Kveik choice for rum

[NZChris]

Peaceful is good. We went away for a long weekend and by the time we got back the molasses had dried onto every surface in our washhouse

[Yummyrum]

Bubbler airlocks on a newly pitched rum are a bad idea. If the froth hits the airlock they can belch a black geyser that can hit the ceiling.

Correct and exactly what happened ... in our bedroom ,( because it was the warmest room in the house at the time) When I made my first Rum wash with a turbo

Suffice to say , the fermenter never went there again .

[tubbsy]

So my experiment is underway. I didn't have as much molasses as I though so each has 5.7kg of molasses with a wash volume of 17L (OG 1.130). Each got a pinch of epsom salts and a vitB tablet. One got 40g of lowans bakers yeast and the other got 15ml of hornindal kveik liquid yeast. Both are in my fermentation chamber set to 38.5°C.

Observations so far...

1. Bakers yeast started much quicker than the kveik. I think I had sub-optimum kveik due to its age (expires in a few weeks) and I should have made a starter. After 6 hours there was still no activity vs lowans which was bubbling away nicely after an hour. I added the remaining yeast (35ml in total) and will collect the slurry after its done.

2. Kveik wash smells very tropical already. There is a very distinct difference in smell between the 2.

[MartinCash]

2. Kveik wash smells very tropical already. There is a very distinct difference in smell between the 2.

Awesome, can't wait to try the Lida yeast. I might do the same as you, two side-by-side ferments to compare.

[tubbsy]

48 hours after pitching and the bakers yeast wash has finished. All bubbling and fizzing has stopped, can taste no sweetness and FG is 1.050.

Kveik is still bubbling and gravity is currently 1.070.

[Saltbush Bill]

There is a very distinct difference in smell between the 2.

Will be watching this with interest.

[Yummyrum]

There is a very distinct difference in smell between the 2.

Will be watching this with interest.

Me too . But What ever happens , you should repeat it .

Why ? Well I always make two 50liter Rum washes ( Only because I want 100liters of wash per run ) Normally they are pretty identical .
Recently , I had one work as normal and the other was slow as a wet rag and was horrible to the point of dumping it after I recognised the smell .

My point is that normally a side by side is a good comparison , but sometimes things turn to shit and you might end up blaming something that wasn’t the real problem .

[tubbsy]

Me too . But What ever happens , you should repeat it .

Why ? Well I always make two 50liter Rum washes ( Only because I want 100liters of wash per run ) Normally they are pretty identical .
Recently , I had one work as normal and the other was slow as a wet rag and was horrible to the point of dumping it after I recognised the smell .

My point is that normally a side by side is a good comparison , but sometimes things turn to shit and you might end up blaming something that wasn’t the real problem .

Good idea, Yummy. I'll be in town next week so I'll grab another 25kg then.

[tubbsy]

So both are now finished. Lowans finished at 1.055 and Kveik at 1.058. Taste and smell differences are a bit odd. Taste wise the kveik has more going on, but the smell is more subdued. Lowans smell is funkier, but kveik still has that tropical smell to it.

I'll leave both for a week and strip them next weekend.

[tubbsy]

Got both run this weekend and I'll give it a couple days before I compare.

But Yummy was bang on - I'll need to do this again. Even though I ran both identically, the Kveik rum came out a little cloudy. I think one of my jars wasn't clean enough.

[MartinCash]

My Lida kveik is currently being grown in a starter (23L of beer) in preparation for a 60 L rum ferment. The smell coming out right now, 24h after pitch and with high kreusen sinking back into the beer is caramel and butterscotch. This was at 30 C.

[tubbsy]

So I've given it a few days and have made the below notes....

- Both rums had pretty even cuts. I collected 12 x 150mL jars of each with hearts starting on both at jar 5. Jar 10 of both is where the tails started, but much more strongly in the Lowans which leads me to think the Kveik had a slightly larger heart. There would have been more tails jars but I pulled the pin when I knew for certain I was in the tails.
- Kveik rum is definitely fruitier that the Lowans. I can't give individual notes, but "tropical fruits" does fit the bill. There is a hard to describe funkiness on the nose to the Lowans rum that the Kveik rum doesn't have.
- There was very little trub in the Kveik wash. Barely 2-3mm on the bottom of the fermenter (which I collected and washed to be used again). The Lowans wash had at least 5mm.

Both are now sitting in jars with a single roasted wine barrel domino.

[MartinCash]

Great, thanks for the notes!

My beer produced an amazing top crop after 24h, so I skimmed a jam jar full of yeast and will make the wash tomorrow. I'm using SBB's all-molasses rum recipe, I have 50 Kg of molasses waiting to be rummed up.

[matjans]

I just stripped a Stranda (single strain kveik) molasses/sugar wash for testing purposes, surprised by the results.

3lt molasses
2kg sugar
8g tronozymol (dap+vitamins from arsegan)
Pinch epsom salt (~2g?)
Boil molasses a few mins to get rid of contaminating organisms with 3L water, add sugar, boil again shortly, cool down a bit.
Add water with garden hose & aerate.
About 23L @ SG 1100, measured pH around 5.5
Pitch @ 30°C, seriously underpitched half a teaspoon (!) dried Stranda I acquired via a dutch homebrewing forum.
Started slowly, took about 12h to start bubbling. After that, fermentation took off and fermented out in about 4 days, final sg 1020. Tasted dry and slightly acidic. PH about 3-3.5 (test with strips).

Ferment more or less uncontrolled, kept the temp up manually with a heating mat for 30mins or so, just to stay over 30C. I think temp peaked somewhere around 35 degrees.

Harvested top at approx 48 and 72 hours and dried, bottom harvest after stripping about a week later. Washed and cooled in fridge.

Stripped in a small potstill, need 3 batches for about 20L (yes, working on a bigger one). Collected in small jars but threw everything back together in a glass container. Didn't throw anything away. Went up to 100.3C with distilling, wanted to know how far i could push the tails.

1. Almost NO fores. Very little aceton, almost no nasties. Very slight gluey smell that disappeared almost immediately.

2. Not too much but nice heads. I'm used to lots of heads from the still spirits rum yeast but now heads were raspberry/citrusy-fruity but certainly not in a bad apple way. Very little sharpness.

3. Sweet hearts. Lots and lots of sweetness but little vanilla/caramel.

4. Lots of "soft tails". I can only compare with still spirits rum and bruggeman bakers yeast which give me hard, tough, wet dog & lots of carton/cardboard acid-y nastiness. Tails are there of course but not very concentrated and with a "softer" impact it seems. A very earthy, musty smell too. No sulfur though, m8re like wet humus in fall.
Distilled well into 99 or 100+ to get all nasty out, just to see what's in the mash.

Collected everything in a glass container, ended up with around 40% ABV (i overfilled the boiler for the last batch and had to strip really slowly to keep it from puking). Tasted.

Surprisingly, it's drinkable, or rather it won't make you spit it out. Remember, stripping run only in a sime potstill. Soft, very, VERY little harshness, almost none, from higher alcohols, it doesn't burn your mouth, throat or stomach in any way, something both bakers yeast and still spirits do. Some fruity notes, raspberry-acid like, some light citrusy notes, but mostly the earthy musty smell and lots of tails.

For a first time kveik rum wash i am pleasantly surprised and will continue testing different strains and generations of those strains. I think my kveik strains are non commercial (ie. No single strain kveik like whitelabs or omega) but i'm not sure.

I will be testing Voss, Opshaug, Ebbegarden and Hornindal later. I'm looking for a fruity, tropical rum with some funk, and no added sugar.
First, off to holidays

[MartinCash]

Alright, the first 25L batch is happily fermenting on Lida Kveik, about 50 mL of top-cropped thick slurry from a beer fermentation pitched in last night, was fermenting within a couple of hours.

For the record I didn't really like the character of the beer that this made. Very tart and underattenuated, and way too fruity. I had pitched and fermented at 30 degrees, after oxygenating plenty, and used a 2L stir-plate starter to get the right pitch rate, so no underpitching.

Needless to say I'll be tasting the low-wines coming off the stripping run pretty closely to see if I can be bothered continuing with this strain.

[kiwikenny1985]

I tried Voss for a tpw
It didn’t like it much, ran it hot 40 plus and it stalled out @ about 1060. Ended up throwing some bakers in to get it going. Voss I great in beer, but I do think it needs all the right nutrients to go like that. I’ve had beer finish in two days

[MartinCash]

I've now done two strips of all-molasses rum fermented with Lida kveik yeast and so far so good. Fermentation was trouble-free and vigorous, generally finishing in 3 days, so similar to bread yeast. Temperature was 32 degrees, which is the ideal for this yeast, increased to 35 when activity showed signs of slowing down. I'm using the same yeast cake in successive ferments.

I've kept aside a cup of hearts from each strip and it's a nice funky heavy rum, which is what I was after. I'l report in more detail when the spirit run is done, in a few weeks.

[Skinnerback]

I started a rum wash with Hornindal this week. Seems a little slow, but chugging along. Made some beer last week with it and it charged right thru the wort at 96 degrees. Smelled good ,but I wouldn't call it tropical fruity. When I get the keg carbed we will see how it did.

[MartinCash]

I'm getting ready to do the spirit run on 40L of low wines this weekend. I used Lida kveik for most of it, but it gave up the ghost after three runs and I had to pitch some Voss for the last wash.

[Oldvine Zin]

So just started a 50 gal ferment of Muscavdo sugar rum using Kveik Hornindal. I did a starter using two vials of yeast and two cans of proper starter on the stir plate for a little over 24 hours, if my math and thinking is correct that should give me slightly a little less amount of yeast for that batch.More esters??
So far bubbling not violently but a good small bubble rate, aromas coming off are a mix of tropical fruit with some gnarly funk, so much that the dead chicken or goat head might not be needed lol

[Oldvine Zin]

ok it's starting to pick up on activity

OVZ

Stay safe all

[zapata]

That's an interesting flask you got there OVZ, what is it? Looks like something between a flat bottom boiling flask and an erlenmeyer. Or maybe the angle is just fooling me?

[Oldvine Zin]

Well my son's girlfriend borrowed my large erlenmeyer for part of her halloween costume, still waiting for the return. So that flask is a wine decanter and it worked well.

Stay safe
OVZ

[Oldvine Zin]

Well two weeks into this ferment, still bubbling nicely but only half way to dry. It seems like this isn't the miracle yeast that others have spoken about that ferments dry in only a few days But it still continues to have wonderful aromas.

Stay safe
OVZ

[MartinCash]

Which kveik did you use OVZ? Is this still with the Hornindal?

I only tried Lida and Voss. Voss was more vigorous. Lida died on the 3rd generation, I think pH dropped too low for it. Most of my ferments took 3-4 days at 32 degrees.

I had a taste test of the 2-month-old rum the other day and it's coming along nicely. Hard to compare with my bread-yeast rum, because I collected much deeper into the tails for that one.

[Oldvine Zin]

Which kveik did you use OVZ? Is this still with the Hornindal?

I only tried Lida and Voss. Voss was more vigorous. Lida died on the 3rd generation, I think pH dropped too low for it. Most of my ferments took 3-4 days at 32 degrees.

I had a taste test of the 2-month-old rum the other day and it's coming along nicely. Hard to compare with my bread-yeast rum, because I collected much deeper into the tails for that one.

Yes the Horindal batch still going strong but taking forever to finish.
Maybe my first readings were low for the sugars

Stay safe
OVZ

[Oldvine Zin]

Damn over three weeks and still fermenting, so much for a fast acting ferment but the wash still smells wonderful.

Stay safe
OVZ

[Berserk]

I put down a Voss ferment this Saturday. 25% molasses, 75% white sugar, some DAP, B-vitamin, a touch of tomato paste and a sock of crushed shells. SG of 1.075. Aereated well. Pitched two tablespoons of unwashed Kveik slurry from a beer brewing friend. Band heater around the fermenter.

It was quiet for 12 hours, then a continuous stream of bubbles suddenly started spewing out the blow off tube.

48h from pitching it has died down and is chilling around 1.015. Fastest ferment I've had so far.

[LWTCS]

So,,,a holy grail, or another "sku" among rhum/rum lovers collection? Or simply an exercise in eliminating a variable on the way to one's personal holy grail?

[MartinCash]

Personally, I found both Lida and Voss Kveik easy to use but on a 100% molasses rum, I couldn't tell the difference straight up, or between them and bread yeast; they're now 4 months on oak.

Perhaps age will tell.