Tuesday, August 7, 2007

Neo Kvass: 1st Tasting

Bread Yeast
(Right in Photo)


Appearance -
Pours with a huge white head, that prickly settles down into a very cloudy tan/orange. It is hard to tell if it would have been as cloudy if

Aroma -
Yeasty, a bit spicy with some lemon. The yeastiness doesn't smell like rising bread (as the fermenter did for the first few days) or like noxious sulfur (like the fermenting beer did for a week after the middle of

Taste -
Pretty clean, with a bit of yeast. A bit dry, but not overly so with no apparent bitterness. Definitely "bready" but no more so than some British ales. It has a slightly spicy flavor, similar to a Belgian ale (probably a phenol).

Mouthfeel -
Medium bodied with a strong carbonation.

Drinkability/Notes –
Really easy to drink, yet still plenty of interesting flavor. Bread yeast really did a good job on this one. I'll certainly try using this in another beer sometime soon, maybe a Wit.

Wyeast
1056
(Left in Photo)


Appearance -
Mildly cloudy tan/orange. Thin white head that dies down very quickly.

Aroma -
Malty/toasty, very clean.

Taste -
Actually reminds me more of a loaf of bread than the bread yeast version, toasted with a bit of rye. Almost has a hint of vanilla. Not much yeast or hop character.

Mouthfeel -
Medium bodied with medium-light carbonation. Seems like the bread yeast either ate down further once bottled or it produces more CO2 from an equal amount of sugar.

Drinkability/Notes –
A solid session beer, without as much rye bread character as I expected. I'm glad I have this “clean” version so I can see exactly what the bread yeast contributed.

Recipe


1 comment:

Unknown said...

Really interesting experiment Mike, and it's great that you got drinkable results! I did something vaguely similar by fermenting a hefeweizen with sour dough bread yeast. It was surprisingly tasty after a month or so of aging - a bit like a dry wit, with a slight tartness. I'll have to brew this again and let it age for longer to see how it develops.

I was also thinking have you tried using the Koji mould from Sake brewing in beer brewing? This releases some saccrification enzymes which might be able to malt & ferment barley/wheat at the same time. I plan to experiment with this myself if I can get the mould.

Cheers for the great posts,
Trevor