After falling in love with a Berliner Weisse at Iron Hill brewery last summer, I finally decided to pull the trigger on making my own. I just did a traditional 70/30 pils wheat grain bill with a mash hopping of liberty (strictly on the advice of a guy at my LHBS). I just mashed in for a 5.5g batch at 154*, and plan to let the mash sit for about 36-48 hours. I will then drain, into the fermenter, mashout and sparge to collect the full amount of wort. From there I have a question.
I was originally planning to let the wort sit in the fermenter for a day, and pitch the WLP677 and let the bugs do there deed.
However, the same guy at the LHBS suggessted I throw a pound of crushed grain in the primary and let that sit a day or two, then rack to a new carboy and pitch the WLP677.
Is one approach better than the other considering I am doing a no-boil batch?
Lactobacillus lives on your barley. The idea behind throwing crushed grain in the primary is to add lacto to your wort. Since wlp677 is lacto, I'd skip his step of adding the grain and just pitch what you have.
I didn't see what yeast you're going to be using. If you're planning on using just lacto (a bacteria), then you're going to be in for a surprise.
Mashing for 1.5 to 2 days is going to add an unpredictable amount of lactic sourness. I'd skip that as well.
I do have some clean dry yeast on hand, but I was originally planning to not do anything but the bugs. So I should pitch the bugs and the yeast? Should I give one a head start?
After some reading, I think I may pitch some Cal Ale or Nottingham with the bugs, no boil, no additional cracked grains. Anyone want to chime in and let me know if this is a good approach?
Here are my notes from my Bweiss a couple of weeks ago.
Berliner Weiss #1
Brewdate: 05-09-09
OG: 1.034
Volume: 10 gallons
Recipe: 6lbs Weyermann Pilsner
6lbs Weyermann Wheat malt
1oz German Select 2.3%AA
2L starter of 2 vials Lacto Delbrueckii (White Labs), made night before, held at 98F overnight
Brewday Process:
Mashed in at 133F, held for 25mins. Pulled a decoction (about 1.5gal) and held at 150F for 10 mins, then boiled for 30mins. Added back to mash, only brought it up to 140F. Pulled another decoction, boiled for 5 mins, added back to mash to bring it to 147F. Rested for 60mins. Dropped to 144F after 60mins. Pulled a 3rd decoction, boiled 30 mins, added back and it brought it up to 164F. Lautered, got very cloudy wort. Difficult to runoff. Sparged with 2 equal batches of 3.75gals of 200F wort.
10.5gals of wort at 10.5P, wanted 8.5P. Diluted to 13gals, giving me 8.8P wort. I brought the entire volume to 170F (since the cold water I added to dilute brought it down, and in an attempt to slightly sanitize the wort). I then cooled it down to 80F, put 5.75gal into Adam's carboy, 4.75gals into my corny. I added fermcap (5drops into corny, 6 into carboy), added the lacto, and then eyeballed ~2.5g of US-05 into each fermenter.
Updates:
05-10-09 Thin krausen has formed on top, visible bubbling. Ferment started at 78, brought down to basement and is sitting at 68.
05-11-09 Fluffy white krausen in corny, half fluffy white krausen, half brown crusty looking krausen. SG of both is 1.014. No sourness in taste, tastes worty. Moved corny to fridge and set to 82, moved carboy into closet and is sitting at 72.
05-13-09 Gravity reading: 1.006 out of carboy. Smell is slightly tart, big bready notes. Taste is very slight tartness up front, followed by a fairly clean bready/wheaty character. Tastes pretty good, but I really really hope it sours up more.
05-15-09 Gravity reading of the keg fermented version: 1.004. Smell is just wheat bread, clean. Taste is wheat bread, clean, with a very very faint tartness in the background. Very faint. I added as small a pour as I could manage of Lactic acid to ~4oz of the sample, and the tartness brightened up the entire flavor and nose, paired wonderfully with the breadiness. As a last resort, this seems like a great option.
05-17-09 Added dregs of Lindemans Cuvee Renee to keg BW. Moved from 85F fridge to same spot as carboy, sitting at about 74F.
05-25-09 No gravity reading, but tasted both carboy and keg. Both are developing spotty white spots on surface, moreso in keg.
Carboy: Bready nose, slightly funky (Erica thought it smelled like poo, I disagree), very little tartness in nose. There is a mild tang in the flavor. Wheat malt is still strong, I hope the sourness develops more, should add some Cuvee Renee dregs to the carboy as well.
Keg: Very similar nose to the carboy sample, but the taste is a bit more sour, broad on the palate, nice clean finish, wheaty breadiness is pleasant.
After some reading, I think I may pitch some Cal Ale or Nottingham with the bugs, no boil, no additional cracked grains. Anyone want to chime in and let me know if this is a good approach?
I always make a big starter with the lactobacillus 10-14 days ahead of time. When it's time to pitch, I use a kolsch yeast along with the lacto. You can pitch the ale yeast a few hours before the lacto, but I pitch them together. I like to keep it as simple as possible, although sometimes I will do an overnight mash just for the heck of it.
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I pitched a lacto culture in one and made a lacto starter from grain in another fermenter, let both sit for 48 hours and then pitched yeast. The grain starter isn't nearly sour enough, I think I got enough wild yeast from the grain that it took over. The lacto culture (Wyeast 5335) one is just right. Mine was from boil, though, if you do a no-boil you may have a different result.
Started my first berliner
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