best way to sour my unsour berliner weisse

Gritsak · 09-01-2010, 06:55 PM

About a 5-6 weeks ago i brewed a berliner weisse using wyeast's 3191 BW blend. Unfortunately there is no sourness at all to the beer. I've already spoke with the tech at Wyeast (great service BTW) and he confirmed that it should have developed some sour character by now. So, right now i've got a starter of lacto going and i'm trying to decide the best way to go about saving the beer.

So i've came up with these options:

1. Make a small batch (~2g?) of the same recipe, pitch a big population of lacto for a few days then blend that with the unsoured beer that's still in the primary.

2. I've been considering adding fruit, so rack the beer onto a can of Oregon puree and pitch the starter of lacto in with it (would there be enough sugars to sour it?)

3. ??? suggestions ???

godofcheese · 09-01-2010, 09:57 PM

I was under the impression that you are looking at 3 months minimum to get a sour taste. 6 months is preferred.

I would go with #1

ryane · 09-01-2010, 10:47 PM

Sourness should be evident very early with a bweiss, as lacto is inhibited by its own acid production, alcohol and hops

I would go route 1 if you really want to brew more beer, otherwise I would suggest either adding some lactic acid to taste, or another route Ive had luck is to add rhubarb to bweiss that wasnt sour, it became extremely turbid for ~2-3wks, then dropped bright, when tasting it was nicely sour

Gritsak · 09-01-2010, 11:05 PM

Maybe i'll try tossing some rhubarb in and see what happens. How did you prepare it?

ryane · 09-01-2010, 11:21 PM

I chopped it up, and boiled it in a small amount of water, i also add a tiny bit of DME so as not to water down an already low grav beer

prepare for a mess in the fermentor, rhubarb is very stringy, and the beer will become extremely cloudy, but in a month or so it should show signs of clearing, when it does i recommend cold crashing before racking to help compact some of the fluffy lacto

Gritsak · 09-01-2010, 11:28 PM

Sounds good. Thanks for the info.