Kveik

Mind the pH Gap - Escarpment

Crispy Brewing with Kveik: Mind the pH Gap - Escarpment

These data present a possible solution: when brewing with kveik, especially when targeting a crisp and clean beer, it can be helpful to use water with higher buffering capacity (mineral additions). It can also be helpful to avoid wort pH that is too low. While targeting 5.1-5.2 pH may be perfect for a Helles fermented with lager yeast, the same wort may end up producing a slightly too acidic and thin beer in the hands of kveik. Pushing that wort pH to 5.4-5.5 may help improve the final sensory characteristics of the beer.

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Nutrition: Another important parameter of kveik that we will discuss in detail in the future is nutrition. In general, we find that kveik require at least 180ppm of FAN, compared to lager yeasts which routinely use about 30% less FAN. This means that a low gravity, all-Pilsner malt wort may be insufficient in FAN and result in sulfury off flavours or stalled ferment in the hands of kveik. If you are brewing wort below 1.060/15ºP, we recommend adding a yeast nutrient. 

1. Make a highly fermentable wort

Most kveik strains do not ferment maltotriose very efficiently. Maltotriose is a three-glucose chain that makes up ~20% of the carbohydrates in wort. This means that many kveik fermented beers will often finish up in the 1.012-1.020 (3-5ºP) range depending on your original gravity. To ensure a lower finishing gravity, take a page from the farmhouse brewers: use a long mash, ideally at a lower temperature, to make a very maltose-rich wort. Note that you likely don't need to mash for hours. 60-90 minutes at ~65ºC (149ºF) will work great.

2. Add nutrients

Kveik's ancestral environment is high-nutrient: all-malt, high gravity worts made with extended mashes. This means that kveik is used to being pampered with a buffet of FAN, vitamins, and micronutrients. In order to help kveik when you're using it in modern worts, we suggest adding yeast nutrients. A good rule of thumb is to use double the amount you use for a typical beer.

3. Make sure it gets lots of oxygen

Oxygen is a key nutrient for yeast. Yeast growth and the early stages of fermentation benefit greatly from added oxygen. Traditionally, kveik top ferments in open fermentors where there is plenty of gas exchange. Putting it into closed fermentors (kegs, conical tanks) creates a different environment that the kveik may not be used to. Our advice is to add plenty of oxygen up front to any kveik ferment.

4. Experiment with temperature and pitching rate

You can get wildly different flavours at different temperatures and pitching rates with kveik. Depending on these choices, one kveik strain can almost behave like 8 different "regular" yeasts! In general, hotter temperatures create more flavour expression especially with the fruity esters. Hotter temperatures also result in more glycerol production, which may add more perceived body to your beer. Cooler temperatures result in more neutral flavour profiles.

5. Maintain stable fermentation temperature

Kveik can ferment at an astonishingly wide range of temperatures. We have seen many of our strains perform as low as 10ºC (50ºF) and as hot as 42ºC (108ºF). This means that kveik is incredibly flexible with temperature, which is part of why it has become so popular for homebrewing. However, we have seen that when kveik goes through extreme temperature swings (low to high or high to low), results have been less than desirable. Some off flavours can happen with temperature swings, and if a kveik ferment drops in temperature too fast, the yeast can stall out.