couple berliner questions

I keep seeing pitching ratios for the sacc and lacto of 3:1 to 5:1 but not an association of what is what so I'm confused if I need 3-5 times as much sacc or lacto for the ratio?

malted or unmalted wheat?

Berliner is made with malted wheat. As for pitching rates, I have no idea. Wild bugs you see.

Thanks El Exorcisto...I went through the homebrew section over at BBB and couldn't get an answer on the ratio thing. I read through a bunch of Kris England's stuff and am basing my brew off his suggestions, but I was left unsure about the ratio. Well, one question down and one to go.

White labs has a blend out, you could just use that...

Or I would say 3:1 of Sacc to Lacto

I already have a tube of lacto so I'm going to use that. As well, I'm doing a 10 gallon batch so if I made a starter for the blend I would be way out of ratio. But, thanks for the heads up on the blend, it would otherwise save the cost of buying two different tubes for a 5 gallon batch.

I would make a starter with the Lacto (low gravity, no oxygen, keep it hot). As long as it is going strong you should be fine (not sure if the ratio refers to cell count or volume or what). Keep the IBUs low, too many IBUs stop Lacto and cause most of the Berliner problems I hear about.

I would wait longer than Kristen suggests before bottling, but then I'm a bit of a nervous guy when it comes to sour beers. I also like a hint of funk in my Berliners, so I add some Brett and give then a few months before bottling.

I have one running with the Wyeast blend. I think there is 4x more lacto then yeast in it with a touch of brett in there as well. A way around this is to pitch the lacto a few days ahead of the sacc to give it a head start. You should start seeing a dry film on top of the wort that may start bubbling up.

Berliner Weisse is not necessarily a wheat beer. You can use up to 100% Pilsner malt with good results. The ratio is (edited for correction) lacto to sacc. Traditional BWs always contained Brett, but that was abandoned once they moved to pure cultures sometime during the 1970s, IIRC.

Yeah, I'm on the fence about the bottling thing. Another schedule Kris gives is racking to secondary after about 4 days and then letting it sit for 7 at 75 degrees...but, I think racking is a waste of time as a general rule so I might just keep it on the yeast for around 12 days and bottle. Kris also recommends re-yeasting at bottling which seems a little odd to me given how early he's bottling and given how low the gravity is, the yeast and lacto should be in great shape. But, he seems to know exactly what he's doing so my thoughts were to try my first BW mirroring his recommendations and adjust from there.

I'm thinking doing a split batch and dumping some Avery 15 dregs into one carboy so I can do a side-by-side this summer to see what character I prefer.

ArcaneXor said:

Berliner Weisse is not necessarily a wheat beer. You can use up to 100% Pilsner malt with good results. The ratio is sacc to lacto. Traditional BWs always contained Brett, but that was abandoned once they moved to pure cultures sometime during the 1970s, IIRC.

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No, the ratio is lacto to sacc.

It is lacto to sacc. Here are some of my notes from my Berliner, it was good enough to take first in the AHA COC. It was a no boil recipe except for the decoction.

Name Description Step Temp Step Time
Mash In Add 11.00 qt of water at 150.6 F 136.0 F 120 min
Step Add 9.00 qt of water at 169.2 F 149.0 F 60 min
Mash Out Decoct 9 qt of mash and boil it 15 min. 170.0 F 10 min


5335 starter at 95 deg. 1.030 wort 50% corn sugar 50% DME
Cool & decant, pitch into small starter several hours before brewing
Cool wort to 90 deg and pitch lacto, when wort reaches 75 (next day) pitch any clean ale yeast.

I left mine on the yeast for 12 days then racked to a keg. Added 170 grams corn sugar, 500ml starter of lacto, and keg conditioned.

I have the VLB reference book right in front of me. It looks like the ratio varied widely over time, from 6:1 in favor of the yeast to 8:1 in favor of the lacto. I stand corrected in that ratios favoring the lacto seem to be more common. The ratios favoring the yeast seem to date to when they used mixed cultures that had all kinds of wild bugs that contributed to sourness in addition to Lactobacillus brevia.

Thanks for the input all. Works been eating up all my free time so I'm finally getting a chance to brew this in the next few days. Have a 2L starter of lacto on the stir plate since last night holding steady at 98...I forgot the 50/50 corn sugar to DME though, too late now though. My process is going to be pretty similar to enid's above; but, with only one decoction.

Here's my current thought for experimentation (partly putting this down as notes for me to review later so I don't forget ). With 10 gallons I will pull 2.5 gallons out of each carboy to blend into a cornie and keg condition and serve on tap. Then blend the remaining into the bottling bucket. Bottle half of it straight and when I get to the halfway point pour Avery 15 dregs into the remainder and bottle 2.5 gallons with brett. I have heard that bottle aging gets the lacto character going quicker so I will be able to compare keg to bottle. It will also give me the chance to compare brett against non brett in the style.

I just made a berliner on saturday night. I did a 50/50 of wheat and 2 row and a bunch of rice halls. I heated the water to 168 and dumped it in the mash tun with the grain let it sit and cool until it was around 110 and pitched a big handful of unground 2 row into the mash and stirred. It is getting nice and sour (keep a eye on the ph every day the lower it gets the sour it will be) and will sparge off the mash and do a short boil later this week.