Kveik - what goes on in your fermentation fridge?

[Jeremy Bullock]

Have you ever wondered how the new 'wonder yeast' Kviek performs in your fermentation fridge. Well, we made a brew and monitored the life out of it to find out.

Here at MyBrewbot we thought we would have a look at what goes on in the fermentation fridge after you’ve pitched. We found some interesting results.

1. Pitching at the right temperature is important if you don’t have direct heat on the fermentation vessel
2. Once fermentation has started Kveik, left to its own devices, will send the temperature sky high. It consumes glucose at an astonishing rate and produces loads of heat
3. A good cooling system is imperative. In our experiment we measured heating/cooling/off pulses and found that 95% of the time the fermentation fridge was in cooling mode.

Read the article here.

 

[yankinoz]

Góðan daginn,

While traversing the North Sea on our way to raping and pillaging in Yorkshire, we always fermented with Kveik in casks, but dragged them behind us in the chill waters to keep temps down.

Bless.
Eigil S

P.S. Keep us posted on your results.

 

[Jeremy Bullock]

Eigil,

we could be related then? Always wondered where my Nordic good looks came from.

Jeremy

 

[MHB]

You realise of course that all yeast produces the same amount of heat from a given amount of fermentable.
It's around 235kJ/Mole. all that can change is the rate at which its produced.
Any reasonable refrigerator (say a little bar fridge or larger) will have way more cooling capacity than required. Where the problems start to show up is in getting the heat out of the beer and into the cooling system.
Plastic is a really appalling conductor, so even if its cool outside the fermenter the inside can get a lot hotter fast.
Stainless will conduct heat faster, having a fan in the fridge will improve the rate of heat transfer dramatically.

I wouldn't be putting my sensor in a bottle of water, its going to introduce a lot of hysteresis. If air is the cooling media better to just measure and control the air temperature. Probably why you are experiencing any "heat pulses" by which I assume you mean the switching on of heating, which under the circumstances is ridiculous.

Also a little concerned by the change in gravity between 07/11/19 22:34 and 08/11/19 08:25 a total of about 20 points in 10 hours. 20 points equates to 5oP, that's a very fast rate, I would be concerned.
Given that the 5oP is apparent, Real Attenuation is more like 4.1% in a 23L 1.061 ferment a total of about 1kg of glucose (or equivalent) is being consumed. The molecular weight of glucose is ~180g/M so 1000g is about 5.5Moles.
5.5Moles of glucose would produce ~1300kJ in the 10 hours, its also 11Moles of CO2 at 22.4L/M that's just shy of 250L - hope you fridge is vented.

Be very interested to see how the beer turns out. I haven't played with these new super yeasts yet, conventional brewing practice suggests they should taste like shit, full of very unpleasant stewed flavours.
Happy to be wrong, but I will get some soon and have a play, based on what your test is showing, I will be paying a lot of attention to my wort cooling.
Hope you let us know how the beer turns out.
Mark

 

[Roosterboy]

Until you use them it is understandable not to believe how fast they ferment, I brewed a pale ale in the middle of last summer, mashed on Sunday , fermented in a shed 38-42 deg days , put it in the fridge on Wednesday night to chill. Fruity aromas , hops and malt.

 

[MHB]

Don't doubt that their fast early in the ferment, but (as always) it isn't looking like it will finish any faster, in the above 6 days and he still isn't at FG. A proper pitch of any decent ale yeast will do that easy, probably better. I would expect to hit FG in 4-5 days, if I didn't I would want to know why. Can do that and not load the beer up with esters.

OH its an interesting yeast and if you can make decent beer with it, it might make producing ale in an Australian summer without cooling a possibility, yet to be convinced and will try it, just a bit bemused.

Mark