Took 2 tablespoons of Kveik from a jar of literal hop sludge that was saved from a test batch of hazy IPA over a year ago. I’m talking thick, green sludge (that smelled kinda amazing actually). Rinsed the yeast in about 200 ml of sanitized water and decanted that off into a 500 ml starter and it took off almost immediately. I have never seen any other harvested yeast behave this robustly.
It has been treated much worse by the Farmhouse brewers. My experience is similar to yours.
My recent excursion with the Voss strain has returned a meh beer. It’s ok but it’s not the best beer I ever brewed.
It reminds me of basic training. We were allowed one free afternoon at the bowling alley. They served two kinds of beer: Blatz and Old Milwaukee. We drank pitcher after pitcher of that crap.
This beer reminds me of that. I’ll drink it but I’ve had better beer. Inmates would kill for this but here in the free world I have better beer on tap and in conditioning.
I am wondering if my pitching at 97F and letting it do what it wants had a negative result vs holding it at 97F throughout. It ventured down to 73*F by the end of fermentation.
This was the best Kviek I had brewed which is why I saved the dregs from the fermenter. This was the Hordinal strain which has some tropical aromas that went well with the Sabro, Denali and El Dorado. I’m not always a big Hazy IPA fan but this one worked for me.
I didn’t force the temperature too much over the mid to high 70s.
Hornindal is a solid yeast. You didn’t even need to make a starter, that stuff is so hearty. I thought rinsing with water was a no-no because it raised the pH too much…?
And I don’t think holding it at 97F really matters. The traditional farmhouse brewers in Norway didn’t have heating pads and belts to keep their fermenters warm.
Lutra kviek is another nice, clean one. Honestly though, I don’t like the kvieks in IPA. I think they’re much more suited to malty and/or dark beers.
In most cases I would not have even bothered rinsing – any other yeast I would have just dumped it in the compost. I should have taken a picture of it because it looked just like a wet hop plug (and smelled like one). I should add the aroma was so strong even the starter smells like a hazy IPA (with a side of isovaleric acid)
That does not surprise me. From what I have read, these strains have been subjected to pretty harsh conditions for a long period of time. That kind of selective pressure will result in strains that are bad ass.
Lol! That is hilarious. I have made a few soda kegs of beer that fit that description over the years.
It is more about the storing yeast under boiled water that is bad practice. The rinsing and immediately repitching part is okay, but I personally would have pitched the sludge, waited until the yeast was in suspension, and that then decanted the liquid fraction off into a new sanitized container for pitching. That is how I do it when I am restarting an old crop. That way, I avoid pitching a metric truck load of dead yeast cells. The cells that are in suspension are all viable.