Berliner weisse questions

Hi! I have been considering starting a berliner weisse, but I am confused about the technique and I don't have a definitive reference. Is it properly done with a sour mash or just with a bacteria augmented fermentation or sme combination of the two?

I did search around and people seem to do it all three ways but I wasn't able to determine which way is most appropriate and which way makes the best beer.

Thanks!!

People generally do one or the other, all claim that their method is the best. Up to you to decide. I mash and sour the whole mash for 2-3 days, then sparge and boil so all the bugs are killed and the level of sourness is fixed, but that is not the traditional method. Adding bugs to yeast is the more traditional method AFAIK.

I soured post-boil by tossing a handful of uncrushed raw grain into the semi-cooled wort. It only needs to cool down around 100; lacto is most active at 98.6, but still active at normal room temps. The more of a head start you give the lacto, the more sour your beer will be. As pdxal mentioned, when you're satisfied with the sourness, you can boil to kill the lacto, although I didn't do this.

i've done them twice using sour mash. i have not tried using white labs or wyeast cultures because i heard the souring was very mild. on top of this, like many homebrewers, i am attracted to the chance to make something unique.

if you choose to do a sour mash, make sure to cover the mash with saran wrap or otherwise keep as much o2 out as possible. i learned this trick only before my second brew, and it helped immensely. lacto+o2=truly awful odors - vomit, exploded port-a-potty and so on.

to get the most souring, you'll also want to keep the mash at around 100. i achieved this by keeping my sour mash in an enclosed double boiler. i placed my 5gallon kettle with my sour mash inside my 15 gallon kettle with a warm water bath. i heated the sour mash indirectly via the bath to keep the temperature in the range 95-110. i let it sour mash for 48 hours before doing a normal lauter/sparge.

you can also makes changes to control the level of sour. my first try came out a bit too pungent. rather than try a shorter sour mash, which might be difficult to measure/replicate, i elected to sour mash 48 hours again, but with only half the grains. i mashed and sparged the other half normally at the end of the 48 hours.

you also do not have to boil to kill the lacto, though i chose to do this so that i could keg this beer without contaminating my lines.

I like the sour mash - grain to glass in a week if you keg or 3 if you bottle. Have't tried pitching lacto, but it seems like that takes a while. Brewing with Wheat describes the historic Berliner Weisse as being a very quick beer.

If you try sour mash +1 on the saran wrap. If you have CO2, even better. I hooked my tank up to the drain on my mash tun and purged whenever I added hot water to keep temp up around 40C. Next time I might mash in a bucket with a heat wrap on it so I don't have to add water and purge multiple times. Saran wrap on surface of mash + another weighted bucket on top should keep it anaerobic and be less hassle.

I have pitched Wyeast Lacto to the primary and have yielded great results. Cool the wort down to pitching temp, pitch the Lacto only, and let ferment. Give it a little taste on a daily basis and when it reaches your desired level of sourness go ahead and pitch your beer yeast (e.g. WLP001, Wyeast 1056, etc.). How long you decide to let the Lacto ferment by itself is up to your personal tastes; anywhere from a couple days to one week is typical. Hope this helps

My brewing buddy Mike won the NHC Cat. 17 Gold (Sours) with his Berliner Weisse this year. He pitches sacc and lacto as soon as the wort cools. No sour mash. His was moderately sour, but not enough to benefit from syrup. I feel that it was probably not sour enough, but apparently the best judges in the country disagree!

I've made 4 of these, and each time I pitched lacto first, waited for it to start raging, then pitched the sacc. Mine have never gotten very sour. No idea why. I tried variations on temperature without any effect.

PassedPawn - How long did you wait until you pitched the sacc? I've heard you can wait as long as a week until you do so as to make it more sour. Never done so myself but now I'm curious

nberna19 said:

PassedPawn - How long did you wait until you pitched the sacc? I've heard you can wait as long as a week until you do so as to make it more sour. Never done so myself but now I'm curious

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For me it was between 1 and 2 days. I'd probably wait longer next time.

Lacto strains vary in their ability to ferment assorted disaccharides, such as maltose and sucrose. Most of them can't ferment maltotriose or dextrins. If you want more acidity, you have to make the wort more fermentable, either by mash temp or by simple sugar addition. Store-bought cultures are single-strain, and thus less likely to contain the full range of enzymes needed to fully ferment the wort, as brewers who make 5 gallons of unsweetened Kool-Aid are unlikely to be repeat customers. When I used raw grain to sour, I got pleasantly bracing acidity.

I guess I need to pick up a copy of "Brewing With Wheat" then. I'm tempted to go the route of pitching lacto since I've never soured a beer before. It sounds like the sour mash plan is best left to summertime anyways when I can more easily keep it warm.

I found this recipe on Serious Eats:
http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/...iner-weisse-recipe-how-to-brew-sour-beer.html

It involves a decoction mash. I haven't heard any of you mention that yet, so what do we think about it? I'm not sure who the author is or what his brewing creds are, but his articles are fun to read. Looks like Serious Eats dropped the homebrew coverage a few months ago, though. Bummer.

I only have 1 BW under my belt and I did the 15 minute boil, low hopping and pitched a very big and heathly starter of WLP677 made with pasteurized apple juice kept in the 90s, that was on 9/20 and I haven't tasted it yet but has a nice pellicle going. The majority of fermentation happened in 3 days in the 90s as well and quite violent I might add.

Time will tell but I hope it works

i've read a few threads where people add uncrushed grain to the mash after the initial 60min period to introduce lacto - has anyone tried adding sourmalz/acidmalt to add a greater amount of lacto when doing a sour mash?

Saurmalz has lactic acid sprayed on to it. It doesn't have more lactobacillus. The key isn't adding a huge amount of lacto, but giving it the right environment to grow. Some strains of bacteria can double their numbers every 20 minutes.

kingwood-kid said:

Saurmalz has lactic acid sprayed on to it. It doesn't have more lactobacillus. The key isn't adding a huge amount of lacto, but giving it the right environment to grow. Some strains of bacteria can double their numbers every 20 minutes.

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Yep, what he said but also keep in mind lactos preferred temp is around 100, but certainly not 150ish where your mashing. To give them the best opportunity to thrive wait until the mash gets close to that range and try to maintain that for your preferred length of time.

i thought the lactic acid was created by inoculating the malt with lactobacillus and letting it naturally create the lactic acid thus complying with the reinheitsgebot

i understand that the wort needs to cool to 100-120ish after the mash

terrapinj said:

i thought the lactic acid was created by inoculating the malt with lactobacillus and letting it naturally create the lactic acid thus complying with the reinheitsgebot

i understand that the wort needs to cool to 100-120ish after the mash

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you are correct, grain has lactobacillus all over it but as far as the reinheitsgebot, I believe this would go back to before the 4th ingredient, they didn't know what the F was happening, only that it made beer and if they left it alone for a few days, it became sour and they liked it.

Now we are able to more precisely replicate the style with commercial cultures to get the specific lacto culture you want. Remember there is much more on grain that just lacto, do you want that "other" stuff?

humann_brewing said:

you are correct, grain has lactobacillus all over it but as far as the reinheitsgebot, I believe this would go back to before the 4th ingredient, they didn't know what the F was happening, only that it made beer and if they left it alone for a few days, it became sour and they liked it.

Now we are able to more precisely replicate the style with commercial cultures to get the specific lacto culture you want. Remember there is much more on grain that just lacto, do you want that "other" stuff?

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there are several threads/posts, including at least 1 i read in this thread that add uncrushed grain into the cooled mash or post boil to sour

i was just curious if using sauermalz would add any additional benefit to just using regular uncrushed grain since it presumably has a higher initial amount of lactobacillus

terrapinj said:

there are several threads/posts, including at least 1 i read in this thread that add uncrushed grain into the cooled mash or post boil to sour

i was just curious if using sauermalz would add any additional benefit to just using regular uncrushed grain since it presumably has a higher initial amount of lactobacillus

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Plain old malt has plenty of bacteria on it already.

From what I understand, acidmalt has no more bacteria, but is sprayed with lactic acid. It can be used as a significant portion of the grain bill so that you get the sourness but don't have to bother with bugs or stability issues.

Acid malt is usually used for pH adjustment or very slight sourness. Using it at high percentages could throw the mash pH out of whack, all without getting the intense sourness of a Berliner. It's not half as fun as the other options, but you could add lactic acid to taste after a pure sacch fermentation to get the taste you wanted.