from brew to brew, always staying within the general description of pale ale.
The procedure is to draw off 2 gallons of beer for secondary, and taste it, then decide both how to dry hop it, and what I want to do for that day's brew. Which hops, and malts to use.
I then dry hop the batch that I'm putting in secondary....... or wait a few days, and do my brew. The yeast ball is removed, and protected, and the fresh wort at the end of my brew day is poured into the fermenter right from the boil with no chilling at all. The Norwegian Kveik yeast is rated up to 100F, and the temp rises to 110, and drops down to a decent temp fairly quickly. At about 80F, I pitch yeast from the yeast ball, but fermentation starts virtually instantly when the hot wort is poured in. I would prefer that the temp killed the yeast, but this kveik is tough stuff.
The yeast ball is emptied of trub once it settles so what remains is mostly yeast, and pretty clean. I use a large plastic oil change funnel with a stainless steel splatter screen when I pour into the fermenter.... both sanitized of course. This captures most of the trub.
So far the results are excellent. I maintain the IBUs at around 50, and ABV around 6%. SRM varies depending on my mood, as does the hop profile, and the "weight" of the beer.
I brew other beers on the side, but this keeps me in about 2 gallons a week of decent pale ale....... or more realistically about 1.75 gallons....enough to fill one of my mini kegs.
I'm contemplating going to a 50% brew instead of 33% for two reasons. One is the obvious sanitation factor of raising the temp to 135-140, and the other being that kveik is not a single strain of yeast, but more like a sourdough culture. By pushing the temp to 110, some yeasts that are heat tolerant will survive, and others may not. I do NOT want to select for yeasts with the highest temp tolerance. By bumping the temp up higher, presumably ALL the yeast will be killed and the yeast I just harvested which has not been subjected to "temperature selection" will be the dominant colony, and thus remain truer to the original White Labs product.
The fact that I've gone through 12 brews so far with no issues whatsoever suggests that this method is viable.......with this yeast.
Here is the description from Yeast Bay which sells the yeast (White Labs packages it) So far I really like this yeast:
Traditionally used in the production of Norwegian Farmhouse Ale, this strain is a fast fermenter with good attenuation, a light earthy spiciness, marked tartness and unique ester profile of orange peel. This strain is prone to forming incredibly large flocs unlike any other yeast we've seen before, yet still remains highly attenuative. Sigmund's Voss Kveik also exhibits the ability to ferment wort over a large temperature range, 70 - 100 ºF, without major changes to the flavor profile or production of any harsh phenolics or fusel alchohols.
This yeast will exhibit a slightly more restrained ester profile and ferment a little slower at cooler fermentation temperatures, and quickly produce a drier beer with a slightly more pronounced ester profile at warmer fermentation temperatures. We highly recommend taking this into the high end of temperature range, 90-100 ºF.
Temperature: 70 - 100 ºF
Attenuation: 78 - 83%
Flocculation: Medium-High
H.W.
For those who are unfamiliar with the program, I'm using a Fast Ferment, and maintaining it at the 6 gallon mark. Each week, I draw off 2 gallons of beer into secondary, and add 2 gallons of wort. The brew is a pale ale, and the wort changes from brew to brew, always staying within the general description of pale ale.
The procedure is to draw off 2 gallons of beer for secondary, and taste it, then decide both how to dry hop it, and what I want to do for that day's brew. Which hops, and malts to use.
I then dry hop the batch that I'm putting in secondary....... or wait a few days, and do my brew. The yeast ball is removed, and protected, and the fresh wort at the end of my brew day is poured into the fermenter right from the boil with no chilling at all. The Norwegian Kveik yeast is rated up to 100F, and the temp rises to 110, and drops down to a decent temp fairly quickly. At about 80F, I pitch yeast from the yeast ball, but fermentation starts virtually instantly when the hot wort is poured in. I would prefer that the temp killed the yeast, but this kveik is tough stuff.
The yeast ball is emptied of trub once it settles so what remains is mostly yeast, and pretty clean. I use a large plastic oil change funnel with a stainless steel splatter screen when I pour into the fermenter.... both sanitized of course. This captures most of the trub.
So far the results are excellent. I maintain the IBUs at around 50, and ABV around 6%. SRM varies depending on my mood, as does the hop profile, and the "weight" of the beer.
I brew other beers on the side, but this keeps me in about 2 gallons a week of decent pale ale....... or more realistically about 1.75 gallons....enough to fill one of my mini kegs.
I'm contemplating going to a 50% brew instead of 33% for two reasons. One is the obvious sanitation factor of raising the temp to 135-140, and the other being that kveik is not a single strain of yeast, but more like a sourdough culture. By pushing the temp to 110, some yeasts that are heat tolerant will survive, and others may not. I do NOT want to select for yeasts with the highest temp tolerance. By bumping the temp up higher, presumably ALL the yeast will be killed and the yeast I just harvested which has not been subjected to "temperature selection" will be the dominant colony, and thus remain truer to the original White Labs product.
The fact that I've gone through 12 brews so far with no issues whatsoever suggests that this method is viable.......with this yeast.
Here is the description from Yeast Bay which sells the yeast (White Labs packages it) So far I really like this yeast:
Traditionally used in the production of Norwegian Farmhouse Ale, this strain is a fast fermenter with good attenuation, a light earthy spiciness, marked tartness and unique ester profile of orange peel. This strain is prone to forming incredibly large flocs unlike any other yeast we've seen before, yet still remains highly attenuative. Sigmund's Voss Kveik also exhibits the ability to ferment wort over a large temperature range, 70 - 100 ºF, without major changes to the flavor profile or production of any harsh phenolics or fusel alchohols.
This yeast will exhibit a slightly more restrained ester profile and ferment a little slower at cooler fermentation temperatures, and quickly produce a drier beer with a slightly more pronounced ester profile at warmer fermentation temperatures. We highly recommend taking this into the high end of temperature range, 90-100 ºF.
Temperature: 70 - 100 ºF
Attenuation: 78 - 83%
Flocculation: Medium-High
H.W.
