Intro:
Not sure if anyone is interested, but I brewed a raw ale based on Terje’s process (larsblog)
Well, I tried to. The main issues were that I don’t have access to Terje’s Hornindal kveik, so I used WL Opshaug kviek. I also don’t have access to juniper branches (and I didn’t add bitterness because I didn’t want to boil a hop tea inside around my cats; one of whom is 21).
Method:
Pilsner (4 kg) was mashed BIAB at ~75 C for two hours with about 10 L strike and half a lemon for acidity ( I figure the juniper infusion decreases the pH a bit, not having a pH metre, the half lemon was a guess). 24 g of Cascade was added at the end of the mash, 60 C, as a microbe inhibitor (some flavor remained).
The wort was made up to 15 L and OG was approximately 1.058 (1.045 at 50 C). The kveik was pitched at ~30 C and unfortunately (as it’s winter here) made it down to 20 C over the next day. It was left to ferment for 3 days (20 C, FG 1.035) and was top harvested at 48 hours. Bottles were left for a day to carbonate and then refrigerated.
Thoughts:
As you can imagine this beer is pretty yeast forward, being 100% base malt and dry hopped. The texture is good, fair bit of diacetyl, and it’s quite sweet. You know there is hops in the beer, but it’s definitely not one of the major flavors. All in all, not exactly what I was expecting (more of a clean, dry beer). But I’m interested in trying again at the appropriate temperature.
Has anyone else tried to follow Terje’s process? I imagine having Hornindal and juniper branches would be a game changer.
UPDATE 0:
I did a little experimenting, I bottled half of the batch 3 / 4 days after pitching and the other half 6 / 7 days after pitching. Lars and other raw ale brewers recommend bottling after 3 days and refrigerating. After my little experiment I can definitely agree, the batch that fermented out was thin, had no diacetyl, and tasted of alcohol. Altogether not great.
Next batch I’m going to try to use potassium metabisulfate to prevent further fermentation as I do not have enough fridge space for a 14 L batch and it’s too much effort to do a smaller batch. I will update with that info
I have repeated this recipe with hops, it was pretty good.
I also experimented with using potassium metabisulfite (campden) to halt fermentation for shelf stable storage. tldr; it didn’t work
Raw ale sulfite preserving experiment
So at bottling I bottled a little over half the mixture and placed it in the fridge. I didn’t have enough room for the other half so I dissolved three small teaspoons of potassium metabisulfite in a small amount of water and added it to the remainder of the beer (~7 L) and bottled it, leaving it at room temp. The refrigerated stuff was amazing, the proudest I’ve been of any beer I’ve made. The sulfite preserved beer was undrinkable; I think some of the yeast might have died and contaminated the beer with autolysis smell. It was so bad I didn’t taste it for long enough to get a real handle on what could have happened, all I can say is