Anything wrong with fermenting the must at 95F?

[NeverDie]

do it anyway. if ( and only if ) it works send me some.

Lastnight I tried both the regular and the chocolate Carnation malted milk, prepared according to the directions on the package, and I must say, it's a poor resemblance to malted milk balls. That would leave Ovaltine as a possibility, but looking through forum posts, all prior attempts at fermented Ovaltine have ended in epic fails.

I think the way to approach this would be to start with a sweet milk stout as the goal. I've never had one of those, so even that by itself could be interesting. Or, maybe the rph_guy recipe can be significantly sweetened up. Not sure.

 

[NeverDie]

So, anyway, yesterday I decided to try something simpler, namely a hard lemonade using the Hornindal Kveik using this recipe from this very forum:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/full-hard-lemonade-recipe.348811/
This time though it's using a TILT, so I get regular updates to SG and temp. It turns out that the wort temp, according to the TILT, is about 5F lower than what the inkbird had been telling me. Actually, I don't know which to believe, so just to be safe I'm keeping the inkbird at 95F.

Regardless, yesterday the OG was 1.096 at 6pm, and now today at 10am the SG is 1.072, so I take that to mean that the yeast is reasonably happy. The target FG is 1.016, because that is thought by many to be the optimal contrast between the sweet and sour of hard lemonade.

If there's interest, I can maybe post more SG readings, since perhaps it does give an indication of the Kveik performance at this sort of temperature. Unless someone has something to compare it to, though, I'm not sure how useful it will be.

I saw a youtube video where a guy in Sweden drove his Voss Kveik as high as 42C (107F) to ferment a beer in, if I'm not mistaken, one and a half days. Even though it unfortunately froze during the Swedish winter, it ultimately turned out reasonably well. So, maybe there's room for me to raise the temperature further without damaging the quality.

 

[z-bob]

Last weekend, I used a little less than half of my lactic starter to inoculate my beer. The rest I just left in the Thermos. (the beer is about ready to bottle. It was almost ready in less than 48 hours) Today I opened up the Thermos to check on it; was going to use the rest of the starter to start a sauergut reactor if it didn't stink too bad.

The stuff smells good instead of bad, but mostly it smells like alcohol. I didn't expect that. Maybe that's how a wild fermentation got started in my beer a few hours before I pitched the yeast.

 

[NeverDie]

Last weekend, I used a little less than half of my lactic starter to inoculate my beer. The rest I just left in the Thermos. (the beer is about ready to bottle. It was almost ready in less than 48 hours) Today I opened up the Thermos to check on it; was going to use the rest of the starter to start a sauergut reactor if it didn't stink too bad.

The stuff smells good instead of bad, but mostly it smells like alcohol. I didn't expect that. Maybe that's how a wild fermentation got started in my beer a few hours before I pitched the yeast.

Check it with a microscope?

BTW, how does your beer taste?

 

[z-bob]

BTW, how does your beer taste?

I haven't tasted it yet. I can still see tiny bubbles breaking at the surface. I will open it up this weekend; tonight or tomorrow.

 

[NeverDie]

do it anyway. if ( and only if ) it works send me some.

Apparently the trick is to add the lactose sugar without adding the actual milk. I hadn't known this, but you can buy bags of lactose sugar from a brewer supplier. I still haven't found a recipe though.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07FN3HRST/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

 

[RPh_Guy]

I don't mean to be a downer but it sounds like you'd be happier making mixed drinks.

They're done immediately, as sweet as you want, with whatever crazy things you feel like adding at the time.

 

[z-bob]

I haven't tasted it yet. I can still see tiny bubbles breaking at the surface. I will open it up this weekend; tonight or tomorrow.

I just pulled a sample. It's not bad; slightly tart and vaguely "fruity" (don't ask me what kind of fruit) with just a little malt character to it. Not much aroma, but what little is there is probably the fruitiness I think I taste. It's also pretty cloudy but doesn't taste yeasty. Should be good when carbonated -- more like cider than beer.

I'm going to bottle it in 2L plastic pop bottles with 14 grams of sugar, and store them in a cool place after the first couple of days upstairs where it's 70.

 

[NeverDie]

I'm going to bottle it in 2L plastic pop bottles with 14 grams of sugar, and store them in a cool place after the first couple of days upstairs where it's 70.

Wouldn't that risk making it even more sour? Or is the theory that it has already hit a sour limit that it can't pass beyond?

 

[z-bob]

Wouldn't that risk making it even more sour? Or is the theory that it has already hit a sour limit that it can't pass beyond?

I don't understand your question. I just want to carbonate it at this point, and I don't want the bottles to explode. They will take at least a few days to carbonate (probably a week), and then it'll take me while to drink it all; storing in a cool place reduces the CO2 pressure. I hope it clears once in the bottles, but that's not terribly important.

Plastic bottles are stronger than glass, and if one does explode it doesnt send shards of glass everywhere (and possibly starting a chain reaction with the other bottles.)

 

[NeverDie]

I don't mean to be a downer but it sounds like you'd be happier making mixed drinks.

They're done immediately, as sweet as you want, with whatever crazy things you feel like adding at the time.

There's precedent, one of which was rated as "outstanding" by beeradvocate.com Here's a video review of it:

 

[NeverDie]

I don't understand your question. I just want to carbonate it at this point, and I don't want the bottles to explode. They will take at least a few days to carbonate (probably a week), and then it'll take me while to drink it all; storing in a cool place reduces the CO2 pressure. I hope it clears once in the bottles, but that's not terribly important.

Plastic bottles are stronger than glass, and if one does explode it doesnt send shards of glass everywhere (and possibly starting a chain reaction with the other bottles.)

I just meant that the extra sugar would also be feeding the lactobacillus, not just the yeast, and so wouldn't it get more sour as they produce more lactic acid? Unless they had already reached a PH of 3.2....

 

[z-bob]

I assume at 70 degrees and lower, the yeast will get most of the sugar. I'm not concerned about it getting a little more sour. I am slightly concerned about it not carbonating enough if I went too conservative on the sugar.

I got four 2L bottles, a 1L bottle, and a 12 oz glass bottle which I will open first. Not bad. I will take the 1L to a homebrew club meeting in a few weeks -- unless it *really* sucks when it's finished, then I'll take a 2L

 

[wasully]

There's definitely no need for hops.

Give this a try:
Boil some chlorine-free water in a pot. Turn off the heat.
Add some pale and/or wheat DME. Stir it up.
Cool to 95-100°F.
Transfer to your fermenter.
Drop in some kveik yeast and Lacto plantarum. Maintain temperature.
That'll be ready to bottle in 1-3 days. Carbonate (if you want) via bottle priming.
It'll be really to drink in another 1-3 days.

This is really hard to screw up. The result will be tart, fruity, and delicious, unlike any beer you've ever had.

Voss kveik gives an orange fruity/marmalade flavor.
Hornindal kveik gives tropical fruit like pineapple and mango.
Hothead gives mango and honey.

Alright, I'm in to try this. The flavors have me intrigued.

Recipes for 64/128oz/3 gallon?

And how will the kveik yeasts respond to high 50s/low 60s temperatures? This'll be done side by side with cider, which is my real goal here. So running it 'cold'.

 

[RPh_Guy]

I would not use kveik or Lacto at 60°F.

 

[NeverDie]

The aquarium pump is what I use. Results seems the same as when I used to shake, but it is a lot less work. Although, looking at my gut, more work wouldn't be a bad thing...

I'm guessing that one could continue bubbling it for some period of time (hours? a day maybe?) even after the yeast is pitched. That would compensate for any deficiency in the initial dissolved oxygen, and then you wouldn't need to use pure oxygen to bullseye the target dissolved oxygen before pitching.

 

[bleme]

I'm guessing that one could continue bubbling it for some period of time (hours? a day maybe?) even after the yeast is pitched. That would compensate for any deficiency in the initial dissolved oxygen.

You could, but there really isn't any need to with normal gravities. Five minutes with the aquarium pump is plenty.

 

[NeverDie]

I don't mean to be a downer but it sounds like you'd be happier making mixed drinks.

They're done immediately, as sweet as you want, with whatever crazy things you feel like adding at the time.

I guess you're right. Tonight I tried a Left Hand Milk Stout (which is self described as as a sweet stout), and I can confidently report that there's nothing sweet about it. I made it sweet after-the-fact by dumping a lot of DME into it, and well, that was almost OK. I tried the Lactose Sugar that arrived, and it hardly tastes sweet either. It appears that beer is just not the right place to look for true sweetness.

 

[NeverDie]

You could, but there really isn't any need to with normal gravities. Five minutes with the aquarium pump is plenty.

I wonder though: if I were to create a starter with the optimum yeast population matched to the OG, then maybe I wouldn't need to care about oxygenating the wort/must because all the reproduction is already done?

 

[z-bob]

I'm going to try my sour when I get home from work. I put the 12 oz bottle in the fridge this morning. It's still cloudy but not ridiculous. There's a lot of sediment in the bottles.

Edit: It's not bad! Tastes more like wine or cider than beer... It is undercarbonated, tho'. I'm not sure if the the lacto ate some of the priming sugar, or if I opened it a little too soon.

 

[RPh_Guy]

Following up...
I ended up brewing that beer we discussed.
This was my first attempt at low oxygen brewing.

50% 2-row, 50% white wheat malt
Mashed 1h @ 152
Low mineral balanced water profile.
1h boil.
OG 1.049
I did a short vitality starter with Omega Hornindal because it was about 3-4 months old.
I pitched Lacto blend from a starter @ 12h.
Fermented @ 95°F
Bottled after 3 days fermentation.
No hops.
FG 1.010
Primed for 3.2 vol with dextrose.

It tastes amazing. Very fruity and complex. Pineapple, mango, honey, slight smoke. Light grainy finish. Lightly sweet but crisp. Fairly sour. Yum!

 

[GeneDaniels1963]

I guess what I'm discovering here is that wine is the wrong target for me. I don't want to wait months. I'd rather make something still palatable (and without headaches), but in a shorter timeframe (preferably a week, but 2 weeks max). I'm not into beer or ales though. So, what all, if anything, fits that timeframe? Mead?

Like others have said, try cider. I make very drinkable ciders in less than a month. In one or two weeks you might have fermentation finished, and it could be drinkable, but it would be much better if you waited a bit longer to let it sit for a few weeks at least.