Tales of Kveik Yeast — Schwarz bier

How I made Schwarz bier in 2 weeks

Context

I have been brewing for well over 3 years now and most of the time I brew Ales due to their quicker turn around time from brew day to first pour. I have tried to brew Lagers and have struggled to find a consistent way to ferment at low temperatures and may even have ruined a batch where I experimented with Lager and Ale yeast in the same wort.

The two lagers I was able to brew were low alcohol (sub 5%) and I was not quite satisfied with it. So I mostly stuck with Ales and Ale yeast.

The Pain Point — My Fermentation Set-up

It is worth mentioning why I even embarked on this experiment. I currently ferment either in Anvil 7 Gallon fermenter or SS brewtech Chronicle fermenter. Both of those if you shell extra savings will sell you temperature control module. which consists of a pump, thermometer connected to a relay module that can turn on heating or cooling based on settings. With SS Brewtech, you will have to pay additional money to buy heating pad as their cooling coil doesn’t go deep enough to circulate hot water through it. On top of that if you want a glycol chiller you might as well forget home brewing as they are so expensive unless you build one yourself with old window Air Conditioner unit(time drain but may be worth it). So I ferment in the basement and for cold water, I use a cooler and add water and ice to it and I have to keep an eye on it for the first 5 days. My cooler is small, I can go to bed and wake up to alarm of high temp in the morning and rush up and down the stairs adding ice and removing warm water to re-establish the temperature. So I plan my brews when I know I will stick around the home for days to keep an eye (not hard these days). I also hate moving my fermenter from my garage to basement down a narrow set of stairs risking a back injury or a drop or a spill and having to carry that back up for cleaning etc.

Ideal Scenario

I want to ferment in the garage where I mash and boil but I live in Colorado, Temperature swings are huge between day and night.

Here Comes Kveik Yeast

All of that changed about a couple of weeks ago when I first heard about the strains of Kveik yeast. I overheard a home brew store expert tell another customer about it and how it doesn’t produce esters or ruin a beer at high temps etc. That got me curious, after some research and not being able to find enough around this experiment, I decided to take a chance and rushed to the local store, I was told there were several different strains

You can find more information about each strain and others from the awesome local yeast manufacturer, Propagate Lab. You can further read about each Kviek strain here.

Brewer at the store recommended Oslo being the most suitable for my experiment, I grabbed one and went to work.

My brewday was otherwise normal until it was time to pitch the year, This strain being very tolerant to high temperatures, I didn’t cool my wort below 84F and pitched it with more of “ F.. It” attitude.

What did this afford me?

I still moved the fermenter to my basement to avoid temperature drop in the garage. However, I cared less about temperature control, the cooler full of cold water, adding ice and removing water from time to time etc. I went to bed without a care in the world as it relates to fermenting. The OG(Original Gravity) of my wort was 1.055 and the next morning around 10am, it was around 1.024. I thought may be my eyes were deceiving me or the Tilt hydrometer is stuck at an angle, I frantically opened the lid to find nothing was off. I tasted the half fermented wort, it was clean with some sweetness to it. Skeptical and concerned as I was, I let it do its thing for a few more days, tasting at regular intervals and being surprised to the clean fermentation.

Fermentation plateaued around day 3 at 1.013 FG (Final Gravity) resulting in about 5.4% ABV. I let it rest for a 10 more days before I moved it to secondary fermenter for a couple of days to let all the dead yeast, grain and hop particulate to settle and kegged it.

The final product looks like this. Very dark and mostly features the taste of dark malts with clean lager like finish. I was going for a Schwarz bier and I can say it meets the bar. Everyone that I gave it to said it tasted and drank great.

I’m the biggest critique of my own brews as I know at the outset what I’m going for and sometimes while it results in a great beer other people like it, it doesn’t meet my expectations, this is one of those moments (less than 25%) where I can say I made what I set out to make.

Future of My Lager Brewing

Best way to be consistent and get what you want is by controlling the variables or eliminating the number of variables to control. By using Kveik yeast, I can eliminate the need to cool my wort down to 70s and eliminate the need to monitor and control my fermentation temperature making it easy and less expensive to make great beers.

I will continue to make lagers with this yeast and am looking to explore Voss strain for my next experiment of making a stout that will be aged in a whiskey barrel from a local distiller. I’m excited !!