Brewing with "High Voltage" yeast
Brewing with "High Voltage" yeast
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!
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.