Berliner Weiss, many ways

I'll start a partial sour mash soon for my raspberry wheat. I'll do a 4-5L sour mash for 20L total, I'll add the sour part at sparging.

I'll do it in a stainless pot with a plastic pellicule and lid on it (or the lid first...). We'll see. I plan not to open it for 3 days.

So I want to get my berliner weisse pretty sour, but I'm concerned about how a low PH might affect a regular sach yeast that I plan on pitching after souring my wort. Has anyone had any problems pitching a regular german hefeweizen yeast after souring their wort?

Cheers!

Hey all. Thread is 2 months old but maybe I can resurrect.

I am an extract brewer looking to do a berliner without tieing up my FV for months. I am pushing towards what some like J Wakefield, Pegs/Cycle, Funky Buddha, Angry Chair, Gravity Brewlab are doing- heavily fruited berliners dubbed 'Florida Weisse.' After much research, I think the sour wort approach will work best for me for ease and quick turn around. Can anyone let me know that I am following a good process???

a) Heated 3.5 gal water in the kettle to 170
b) Added full amount of DME
c) Cooled to 115F
d) Tossed handful uncrushed 2-row into kettle.
e) Purged headspace with CO2
f) Layered sanitized cling wrap over wort and made a seal on the kettle sides
g) Purged remaining 4 inches of headspace in kettle with CO2 and sealed headspace with cling wrap
h) Threw on kettle lid for good measure
i) Wrapped in towel, placed in oven with oven light on (currently holding 107F, 6 hours later)

The following steps are NOT done yet...only 6 hours into the sour wort. It already has a light creamed corn smell

j) Keep temp 90-110 best I can. After 1 day, taste, leave longer if not soured to taste. Total 2-4 days.
k) once at desired sour level, strain grain and any mess from wort, and bring to boil in kettle to kill of lacto
l) Boil 15 minutes. Add 1oz Hallertau at start of boil.
m) Cool with ~2 gal of top off water and put in ice bath to bout 70F. This will bring total wort to 5 gallons.
n) Pitch US-05 and leave in temp controlled chest freezer til primary ferm finishes
o) rack over 4 lb of pureed raspberries in secondary (buying frozen, pureeing in food processor, freezing in ziploc, thaw and pitch)
p) let ride in secondary 1-2 weeks.


Questions!
1) When I bottle this after fermentation (probably 1 week primary, 2 weeks on fruit in secondary), how long should it be in bottles before ready...the typical 3 weeks that I wait with most of my beers, or will it take longer to condition
2) How many volumes of CO2 for this beer. I imagine its higher than the 2.2-2.4 I use on my IPA/DIPA/IIPAs
3) Anyone have any idea how to keep the sour wort hot enough. People say in the oven with the light on, but I have doubts my little oven light is going to keep the oven around 100*. I have heard a) heat blanket (reasonable, as they are only $18 at Walgreens), b) hair dryer (lol), c) maybe turn the oven on low for a bit (first removing my towels and such)

If my beers turns out tasting anything close to decent and looks like this (for a HBT user), I will be very proud for a first try. The whole baby diaper, cheese, foot sweat, vomit stories are freakin me out

bassman22 said:

Questions!
1) When I bottle this after fermentation (probably 1 week primary, 2 weeks on fruit in secondary), how long should it be in bottles before ready...the typical 3 weeks that I wait with most of my beers, or will it take longer to condition
2) How many volumes of CO2 for this beer. I imagine its higher than the 2.2-2.4 I use on my IPA/DIPA/IIPAs
3) Anyone have any idea how to keep the sour wort hot enough. People say in the oven with the light on, but I have doubts my little oven light is going to keep the oven around 100*. I have heard a) heat blanket (reasonable, as they are only $18 at Walgreens), b) hair dryer (lol), c) maybe turn the oven on low for a bit (first removing my towels and such)

If my beers turns out tasting anything close to decent and looks like this (for a HBT user), I will be very proud for a first try. The whole baby diaper, cheese, foot sweat, vomit stories are freakin me out

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Don't get too worried. Some people have failed because bacteria is unpredictable, but for the most part a soured wort is the easiest thing in the world. I recently did my first sour, and I simply made an unhopped wort, through some 2-row grain in, and let it sit in a carboy outside (we get enough heat in Miami to sour it in a few days out there.) After I pasteurized it and pitched some yeast, let it ferment for 10 days, and bottled. I'm actually drinking one now, and it's pretty good. I thought it would be a good idea to do it my first time without fruit, but I think I slightly regret that now.
You seem to have your ideas down, and I think your beer will be delicious. Just go for it. Really, it's easy.

To answer your questions:
It carbonates as fast as a normal beer. I was drinking mine after 5 days and it has a decent amount of carbonation (though not completely ready yet.) Around 3 volumes is good for a Berliner. It's one of those styles where you want a nice spritzy feel. Use this: http://www.northernbrewer.com/priming-sugar-calculator/
For heating, I don't know. Even if it's not THAT hot, it will still sour. Heat just quickens the process. As I said, I just left mine outside, and it turned out fine.

Thanks for the advice and encouragement.

24 hours later the wort is smelling like straight creamed corn casserole that mom makes on Thanksgiving. From my readings this is good. Temp is holding 106-108 with a towel wrapped kettle in the oven with the oven light on.

Did a 1a - Normal mash + single fermentation with both Yeast (London ESB) and lactobacillus (Wyeast 4335), pitch at the same time.

55% Pilsner
40% white wheat
5% acid malt
7 IBU Hallertau

Tasting notes. Note that I did two versions so ESB&L stands for London ESB and Lacto version.

3.5 months:
ESB&L version is very flat and almost soapy tasting with a slight apfelwein taste to it. No real sourness to it to speak of. Color of a very clear pilsner.

7.5 months:
Transferred off of the yeast cake and into fresh better bottles. ESB&L version tastes like nothing. Some very, very light sourness detected when cold, but when warmed up it tastes simply like nothing. Gravity 1.000. Boiled up 1/2 lb of maltodextrine (~4 points) in a little bit of water and added along with some ECY 04 Brett Blend #1 (1/3 of a 2L starter crashed and decanted)

1 year:
ESB and Lacto
Nice wheaty sourness on nose. Tartness washes over the tongue and a very light flavor. Kegged it up and it's a nice, light wheaty beer with a decent tartness / sourness to it. Not overwhelming, but there for sure and certainly in balance. I think the malto and brett blend really helped out with the flavor complexity here.

Berliner Weiss is one of my favorite brews right now. I just made an all grain batch (my first all grain) this week. I sour mashed for 4 days in a bucket wrapped with two wool blankets. I mashed out today using an igloo cooler. After sparging to get a total of 6 gallons I tasted and it is nice and sour. It is in fermenter right now cooling down until I can pitch my ale yeast. I used the attached recipe and followed it as closely as I could. I did not keep my sour mash temps at 100 but the wool blankets really helped to hold the heat in for days as it was still warm today. Will update what is happening with my berliner.

http://atimeforbeer.blogspot.com/2010/11/berliner-weiss-recipe.html

I've tried 2 methods:

1c - Pitching WLP630 Berliner Weiss Blend at start

2a + 6 - Normal mash + single fermentation with no-boil and mash-hopping, but pitching lactobacillus (1) day before pitching saccharomyces.

I must say I prefer the product of the 2nd process, and it seems to get sour much faster. I've now done no-boil several times with good results, but not as sour as some that I've had.

I'm just now drinking 10 gallons of my sour wort method Berliner Weisse. I followed the instructions (mostly) in the "Funk with Less Fuss" article in Zymurgy a while back.
My reason for picking this method was that I had read of sour mashes gone bad due to other bacterial infections. Also, a friend of mine brewed a sour mash version, let it sit for 5 days in the cooler and still came out with weak sourness.

MY GRAIN BILL:
6# Weyermann Pilsner
6# Weyermann Wheat
3# Global Kolsch

Started 5 days before brew session by puttin a handful of grain in a 1 quart jar with 110 degree water and 1/3 lb. of honey. I put that in a cooler and let sit for two days. After the second day, I took a pH reading with a simple color-tipped strip and was at about 3.9. The article mentioned Lactobacillus like 3.8 to 4.3 pH so I took the sour starter out of the cooler and let it sit at room temperature for the third day to slow down the pH drop.
On the third day I conducted the mash and sparge, brought the wort just to a boil and then cooled down to 110 degrees again. Put that back in my cooler to let sit for about 46 hours, just short of 2 days. I didn't notice any vomitous smells during that time. The sour wort probably has that benefit over the sour mash method due to the fact that by the time you're doing most of your souring, the bad bacteria has died off in the starter. The article said to sour the wort for 12-24 hours, but I figured more is better, right. I tasted the samples during those 2 days and it never got very sour, just a slight tartness.
After two days of wort souring, I brought the wort to boil for about 30 minutes and added a pinch of hops that were close to being too old for storage anyway.
Each 5 gallons got a re-hydrated pack of US-05. It took 2 days for activity to get to the airlock. I was worried that the low pH was killing the yeast, but it did eventually get to work. I used the US-05 intentionally for its robustness. For 1 day of fermentation, there was a pretty intense sulfur smell coming from the fermenters. This is a first for me with US-05. It did die off, though. I let them sit in the fermenter for 1 week and then kegged. Started drinking 3 days after that.

The smell has slight green apple, wheat and a little funk coming from it. The clarity of course is horrible but to style. It is very tart, but just right as far as I'm concerned. Fermentation after souring does increase the perception of tartness. And then, to me, the carbonation upped that even more. I may let it go for 24-36 hours next time when I let it sour in the cooler. Total time until having this beer ready to drink was 2.5 weeks. I've made Berliner Weisse's with Lacto Cultures before, and waited on them diligently for months and months. This beer is just as good as those.

One thing I did see though was that my hydrometer never really registered the drop in gravity as the US-05 was fermenting. I've seen on forums where the lactic acid has enough density to give false hydrometer readings. In fact my reading was 1.032 after fermentation was complete. My refractometer did indicate, though, that final ABV was 3.8% and FG 1.006 so everything seems good. And I can tell by the taste there's no way that it's 1.032 at FG.

I sour mashed for 4 days as stated earlier.....Beer has been fermenting for 1 week....I checked gravity and it is at 1.004 down from 1.042 OG. 4.99% ABV. A bit high for the style but still within parameters. Beer is clear and very tasty. Reminds me of tart lemonade...no corn flavor...tart and clean. Carbonated and on a hot day this beer will be awesome and won't cost me 8 bucks each like my local beverage center charges....I don't know why folks are waiting months in secondary for this beer when it can be ready in two weeks or so....Traditionally it must have been made with a sour mash as opposed to the much longer and space taking up method of creating the sourness using lacto, etc. I soured and used nottingham and it is what I was hoping it would be....plus my first all grain!

I mashed in on my first sour last night. Im going to let it mash for 4 days. I did 6 lbs pilsner and 6 lbs white wheat. mashed at 149 for 90 min. cooled to 120 degrees and threw 10 ounces of whole 2 row. I for got to put a campden table in for chloramine.

Rossi how did that four day mash go for you?

I just tasted the first glass of this beer.

http://riverwards.blogspot.com/2013/08/supermoose-of-norway-decoction-mashed.html

And it was phenomenal, lactic nose big tarness upfront thats balanced nicely with a slight malty grainy-ness, finishing bone dry and tart. Really turned out great and I will repeat this process shortly. One thing that I think helped this beer is the Conan ale yeast, Conan seems to leave a little bit of body to dry beers which works well here.

I'll post more detailed tasting notes soon.

drawdy10 said:

Rossi how did that four day mash go for you?

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It went pretty good. My garage stays pretty hot this time of year. Wrapped in a sleeping bag. Stayed in the high 90's
It's pretty sour. Should be good.

Doing my first berliner and was wondering if this is a normal thing



Threw a half cup of two row in the wort after cooling to 105 and this is 48 hours later

jtd_419 said:

Doing my first berliner and was wondering if this is a normal thing

Threw a half cup of two row in the wort after cooling to 105 and this is 48 hours later

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Yup, there is a whole thread devoted to these

Jlaw3000 said:

Yup, there is a whole thread devoted to these

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Isn't it kind of weird to get a pellicle that fast though? Not that it means anything is wrong with the beer. I just think it seems pretty quick.

inflictor-of-grimness said:

Isn't it kind of weird to get a pellicle that fast though? Not that it means anything is wrong with the beer. I just think it seems pretty quick.

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I shut down the ac.... stayed about 95 the whole time. I boiled it today and it's cooling now pithing s-05 once the temps down.... tasted it and it's like straight lemon juice

jtd_419 said:

I shut down the ac.... stayed about 95 the whole time. I boiled it today and it's cooling now pithing s-05 once the temps down.... tasted it and it's like straight lemon juice

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Sounds good to me. Pellicles don't usually indicate much regarding the final product, as far as I know.

For what it's worth, when I pitched a lacto starter into my wort and incubated in the mid 90s, I had a pellicle formed within 24 hours.

Jlaw3000 said:

Yup, there is a whole thread devoted to these

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I knew it was a pellicle..... I just didn't know if it looked like it was supposed to.... in other words, was trying to make sure that I caught the right bacteria

Question... 15 minute boil with Pils malt.. Isn't that a recipe for DMS (corn) flavor?

Wyrmwood, I'm not sure why there is no DMS but there definitely is not any with this technique. I have made two batches of it with great results

drawdy10 said:

Wyrmwood, I'm not sure why there is no DMS but there definitely is not any with this technique. I have made two batches of it with great results

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Yeah, I've read that DMS comes naturally from the grain, but heat removes it, including kilning, that's why pale malts (esp pils) need to be boiled off, but I've also read posts that imply it somehow comes from the boil, so skipping it entirely would not produce it (never seen this in anything "scholarly")? (There's also an earlier post about a cream corn flavor that has me suspicious... I wonder if you get it really sour, it just masks the dms?)

My attraction to this method was that I was only "infecting" one container and I would then boil that container. I had not heard of the "no boil" method, so I just anticipated a 120 minute boil, adjusted for post sour volume (evaporation in the oven) and did a 100 minute boil. None of my equipment except my kettle ever touched the "sour" and I boiled it for 100 minutes Mine tasted like sour lemonade after 44 hours.

Sounds good wyrmwood I don't think a boil hurts the style, people just like the benefit of skipping it. Your method seems 100% valid thanks for the input

Wyrmwood said:

Yeah, I've read that DMS comes naturally from the grain, but heat removes it, including kilning, that's why pale malts (esp pils) need to be boiled off, but I've also read posts that imply it somehow comes from the boil, so skipping it entirely would not produce it (never seen this in anything "scholarly")? (There's also an earlier post about a cream corn flavor that has me suspicious... I wonder if you get it really sour, it just masks the dms?)

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Have you tried google? Ordinarily I'm more helpful, but you deserve it.

drawdy10 said:

Sounds good wyrmwood I don't think a boil hurts the style, people just like the benefit of skipping it. Your method seems 100% valid thanks for the input

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There are a number of reasons not to boil this beer. Color and losing volatile phenols and other flavor compounds as well as any alcohol produced during sour mash come to mind.

TNGabe said:

Have you tried google? Ordinarily I'm more helpful, but you deserve it.

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touche

There are a number of reasons not to boil this beer. Color and losing volatile phenols and other flavor compounds as well as any alcohol produced during sour mash come to mind.

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duh, I hadn't even thought of that, but I did lose 14 gravity points in the mash. I assumed the lactob had ate it, but yeah, obviously if any alcohol were produced, I just sent up in vapors... Still, I think I'd have a hard time not boiling it; fear I guess.

TNGabe said:

There are a number of reasons not to boil this beer. Color and losing volatile phenols and other flavor compounds as well as any alcohol produced during sour mash come to mind.

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There isn't any alcohol produced from this strain of Lacto because it's homogeneous. [I assume that you are getting the sourness from the lacto on the grain].

I thought you do a no-boil to ensure that you don't produce DMS. [I should probably google that ]

Whalewang said:

There isn't any alcohol produced from this strain of Lacto because it's homogeneous. [I assume that you are getting the sourness from the lacto on the grain].

I thought you do a no-boil to ensure that you don't produce DMS. [I should probably google that ]

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If you're souring with grain, you really have no idea what sort of lacto you have or what other critters are active.

I only suggested google because Wyrmy gave me a hard time about it the other day. If you read the DMS wiki on HBT it explains how the DMS precursor SMM is formed and how that relates to boiling.

That wiki was not helpful but thanks for trying.

After experimenting with cultured lacto and yeasts I've come to the conclusion that lacto from grain has the best souring properties. So for me, if I was doing a sour mash for this style, I'd use the Lacto from the grain.

Whalewang said:

That wiki was not helpful but thanks for trying.

After experimenting with cultured lacto and yeasts I've come to the conclusion that lacto from grain has the best souring properties. So for me, if I was doing a sour mash for this style, I'd use the Lacto from the grain.

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Maybe you should read it again, it might make sense eventually.

It makes sense but it is not directly related to our process for this style.

TNGabe said:

Maybe you should read it again, it might make sense eventually.

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Yeah, so if I interpret it correctly, basically heating wort causes DMS, so in a "no boil", the wort is never heated (except for the mash, but according to the post mash doesn't produce dms, though it does produce some precursors) and thus no DMS.

I never heard of 'no boil' before this thread. In fact, never heard of sour mash until I read this

Fun stuff

Wyrmwood said:

Yeah, so if I interpret it correctly, basically heating wort causes DMS, so in a "no boil", the wort is never heated (except for the mash, but according to the post mash doesn't produce dms, though it does produce some precursors) and thus no DMS.

I never heard of 'no boil' before this thread. In fact, never heard of sour mash until I read this

Fun stuff

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That's what I got out of it, but I'm just a wyrmwhang.

I just drank a couple from my first batch of Berliner tonight......2 weeks ago after 2 weeks in the bottle it had a strong dirty diaper smell to it but I went on vacation and got home last night I have had 3 today already.....no bad smell now.....nice carbonation and head.....a champagne like carbonation with a nice head. very tart (I soured mash for 4 days). I love this style. I had been buying 25 ounce bottles of the Bruery's Hottentoth for 10.99 a bottle (ouch).....now i got 5 gallons for cheap. Anyway, I'll be making this again. Below is a link to the actual recipe I used.

http://atimeforbeer.blogspot.com/2010/11/berliner-weiss-recipe.html

I made my second batch of Berliner Weisse and bottled it a week ago. I dry hopped this one with Nelson Sauvin to give a fruitiness without the expense of buying actual fruit. I tried one tonight and it is fantastic. Very sour, but a very clean tasting lactic sourness. Big fruity aroma from the Nelson Sauvin. I got a big white grape aroma before bottling, but after carbonation I get more tropical fruit aromas. Anyway, this is the best beer I've made. I can't wait to try adding fruit to my berliners and trying different dry hops.

After seeking advice from you guys, I decided to jump forward with a berliner. First off, thanks for the help! I have never brewed the style and have only had a few commercial beers of the style, but what could it hurt? Its 90*+ in Florida and this would make a perfect pool side beer.

My attempt was towards a Florida Weisse (sorry for those of you who dont like the term), much like what J Wakefield is pushing. Huge fruit additions into a base berliner recipe. I am still an extract brewer so I went with a sour wort approach. We'll call the final beer was a Pom Razz Berliner Weisse.

Steps:
-Heated 3 gal water to safe temps and added 3lb wheat DME and 1lb pilsner DME
-Dropped the temp to around 110 and pitched a cup or so of uncrushed 2-row into the wort
-Lay a sheet of syran wrap directly over the wort and "glue" the sides of the syran to the side of the kettle. This will prevent oxygen from getting in. Also purged with a blanket of CO2 into the headspace of the kettle and then covered the top of the kettle with another layer of syran.
-Put the kettle in the oven with the oven light on. Also wrapped in a couple towels. Used my bbq thermometer to monitor temps. This technique held the temp at average 106-108* for several days. No need to turn on the oven. It also kept the fiance from getting on me about the smell, as the oven contained it well (except when the door was opened)
-After two waiting two days, I sampled the wort two times a day. I (believe) I let it ride of a total of 4 days. I had to keep in mind that I would be topping off with 2 gals of water, but at the same time I had to keep in mind that the sugars in the wort were masking the true potential level of sour. Over the days I got a delicious creamed corn smell that reminded me of Thanksgiving corn casserole. It started to turn a little more towards creamed corn + garbage towards day 3 though, haha. I wasnt getting any of the terrible aromas (baby poop) I was warned about, so I was happy.
-Boiled the soured wort 15 min to kill the lacto off. Added 1oz of Hallertauer hops to the boil. I had concerns, as after the boil it had some creamed corn smell. This however went away during fermentation.
-Topped off wort with 2 gal water, cooled to 67*, and pitched US-05. Let it ride for 2 weeks.
-At week 2, added 5 lb raspberry and 16 fl oz POM juice (raspberries were frozen raspberries that I pureed and then refroze with the POM juice until ready to use) into a mesh bag.


My opinion: One of the best beer I have made. Friends cant get enough of it. Its certainly different and not for everyone though. Beautiful color. Light, crisp, refreshing. Has some lactic funk on the nose, which transitions to more of a pleasant dirty raspberry aroma as it warms. It has moderate tartness. I wouldnt mind if it had just a bit more pucker. The raspberries shine nicely in the beer, but its not crazy fruity. Things I would do different next time: let the sour wort ride a little bit longer, and add more fruit to bring out that raspberry character, and add more carbonation (I was limited to what I thought my bottles could handle...3.4 volumes, which is high but I felt it could use a little more carb).






Cheers!

J wakefield and the best Berliner I've ever tried. It was a blackberry Berliner. That was what inspired me to get started on my own.

Any batch spargers out there that have done a sour mash? I think this is the route I'm going to take but I'm wondering if should mash in as normal and then batch sparge after my mash has reached desired sourness? Or do I try to fit as much of the total volume in the first infusion?