Rack a Berliner Weisse to secondary?

I brewed a Berliner Weisse according to Jamil's book and podcast on 4/5/14. It has been sitting in the primary this whole time. I checked yesterday and didn't taste much souring.

Should I just keep it in the primary and wait? Or should I rack into a secondary to get it off the yeast?

Should I up the temp to where lacto likes it more or will that now awaken the yeast and create off flavors? It fermented at 67/68 and I now have it at 70.

As I said I followed Jamil's somewhat non detailed instructions and just pitched a vial of yeast and lacto at the same time and fermented it out at 67.
Next time I think I will give the lacto a heads start and then pitch the yeast so I can keep the wort at a higher temp.

Thanks

Yourrealdad said:

Next time I think I will give the lacto a heads start and then pitch the yeast so I can keep the wort at a higher temp.

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That's probably the quicker way to get it sour. It will still sour at a lower temp but it will take longer. If you have room to store it out of the way, just sit it and forget it. It will do it's thing in time.

those lacto strains from WL and WY are pretty wimpy. they don't like hops and they don't like alcohol, so giving them a head-start is a good idea. given that your beer is now fermented and has alcohol in it, the lacto will likely be slow.

Even my wild lacto Berliner was a bit slow to sour IMO. I'd leave in on the cake until any off flavors have been cleaned up, add sugar yeast and lacto, and then bottle.


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For what it is worth, I got a very sour BW by letting WLP677 go for 7 days at 85-95F before crashing to 68F and pitching US-05. That stuff will produce the lactic acid if you let it.

Do I need to worry about the yeast autolysing or whatever?


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Yourrealdad said:

Do I need to worry about the yeast autolysing or whatever?


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If you aren't using Brett, then you don't really need to age the beer that long. Some folks are reporting getting their BW's into kegs as early as 1.5 months. You don't have to worry about autolysis in that time (or longer IMO). If you are using Brett, and aging your BW, the Brett will keep it clean. So either way, I wouldn't worry about it.

Since you've added the lacto to the fermenter its going to take some time, especially since you need to keep things at yeast temperatures. Raising the temp to the low 20C range (low-to-mid 70's) is your best bet at this time - the lacto will speed up while keeping the yeast at a temp where they're happy.

In the future you way want to consider using a sour mash/sour wort approach to develop some/all of the sourness; I've done "quick BW's" that way that were 10 days from mash-in to transfer to the keg...most BWs I do that way take about a month.

Bryan

Warthaug said:

Since you've added the lacto to the fermenter its going to take some time, especially since you need to keep things at yeast temperatures. Raising the temp to the low 20C range (low-to-mid 70's) is your best bet at this time - the lacto will speed up while keeping the yeast at a temp where they're happy.
Bryan

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Ah, right. He could bottle or keg the BW and age at room temp to free up the fermenter if he wanted as well.

I'd warn against bottling an incompletely soured beer unless you are absolutely sure your lacto is homofermentive or that you only have pedio in the mix. Heterofermentive laco will produce CO2 as it ferments and could lead to bottle bombs.

Bryan