Brewing up an APA with WHC Labs High Voltage dry yeast. It’s insanely quick - I put it in at 3pm and by 8pm there was CO2 coming out of the fermenter. 2 Days later and it’s down to FG. That was fermenting at 30 C, which is as high as my fermenting fridge goes. You can ferment at up to 36 C.
From brewing to keg within a week - what a world we live in!
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I’m doubtful of turbo yeast, I’ve seen a lot of really powerful soviet strains that go to 20%+ abv (above 30 if you are willing to mess with substrate) in matter of days. But at a dire cost of flavor, product is often only good for distilling (which, obviously, was design goal).
Of course, any lager strain can ferment below 36 and the hotter it is, faster the process, and ale strains go even above that. Result is often heavy fusel off-flavor, diacetyl, phenols. Often could be desired part of profile, but you’ve got to know where you plan to end up. Some lager strains advertized as “super crisp clean” explode with complexity at 27C.
And timing reported is quite typical for many liquid strains if they are prepared properly (I often bottle within a week), although it is indeed impressive for dry yeast. I wonder if they just used gentler liophilization? There are many techniques that are known, just not implemented commercially. Yet, I feel reluctant to try, conforming myself to locality feels more environmentally conscious and ethical. Although we’ve made the basic tools for that already…
I would bet money that this is a kveik derived strain and not turbo distillers yeast. Probably they just started propping up Lutra from Omega (which is an isolate from the Hornindal culture). It ferments very clean even at high temps, it does not produce a lot of esters, it’s non-phenolic and also does not produce a ton of fusels or diacetyl.
Right, it does sound like kveik. Wouldn’t guess which one or even whether it actually is kveik, I doubt that category really exists in a well defined manner lately, but is clearly useful as object property. I should probably start testing yeasts at high temperature as well as on cold, might be gems hidden there.
It’s this stuff - https://www.whclab.com/products/high-voltage-yeast
Holy smokes. What’s this about “very high nitrogen demand”? Do you think it needs extra nutrients/DAP?
More evidence that this is a kveik derived strain. Kveik are well known for needing a lot of nutes, that’s part of why they are able to ferment so quickly. As long as your wort is above ~1.050 you probably don’t need to add any additional nutrient. If you’re making mead or wine with it, then you’ll want to add more than normal.
This one started off at 1.054 and ended at about 1.008. It’s almost certainly a strain of kveik. I’ve used it before and it gives a very clean flavour.
At least fullgrain brewers should not worry about nitrogen demand ever, unless some explicit nitrogen removal was done. There is usually saturation amount of bioavailable amine groups in wort.
I know you’ve got the experience advantage on me, so I’ll take that onboard. I bet it’s still an issue with mead making though. I would love to make a high ABV mead without having to fuss about step feeding.
I can share an arcane secret here: I don’t do step feeding. After a volume of complex theoretical and experimental science (and mysticism, as it often happens upon consuming statistically meaningful amounts of mead samples, blanks, etc. - fortunately, it’s not distilling, thus no methanol, not even once blind!), we’ve came up with ultimately awesome slow release nutrient: almonds! Just 1g of slightly cracked (not crushed, or you’ll regret it) nuts per liter, let them float, separate on secondary fermentation or on bottling, does not matter much. ABV 14+ easily and reliably.
Other nuts we checked (we’ve looked into quite a lot, hazels included) are nutritious too, but release noticeable amounts of oil. Pine nuts are of special note, they made yeast go crazy overboard, but the product was barely drinkable due to bitterness, oiliness, and general skew.
For nutrition, it seems, nitrogen and vegetable oil are equally important. According to Dr. White, addition of fatty acids to yeast as nutrient promotes cell wall growth, even to the point that it might be possible to achieve efficient exponential growth with very low oxygen content. Nitrogen available from almonds proteins is slowly released and (I suppose) makes yeast adjust cellular machinery to actually process complex materials into its own proteins. So, it’s balanced diet!
And, as another, even more natural approach, - don’t refine honey too much, let some pollen go through. Pollen is pretty much most appropriate protein rich nutrient in existence, and it also imparts lots of flavor, naturally.
There you go. Very simple stuff.
This is awesome! Thanks for the write up!
This is easily the most interesting thing anyone has said to me on the internet in ages.
Why cracked and not crushed? Does the powder mix and create a weird residue?
Yes, it does! When it’s crushed, it’s not-so-slow release, mostly of oily matter that just stays inside if they are only cracked. And in the end, the powder could sink, or it could stay on surface, cling to tubing, clog filters, etc. And the regret of actually doing more work to grind on top of that!
There is also small increase of chances to contaminate the product, extra solid surface (negligible area in almost whole nuts versus non0negligible in powder) can harbor and somewhat protect species that are normally intolerant to alcohol.
