Berliner Weiss, many ways

I recently visited Cigar City and they had a kumquat Berliner Weiss and holy crap it was delicious. I have an email into the brewer asking him on some details but so far I'm leaning towards this

50/50 continental pils malt and white wheat
Mash hop to about 5 Ibus Mash at around 150
Abbreviated boil to drive off DMS and to isolate the souring agent
Add a handful of Kumquats at flameout
Cool and pitch homemade lacto starter and keep wort in the 90ish degree range for 2-3 days
Cool down to high 50's and pitch Kolsch Yeast

Normal process from here on out and depending on the level of kumquat flavor I may "dry hop" with some kumquats that I have previously frozen and thawed for 5-7 days. Probably shooting for a 4-6 week grain to glass turn around.


This beer was seriously delicious and I can only imagine hot weather makes it even better.

Kumquat is a nice idea!! Dieu du Ciel recently done a kumquat IPA (i think with mosaic hops) and a friend of mine just from orange to kumquat in his witbeer, yesterday, I cant wait to taste it!

I'm planning on doing a sour mash, starting tonight. I like this idea of using 10% Aciduated malt to drop the Ph to 4.3, which is where lactobacillus wants to be, but not some of the other nasties that live on grain. Has anyone done this successfully? I will be adding the whole grain in a hop bag to my wort (vice in the actual mash).

Regarding DMS, I don't think it's a problem -- even with Pils malts. The boil does drive off DMS, but it's also the boil that creates the DMS. There's some discussion here that says DMS still isn't a problem in a pasturization boil (i.e. <15 minutes).


...very glad I found this thread, though!! I may have to attempt this one a few times. Has anyone used Rye vice Wheat?
(Also... planning on trying this brew out on my wife - who won't touch beer).

malweth said:

I'm planning on doing a sour mash, starting tonight. I like this idea of using 10% Aciduated malt to drop the Ph to 4.3, which is where lactobacillus wants to be, but not some of the other nasties that live on grain. Has anyone done this successfully? I will be adding the whole grain in a hop bag to my wort (vice in the actual mash).

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I used that exact method for my first and only (so far) Berliner. It worked out very well I thought. It won the Sour Ale category at my local competition recently out of 9 entries in that category.

Though, i just threw in a handful of uncrushed grain with the acid malt and let it sit at 95F for about 4 days. I covered with saran wrap as tight as i could to keep out any O2. I didn't get any of the vomit smell that I've heard can happen during a sour mash. I didn't use a hop bag or anything. Once i sparged, i did a 15 min boil with a random ounce of hops and then fermented it with WYeast 1056. It's delicious.

If i do it again I will mash with more water and sparge with less. I thin the sparge water diluted the sour a little too much.

malweth said:

(Also... planning on trying this brew out on my wife - who won't touch beer).

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My wife is the exact same way about beer. However, she LOVES the berliner. She also generally likes sour/tart things so that helps. She liked sour beer before I did.

Sour mash seems to be very popular, i should try it for the second batch so I can compare.

I'm thinking... If I keep a lacto culture alive in a jug, eich I will do... What about putting some of lacto starter to the mash instead of raw grains?

I understand that there is lacto on the grain, bit you can't never know which strain you get...

zeekage said:

I used that exact method for my first and only (so far) Berliner. It worked out very well I thought. It won the Sour Ale category at my local competition recently out of 9 entries in that category.

Though, i just threw in a handful of uncrushed grain with the acid malt and let it sit at 95F for about 4 days. I covered with saran wrap as tight as i could to keep out any O2. I didn't get any of the vomit smell that I've heard can happen during a sour mash. I didn't use a hop bag or anything. Once i sparged, i did a 15 min boil with a random ounce of hops and then fermented it with WYeast 1056. It's delicious.

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I wonder if the acid malt lowered the PH to a level where the Clostridium isn't active.

Calder said:

I wonder if the acid malt lowered the PH to a level where the Clostridium isn't active.

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That's basically what the article says. If I remember right every 10% acid malt lowers the pH by 1. So the goal is a pH of about 4.3 or so which they implied was low enough to inhibit most "bad" bugs.

Each percentage of acid malt should be about 0.1 pH high proportions make it taste yogurty in my experience. I used 25% last spring in a saison.

has anyone successfully avoided the rancid smell from a sour mash by just flushing with co2?

my 36hour mash smelled terrible despite flooding the cooler with co2 each time i added more water and after adding the grain to inoculate. thankfully the smell boiled off and SWMBO loved the final beer so I can do it again

going to try the plastic wrap method next time

terrapinj said:

has anyone successfully avoided the rancid smell from a sour mash by just flushing with co2?

my 36hour mash smelled terrible despite flooding the cooler with co2 each time i added more water and after adding the grain to inoculate. thankfully the smell boiled off and SWMBO loved the final beer so I can do it again

going to try the plastic wrap method next time

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I think part of the reason I didn't get the rancid smell was that I didn't add water to the mash at all. I used a mini personal heater from amazon inside my ferm chamber to keep my cooler MLT up at about 95-100F for the whole time. If you add water you're adding o2 even if its small amounts. I think the o2 is what causes the rancid smell but I might be wrong on that.

That being said when I do this again I will be doing a much thinner mash so that I sparge with less. I feel like the sparge cut the sourness a little too much.

I also want to try lacto in primary sometime too to see if it gives a better sour was that the sour mash method.

"Many ways" indeed!! This is a fun beer to brew and drink!

i boiled the water for a bit in the microwave - although I don't know how long it takes while boiling to scrub all the o2

i'd like to try a sour mash followed with an all Bret primary for the next BW to bring out some fruitiness, i was pretty successful in getting some peach/fruit esters from US-05 by fermenting it pretty cold


def a style i'd like to keep on tap or at least in heavy rotation

Just opened up my sour mash after 48 hours last night with some friends. Two of my buddies acted like babies and wanted nothing to do with it. Another guy and I dove in, spoons in hand. We flooded the head space with CO2 and it definitely had that cooked corn smell. Tasted decently tart, but we're going to let it stew for another 48 hours and see what happens. I'd rather go big on my first attempt and back blend if needs be.

fc36 said:

Just opened up my sour mash after 48 hours last night with some friends. Two of my buddies acted like babies and wanted nothing to do with it. Another guy and I dove in, spoons in hand. We flooded the head space with CO2 and it definitely had that cooked corn smell. Tasted decently tart, but we're going to let it stew for another 48 hours and see what happens. I'd rather go big on my first attempt and back blend if needs be.

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Mine was at 72 hrs yesterday evening and I decided to push my boil off to tonight. I actually thought it was more tart yesterday morning than in the evening, but I figure more is always better

terrapinj said:

has anyone successfully avoided the rancid smell from a sour mash by just flushing with co2?

my 36hour mash smelled terrible despite flooding the cooler with co2 each time i added more water and after adding the grain to inoculate. thankfully the smell boiled off and SWMBO loved the final beer so I can do it again

going to try the plastic wrap method next time

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Plastic wrap and CO2 flooding is currently working for me. It only smells of cooked corn and tastes tart. No rancid foot/vomit smell here, which is a hallmark of butyric acid contamination.

zeekage said:

I think part of the reason I didn't get the rancid smell was that I didn't add water to the mash at all. I used a mini personal heater from amazon inside my ferm chamber to keep my cooler MLT up at about 95-100F for the whole time. If you add water you're adding o2 even if its small amounts. I think the o2 is what causes the rancid smell but I might be wrong on that.

That being said when I do this again I will be doing a much thinner mash so that I sparge with less. I feel like the sparge cut the sourness a little too much.

I also want to try lacto in primary sometime too to see if it gives a better sour was that the sour mash method.

"Many ways" indeed!! This is a fun beer to brew and drink!

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+1 on the heater. My LHBS had a decent heater for $30 and it worked perfectly on the ferm bucket we used for a sour mash tun. I built an extra temp controller and we only needed to wrap it in some sheets (that's right, you read correctly). Sheets and not blankets plus a standard ferm heater wrap were more than adequate to keep it at 100F in a 62F basement.

fc36 said:

Plastic wrap and CO2 flooding is currently working for me. It only smells of cooked corn and tastes tart. No rancid foot/vomit smell here, which is a hallmark of butyric acid contamination.



+1 on the heater. My LHBS had a decent heater for $30 and it worked perfectly on the ferm bucket we used for a sour mash tun. I built an extra temp controller and we only needed to wrap it in some sheets (that's right, you read correctly). Sheets and not blankets plus a standard ferm heater wrap were more than adequate to keep it at 100F in a 62F basement.

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re: rancid, my wife immediately thought it smelled like vomit... but she was wrong. Cooked corn is definitely more my descriptor. FYI, I used the 10% Acidulated, no CO2 blanket, covered only with my boil kettle lid.


I am able to keep it at 90-95°F in a fermentation chamber (insulation box) and a paint can heater (in a 50-55°F basement). Apparently that's the limit of a 60W light bulb. Maybe I'll upgrade to a 100W next time. Luckily, the 60W should be perfect for *every* other beer . . . and no chance of burning the house down!

Subscribed. Please continue to talk amongst yourselves.

FWIW - I have a BW carbing up now. I'll post my results once it's ready.

I blended the two parts of my BW yesterday after 2 weeks if fermentation, both the Brett C and Lacto D parts were at 1.002, and I don't think it's going to go lower, everything was dow in a few days.

At taste, the brett C part was fruity, acidic, really light... A bit if phenol in the nose (rubber/plastic smell), hope it eikl dissipate... The lacto part was smoothly acidic, lemony, light.

According to my calculations, it will be a 2.3% abv. I'm bottling it in two weeks.

My sour mash turned out great. With CO2 flooding, I probably didn't need saran wrap at all to keep the clostridium growth at a minimum. When we first opened the mash up (2 days) it had a faint vomit smell, but that was quickly overpowered by cooked corn. The taste and tartness wasn't quite there yet though, so we flooded it with CO2 and sealed her up. At 4 days, I opened it back up and got almost no hint of vomit or sweaty sock. It was almost completely cooked corn and the tartness was spot on. I removed all the saran wrap and rather than mash and fly sparge on my normal equipment, I opted to not risk infection and just dump all the mash water and grain directly into my kettle through a 5 gallon paint strainer bag typically used for dry hopping. It worked like a charm and we ended up with almost no grain material and now I can see why BIAB is so popular. We brought it up to a brief 10 minute boil, threw in a half oz of German Select for 5 mins and got it into a fermenter with some 1007. I'm super psyched to rack it to secondary and see how it turned out.

Why secondary? The point of a sour mash Berliner Weisse is that you can turn it in a week. I don't know if you bottle or keg, but either way I'd just skip the secondary and get it to your preferred serving vessel.

That way you're enjoying it now and can get to planning your next one.

weremichael said:

Why secondary? The point of a sour mash Berliner Weisse is that you can turn it in a week. I don't know if you bottle or keg, but either way I'd just skip the secondary and get it to your preferred serving vessel.

That way you're enjoying it now and can get to planning your next one.

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I keg and whaddya know, we just floated our IPA the other day. I'm kegging that bad boy tonight!

Made 40 gallons, 4 day mash with heating blanket. Currently open fermenting in basement with lager yeast (why not?) in a SS drum. Going to flavor batches lightly after primary. Just pasteurize, not boil. So afar so good.

After blending both parts (lacto and brett) together, I thought everything was done. Both FG around 1.002. But now it started bubbling slowly again. I placed it near a heat source so it's around 73-75°F.

That thing is going to finish under 1.000 for sure!

Bottling in 10 days, if it stopped bubbling.

It could also be the heat source causing the bubbling. It heats up and expands the air in the headspace and also releases more of the dissolved CO2 when you warm it up.

zeekage said:

It could also be the heat source causing the bubbling. It heats up and expands the air in the headspace and also releases more of the dissolved CO2 when you warm it up.

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Hmm, maybe. I'll let it there for the 10 days anyway, if there's any more work to do, it will be done.

I did 2a - normal mash + single fermentation, but pitching lactobacillus few days before pitching saccharomyces and it's turned out wonderfully sour in only 4 days. Here was my method (sourced from dozens of threads on this site and others on berliner weisse).
I started 2 lacto cultures (both in mason jars) to see how different they'd turn out, the first one was 1 cup crushed grains in a cup of ~125 F water set in a window for a week with no additional heating source. The second was a mix of water and table sugar to about 1.035 (about 2 cups) at 125 F, with 1/2 cup uncrushed grains. This sat on a heating pad that maintained it between 95-105 F for a week. After a week the culture with table sugar had produced a much more advanced pellicle. I ended up pitching both because they both had pellicles and a cidery smell (which I've read is what you're looking for). The recipe was 50% pils 50% wheat with a single infusion at 150, double batch sparged with 175 F. I ran off 6 gallons and cooled to 125 F, and drained directly into fermentor. I did no boil, no pasteurization, no hops, no aeration. I stirred up both lacto cultures and pitched entire starters (straining through mesh strainer, so no grains got into fermentor). The entire fermentor sat on a heating pad (not sure how much it actually had an effect) but it stayed at about 80-85. After 4 days it went from 1.032 to 1.010 with just the Lacto, and was very sour. I pitched a pack of s-04 directly into the fermentor with the lacto on day 4. This is where I'm at right now, I will take a hydro sample in a few days or a week to see if the gravity has gone down, I'm debating adding a very small amount of dry hops to give a bit of aroma (because it doesn't have a pleasant smell), I'm also debating if I should bottle or keg it, I really don't mind thoroughly cleaning the keg and lines after this has gone through (or maybe even having a dedicated sour/berliner tap throughout the summer). Let me know what you guys think about adding a small bit of dry hops, and if anyone has experience kegging this over bottling.

Has anyone ever done a blend of a berliner and a standard fermentation? I'm thinking about doing a batch and splitting it, sour mashing about 1/3 with fresh malt and 2/3 with american ale at the same time, but separate. Boil and ferment the 2/3 (sacc) normally and then do a quick boil of the 1/3 (sour) after sufficient souring (thinking up to a week at lower temps, around 95). Plan is to do "too much" so that I can blend in less or more berliner and still end up with a full keg.

Either that or I'll just do 5a. Still undecided.

ajwillys said:

Has anyone ever done a blend of a berliner and a standard fermentation? I'm thinking about doing a batch and splitting it, sour mashing about 1/3 with fresh malt and 2/3 with american ale at the same time, but separate. Boil and ferment the 2/3 (sacc) normally and then do a quick boil of the 1/3 (sour) after sufficient souring (thinking up to a week at lower temps, around 95). Plan is to do "too much" so that I can blend in less or more berliner and still end up with a full keg.

Either that or I'll just do 5a. Still undecided.

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My first attempt I soured the whole batch and it was insanely sour (4 days @ 110F). So for my second attempt I took half and soured it (4 days @ 110F) and took the other half and pitched yeast, then after the 4 days did a quick boil, cooled and blended them together to get a nicely tart beer.

GatorBeer said:

My first attempt I soured the whole batch and it was insanely sour (4 days @ 110F). So for my second attempt I took half and soured it (4 days @ 110F) and took the other half and pitched yeast, then after the 4 days did a quick boil, cooled and blended them together to get a nicely tart beer.

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Thanks! If you did it again would you stick with that ratio?

That still made a pretty tart beer. If that's what you're going after that should work. On my last few batches I've been souring at room temp for longer ~6-7 days and that's been a really nice, mild, crushable beer.

Bottling this weekend 20L... I think I will carb with a 250g jar of honey, wich make 187.5g of sugar... So 9.375g/L... Should add some flavor!

Looking for some advice! Or confirmation that my plan is sound. My only confusion with a sour mash is: do you lauter/sparge your mash, THEN add some fresh grain to the runoffs? Or add the fresh grain to the mash (with the mashed grains still in it), and lower the temperature of this vessel?

Here is my plan, hopefully someone can tell me if it sounds good. I plan on doing a split batch to see the difference of using white labs 630, and doing a sour mash with sacc.

-50/50 pils/wheat. Mash at 150, lauter/sparge.

-split the runoffs into A and B

A (WLP630)
==========

-do a 15min boil with < 5 IBU hop additions to runoff A

-add WLP630 to A and let it do it's things

B (Sour mash)
==========

- add other half of lauter/sparge runoffs to a few 1gal milk jugs and add some fresh crushed grain to each.

-leave in my temperature controlled fermetation chamber (using a hair dryer to heat it ) for 2ish days, until the sourness is where I want it.

-dump in kettle while straining out the small amounts of grain added

-do a 15min boil with < 5 IBU hop additions

-ferment with Saf-05

That's it!

*** I plan on using plastic milk jugs to do the souring becuase I can squeeze out every last bit of air, since I dont' have any means of CO2 flushing a more rigid vessel.

Any input is greatly appreciated!!

sclitch said:

Plan A/B

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Your plans sound fine. For what you asked, you can sour your mash or your wort. Both work fine, I personally am a wort sourer fan.

I recently did a sour wort BW. I pitched a vial of White Labs Lacto and held it around 100 for 3 days. I didn't check the gravity then but after the 15 minute boil my gravity came to 1.012. Down from 1.031. So after yeast fermentation I'm looking at a 1.5% beer. Anyone else have a similar experience?

wish I read this thread a few days ago! I inadvertenly went with method 5a this past weekend.
Brewed a 1.050 hefe-weizen this weekend, but ended up souring my wort. I mashed/lautered on Saturday but couldn't boil until sunday. I boiled for 60 min and it smelled sour during the entire boil. obviously I killed off any bugs but not whatever they left behind. The cooled wort didn't tast sour though. I pitched wyeast bavarian wheat and it fermenting nicely.
If anything, this will probably only have a mild sour flavor. Any suggestions as to how I can get more sour at this point? Pitch lacto after fermentation?

GatorBeer said:

That still made a pretty tart beer. If that's what you're going after that should work. On my last few batches I've been souring at room temp for longer ~6-7 days and that's been a really nice, mild, crushable beer.

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Thanks for your feedback, I really appreciate it. I have pretty good control of my temps (my fermentation fridge can range from 28 to 120) so I'm thinking about doing something in the 90's range for the sour mash. I also thinking I'm going to do around 1/3 sour and 2/3 normal. I'm looking for something that's tart rather than intensely sour. I may do 10 gallons and I certainly want it to be "crushable".

So after reading this thread, I think I will very soon try to make my own berliner weiss. I'm am right now an extract brewer, and I want to make a beer that will be ready in as short a time as possible. So I'm thinking about doing a sour wort. I guess the idea would be to boil a few gallons of water with some wheat DME, cool the wort, then dump crushed base malt into it.
At this point I have a few questions. Everyone says to let it sit in the 90s or 100s for a few days to get it sour. But how long would it take if I had it just sitting at room temp (about 75F in my house)? Also, is keeping a steady temperature important with lacto? If not I could actually let it sit outside where it would fluctuate between about 75 and 95 (I live in Miami.) Letting it sit outside would also make the smell that I've heard about a sort of non-issue. Which brings up another question: how bad would the smell be if I left it in my house at room temp?
The other option would be to by a fermentation heater and a temp control, but I'd rather not spend the money.

From my experience, at room temp (~75), it takes 5-7 days to get a nice mellow sourness. Temperature fluctuation hasn't had any off flavors in my experience. Putting saran wrap over the top of the beer limited a lot of off flavors for me. The really nasty stuff comes when you keep it at high temps (~110F), but even then it wasn't THAT bad.

GatorBeer said:

From my experience, at room temp (~75), it takes 5-7 days to get a nice mellow sourness. Temperature fluctuation hasn't had any off flavors in my experience. Putting saran wrap over the top of the beer limited a lot of off flavors for me. The really nasty stuff comes when you keep it at high temps (~110F), but even then it wasn't THAT bad.

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Leaving it at room temp, will I be able to get it as sour as if using heat just by giving it a few extra days? I want my final beer to be pretty sour. And what are your experiences with smell at 75?

4 days at 110F - Creamed corn, hot garbage smells. Insanely sour. Think of the warhead candy. Too sour.

1/2 of batch 4 days at 110F blended with 1/2 non-sour - Puckeringly tart, sour, but pleasant.

5-7 days at room temp with saran wrap over it and airlock on bucket - minimal smell, some creamed corn, lightly sour, mellow even. Sourness took a back seat.

sclitch said:

Looking for some advice! Or confirmation that my plan is sound. My only confusion with a sour mash is: do you lauter/sparge your mash, THEN add some fresh grain to the runoffs? Or add the fresh grain to the mash (with the mashed grains still in it), and lower the temperature of this vessel?

Here is my plan, hopefully someone can tell me if it sounds good. I plan on doing a split batch to see the difference of using white labs 630, and doing a sour mash with sacc.

-50/50 pils/wheat. Mash at 150, lauter/sparge.

-split the runoffs into A and B

A (WLP630)
==========

-do a 15min boil with < 5 IBU hop additions to runoff A

-add WLP630 to A and let it do it's things

B (Sour mash)
==========

- add other half of lauter/sparge runoffs to a few 1gal milk jugs and add some fresh crushed grain to each.

-leave in my temperature controlled fermetation chamber (using a hair dryer to heat it ) for 2ish days, until the sourness is where I want it.

-dump in kettle while straining out the small amounts of grain added

-do a 15min boil with < 5 IBU hop additions

-ferment with Saf-05

That's it!

*** I plan on using plastic milk jugs to do the souring becuase I can squeeze out every last bit of air, since I dont' have any means of CO2 flushing a more rigid vessel.

Any input is greatly appreciated!!

Click to expand...

DO NOT add crushed grains. Use uncrushed grains for souring.

inflictor-of-grimness said:

So after reading this thread, I think I will very soon try to make my own berliner weiss. I'm am right now an extract brewer, and I want to make a beer that will be ready in as short a time as possible. So I'm thinking about doing a sour wort. I guess the idea would be to boil a few gallons of water with some wheat DME, cool the wort, then dump crushed base malt into it.
At this point I have a few questions. Everyone says to let it sit in the 90s or 100s for a few days to get it sour. But how long would it take if I had it just sitting at room temp (about 75F in my house)? Also, is keeping a steady temperature important with lacto? If not I could actually let it sit outside where it would fluctuate between about 75 and 95 (I live in Miami.) Letting it sit outside would also make the smell that I've heard about a sort of non-issue. Which brings up another question: how bad would the smell be if I left it in my house at room temp?
The other option would be to by a fermentation heater and a temp control, but I'd rather not spend the money.

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Steady temps are not as important for lacto as high temps. The higher the temp (keep it below 120-125 as this is where lacto starts to die) the more active the lacto become and the faster the souring takes place. I kept mine rock solid at 100 F for 4 days and it was VERY sour. For you, fluctuating between 75 and 95 F for 5-7 days will be fine. Just keep tasting it with a sanitized spoon every day or so and pasteurize/boil when you feel it's reached your desired level of sour.