Brewminaries get a visit from Omega Yeast

Lance Shaner, co-founder of Omega Yeast, visited the Brewminaries in New York on January 16th, 2019. Lance gave a lecture on Kveik culture history and brewing application to about 60 members in a packed Strong Rope taproom. The yeast's ability to rapidly ferment high SG wort at a large temperature ranges, while still providing a clean to pleasant ester profile, garnered a lot of attention for many homebrewers in the club that lack temperature control. Lance spent time reviewing the genetics of the yeast, as well as, showcasing a few in-house experiments to see how well Norwegian Kveik cultures would fair in difficult fermentation situations. Lastly, we ended our meeting with an examination on cell counts. It seems that conventional wisdom for optimal fermentation pitch rate may not be as straight forward as we had thought. Cell size and cell efficiency can vary from strain to strain which affect how much yeast we actually pitch.

You can follow along with the podcast by viewing the corresponding presentation here.

Thanks to Lance Shaner from Omega Yeast for giving this very in-depth and informational lecture on Norwegian Kveik, Omega Yeast history, and cell counts. We hope you had as much fun presenting as we did being an audience.

Thanks to John LaPolla and Bitter and Esters for helping organize this lecture.

Thanks, as always, to Strong Rope for hosting our meetings and allowing us to fully take over the taproom.

Lastly, a very special thank you Kenny Zammito who graciously volunteered his PA system, recorded the lecture, and edited the podcast.