Recipe: Traditional Norwegian Kornøl

Recipe Name: Traditional Norwegian Kørnol

Yeast: Hornindal Farm Kveik 

I brewed this beer to give the team at Escarpment a taste of traditional farmhouse beer from Norway. Traditional Norwegian Kornøl is brewed in Western Norway, with Hornindal as an epicenter. In stark comparison to the beers brewed in the Voss region which are boiled for hours, Kornøl is an unboiled beer - a raw ale! The lack of boiling gives it a characteristic grainy flavour which pairs with the undertone of juniper infusion. That's another important part of Norwegian farmhose brewing - pretty much all the water used to make the beer is infused with young juniper branches. Rather than the strong juniper flavour created by the berries, the branches lend a more mellow and integrated flavour. 

The beer traditionally uses kveik from the region, which is unique because the farmhouse brewers in the Hornindal area tolerate some acidity from lactic acid bacteria. I think the light acidity helps balance the low hopping rate and grain flavour. Here, I used an earlier Kveik Ring release called Hornindal Farm Kveik which (in comparison to our 2-strain Hornindal Kveik Blend) contained as many of the yeast and bacteria strains from the original kveik as possible.

Even thought it was several months old when I used it, it still kicked off fermentation within hours. Note that I made the wort on the lighter side in terms of gravity, but that these beers often come out around 8% ABV and so typically have an original gravity of 1.080 or so. 

Author: Richard Preiss

Beer Style (BJCP): ??

Batch Size: 25L (~17L was used for this beer, the rest for other experiments)

Original gravity: 1.058

Final gravity: 1.012

ABV (predicted): 6

Apparent attenuation: 80% 

 

IBU: 10 (Tinseth)

Color: 4 SRM 

 

Fermentables (4.5 kg): 

6.25 kg - Rahr 2 row pale  (100%) 

Water profile: Guelph (hard)

Ca 119 Mg 38 Na 65 Cl 150 SO 

Mash profile: 

Medium fermentability

67 °C - 60 min - Temperature

78 °C - 15 min - Mash Out

 

Water additions:

 

Mash - 8 ml - Lactic Acid 88%

 Sparge - 1.52 ml - Lactic Acid 88%

Mash pH: 5.56
 

Hops/boil: 

28 g - Saaz - 12% (11 IBU)

Process notes: After mash out, sparge slowly and heat the wort to 82ºC for 15 minutes (with the hops) to pasteurize prior to chilling. 

Fermentation profile: Cool out to 30°C and pitch 1 homebrew pouch Hornindal Farm Kveik (you can feel free to experiment with different kveiks) 

Fermentation Log: 
Day 0 (Brew day): 1.058
Day 1: 1.032
Day 2: 1.024
Day 5: 1.014
Day 7: 1.012 


Brewfather link

 

 

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