A Perfect Beer for Summer Brewing (...and drinking!)
As a newbie home brewer, I am really enjoying trying new recipes, but with the heat of summer upon us, keeping the fermentation temperature down has become a real challenge, if not impossible, without more equipment. My fermentation chamber is my basement which, for most of the year, stays in the mid 60’s. With a heater wrap and temperature regulator on the fermenter, I can dial in the optimal temperature for whatever brew I’m fermenting. However, when my basement hit 70 earlier this month, I started looking into cooling solutions. That’s when I got the promotional email from Northern Brewer for the “Legend of Lutra” extract kit. It was very timely, calling attention to a yeast that could handle temperatures up to 95 degrees, Omega’s “lutra Kveik.” I would have no problem leaving the brew to ferment in my basement, no matter how hot it got down there.
I’m more of an IPA drinker, but I do love a good ice-cold lager during the summer months, and wow this beer is perfect! I just popped one for the first time over the weekend. It had only been in the bottle for 7 days, but I wanted to give it a taste. This yeast is a work horse! The beer was fresh and flavorful, and ready to drink in such a relatively short turnaround time. To me, it was a lager without the lagering. Sure, some might say it’s “cheating,” but it solves the problem of not having a cooling system. Not only that, but the fermentation went quickly! After initially using a blow-off tube to handle the day-one excitement, the batch settled down and did the Lutra did its thing. I moved the batch to the secondary fermenter after two weeks, and then a week later, I bottled it. One week after that, I had my delicious “summer lager!” I was so pleased with the Lutra yeast that I used it for one of my own concoctions, an attempt at a rauch bier. I want this beer for September, but it will probably be ready in August! It’s nice to have an option of a lager-like taste without having to invest in a bunch of cooling apparatuses and be able to just let it go in my hot summer basement. (NOTES: Fermentation temperature averaged around 75 F. I used one packet of dry Lutra Kveik yeast. Start to finish it took 4 weeks, and I ended up with 5.5% ABV)
